2. This love of the soul to the body is further discovered by the effects which evidence it, viz. its nourishing and cherishing the body, wrgepzi xai daXw. These two comprize the necessaries for the body, viz. food and raiment. The first signifies to nourish with proper food ; the latter to warm by clothing, as the word SaXtfeiv is rendered, James ii. 16. to which the Hebrew word onnr-P answers, Job xxxi. 20. The care and provision of these things for the body evidences the souPs love to it.
Doct. That the souls of men are strongly inclined, and tenderly affected towards the bodies in which they now dwell.
The soul's love to the body, is so strong, natural, and insepa- rable, that it is made the rule and measure by which we dispense and proportion our love to others, Mat. xix. 19. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. And the apostle, Gal. v. 14. tells us, That the whole law, i. e. the second table of the law, is fulfilled, or summoned up in this precept, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. The meaning is not, that all and every one who is our neighbour, must be equally near to us as our own bodies; but it intends, (1.) The sincerity of our love to others, which must be without dissimulation, for we dissemble not in self- love. (2.) That we be as careful to avoid injuring others, as we would ourselves, Mat. vii. 12. To do by others, or measure to them, as we would have done or measured unto us : for which rule, Severus, the Heathen emperor, honoured Christ and Chris- tianity, and caused it to be written in capital letters of gold. (3.) That we take direction from this principle of self-love, to measure
590 A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAN.
out our care, love, and respect to others, according to the different degrees of nearness in which we stand to them. As, (1.) The wife of our bosom, to whom, by this rule, is due our first care and love as in the text. (2.) Our children and family, 1 Tim. v. 8. (3.) To all in general, whether we have any bond of natural relation upon them or no ; but especially those to whom we are spiritually related, as Gal. vi. 10. And indeed, as every Christian hath a right to our love and care above other men, so in some cases, we are to exceed this rule of self-love, by a transcendent act of self- denial for them, 1 John iii. 16. And Paul went higher than that, in a glorious excess of charity to the community or body of God's people, preferring their salvation not only to his own body, but to his soul also, Rom. ix. 3. But to these extraordinary cases we are seldom called; and if we be, the gospel furnisheth us with an higher rule than self-love, John xiii. 34. But by this principle of self-love, in all ordinary cases, we must proportion and dispense our love to all others ; by which you see what a deep-rooted and fixed principle in nature self-love is, how universal and permanent alone this is, which else were not fit to be made the measure of our love to all others.
Two things well deserve our consideration in the doctrinal part of this point.
First, Wherein the soul evidenceth its love to the body.
Secondly, What are the grounds and fundamental causes or rea- sons of its love to it ; and then apply it.
First, Wherein the soul evidenceth its love to the body, and that it doth in divers respects.
1. In its cares for the things needful to the body, as the text speaks, in nourishing and cherishing it, i. e. taking care for food and raiment for it. This care is universal, it is implanted in the most savage and barbarous people ; and is generally so excessive and exor- bitant, that though it never needs a spur, yet most times, and with most men, it doth need a curb ; and therefore Christ, in Matth. vi. 32. shews how those cares torture and distract the nations of the world, warns them against the like excesses, and propounds a rule to them for the allay and mitigation of them, ver. 25, 26, 27. So doth the apostle also, 1 Cor. vii. 29, 30, 31. To speak as the mat- ter is, most souls are over-heated with their cares, and eager pursuits after the concerns of the body. They pant after the dust of the earth. They pierce themselves through with many sorrows, 1 Tim. vi. 10. They are cumbered like Martha with much serving. It is a perfect drudge and slave to the body, bestowing all its time, strength, and studies about the body ; for one soul that puts the question to itself, " What shall I do to be saved ?" a thousand are to be found that mind nothing more but " What shall
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** I eat, what shall I drink, and wherewithal shall I and mine be " clothed ?" I do not say, that these are proofs of the soul's regu- lar love to the body ; no, they differ from it, as a fever does from natural heat. This is a doating fondness upon the body. He truly loves his body, that moderately and ordinately cares for what is necessary for it, and can keep it under, 1 Cor. ix. 27. and deny its whining appetite, when indulgence is prejudicial to the soul, or warm its lusts. Believers themselves find it hard to keep the golden bridle of moderation upon their affections in this matter. It is not every man that hath attained Agur's cool temper, Prov. xxx. 8. that can slack his pace and drive moderately where the interests of the body are concerned : the best souls are too warm, the genera- lity in raging heats, which distract their minds, as that word, Mat. vi. 25. m fMi^i^van, signifies. If the body were not exceeding dear to the soul, it would never torture itself, day and night, with such anxious cares about it.