THE Great Soul OF MAN, OR, The Soul in its likeness to God, its Nature, Operations, and everlasting State DISCOURSED. By Tho. Beverley.  
LONDON, Printed for William Grantham, at the Black Bear in S. Paul's Churchyard, 1675.   

THE PREFACE TO THE READER.  
THE Discourse of a Soul may be censured a Nicety by some, who think all expense of Time and Pains, for the refining men's Intellectuals in Religious Matters, a waste and prodigality; either from sloth and stupidity, which having seized upon them, they lay themselves down upon the first Rudiments of the Doctrine of Christ, and resolving themselves to stick there, are angry with all that endeavour to go on to Perfection, as making too much ado, and aspiring to be over-wise, not remembering the severe reproof upon those, who, notwithstanding their standing in the Profession of Christianity, are still such as have need of Milk, and not of 
Heb. 5. 12, 13, 14.  strong Meat, through the not exercising their senses to discern betwixt Good and Evil.  
Or else in others it arises from the little love and regard they bear to Religion, and a secret favour for Atheism, upon which they design to keep all Divine Things under as gross and coarse Representations as may be, that so they may take advantage against them, as if they were of the same Leaven with Mahometan or Popish Fictions.  
To this purpose they are carried with great vehemency against the whole nature of Spirit, and particularly against the Soul of man, as a distinct Being from the Body; well knowing the Doctrine of a Future State, is both ascertained and ennobled from a clear understanding, and assurance of such a Spirit; whereas on the other side, by wrapping up all in Body, that Future State becomes Bodily, and Material also, and so the Happiness or Misery of it may be blown off, as pleasant Tales or frightful Stories; for the Body so plainly mouldering into Dust and Rottenness, it easily becomes a matter of greatest incertainty, whether ever it shall rise again, or not.  
Besides, how doth it derogate from the Glory and Certainty of the Divine Being, when for the denying the spirituality of Man's Soul, all things are plunged down into the thick Matter, and the Nature of Spirit deemed an airy and fantastic, or downright, an incompossible Notion; so that hereby all foundations are destroyed:  
But now if the Soul of Man be, as particularly as may be, understood, and reasoned into, in its Faculties and Operations; if its immortality, and continuing life and motion, after it leaves the Body be clearly asserted, and upon as great moments of Argument, as can be desired, be demonstrated; if its sentiments of Good and Evil, its apprehensions of a Supreme Justice be so illustrated, that they may be even felt and perceived within us, so that they can be no more denied, than the several impressions made upon the Body; if what the Scripture in great condescension vests under such Symbols, as that it may strike common Imagination, and alarm the most vulgar apprehension, be by a Compare of Scripture with itself, and the use of manly Reason, sublimated to its true spiritual intention, there will arise from all this a daily improvement of Divine Knowledge and Understanding; a substantial sense and assurance of the Supreme Spirit and his Being; liveliest fore-thoughts, strongest assurances of a Future State, and consequently, the most powerful engagements to lay hold upon Eternal life, and to fly from the wrath that is to come, which are those two immense Globes of the Future State, or the World to come. To which ends this following Discourse is endeavoured; and that it may be blessed by God with success is the Prayer of  
T. BEVERLEY.   

The omission of distributing this Treatise into several Chapters, is supplied by the following Table.  

The HEADS of this TREATISE.  THE Introduction. pag. 1 Of Invisible Being's, and the proof of them. 11 Of the Soul, a Spirit distinct from the Body. 41 Of the Nature of a Spirit precisely considered. 76 Of the Souls Activity and Selfmotion. 81 Of the Souls Immortality. 84 Of the Souls Self-communication, and so being an Understanding. 96 Of the Souls likeness to God in its Puissance. 115 Of Eternity, and the Souls participation of it. 156 Of the Soul considered distinctly in its Intellectual Powers. 184 Of the Soul considered in the Activity of its Powers. 219 Of the Soul of Man, the true seat of Happiness or Misery, present and everlasting. 235 Practical Conclusions arising from the whole Discourse. 296 A Brief Inference concerning the Resurrection. 308   

ERRATA.  
PAge 13. line 26. read Rind of Matter. p. 57 l. 10. after Beasts read in regard of their Souls. l. 12. for thus read that. l. 16. for returning read returns. p. 229. l. 6. for contracting read contrasting. p. 250. l. 7. blot yet. p. 225. l. 26. read Career. p. 275. l. 9 for another read others.   

THE Great Soul OF MAN.  Job 32. 8. There is a Spirit in Man, and the Inspiration or Breathing of the Almighty giveth them Understanding. 
IT is a great Subject; The Soul of Man, and the whole estate of it, Now and for Ever; of which we have so dark and confused apprehensions, that we can express very little clearly: Darkness of Conception issues itself into Darkness of Expression.  
For the forming of the apprehensions of the Mind, the Dictates and Results of our Reason, into clear and eloquent expression, fit to instruct and persuade, is a gift of the Divine Wisdom and Goodness, in appendage to our Reason, and it much follows the state and degree of our Reason.  
Christ the wisdom of God spoke as never man spoke. The Tongue of Angels excels even as the Understanding of Angels.  
Adam understanding the natures of the Creatures, and fully comprehending them, gave them fit names, and such as carried the Images and very presences of things imprinted upon them, as some sounds now create the words that signify them.  
Since so great a ruin of our natures in him, as our Reason is much declined and degraded, so is also our Eloquence. For though words, because they are known & agreed upon to signify such and such things, call the mind to the consideration of those things; and the more advantageously they are put together, the more they prevail; yet those words, and our contexture of them are as much beneath the primitive Eloquence, as the Understandings of men now fall below the wisdom of Innocency.  
Nevertheless, still according to the Readvancement of the Understanding, so the Faculty of Discourse rises also.  
Solomon in his Wisdom and clear Understanding, spoke with Grandeur of whole Nature, from the Cedar in Lebanon down to the Hyssop that grows upon the Wall; and of all Piety and Morality, in words of greatest acceptance and recommendation.  
And proportionable have been the Discourses and Writings of the Men of Great Name for Learning and Knowledge in every Age.  
But in nothing is the Faculty of Discourse more maimed and imperfect, than in Things of a Nature spiritual and retired from Body; and more especially as they are Divine, and relate to God: Because the knowledge of the Things themselves is most lost, and the Understanding so cramped concerning them.  
To be able therefore in such Treaties to speak so, as to compare Spiritual things with Spiritual, that is, to observe the Decorum Spiritual Things require to be spoken with, there is necessary the Divine Revelation of Scripture, and the assistance of the Holy Spirit: For so to speak is that Divine Utterance, or Elocution, which the Apostle joins with Knowledge, and magnifies as an Act of Grace to Fallen man in order to his Recovery, derived from Jesus Christ, the restorer of Humane Nature, and is in various degrees distributed to the professors of Christianity, and conveyed to them in the diligent Exercise of themselves in Sacred Writings.  
2. The Dulness and Inattentiveness of Hearers makes things hard to be interpreted, especially things of great Retreat from ordinary Apprehension. We cannot speak them plainly enough to make people conceive of them so as to be affected with them.  
Yet notwithstanding we having so often occasion to converse with these great Sounds, A Soul, An Immortal Spirit, and its Eternal State, there is as great an obligation to search the Things, as far as we can, lest they appear to us no more, than great sounds without as great a Substance, whereas indeed their Substance and Reality exceeds their Sound how great soever.  
And to encourage us in this most industrious search we are first to oppose to the Difficulty this Consideration, That it is not so much the Unintelligibleness of the things themselves, as the want of a due Intention of Mind in our inquiries, as also an humble application of ourselves to the Divine Assistance that makes it so hard to speak and hear of these Spiritual Subjects as Wise men and Christians.  
For Discourses of them made up of such words, as the spirit of God teaches, jointed and put together by the same Wisdom, and then aright received, how significant and potent would they be, how clearly representative to the Understanding, how persuasive upon the whole Soul?  
