too much harbour already? And when the house is on fire, fhall I ftand ftill, and wait for a better opportunity, to quench it hereafter. O what prodigious unbelief of the great things in another world is it, that makes me fo liftlefs; when death, and judgment, and eternity are at my back, and clofe at my heels? heels? As foon as Saul was called, he conferred not with flesh and blood; but yielded up himself immediately, Gal. i. 16. And when my call is clear, there is no room left to demur; but I muft make quick dispatch: and not cry, I have no leifure; or I cannot bring myself to it: fo to cavil myself out of my falvation. But may I ftraightway rid my hands of every curfed thing, that threatens danger and ruin to my foul: and when the Lord bids me feek his face, let my heart forthwith answer, Thy face, Lord, will I feek. Too long I have kept off from thee; too long ftood out against thee: lo, now I come to thee: Lord, forgive me, and receive me: and I will be thine from hence forward, faithfully, and eternally. I will make haste, and not delay, to keep thy commands. But while I have time and means before me, will make my use and benefit of them. Because I know not, what a day may produce, to put me quite paft them. I will be bufy in this my day: that I may not, too late, repent my floth and neglect, another day: nor cry out, when time is paft, O that I had been wife fooner! but work the works of him that fent me, while it is day: that when he fhall come to judge me, I may find mercy from the Lord in that day.

VOL. I.

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ND whilst I linger, and hang back, Lord, be merciful to me, and reveal thy glorious arm, to take hold of me, and pluck me out of my danger, (as thou didft Lot out of Sodom ;) "and bring me home to my God, by fuch a timely repentance, and ferious converfion that I may "not ftay to be undone, in my bad condition; "but may come to fee the joy of thy falvation; "and reach up, before the door be fhut, to find an entrance into the everlasting kingdom of my "Lord and Saviour Jefus Christ.

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Amen."

M

MEDITATION XLI.

Of the foul of man.

Y foul! thou art my better immortal part; yea, my very felf. And yet how little do I confider what thou art or regard thee according to thy worth? O how do I live, as if I were all flesh; and acted only by the mechanism of bodily powers? whereas my fpirit within me is the living fpring of all the motion: and a much more fub. ftantial being, than my body. Because it fubfifts by itself; and resembles the blessed God, who is a pure fpirit: and yet the moft real entity; yea, all life and energy. Whoever would explode the notion of a spiritual fubftance, as an evanid chimæra, and mere creature of the brain: that which effects

all

all the great things wrought in the world, cannot be fo fictitious: but muft needs be a real being. And what is that, but the force of thought, and invisible fubftance? For body is dull and fluggish, and can do thing but by the impreffion, that it receives from a fpirit. Though, (after the vulgar rate of thinking,) we ufe to mistake fubftance for body: as if there were no substance, but what has matter and quantity: yet are there not indeed more fub-ftantial beings in the world, than fome that can neither be felt nor feen. As all the glorious angels: yea, the bleffed God himself, who fubfifts of himfelf, and fupports all the world. The most true and mighty being is a spirit: and compared with fpirit, body is but as the fhadow, and femblance of being: or the tool and engine, laboured by the vital operator out of fight, that does all.

My foul, then, thou art fomewhat diftinct from my body: yea, and the constituent part, that makes me a man. For as foon as thou art departed, the body is then no man; but only a corpfe. And thou art a substance: because in thee, virtues and vices, arts and sciences do inhere, as in their fubject, And thou doft perform thofe actions, that are independent on the flesh and contrive and effect many matters, wherein the body is not at all concerned, fo much as an inftrument. For when I think and reafon, and will, and refolve within myfelf; what is all this to the body? my inner man does it, without asking the body leave; or being beholden to it, for any affiftance. And ftill may this inner man be lively and healthy, even when the outer is going all to rottennefs and ruin. But were my foul nothing more than the bodily life and vigour; why then might not men kill it? which yet our Lord has affured us, they cannot, Luke xii. 4. And when man is made after the image of God, Gen. i. 26. How grofs were it to think, that he looks like God,

in his outward appearance; as one man resembles another? It must be then in the intellectual faculties, and the reasonable foul; that latent fpring of action, which efcapes the notice of bodily eyes: though it penetrates and pervades the whole body; and is all over every where in it: which indeed only a spirit can be. And if my foul be rational, it must also be a spiritual substance. For what fub. ftance else is capable of reason? I would as foon be lieve, that a tree or a mushroom could reason, as a man if he had no fpiritual fubftance, for the feat and fource of his reafon. And they that are plunged fo deep in matter they can perceive nothing beyond it; but pronounce all that is not body to be no more than phantom: yet cannot they keep the foul from sparkling out, and fhewing itself, in their very difputes against the foul. And if there be no fuch fpiritual fubftance, I will be bold then to say, there is nothing at all in the world: nor could there ever have been any world at all. For the world which I fee and live in, I am fure did not make itself, nor come by chance. And if it had a builder; he muft have a wonderful reach of thought; to difpofe the even infinite variety of things, which it contains, in fuch exact manner, that no one can devife, how any thing fhould be altered for the better. And he muft alfo have a mighty ftroke of power, to do whatever he has a mind to: or elfe how could he ever have erected the ftupendous fabric of heaven and earth? when the biggeft power elfe that we are acquainted with cannot make fo much as the leaft fly, or contemptible worm. And if I am fure, there muft be fuch wifdom and power; where can they be found but in a fpiritual being? for matter and body, (every one fees,) is fenfelefs and heavy: that knows nothing, and can do nothing: not reason, or think nor fo much as move and ftir, any further than it is moved. Let it be never fo much

rarified;

rarified; what more fenfe has a vapour, than a pool of water? or let it be never fo much agitated: will a pot of liquor, when boiling, fall a difputing? I might as easily believe, that words and reafons could be ftruck out of the flint and the fteel; as that the meeting and juftling of atoms, fhould ftrike them into life and understanding: and create all the lofty flights of apprehenfion, and turns of wit, and depths of judgment, yea and habits of virtue, that are in the foul.

I find fomewhat within me, that thinks and perceives, and reflects and paufes, and doubts, and purposes, and denies, and confents, and chooses, and refufes and all these operations, I know, muft have a caufe: they cannot come from nothing: nor from mere matter, however modified. And therefore they must result from the thoughtful being which inhabits in my body: from thee, my foul, my invifible felf that art a little image of the great God: a divine heavenly principle in me: from whence alone it is, that I am capable of thinking, and conceiving, and confidering, of divine heavenly things above me. My foul, that is a beam of the eternal fun, fo highly defcended, as from the Ancient of days, inclines me towards the Father of fpirits, as its bleffed center of reft. And wilt thou then, my foul, that art fo near allied to the Lord of heaven; and a child of the MOST HIGH, forget thy noble parentage; to go and lick the duft, and yield up thyfelf, to be pinned down to the ground: as if thou wert fit for no better matters, but to rot in the earth? O mount up, like thyfelf; and point at heaven. Away to thy Father's houfe: and let nothing under him, that made thee, ever content thee. Let not a world detain thee, who art more worth than all the world. There is nothing here that can ever anfwer thy vaft defires: only the infinite God can fill them and only he who is bleffed

for