Alas ! what are all these things to the soul ? They signify some- what, indeed, to the body, and that but for a little time : for after the resurrection, the bodies of the saints become spiritual in quali- ties, and no more need these material things than the angels do : It is madness therefore, to be so intent upon cares for the body, as to neglect the soul ; but to ruin the soul, and drown it in perdition, for the sake of these provisions for the flesh, is the height of mad- ness.
Inf, 8. If the soul be so invaluably precious^ then it is a rational and xcell advised resolution and practice, to expose all other things to hazard, yea, to certain loss,Jbr the preservation of the more pre- cious soul.
It is better our bodies and all their comforts should perish, than that our souls should perish for their sakes. Nature teaches us to offer a hand or arm to the stroke of a sword, to save a blow from the head, or put by a thrust at the heart. It is recorded, to the praise of those three worthies, Dan. iii. 28. " That they yielded " their bodies, that they might not serve, nor worship any God, " except their own God.'' By this rule, all the martyrs of Christ governed themselves, still slighting and exposing to destruction, their bodies and estates, to preserve their souls, reckoning to save nothing, by religion, but their souls, and that they had lost nothing, if they could save them ; '• They loved not their lives unto the " death," Rev. xii. 11.
Then do we live like Christians, when the care of our bodies is swallowed up, and subdued by that of our souls, and all creature- loves by the love of Christ. Those blessed souls hated their own bodies, and counted them their enemies, when they would draw them from Christ and his truths, and plunge their souls into guilt and danger. This was the result of all their debates with the flesh in the hour of temptation ; cannot we live but to the dishonour of Christ, and the ruin of our own souls, by sinful comphance against our consciences? then welcome the worst of deaths, rather than such a life !
Look into the stones of the martyrs, and you shall find this was the rule they still governed themselves by ; a dungeon, a stake, a
A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAN. 179
gibbet, any thing, mther than guilt upon the inner-man : death was welcome, even in its most dreadful form, to escape ruin to their precious and immortal souls. One kissed the apparitor, that brought him the tidings of death. Another being advised, when he came to the critical point, on which his life depended, to have a care of himself : So I will, said he, I will be as careful as I can of my best self, my soul. These men understood the value and pre- cious worth of their own souls ; certainly, we shall never prove courageous and constant in sufferings, till we understand the worth of our souls as they did. Consider and compare these sufferings in a few obvious particulars, and then determine the matter in thine own breast.
(1.) How much easier it is to endure the torments of men in our bodies, than to feel the terrors of God in our consciences. Can the creature strike with an arm like God ? Oh ! think what it is for the wrath of God to come into a man's bowels like water, and like oil into his bones, as the expression is, Psal. cix. 18. Sure there is no comparison betwixt the strokes of God and men.
(2.) The sufferings of the body are but for a moment. When the proconsul told Polycarp that he would tame him with fire, he replied, Your fire shall burn but for the space of an hour, and then it shall be extinguished ; but the fire that shall devour the wicked will never be quenched. The sufferings of a moment are nothing to eternal suffering's.
(3.) Sufferings for Christ are usually sweetened and made easy by the consolations of the Spirit ; but hell-torments have no relief, they admit of no ease.
(4.) The life that you shall live in that body, for whose sake you have damned your souls, will not be worth the having ; it will be a life without comfort, light, or joy ; and what is there in life, separate from the joy and comfort of life ?
(5.) In a word, if you sacrifice your bodies for God and your sovds, freely offer them up in love to Christ and his truth, your souls will joyfully receive and meet them again at the resurrection of the just ; but if your poor souls be now ensnared and destroyed by your fond indulgence to your bodies, you will leave them at death despairing, and meet them at the resurrection howling.
Inf. ^. To conclude. If the soul be so mvaluablij precious^ Jiow great and irreparable a loss must the loss of a soul to all eferniff/ be !
There is a double loss of the soul of man, the one in Adam, which loss is recoverable by Christ ; the other by fmal impenitence and unbelief, cutting it off from Christ ; and this is irreparable and irrecoverable. Souls lost by Adam's sin, are within the reach of the arms of Christ ; but in the shipwreck of personal infidelity, there is no plank to save the soul so cast away ; of all losses, this is
180 A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MA>f.
the most lamentable, yet what more common : O what a shriek doth the unregenerate soul make, when it sees whither it must go, and that there is no remedy ! Three cries are dreadful to hear on earth, yet all three are drowned, by a more terrible cry in the other world ; the cry of a condemned prisoner at the bar, the cry of drowned seamen and passengers in a ship-wreck, the cries of soldiers conquered in the field ; all these are fearful cries, yet no- thing to that of a soul cast away to all eternity, and lost in the depth of hell.
If a man, as Chrysostom well observes, lose an eye, an arm, a hand, or leg, it is a great loss ; but yet if one be lost, there is another to help him : for omnia Deus dedit diiplicia, God hath given us all those members double ; An'imam vero unam^ but we have but one soul, and if that be damned, there is not another to be saved.