And seeing in these things we have a kind of natural Knowledge and Experience, like Natural Arithmetic, and Mathematics, (which yet being adorned and cultivated by Art are much improved) but especially because we have the Word of God, so great a light to our feet, and lamp to our paths in our Discourse concerning them, and the promise of the Blessed Spirit to assist our Inquiries into Truth, There is great reason of Confidence, the closer our Researches, and the more industrious our Explanations of the things are, the brighter our apprehensions, and the more prevailing our Knowledge of them will grow, so as to enlighten and persuade others also.  
Committing then this Undertaking to Divine Assistance, I have chosen this great assumption of Elihu concerning Man, to rest this Discourse upon: There is a Spirit in Man, and the Inspiration of the Almighty giveth him Understanding.  
Not that the Soul of Man and its excellent Nature deriving itself in Creation from God inspiring it, is precisely, and in the first place here intended, or the original proceeding of the Finite Understanding from the Infinite:  
But the mighty Vigour and Force of this Spirit stirred up by God, and the Understanding acted to the Height by a more gracious inspiration, enlivening, assisting, and setting it on work in some peculiar persons, and to some peculiar ends and employment, is that, which this Eloquent Reasoner immediately means, and hath a particular respect to himself in it, as notably assisted by God in his following Discourses. Yet it plainly appears, he alludes to that History of the First Creation, the Tradition of which, all Wise and Good men had conveyed, and assured to them by undoubted Monuments, for it very much agrees with, and resembles that relation. There is a Spirit in man, says Elihu, a mighty and 
Gen. 1. 26.  excellent Spirit; In the Image and Likeness of God, as Moses describes it. And the Breath of the Almighty giveth him understanding, as Elihu speaks. Which in the words of Moses is thus expressed, God breathed into his Face 
Gen. 2. 7.  the Breath of Life, and Man became a living Soul. That Inspiration gave that Soul of Life, whose Nature is Understanding or Intellect, and its Life Rational and Intellectual.  
And herein rest fundamentally those extraordinary Vigors of which Elihu here speaks, when God by a secondary Donation and Grace enables this Spirit and Understanding to act like itself, and to appear as it is.  
For all excellent motions of Soul inspired by God into eminent personages, are but Fairer Exemplifications of Creation, and the Universal Nature of man's Soul; So that while Elihu intends something further, he assures the main position, That Man in general hath a Great Spirit or Soul in him, and an Understanding or Intellect given him by immediate inspiration from God in Creation.  
To give then a description of this Great Soul of man, as a foundation of the whole Treaty concerning it, I shall do it under these three following Heads.  
1. As it is considered in its substantial and Essential Nature, and so I describe it: An Invisible Spirit and Immortal, made in the Image and Likeness of God, and nearly allied to Angels, the very Nobleness and Excellency of man's Being above Brutes and Common matter.  
2. As it is to be understood in its immediate Emanations, and Motions of itself, and so it is An Intellectual Light, endued with all the powers of Rational and Moral Action. It is that by which a man breathes in the free and open Air of Reason, and Intelligence: It is the principle of such Action, as is far above sense, for if rightly ordered, it bears the lofty Characters of Good, Holy, Virtuous; and because it cannot sink upon a Common level, if disorderly and irregular, it carries the black indeed, but Tremendous names of Sin, Wickedness, Vice.  
3. As it is to be known in its Resentments, and so, It is that which tastes, and enjoys all Good, or feels and endures, discerns and perceives Evil, and Misery. If that be well, the whole is well; If that be wounded, and in Torment, there can be no Ease, or Remedy; And it is prepared to be a Great, and Ample Receipt of, and a most vehement Agent in its own Everlasting Happiness or Misery. This Soul is that, which is Eternally Happy or Miserable.  
And though this Spirit be hid in the Body, and the Body seems to be All; yet it can indeed do nothing, nor feel any thing, but as the Soul does by it; and this Body, because as it is now, it is an Instrument unfit, is laid aside in Death, without any prejudice to the Souls Action, or Resentment; but to the unspeakable Exaltation of it: and at last a Body more fit for its use is given to it, and which is every way proportioned to its state, whether of Happiness or Misery.  
Now whosoever shall well weigh, and consider this Soul, will stand amazed at the little value of it among men, (who profess to believe such, or like representations of it) and will oblige himself to a far higher Estimation of it, and care for it, there being no other reason to be rendered, why so great and worthy a Part, or to speak more properly a Man's True self should be neglected, but what is to be imputed to extreme madness, such as a man's Throwing himself into Seas, or Flames, or Starving himself, contrary to all Laws of Self-preservation would be; except that this Soul flies so much from itself, as it judges by sense, and is so hidden in the body, by acting so much, not only by it, but for it, that it appears wholly Body.  
And men being unwilling to put themselves upon severe Reason to be assured of it, and very incredulous of Divine Revelation, that else gives a more easy and sudden Certainty concerning it; they will not believe it is any thing but Body, and so with Soul deny Soul, preferring Body only, because the Soul is most sensible, and visible, as it acts, and inspires that, and loves, and is pleased with itself most, as so active, and therefore wilfully consents to its own Eclipse by Body.  
To remove therefore this prejudice, I begin with the first part of the Description, That the Soul is Invisible, and so to discourse it, that it may appear, that Invisible put into the Souls Character is so far from a derogation to the Soul, that it is a great Advancement to its Nature. For the most Excellent order, and state of Being's, is of Being's Invisible; Being's not seen with the Eye, nor felt with the Hand, nor approached to by Sense; Being's whose operations give assurance to Reason and Faith they are, and of what degree of Efficacy they are, an Efficacy far surpassing all visible Agents, even to Infinite, of which even Sense may and must be witness in multitude of Effects, though the Causes themselves, and the manner of their working be indiscernible by Sight or Sense.  
And now I am speaking of Things Invisible in contra-distinction to things of Sight and Sense, I would use this occasion to make the way fairer to all that may be after said, by taking an account of the way, by which Sense comes to its cognizance of Things, and where it stops, and can go no further, and how Reason and Faith proceed still, and go infinitely beyond.  
By Sense I understand that Power of Soul, that moves towards, and takes in the perception of Things by the due motion of Bodily Organs fitted thereto; the objects of which are Bodily and Material also: and though it be the Soul that acts by these Organs, and so is the true original, and last resort of Sense; which appears in that though Body, or any part of it be notoriously impressed by Matter; yet if the Soul be busy, and much taken up elsewhere, no Sense follows, at least till the Soul is more at leisure, and can give attendance to Body, or that part of it so imprinted: Notwithstanding this, yet because the Action spoken of, is immediately performed by matter upon matter, and Bodily Nature meets in both, the knock of the one against the other is so forcible, and with such remark to the Soul, that dwells within, and cannot but take notice, as gives us greatest confidence, and assurance in the result; and nothing seems more Certain and Undeniable, than things so attested to us, who are so far sunk down into Bodily Nature, the Soul (as I have already intimated) being most satisfied in its own Acts by, and upon Body.  
Now Sight is comprehensive of all Sense, because Sense turns itself, as much as it can, to every object by Sight, being the most Excellent of Senses; and the other Senses quicken, and engage Sight, as much as may be: so that Invisible Being's, and Being's unaccountable to Sense are much of the same avail in signification, as to what concerns this Case. In sum then, Things of a Bodily Grossness are those only, that fall within the line of Senses Communication, and are termed Visible.  
But Reason is a Power, and operation beyond Sense, itself being the stream of a Pure and Immaterial Fountain, it winds itself in, where matter, that Sense acts by, cannot enter, and through the outward Rind or Matter, it passes into what lies within, & where Matter hath neither made, nor received any Impression, yet there it divines by its own proper Sentiments, making use and advantage, and receiving Service from Sense, so far as it is able to go, it leaves it, where it can go no farther, and when it hath searched beyond it, it can again compare the fruits of that search with sensible and experimental Evidences, and so work by Sense, and with it, and also above it, and beyond it; yea and even without it. Faith yet far exeeds Reason alone, by receiving Oracles from the Highest Reason and Understanding, God himself; whose infinity of Knowledge leaving our Span of Knowledge at unmeasurable distances behind it, gives truest and fullest accounts of all Things, and by believing what he reveals, we receive the Benefit of his All Comprehending Knowledge.  
