The very law of nature assigns the most honourable places and employments, to the most noble and excellent creatures, and the baser and inferior, to things of the lowest rank and quality. The sun, moon and stars are placed by this law in the heavens ; but the ignis fatu us, and the glow-worm in the fens and ditches. Princes are set upon thrones of glory, the beggars lodged in barns and stables : and if at any time this order of nature is inverted, and the baser suppress and perk over the noble and honourable beings, it is looked upon as a kind of prodigy, in the civil world. And so Solomon represents it, Eccl. x. 7. " I have seen servants " upon horses^ and princes walking as servants upon the earth ;"" i. e. I have seen men that are worthy of no better employments than to rub horses heels, in the saddle with their trappings ; and men who deserves to bear rule, and to govern kingdoms; men, who for their great ability and integrity, deserved to sit at the helm, and moderate the affairs of kingdoms; these have I seen walking as servants upon the earth ; and this he calls an evil
A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAK. 169
under the sun, that is, an ataxy ^ confusion, or disorder in the course of nature.
Now there can never be that difference and vast odds betwixt one man and another, as there is betwixt the soul and body of every man. A king upon the throne is not so much above a beg- gar that cries at our door for a crust, as the soul is above the body ; for the soul of a beggar is of the same species, original, and capacity of happiness, with the soul of the most illustrious prince ; and sometimes greater excellencies of mind are found in the low- est rank and order of men. " Better is a poor and wise child, than " an old, and foolish king," Eccl. iv. 13. but the soul of the meanest person in the world is better than all the bodies in it ; and therefore, to make the noble, and the high-born soul a slave, a mere drudge to the vile body, as the apostle calls it, Phil. iii. 21. " The body of this vilencss;'' what is it but to set the beggar on horseback, and make the king lacquey after him on foot !
It was a generous resentment that a * Heathen had of the dignity of his own soul, and a very just abhorrence of so vile an abuse of it, when he said, / am greater^ and horn to greater things^ than that I should be a slave to my body.
I know there is a debt of duty the soul owes to its own body, and few souls are to be found too careless, or dilatory in the dis- charge thereof; where one soul needs the spur in this case, thou- sands need the curb. Most souls are over-heated with zeal for the concerns of the flesh, worn out and spent in its constant drudgery ; their whole life is hut sl serving of divers lusts andplea- sures, as the apostle speaks. Tit. iii. S. Imperious lusts are cruel task-masters, they give the soul no rest ; the more provision the soul brings in to satisfy them, the more they rage, like Are, by the addition of more fuel. What a sad sight is it to see a noble, im- mortal soul enslaved, as the apostle's word is f. Tit. i. 7. to wine ? to filthy lucre, to a thousand sorts of vassalage ; like a tapster in a common inn, now running up stairs, and then down, at every one's knock and call.
O what a perpetual hurry and noise do thousands of souls livo- in ! so that they have no time to retire into themselves, and think for what end and use they were created and sent into this world. All their thoughts, all their cares, all their studies and labours, are taken up about the perishing, clogging, ensnaring body, which must so shortly fall a prey to the worms. How many millions of poor creatures are there that labour and toil all their life long, for a poor, bare maintenance of their bodies, and never thhik they have any other business to do in this world !
• Major sum, et ad majora nalus, quam ul cof])oris meijim mancipiinn. Sen. t M?3 oivu o-oXXw didaXu/Mvug.
170 A TREATI&E OF THE SOUL OF MAN.
And how many, of an higher rank, are charmed by a thick succession of fleshly delights and pleasures, into a deep obUvion of their eternal concerns ! So that their whole life is but one entire diversion from the great business and proper end of it. James v. 5. " Ye have lived in pleasures on earth,'' living in them, as the fish doth in the water, its proper element, or the eel in the mud. Sometimes it falls out, at the very close of a vain voluptuous hfe, when you see all their delights shrinking away at the approaches and appearance of death, that they begin to be a little startled at the change, which is about to be made upon them ; and to cry, O what shall we do now ! Ah poor souls ! is that a time to think T^hat you shall do, w4ien you are just stepping into the awful state of eternity ? O that this had been thought on in season ! but you could find no leisure for one such thought. Now you begin to wish time had been rescued out of the hands of the cares and pleasures of this life, for better purposes ; but it is gone, and never more to be recalled.
Inf. 2. Is the soul so invaluably precious f Then the salvation of the soul is to be the great care^ and business of every man in this life.
Where one thought is spent about this question, What shall I eat, drinlc, and put on ? a thousand should be spent about that question, *' What shall I do to be saved !" If a treasure of ten, or twenty thousand pounds w^ere committed to your trust and charge, and for which (in case of loss) you must be responsible : would not your thoughts, cares, and fears, be working night and day about it, till you are satisfied it is safe and out of danger ? And then your mind would be at rest, but not before. Thy soul, O man, is more worth than the crowns and treasures of all the princes in the world ! If all their exchequers w^ere drained, and all their crown-jewels sold to their full value, they could never make up a half ransom for the soul of the poorest and meanest man. This invaluable treasure is committed to your charge ; if it be lost, you are lost for ever. That which St. Matthew calls the losing of the soul in my text, St. Luke calls losing himself; if the soul be lost, the man is lost. The body is but as a boat fas- tened to the stern of a stately ship, if the ship sink, the boat fol- lows it.
O, therefore, what thoughts, what fears, what cares should ex- ercise the minds of men, day and night, till their precious souls are out of all danger : Methinks the sound of this text should ring a perpetual alarm in the ears of careless sinners, and make them hasten to the insurance-office, as merchants do, who have great adventures in danger at sea. It was counsel given once to a king, and worthy to be pressed upon all, from the king to the beggar, to ruminate these words of Christ one quarter of an hour every
A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAH. 171