soever their burden be^ yet they shall carry it but a little xvay. It is said, 2 Cor. v. 4. " We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being " burdened." Good souls, in this state, are every where groaning under heavy pressures. Their burdens are of two sorts, sympa- thetical, whereby they grieve with, and on the account of others, and so every true member of the church of God ought to sympathize, both with God, Psal. cxxxix. 21. "Am not I grieved with them " that rise up against thee ?'''' Psal. xlii. 10. " It is as with a sword "in their bones;'' and with the people of God, Zeph. iii. 18. sorrowful for the solemn assembly ; so 2 Cor. xi. 29. " Who is " offended, and I burn not.^" And indeed, it is an argument of rich, as well as true grace, that we can, and do heartily mourn with, and for the interest and people of God, though our own lot in the world, as Nehemiah's, be never so comfortable. Or else our burdens arc idiopathetical, i. e. such as we bear upon our own proper account and score. And where is the Christian that hath not his own burden, yea, many burdens on him at once ? Some groan under the burden of sin, Rom. viii. 24. Scarce one day are the tears off from some eye-lids on this account. And who groans not under the burden of affliction, either inward upon the soul, Prov. xviii. 14. Job vi. 1, 2, 3. or outw^ard upon the body, state, lelations, &c. These things make the people of God a burden to themselves. Job vii. 20, 21. Yea, under these burdens they would sink, did not the Lord sustain tliem, Psal. Iv. 22.
But God will put a speedy and final end to all these things. When you put off this tabernacle, you put off with it all those bur- dens, inward and outward. The soul presently feels a great load off his shoulders ; it shall never groan more, God shall thenceforth wipe away all tears from their eyes ; for why are those burdens now permitted and imposed by the Lord upon you, but (1.) To prevent sin, Hos. ii. 6. They are your clogs to keep you from straying. (2.) To purge out sin, Isa. xxvii. 9- (3.) To make you Jong more for heaven, and the rest to come. But all these ends are accomplished in that day you put off your tabernacles, for then sin is gone, and the rest is come.
Inf. 6. Must you shortly put off those tabernacles.? Then spare them, not whilst you have them, but employ themjbr God with all di^ lig-ence. Shortly they shall be useless to you, yea, meat for worms ; now they may be serviceable, and their service is their honour : you received them not for such low ends as you employ them for. See 1 Cor. vi. 20. " Glorify God in your souls and bodies, w^hich " are his :"" You expect to have them glorious bodies one day ; O then let them be serviceable bodies now ! Be not fond of them to that degree many are, who chuse rather to have them eaten vp
18 A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAN.
zcith rust, than zoo?'7i out with service *. It is your present honour to be active, and will be your singular comfort another day. What greater comfort, when you come to put them off at death, than this, that you have employed them faithfully for God
I/if. 7. Look beyond this embodied state, and learn to live now as you hope to live shortly ; begin to be what you expect to be. You know the time is at hand, that you shall live above all bodily concernments and employments, the soul shall be a drudge to the body no more. You shall be as the angels. Matt. xxii. 30. not maiTying, nor giving in marriage, which is, by a synechdoche, put for all carnal employments and enjoyments ; eat no more, drink no more, sleep no more, buy and sell no more. Now suit your- selves as much as your state and the duties of religion will suffer you to that state Ijefore hand. The sum of what I aim at is in 1 Cor. vii. 29, 30. Be in all your relations as if you had none. Look on those things as if already they were not, which shortly must be none of yours; and both acquaint and accustom your thoughts to the life of separation from the body, which you must shortly leave. AVhich brings me home to the next point, viz. The condition of human souls in the state of separation.
— :.<:;:>HSeie^<::;>«=—
Ka/ z^vz-oimai 5/xa/wi/ nrsXnu/Mvuv. And to the spirits of Just
X HE particular scope of this context falls in with the general design of the whole gospel, which is to persuade men to a life of holiness. The matter of the exhortation is most weighty, and the arguments enforcing it most powerful : He doth not talk, but dis- pute ; he doth not say, but prove, that greater and more powerful engagements unto holiness he upon those who live under the gospel, than upon the people who lived under the law. And thus the ar- gument lies in this context.
If God, at the delivering of the law upon mount Sinai, strictly enjoined, and required so great purity and holiness in that people, signified by the ceremonies of two days preparation, the washing of their clothes, abstinence from conjugal society, &c. Exod. xix. iO. much more doth he require, and expect it in us, who are come imder a much more excellent and heavenly dispensation than theirs was.
• Ambrose said of Valentinian, — No man was ever such a servant to liis master, Valentinian's body was to his soul.
A TREATISE Ot THE SOtTt OF MAN. 19
To make good the sequel^ he compares the le^al and evangelical dispensations in many particulars, ver. 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 2l. giv- ing the gospel the preference throughout the whole comparison.
Hence the privileges of the New-Testament believers are stated, both negativehj and loositivdy^
1. Negatively^ By shewing what we are exempted from.
2. Positively^ Shewing what we are to come unto.
1. Negatively^ What we are exempted, or freed from ; ver. 18, 19, 20, 21. " We are not come unto the mount that might be *' touched," &c.
The sum of all is this, that the promulgation of the law was ac- companied with amazing dread and terror. For, after Moses, by command from God, had sanctified the mounts and set rails about it, that neither priest nor people, man nor beast, might touch the very borders of it, lest they die ; the Lord descended in fire upon the top of the moimtaln the third day, in the morning, with most terrible tokens of divine majesty, to wit, with thunderings, light- nings, dark clouds, and the noise of a trumpet, exceeding loud ; the mount was covered with smoke, as the smoke of a furnace, and * flames mounting up into the midst of heaven, the whole mountain shaking and trembling exceedingly : Out of this horrid tempest the awful voice of God was heard, all the people in the camp trembling, 3-ea, and Moses himself quaking for fear.
This was the manner of the law's promulgation : But to such a terrible dispensation as this we are not come, which is the negative part of our privilege.
2. He opens the positive privileges to which we are come.