This general Premisal being given, I come to argue the thing itself, That Invisible Being's are not the less because they are Invisible, but they are upon true Inquiry found to be the Greatest of Being's, and therefore the Greater, because they are Invisible.  
Argum. 1 There are many and Great Effects, that the Senses every day converse with, and because they so easily perceive them, and are so well acquainted with them, we call them Senses, or powers of Perception; and yet by the utmost Search and Inquiry Reason can put them upon, it cannot find out by them Causes potent enough for these Effects.  
When we survey the whole World, and all the Creatures in it, and their so Lively and Vigorous, and yet so excellently governed Motions, we are Judges of the Things themselves by Sense, and they cannot be denied: but Sense can offer no Cause high enough for these effects, we must needs therefore conclude by the Suffrage of Reason, There is some Cause unseen, that is the spring of All. For the Determinations of Reason are, that till we come to the first Cause, every Thing must have a Cause, and that the Cause must be superior to the Effect in that thing, wherein it is the Cause of it; when therefore there is an Effect, to which not seen Cause is able and sufficient, there must be some unseen Cause that does produce it.  
If a man should hear from a Tree, or Beast, the voice of Words, and Humane Discourse, how readily would he Conceive some higher original of that Speech, and those Words, than that Beast, or Tree?  
If then we observe such a World, and Government of it, as must needs proceed from a Counsel, and Reason, a Prudence, and Understanding, armed with a power, and unbounded puissance, and we see none high enough thereunto, we cannot but conclude, There must be still some Cause as high as these Effects, however it be Invisible to us.  
For when we take account of all the Being's here, we easily grant, the most Considerable for such Effects is Man, his Reason and Providence were most likely to summon things so together, and to keep them in their order; but we presently find he neither hath a Might, nor a Knowledge sufficient. Not a Might, for the Heavens above him are far out of his Reach, or any application he can make to them. The Earth under him is too big for any of his Engines to dispose. The Waters about him are altogether out of his Grasp, and all that he can possibly do in the sum of these, is plainly just nothing at all. His utmost attempt is to obtain what advantages he can to himself from them, according to the nature wherein they are already fixed and settled; And as for his knowledge of them, it is but as a span to the Universe, he searches and pries, and receives but a very little, and his greatest Knowledge is to know his own Ignorance, so impossible it is he should be either the Author or Conservator of them.  
But oh how prodigious is it to think, Things should by some lucky Hit cast themselves as by a Throw into this Order and Harmony!  
For Chance provides not for every circumstance of any thing, or if it should hit so well throughout in one Thing, in how many would it miss? But we see things great and small, and without number, ordered with so exact a Care and Contrivance, and among them very many little Things, upon which yet great consequences and conveniencies depend, that none but a most excellent Mind could forecast or provide for some very great and designing Architect; and it ought to be no prejudice against him, that we do not see him.  
When any one stands on a Tower, and sees upon the Sea a Ship gallantly Equipped, with its Sails, Masts, and all the various Tackling of it, and when by settled observation he finds it moves with Design and Instruction, and if he should further know, it attends certain and stable Rules, though the Pilot and Sailors are not seen, nor the Artificer that built it, nor the Owner that designs with it; yet could he think that there neither are, nor were such, but that all this is the contrivance of Accident, because he sees nothing but the Ship?  
While then Naturalists observe such an Earth floating in the Air, and a World swimming in the boundlesness of Imaginary Space, and keeping yet those just Rules by which all things move; should it be any reason to conclude because he sees none able to guide this Frame, There is none?  
Is it not rather to be concluded, There is an Invisible supreme Cause?  
If a man were first cast upon a Desert, and after should come to a City adorned with Temples, Palaces, Magnificent Structures, all of great Beauty, Proportion and Order, and should yet find no Inhabitants, but what are beneath the wisdom of such a magnificence; would he so much as suspect, this was a fortuitous convention of the Materials into such an Union, and not presently resolve? There are or have been personages equal to the work they see, although they see not them.  
When a man is in an empty Room, sees no man, but hears the voice of excellent Reason and Discourse, he will conclude; A Man however placed out of sight, or a Greater than a Man is there.  
And why then should we so much as surmise, Effects far greater than these should have been wandered into by an incertain up and down roll, or Frisk of Things?  
And if we allow there is so great, though an unseen Cause of all those Things, we may allow also, it is greater than any of those things that are seen, not only because it is their Cause, but because it hath reached those Effects that none of them can extend themselves unto, and have great reason to be assured, the Cause is the greater for being seen only in its Effects, and not in itself; seeing those things that are seen, have some such disadvantages upon them, whatever they are, that they cannot work, as this unseen Cause hath done; and therefore further we have reason to believe, that their very being seen is one of those disadvantages, and that which runs through all the rest; seeing we cannot find in a whole world of visible Being's any one, that can work like this invisible Cause; and therefore that it appertains to it to be invisible, that it may be a Cause so universal; of both which it is no hard thing to conceive the account.  
For that things may fall under sense they must be gross, and so are cumbersome, shut out of things by their own unfitness for penetration, capable of opposition, subject to dissolution. They must also be of a slow, confined, restrained nature: But things purer, and not condescending to sense may be free from these; and whatever is the sovereign Cause of all, must be so, for he must be of an excellency of power, perfectly free, and dis-incumbred, of an infinitely quick motion, too high for opposition, more intimate to things than themselves, for he is over all, in all, through all, and therefore must be also so transcendently pure, as not to fall under dull and slow-sighted sense.  
And if there be one unseen Being, there may be more, and they that are, not be the less, because they are not to be seen, but the greater, resembling in some degree the excellency of that super-invisible Being, whom no man hath seen nor can see, and such a one we affirm the Soul of man to be.  
Argum. 2 When we come to man himself, we perceive evidently, and undeniably by our senses, and those conclusions we make from them, as certain, as themselves, how high, and great the effects of Humane Reason and Understanding are; what huge and orderly contrivances of all sorts have been accomplished by men, what Laws, Governments, Collections of knowledge have been, and are continually extant among them; what aspiring of religious and devout thoughts, as so many searches and attempts beyond this world, and that all these are without parallel among all the rest of the Creatures under heaven.  
Now what is there in man, that is seen, to the function of which we would intrust these offices and administrations? Who can believe the Eye, or Tongue, or Hand could of themselves contribute to any of these things in the first plot or device of them? or if we look into all the inward parts of humane body, that Anatomy pries into, which of them can be fit for so great an employment? or how can the whole frame amounting from no higher particulars conspire one part with another into so high achievements? How notoriously are all the pretences made for any of them baffled by true Philosophy? so that there must be some other Architect of them, though out of sight.  
What an excellency is there in man above beasts? Their highest motions, and such as we admire for their approach to Humane Reason (except such wherein the wisdom of the God of Nature is immediately seen) stoop as much below those of men, as the faint light of the Moon falls below the lustre of the Sun, or as the untuned, unmodelled sound of a musical Instrument made by a vulgar Hand, or wild Notes, come short of the Music and Harmony of some excellent Artist, or as the gamesome leaps and rebounds of wild Creatures differ from the measured and becoming moves of a most orderly Dance. And yet the Bodies of men, and the Organs of sense in them differ so little from those of Beasts in relation to the main of these great effects, that when we consider man in the majestickness of true Reason and Understanding, and see so little upon his body, more than in theirs, we cannot but acknowledge something divine within him, that, as we may say with reverence to the highest Majesty, sits as a God there. The Body is a Palace, or Temple indeed compared with the bodies of Beasts, but this shows it only to be the Residency of so great an Inhabitant, and in some peculiarities it may be so framed, as to be prepared thereby to be the Instrument of so great an Artist, but both signify as little to the immediate source of Reason, as a stately House, or more curious Instrument do to the Offices or Discharges of the Master of the House or Art, the magnificence and prudence of the one, the exactness and curiosity of the other. To this we must still recourse, There is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding, and teacheth him more than the beasts of the field, and maketh him wiser than the fowls of heaven.  
And yet it is hard to persuade any serious considerer, that the utmost attempts and endeavours of matter can arise to the performance of the duties of very Sense in these brute Creatures, how much less can it to those of Reason in man? In man than we see effects, that witness enough some great Cause, and Original we see not; yet still seeing the Effects are plainly greater, than we can attribute to any thing, that may be seen in man, this Cause, because not to be seen, is not lesser than other things in man, that are to be seen, but greater, (and therefore greater for not being to be seen) because it is not subject to the inabilities of those parts of man, we can see, and yet cannot ascribe the Effects to, because they are so much above them.  
And yet too we might well expect these great Effects from the visible parts of an Humane Body, if any where, seeing man is the most excellent of the visible Creatures, we know; but as we reasoned before, in speaking of the first Cause, All things that are seen are too impure, and unwieldy to conduct things to so great ends, as those of Reason and Intelligence: and so not enough to act in the likeness of the first Cause, which likeness we must all along observe, as the true Key of the knowledge of man's Soul.  
Argum. 3 To make the entertainment of invisible Being's, and their greatness, easier to us, let us survey the whole state of Being's visible, and we shall find, It is not any of their outward lineaments, shape, colour, habit, figure, or apparent motion, that makes them what they are, but their retired Essences.  
A Drug hath not its nature from its shape, colour, or common circumstances, wherein it may agree, or be exceeded by other things of less virtue, or by those of its own kind, that have lost their virtue, though they may still have the outward semblances; but there is something within, that is not to be pored upon by Sense, but is pierced to by Reason and Understanding. The appearance of Gold counterfeited deceives the Eye, but is detected by the Reason, that tries things themselves. If any thing be painted so to the life, that it cheats the sight, and seems to be the very thing that it dissembles, yet it is never the more the thing. It is therefore an unseen nature, from which every thing hath its virtue. Hence it appears, there is a great retirement of that which is the Kernel of these Being's, from outward garbs, lineaments, appearances, and it fairly leads us to the belief of Being's invisible, whose whole nature and beings are hidden from Sense, but only in their operations, wherein they exceed so much, as to recompense, with that evidence of themselves, the retreat of their Being's from fight.  
For if those poorer things, whose pretence is small, and their effects low, and their essence but a duly prepared matter, and so must for the most part lie open to Sense, have yet a secret of their essence in reserve, and made solemn by a vail of secrecy drawn over them; how reasonable is it to think, the highest operations should have their seat in Being's wholly immaterial and invisible, of which the supreme, God, is known to Sense only by effects, and the Souls of men the lowest of them, by acting in and by visible and material Bodies indeed, yet in their operations and truest nature wholly independent upon them?  
Argum. 4 The appearances like to men in Bodies, Invisible Being's have sometimes put on, and the great effects they have wrought in such, or any other appearances to Sense, as demonstrations of themselves to it, persuade the reality of their Being's, and the greatness of them.  
For by such addresses, and such kind of effects, as are the most assuring credentials to men, as they are now in Bodies, they have given to sense and sight great satisfaction, and notices of themselves, and at the same time awakened Reason to observe, they were some unusual and stranger Being's, and not familiar and ordinary ones, and that they took up a short lodging only in these appearances, to put Sense out of doubt concerning themselves.  
For in the mean time, to make it plain to Reason, that they exceeded the force of all visible things, and were not tied to act by their proportion, or so much as by the rule the Soul of man in the body acts by, they have always contrived into some part, or circumstance of their appearances, or the effects they wrought, tokens of their spirituality and grandeur; they did something wonderful, so that while they have descended to sense, they have also amazed it, and one way or other unriddled their disguise. From whence arise these plain characters of Invisible Being's.  
1. The reality of their Being's, notwithstanding their invisibility, seeing they can, as they please, demonstrate themselves by the way of Sense, and assume visibility not to make themselves more real, but more known to men, that otherwise being in body judge at disadvantage of those out of it.  
2. Their independency upon visibility, seeing they could do all out of that visible appearance they do in it, and do indeed much more out of it, than they do in it.  
3. Their preference of invisibility to visibility, seeing they appear only a short time. Body to highest and truest Being's  inconsiderable, though it seem great to us; especially those gross and dull ones we converse in, or are to converse with, and it is in greatest indulgence to us, that they stoop down into them, as wise men sometimes comply a little while with the fancies and humours of children.  
4. Their superiority to visible Being's, in that they form their appearances with some extraordinaries, or do things so great in them, as convince them to be of a higher order.  
Now for the assurance of these appearances, I especially rest upon the Histories hereof in the Scripture, those sensible evidences of the Divine Presence, the appearances of the good Angels recorded in it, which are so many, and so plain, as to make up a full proof of invisible Being's, and not so much as, with any likelihood of truth, to be eluded by those, who profess to believe those sacred Records.  
The sallies of evil Angels upon the world, and the possessions they took of the bodies of men, doing things in them beyond the general Laws of Body, related also to us in Scripture, may be reduced hereunto.  
As additional proof hereof, we may entertain those memories of such appearances in common story, that are writ with greatest judgement, sobriety and arguments of veracity.  
Now all this is applicable to the Souls of men thus far, first as it gives a common proof there are Invisible Being's, of which order we affirm the Soul to be; and secondly, seeing the Soul was made in the Image of God, and in an alliance with Angels, it hath a substantial greatness like them; lastly, it must, as they, be independent itself upon matter, and have a force much above it, though it be for a time subjugated to the laws of a Body, and so cannot show itself in its own nature, till it be in a separated state, or joined to a Body more suited to its operations.  
If any should say, why are not these appearances more frequent and usual? The answer is, That were altogether unsuitable to the state and majesty of these invisible Being's; which like that of the Eastern Princes, stands much in retirement, and as they were rarely seen, and not but upon great occasions, when they had weighty designs to manage, or when it had been called into question, whether they were alive or not, because not seen for some space of time. Thus invisible Being's, good and holy, have in visible shapes, though rarely, visited the sublunary world, and for great ends of service to God, and also that they might thereby refute atheistick and unbelieving conceits, and give assurance of themselves.  
Unholy spirits chained up by Divine Power appear but at command, so often and no oftener than God pleases; for it may be supposed the Devil would not thus appear but upon necessity and constraint laid upon him by Divine Providence, because his Kingdom suffers so much by the knowledge of Being's removed from sense, yet when he must appear, it is most agreeable to so insolent a Spirit, to do it to excess, and with greatest troublesomeness, if not restrained by God.  
But God for the general in this riper Age of the world, and under the settled light of the Gospel, teaches mankind by rational and intellectual evidences, that are so easily to be drawn into observation by us, and by those clear and spiritual documents given us in his Word; especially since such a testimony, as hath been granted to men, of heavenly and invisible powers in a humane body, acting with a virtue so divine, and miraculous, and so apparent to sense.  
For what could be greater, than the whole History of the Life and Death, the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ our Lord, to all that are indeed Christians, an invisible power transacting so lively before sense, all those so high demonstrations of itself, and then framing and propagating a Doctrine every way agreeable to itself, and spreading it through the whole world?  
If notwithstanding all this the man of Sense will not apprehend, nor accept any proof of such Being's, except our Senses were daily Spectators of them; he very ridiculously exacts the trial of those things by Sense, which are plainly affirmed to be out of the compass of Sense, and all its reach; he demands to see and touch, that which cannot be seen or felt.  
Now it is certain, that which is out of the sphere of any faculty whatsoever, cannot be tried and judged by that faculty, any more than the eye can judge of sounds, or the ear of colours, or light be heard, or an excellent noise of music be seen. Sense ought not to be called to sit in judgement upon things that are above it, as finite knowledge cannot measure the possibilities of omnipotency. Aunt's may as well be consulted with, whether a Palace may be built over their heap, or Beasts decide, whether there be any reflexes of Reason, as Sense be put to judge those things, that are only to be discerned by Reason, or to measure by an unequal Reason, what Faith, which is Reason advanced by Revelation, can alone give us an account of.  
How liberal an allowance is it to Sense, that there is in so many particulars, as we have already taken notice of, a foundation laid in it for Reason and Faith to ground their further search, and assurances upon?  
And as for the great perverseness of such men, that would make Sense usurp higher, and their presumptions against invisible Being's in the confidence of that, the sager consents of wise, learned, and pious men, and the general inclination the universality of mankind have discovered to a belief of such Being's, make those presumptions appear no other, than a diffidence or distrust in every thing but Sense, and is no more considerable, than a Sceptics suspicion of other things, most assured to other men by sense itself, or an ignorant man's difficulty to believe the Sun and Stars any bigger than they seem to be.  
From this Discourse of Invisible Being's 
Inference.  very justly arises an expostulation with ourselves, for our irreligious brutishness and sensuality, that we do not more mind these invisible natures, and consider God, our Souls, the eternal state, our neglect chief arising, because they are not seen, although we have other great assurances of them. As Beasts, we are only affected with what strikes our Sense.  
But let us observe every thing, the more invisible it is, that indeed of the greater force and efficacy it is. The Spirits of things lie hid, and concealed from the eye, till they issue out into operation.  
There are some very few things quick upon the Sense, that are also full of power, as light, fire, a flash of lightning; and we use by these to express spiritual Being's, because they are of greatest separation from dull Body, and ordinary gross matter, and too mighty for Sense to be too free with.  
But let us consider, how worthy these Invisible things are of our thoughts, by this plain instance:  
If any of those Being's should make an appearance to us, as to some of old, that we read of in the Scripture, and in a retirement, what affrightment would it be to us? how unable were any sort of men to bear such an approach? and yet the force of their Being's is not in their appearance, but in the Essence itself; for the appearance they take upon them, and throw off again at pleasure, and they only condescend to Sense by these appearances, that are therefore no part of their strength; that lies treasured up wholly in their Essences, so that their being seen adds nothing to them, but as we dwell in Body, they are represented more plainly to us, and so seem more potent, and dreadful also to us.  
Now when we are to die, we are to enter into the whole world of these invisible Being's, and how shall we be able to bear so great a presence, if we do not prepare ourselves for the encounter?  
It is true we shall be fitted the more to endure such a state thus far, that we shall be unclothed of flesh and blood, in which we are so amazed with any thing of the other world; but than it is further to be considered, if we are not reconciled to that Supreme Being, whom though (as the Apostle hath assured us) No man hath seen, or can see; yet because of that, his displeasure is so much the swifter, and the more penetrating, and we but the more fitted to suffer under it, by our being dis-incumbred from present gross matter; and the horrible dread of that whole world will rise up against us with more immediate impression.  
But to him that is reconciled to God by Jesus Christ, all things in Heaven are reconciled also, and he passes through those Hosts, as a man that passes through the most terrible Armies, under the protection of the General, or as a stranger through foreign Countries, with the especial gracious Convoy of the Prince, nay higher than thus, as a particular Favourite, and Friend of the Prince.  
Now there is an Order of these Invisible Being's most blessed: God the happy, and only Potentate, Jesus Christ, God over all blessed for ever, the Angels of Glory, the blessed Saints. There is highest and truest blessedness most certainly to be found among them, nor are they the less, but the more happy, for being invisible, nor is their happiness therefore fantastic, airy, or not solid, because not seen.  
For so fine, and pure, as not to be seen, and yet to be, gives the greatest presumption of the vividness and power of any thing, that can be given of it: the quickest motions are too quick for sight, and the life of discourse is not that which the ear hears, differing nothing from common sound, but that which the mind perceives.  
Being's invisible do not know one another less than men in Bodies, but the most quick communications pass between them. Invisibility is but a just distance from Sense, as greatness retires and reserves itself from vulgar eyes, and every days sight, that it may be more adored at solemn times of appearance; Christ ascending up into his glory, a Cloud received him out of their sight, but as the Apostle speaks of him, so we may say of the whole state of Invisible Things; That 
1 Tim. 6. 16.  in his time he will show him and them who is the only blessed Potentate, he will show them in such representations as are proper to them, some fully possessing the mind, some filling the very Sense, as it shall be heightened and exalted by the Resurrection, of which the glorious Body of Christ shall be the supreme Object.  
How earnest then should we be in seeking a communion in this blessedness? in laying hold upon this eternal life? in seeking honour, glory, immortality, while we are in the world? not in the least dissuaded, that they are not seen, but looking the more earnestly upon them by faith, because they are not like the things that profane Sense every day blows upon; and are therefore continually perishing: for being so dull and gross as to be seen, they are also of a composition dissolvable, and apt to fly in pieces; whereas eternal things, whose nature is purer, are not exposed to common eyes. This is indeed Christianity, while we look not upon the 
2 Cor. 4. 18.  things that are seen, but upon the things that are not seen; for the things which are seen, are but for a moment, but the things which are not seen, are eternal.  
But as there is a blessed and happy order of invisible Being's, so there is an Order of Being's invisible, most wretched and miserable; the Devil, and his Angels, and wicked men damned to their fellowship. How black is this state? How dreadful is the wrath and misery of their punishment? It is like the stroke of lightning, sooner felt than seen, and the destruction that is the effect of it, greater, deeper, more sudden and universal, and leaving more dread behind it, than those things that work by the light and leisure of senses cognisance and observation.  
If any should think there wants evidence of these things, let him think also, it may not be the want of evidence, but the want of our suitedness to them: It is because the Soul is swallowed up of Sense, that any man wants evidence; and we are angry, that we cannot by Sense comprehend things, that are not related to it, but are nearly allied to understanding, to Faith.  
Many things give full satisfaction of themselves to learned men, yet can offer none to men unlearned; so do these objects display themselves with great clearness to men of purified minds, that cannot make themselves known to Souls plunged down into Sense, and the thick matter. The best expedient for the cure of such men, is first to believe the assertions of men of refined minds, inviting others to what themselves have found, and then to receive the assurance, that will arise from their own compliance with, and experience of divine things.  
But further, we want most the prevalency of what we believe, rather than merely belief: we may be more strongly persuaded of this invisible world, than we know ourselves to be; yet by reason of the great unaptness of the fleshly state, in regard of mind adhering so to it, the consideration hath not the force answerable to the belief, because it is suppressed, and the want of force in the belief lessens our feeling of the belief, which we indeed have, and must have, the principle of it being united with our very Souls.  
Having now asserted that there is an order of invisible Being's, and that the Soul is such a one, I come in the next place to call them Spirits, and so to treat of the Soul as a Spirit.  
There need be no contention about the word, Spirit, it being but a word or name chosen to express the notion men have in all times had of these insensible and immaterial Being's, which they have made easy to themselves, and others, by whatever among sensible natures is most subtle and fine, and had least of the coursness and thickness of matter, as Breath, Wind, Air. This way of expressing these Being's hath been common to Language in general, and particularly to Scripture, which attributes to God, that he is a Spirit, and to Angels and the Souls of men under him.  
And yet it may without injury to the cause be granted, that this name may not have been original to these natures, but derived from those things that have been more removed from Sense, than others, and from thence transferred to the most excellent part of the Temperament, or whatever is most vigorous in any Being, and yet lest under the cognisance of Sense, and so at last ascribed to Being's, supposed to be wholly removed from Sense; and all this doth but still enlighten the main notion of a Spirit; for hereby it was intended to represent them in their native purity, and separation from Body, by those things that had least of the dregginess of matter, and yet were well known; so comprehending at once both their spirituality and reality; their spirituality, expressing them by things most refined; their reality, in that those things, how fine soever, were yet sufficiently known to be, and to be of greatest reality and effect.  
Hereunto may be reduced the mention Scripture makes of the Spirit of a 
Eccl. 3. 21.  Beast: Touching which, leaving to Philosophical Disputes the abstrusity of its nature, (whether it be the highest of material, or lowest of spiritual natures) I only observe, It deserves not the name of a Spirit, in compare with the Soul of man; in that it is most evident the Scripture speaks nothing of its likeness to God, power of Reason, moral action, or immortality; but degrades it from these, when it says, while the Spirit of a man goes upward, the Spirit of a Beast goes downward, (that is) as it is prepared for lowest uses; so its state, motion, and last rest, are altogether here below; and therefore it cannot correspond, in what is now to be spoken of a Spirit: yet because it extends itself to actions beyond the measure of other material Being's, unaccountably to Sense, it is called a Spirit, and yields light also to the general notion of a Spirit, and shows the infinite Wisdom, and Architecture of the Author of all created Being's, who form these Spirits so as to excel the possibilities of matter, (supposing they do excel them) so little, as to be disputed with some appearance of Reason, whether they are any more than matter mechanized with highest and most curious skill, (that is to say) the handiwork of God in matter?  
But to return, Whatever can be spoken in relation only to the word, Spirit, is of smaller moment; the greatest concern is, what is intended by it? Whether it be no more, than a mere mode, notion, or manner of speaking used to express the lively Temperament, vigour, or force of a Body only? Or whether it mean a substance of an excellent nature, distinct, and separate from a Body?  
In answer to which, That the generality of those that have or do use this word, Spirit, concerning the Soul of man, have, and do understand it in this latter Sense, is of very little dispute; and that the Scriptures do, as much as words or expressions can do, to assure us they mean so also, I shall endeavour to make good by observing what the Scriptures say concerning  

1. The original of man's Soul, and its first entrance into the Body.  
2. What expressions it makes use of, to show the distinction of the Soul from the Body, while in it.  
3. How it expresses its distinction from Body, and separation from it in death.   
For the first, The original of man's Soul, we must have recourse to the History of man's Creation, and we shall 
Gen. 1. 24, 26. Gen. 2. 7.  find, that the wisdom of Scripture puts a great difference between the Creation of man, and the other Creatures of life: in that God consults, and resolves to make him in his own Image and likeness, and by an immediate hand first builds a Body, as a receptacle for the life he intended him, and when his Body was framed, raised, and contrived with all its organs, offices, and ministeries, so that there wanted nothing that should complete and sum up the perfection of a Body, he breathed into his nostrils the Breath of Life, and from that breathing of God he became a living Soul. A Soul living that life that proceeded from himself, a life that proceeded from God, and entered into that prepared Body, and quickened it; whereas God only commanded the Earth, and it brought forth every other living Thing, That, and its life together. The Command of God impregnated the Earth, and then, as at once, it brought forth the living Creature, and its life; so that in the creation of this lower life, and the subjects of it, there appears nothing of that method, and solemn order, observed in man's creation, nor did the Breath of God pass into them, as it did into man, when it filled all the several organs and instruments of the Humane Body, with the motions proper to a Body, and such a Body; and which is far beyond all this, The same Breath of God gives man Reason and understanding, as we have already expounded this Breath out of Elihu's words, and as he speaks in another place; The Spirit of God made him, and the Breath of the Almighty gave him life. This inspiration of the Almighty comprehends this lower life in man, that sensitive Being's live, and that yet higher life of Religion, and obedience to the Creator, with which Body hath least to do.  
For in the very Creation God put Wisdom into the inward parts, and gave understanding to the heart; and by the word of Creation he said to man, The fear of the Lord that is wisdom, and to departed from evil that is understanding. That is, As God created all things by saying Let it Be, and pronouncing it good, in confirmation of his Creation; so he said to man, by implanting it in his heart, and approving it for very good, The fear of the 
Job 28. 28  Lord that is wisdom, and to departed from evil that is understanding.  
As in the universal Creation, he saw and declared, he prepared and searched out wisdom; that is, he found out 
v. 27.  within his own understanding, fit natures for all things. This was his preparing and searching out wisdom, and then he gave the proper natures he had designed, that was his declaring wisdom; thus at the same time he both made up the beauty of the Universe, and proclaimed his own infinite understanding.  
And so particularly in the frame of man, he was infinitely wise, forming man into the propriety of such a nature, as man should be, that is a Soul, whose perfection it should be to fear God, and to departed from evil, that was made with a power to do so upon Reason, and Counsel, in which at once the wisdom of God the original wisdom, and the wisdom of man the derivative wisdom to be always conformed to that exemplar shine forth together, the created in subordination to the increated. Of all which Body is altogether insensible and utterly incapable. In the original therefore of man, there is according to Scripture a clear distinction betwixt Spirit and Body.  
2. That the Scripture doth plainly own the distinction of the Soul from the Body, in a state of conjunction with it, I argue especially from the powers of mind, and the actions of those powers, wherein are laid, and to which are directed continually all the Discourses, and those pressing Reasonings, Exhortations, Admonitions, and Reproofs, we find in sacred Writings. These powers according to the universal speech of mankind, it calls Understanding, Faculty of Reason, Conscience, Judgement; and the actions proceeding from these it names Thought, Apprehension, or Perceiving, Consideration, Reasoning, Accusation, and Apology or Defence of Conscience. Judging of Things, and all these powers working out into these acts, it comprehends in this word, the Spirit of man, and unites these acts with it, speaking of these powers, as the Essence of a man, and of the acts, as most connatural to that Essence, to which also every man's knowledge and feeling within himself give as clear testimony, and as full as the parts of Body give of themselves to Sense, For the Spirit of a man knows the things of a man within him.  
Now it is plain; All these things are most improper to Body, or so much as a brutal Spirit, especially, when they lift up themselves to the sense of a God, and extend themselves to religious concernments, when they receive those high proposals of the Gospel, and Mysteries, that lie out of the whole region of Sense; so that though the organs and instruments of the body are sometimes spoken of, and to, in these cases, yet it is only upon this account, because they are such, as by which the mind acts, or are symbols and representations of this rational sense and motion.  
These things being then so well known, and every where met with in inspired Writings, they are as great a demonstration of their consciousness to another greater and more excellent Being in man than Body, as can be required, seeing Body hath no fitness nor possible sublimation to these things, that Scripture so wholly insists upon in relation to man.  
There must be therefore another man, a more excellent man within, or else all thus spoken must have been in vain; such powers and actions cannot be ascribed originally to the most excellent temper of Body, or Tune of motions, but must have a proper and peculiar substance to reside in, and that, whatever any one else will call it, is that, Scripture and common speaking calls Spirit.  
And this being so plain and clear, and of so general consent, the Scripture without any industry, as in a case presumed, speaks of Spirit as one thing, and Body as another, distributes 
1 Thess. 5. 23.  man into Body, Soul, and Spirit. Body is well enough known, Soul is either Spirit, as it contains within itself the faculties of sensitive nature, and takes the Government of them upon itself, and the care and feeling of things that concern Body, and the life of it; or as it moves in the most excellent parts of Body, that mediate betwixt body and mind, and are fittest for the more immediate motions of Spirit in Body, and so called Spirits. Spirit is pure mind, exalted to its own objects, and the highest of those objects, Divine Things.  
This Spirit is that Inward Man, holy 
2 Cor. 4. 16.  Writing speaks of, renewed and repaired every day, not in its substantial nature, but in gracious and heavenly qualities, of which it is the only residence and receipt, and which are its true health and strength.  
Lastly, In this distinction of Soul and Body, is founded that excellent discourse of the Apostle, Rom. 8. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. of Being in the flesh, and in the Spirit, of being carnally minded, or of the carnal mind, and of being spiritually minded, or of the spiritual mind.  
By which on one side he describes this mind alured, and drawn down to Body and Flesh, which comes to pass first through nearness to Body, and closest sympathy with all those natural and sensitive motions, which itself inspires Body with, but chief by degeneracy, the Soul comes to feel itself, and places its enjoyments wholly in flesh, and makes that the Centre of its reigning passions and affections, and so itself becomes carnal and sensual, and cannot please God.  
On the other side is described Mind lifted up above Body, and out of Flesh by Grace and the Divine Spirit, to an inseparable adherence to God and Christ, and eternal things; to which it advances its own motions in Body also, presenting them a living and acceptable Sacrifice; which is the rational service of a man, consisting of Soul and Body: Thus the Flesh and the Heart together cry out for the living God; In the mean time this Spirit of the mind subdues and restrains its own motions, arising from unholy Bodily inclination and affection.  
Now to be carnally minded is death, The mind unpurged and glued to Body, dies in that sense a Spirit can die, that is, a death of separation from God, and deprivation of Divine Beauty and Happiness; and the Body, whose ministry it uses, and makes it the seat of its carnal pleasures and sensualities, perishes also, leaving no possible satisfaction any longer from them; and yet that Body, because it was the Body of that unpurged Soul, and retains its order to it, remains guilty and foul dust, and rises again so, that the Soul may suffer, and its misery may be seen in a Body, even as it sinned in Body, which is the second death.  
But to be spiritually minded is life and peace: For Mind renewed, and made the habitation of the Holy Spirit, and its righteousness, cannot itself die, no not as Spirits die, because of that blessed and immortal alliance, for it lives in the enjoyment of God, likeness to him, lively motions of itself in all goodness and blessedness.  
And though the Body is dead, that is, is under the sentence of death, to be unavoidably fulfilled in the separation of the Soul from the Body, upon which the Body becomes a dead lump; and further it must die, that the Soul may obtain a perfect purification from sin, which it cannot have while cemented with Body, sin being so lodged in that Cement, that there can be no perfect purification, till that Cement be dissolved; Then when that Cement is dissolved, the separated Soul becomes perfect Spirit and Divine, through the almighty efficacy of the Divine Spirit resiant in it, and bearing it up to the perfection of the Divine life for ever. Thus the Spirit is life, because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Jesus from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. That is, The Body, that was the habitation of the Spirit, or Soul renewed, and purged from sin, (that Spirit or Soul being itself the habitation of the Divine Spirit) this Body, because it hath still a relation to such a Soul loses its sinful taint, while it moulders into dust, and is raised a Body incorruptible and spiritual, that is, a habitation fit for the Spirit now made perfect, and is filled thereby with the glory of life and immortality, which is eternal life, and all by virtue of that Divine Spirit, that dwelled in that Soul, while it was lodged and dwelled in that Body.  
And herein lying the true substantial sense of this most weighty Paragraph of the Apostle, how plainly doth it express the distinction of the Soul from the Body, and that the Soul is a substance of itself, independent upon Body, and Body altogether dependent upon it, even while it is most immersed into Body?  
For first, The Soul itself gives all the life to its own impure pleasures, and sinful reposes in bodily delights, to which else Body is able to contribute no more, than Oil to the Flame, which of itself we know always lies still and dark.  
2. Spirit itself assisted by Grace, retires into spiritual enjoyments, and quenches and dries up its own sensual affections to Body, and blasts the satisfactions received from thence, even before that Oil be wasted by the decays of Body, or dried up by death.  
Lastly, Itself carries its own fate, (if I may so call it) and the fate of the Body along with it into eternity; for according to what the Soul itself is, so is its own happiness or misery, and the Body of necessity follows its condition; so that itself is plainly All, and the Body only a cipher attending the state of this principal Figure.  
3. The distinction of Spirit and Body in death is conveyed to us in very plain and easy terms, and such as carry their meaning very open, if not disturbed and prevented by ill interpretation: Let us take a view of the clearness of Scripture herein.  
First, Solomon in his Ecclesiastes having considered with some passion and vehemency, the little or no apparent pre-eminence of men above Beasts in their death, that as one dies so dies the other, they send out one common vital breath, and go all to one place, he than casts the account of this into the common heap of vanity, and comes to a very warm enquiry, Who knoweth 
Eccl. 3. 21.  the Spirit of a man that goes upward, and the Spirit of a Beast that goes downward? Yet thereby resolving the main case enough, viz. that these outward appearances laid so much to disadvantage, are but only in the Body and outside, the difference between the Spirit of a man and the Spirit of a Beast is still very great, as great as between Heaven and Earth, and the motion as contrary, when they die, as upward and downward; but still he complains, that this is not possible to be seen by Sense, and there are very few that reach it to any purpose by Reason and Religion; and this (saith he) is one of the great points of the vanity of all worldly condition, that both so great a principle of Truth, and so great a dignity of Humane Nature, should lie so far off, be so indiscernible: Here is then an equality in the outside or Bodies of men a dying and Beasts, but a great inequality or excellency of men above Beasts, which comes home to what we are asserting.  
And thus Solomon understood of the Spirit of a man, as is now explained, he makes us more certain, when after his travel over all things, he comes to describe man in his end, and does it thus, The Dust returning to the Earth 
Eccl. 12. 7.  as it was, and the Spirit returns to God that gave it, he allots to the several parts, into which he distributes man, a several motion, and a several rest, according to the several originals of each; The Dust or Body returns to the Earth from whence it was taken, the Spirit survives and hastens back to God that gave it.  
Agreeably the care of holy men at death, or in any great apprehensions of danger, that presented death to them, was to commend their Spirit to God. as David, Into thy hand I commend 
Psal. 31. 5.  my Spirit; which words were prophetic of the dying words of our Saviour, Father, into thy hand I commend 
Luc. 23. 46.  my Spirit: and thus Stephen breathed out his Soul, Lord Jesus receive 
Acts 7. 59  my Spirit. Now in that Solomon affirms of the Spirit of man in general, that it returns to God the Judge of all, whether it be the spirit of a good man or a bad man, or whether it be for happiness or misery, and that thereupon holy persons recommended their Souls into the hands of God, as a faithful Creator, I know not how any thing can be more determinative of the distinction of Body and Soul in death.  
For such words are not words of mere resignation of life back again to the Fountain of Life, but an entrustment and dependent recommendation, and not of a life to be secured only for the Resurrection, but of a Spirit immediately going to God; for else they might, with as much care, have committed Body to him, who weighs the dust of the Earth in a Balance, much more that of the Bodies of men, whom he will raise again, most of all that of his Saints, which he will raise to glory.  
If there were not such an immediate return of good men's Spirits to God, why doth the Apostle choose to be 
Phil. 1. 23.  dissolved, or set at liberty, that he might be with Christ? Or why doth he profess in the name of Christians in general; we desire rather to be absent 
2 Cor. 5. 6.  from, than at home in the body, that we might be present with the Lord? What tolerable account can be given of such speeches; for what composition is it, that suffers dissolution, that some part (and what part is that?) might have immediate being with Christ? Or, who is it that would be set at liberty? Or that is absent from the body, or at home in it, if not this supreme man the Soul? Or, why should death be preferred for the sake of a nearer and more immediate presence with Christ, if all the man die with the body? Or, what man is it that the Apostle speaks of, caught up into the third Heaven, and makes a doubt, whether in the body or out of it? Or, how could there be such a being in the body, or out of the Body, if the body were all, if there were nothing but body? Or lastly, why doth our Saviour amplify the dread of the vengeance of God upon man, above theirs that kill the body, and have no more that they can do, whereas the hand of God destroys 
Luc. 12. 4, 5.  both body and soul in Hell.  
For let it be expounded to the greatest advantage of the opinion, that encounters the Souls immortality, viz. That our Saviour intends no more, than that man's killing the body is infinitely less, than Gods destroying that Body and its whole life in Hell, though after many Ages: Yet it is observable in the first place, our Saviour to imprint the fear of Divine Revenges, places them not only upon the Body, but upon the Soul, as a distinct and greater part of man than body.  
2. And beyond this our Saviour plainly aims at the great odds there is, betwixt a hand that can execute no further than dying once, and in the body only, and that almighty hand that sends down the Soul to Hell immediately, and the Body at the Day of Judgement. For he implies, a man easily slips from man's severity by death, for he may yet live and be happy in his Soul presently, and in his Body at the Resurrection; but death can give no escape from the stroke of God, either to the Soul, which incontinently falls under it, nor to the Body awakened hereafter to endure it.  
Now I know it is possible for Serpentine wits to glide off from these, and many the like proofs of Scripture, that might be produced, for their way of elusion is very wonderful, like that of Solomon's Serpent upon a Rock, that winding every way, yet leaves no tract of solid Reason behind it; but yet I affirm, that such concurrent Testimonies of Scripture are so conclusive, that no sober consideration can escape from them; unto which revealed Truth is also to be annexed Reason itself, teaching us, as I have already urged, the effects of a Soul are too great to be ascribed to any power of Body, and therefore, seeing every Effect must have an equal Cause, it is a high justification of the assertion of a Spirit, to which those effects may be duly and worthily ascribed.  
And therefore I shall further adventure to avouch from Scripture, that the Soul is so much the Man, that it hath the complete substantial essence of a man so far in itself, that in comparison of it, the body is but prepared for a sensible mode or representation, in which the Soul is to act, and show, and illustrate itself, visibly and sensibly, and that man might thereby become of the order of the sensible and visible world, beholding and judging by the ministry of sensitive organs, of the beauty, excellent array and variety of bodies in this Creation, and himself appear the principal of them; but retaining still a higher and nearer relation to the Invisible world, to God, to the state and life of Angels, so that without any prejudice to his main being, he may be removed out of the body thither, and yet still be himself, as to all the chief intents and purposes of his Creation, and continue so, till in the restitution of all things, and the manifestation either of the goodness or severity of God, after the manner of the sensible and visible Creation, that is, in such a plain way, as seeing and knowing things by sense, men be again set out by God in a bodily scheme or fashion at the Resurrection, so that the Body it shall then have, shall more compliably wait upon all the state and motions of the Souls happiness or misery.  
The Soul then only visibly shows itself now in a body, and is submitted to be in it; but when it goes out of the body, it wants nothing through the whole time of its separation, that it had here, but only the appearance of its motions in a body, nor hath any thing added to it, when it is clothed with a body at the Resurrection, but an opportunity for its glory or misery to be seen sensibly.  
Even as God was excellent and perfect in himself from eternity, when there was no Creation, or any beside himself, nor received he any thing, or found any addition to himself by the Creation, for all things that he made, received their All from him; but only he hath illustrated and manifested himself in the Creation, and the Creatures do no more than show the power, wisdom, and goodness of God in creating, preserving, and governing them.  
After the same manner, (so far as we may with reverence compare any of the Creatures with the infinitely excelling Creator) the Soul receives nothing from the Body, or any of the parts of it, but only such organs and instruments which it is to inspire, govern, and rule, and thereby to show its efficacy, vigour, and great endowments of understanding and virtue, for all motions from the highest to the lowest derive from the Soul.  
But as to the present case, That the Soul falls in love with its self, as dwelling in body, and with its lower motions in it, and forgets its own proper and higher motions of immediate converses with holiness and true wisdom, and that rule of body committed to it, according to these Laws; this is only its sin, weakness, degeneracy, and fall, as of a created and mutable Being placed in a body.  
All motions and appetites, that we call in ordinary speaking, motions of body, and fleshly appetites, are not any thing that body can first proffer to the Soul, but those that the Soul communicates first, by that universal life and motion it gives to body; and then derives from its own communications, the pleasure that itself finds from itself in body.  
Yet is not the Souls good or ill management of Body all its holiness or sin; there are many acts so retired, that body shares not in their praise or guilt: The Soul in such acts of goodness is like God and good Angels, as if it had no body, and as unconcerned in this world, as God in his own immanent perfections and actions. On the other side, wicked men are in some wicked actions alone, as it were from the body, like Devils and damned Spirits, those spiritual wickednesses the Apostle speaks of, exercised in spiritual Impurities.  
But to return, The Souls acting and taking care of the body is but an inferior and underpart of its administration, and is for that higher end, that there might be an image and likeness of God imprinted upon a body, and sensibly seen in it, by virtue of the Souls acting holily in and upon it. This is the highest and most excellent part of its Government, & the pleasure it takes in the lower, should be but an imitation of the Lord taking pleasure in his lower works, who is never the less spiritual, heavenly, and divine, for running through and governing the whole world of matter, and rejoicing in his do therein; but is always in the perfect purity of his own Attributes, and guides all things according to them. But contrariwise, if the Soul makes its lower and less noble functions its principal and supreme, and instead of moving the body rationally and religiously, by itself continuing spiritual and intellectual, it chief attends to, and interests itself in its lower sensitive motions, and so becomes carnal and sensual; this is its great fall into sin and misery: yet still it retains its prerogative of nature, it is still the source and life of all motion, though sinful; for body alone cannot sin, nor any way can it be guilty, but as the Souls body.  
The Soul than is All, Thus it is now, in the Resurrection it will be much more so, when the body is so drawn up into the state of the mind, that the mind hath no opportunity to be carnal in it and with it, because it hath no longer such a low body as this; for even the bodies of miserable Spirits are in this part so refined, that the Soul can have none of its carnal delights in them, which it had in these.  
In that space of time then between death and the Resurrection, the Soul must needs be no less complete in itself; for though it hath a fitness in it to animate a body, yet that is as unnecessary to its absolute perfection, as Gods actual Creation and Government of the world was to his power and wisdom, whereby he created and governs; and although at the Resurrection it appears in a body again, yet this is from the ordination of God to set a beauty upon the visible Creation, in which he will then fully display that part of his glory, in the glorious body of his Son, and Saints conformed to him, and set out his justice and wrath visibly also, in the dusky bodies of those that rise to everlasting shame and contempt.  
That the Soul thus separated from the body is thus perfect, I argue from that expression of our Saviour, that they which are accounted worthy to obtain 
Luc. 20. 35.  that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like and equal to the Angels; so that though the Soul hath a power to act, order, and guide the motions of such a body as it is joined to now, yet they are no way necessary to its true perfection; for its highest state of perfection even in body is without the exercise of such acts, viz. in the Resurrection. And further, they that are equal to the Angels, have no more need of a body, than the Angels have; that is, not as to themselves, or their own perfection; but only to serve the order of Divine Wisdom, in the various disposition of the Creation, a body, and a body suited to this free and exalted state of the Soul, is given to them.  
Further, The perfection of the separated Soul may be argued from the Apostles discourse of the state of immortality, immediately entered into, as soon as ever the weak and cumbersome Tabernacle of Earth is dissolved. Through the gracious provision of God, the Soul is invested with life and immortality, and all the blessedness and entertainment of Heaven, as the most natural receptacle and becoming robes of good Spirits, without which they would be naked; and Souls not so received, but left naked of that blessedness, are immediately shrouded in blackness and darkness, hellish blackness and darkness. For though Souls are indeed determined by the righteous judiciary appointment of God, each sort to their own place; yet the natures of these things themselves are so wisely contrived, as fairly to comply therewith: so that holy Souls unclothed become Spirits Divine, heavenly, and blessed, but Souls unpurged as soon become dark, hellish and miserable.  
Now that happy Souls, immediately upon leaving the body, enter into such a state, is very plain, in that they desire earnestly this state; but if for want of bodies they lay asleep, or if being nothing but body, the whole man should lie so long in the earth, as till the Resurrection, it were a much worse state than the present, for the time might be much better improved in the World, than in the Grave, and there would be no reason to groan for so long and dark an interval, instead of a life of Grace, converse with God, and doing good in the world, which is the life of holy men.  
It may indeed be said, It is safer every way to be laid up in the Grave, and more quiet; and this interval is not felt, nor perceived in the dust, but a thousand years seem as short as an hour; now this is so far from an answer, that it tends to subvert the great principle of a future life, for ten thousand Ages, and an everlasting duration beyond could as little be perceived: There can be no complaint, that so many Ages of duration were run out, before men, which lay out of life, came into it, nor can there be any sense of the want of life, where it was never had; and in like manner, there can be none by them that are quite gone out of life. But if this way of reasoning were good, it might be as well for good men, if there were no Resurrection at all, for they that are thus muffled up cannot make any appeals to God for, nor so much as know there is reason to desire, a Resurrection, nor resent the want of it, and so would have no loss. But if good men suffer loss in this total suppression of life, they must suffer proportionably in those huge spaces of death, the Saints of God dying in the beginning of the world have already, and are still to lie under till the end of the world.  
Further, This silence and interval of life is equal, (as to the case we are now speaking of) to Not Being, and seems so to obliterate all the former state, and the good or evil done in it, as to acquit and discharge it, as if it had never been, to those whose actions are so quite broken off, and so perfectly forgotten by themselves; It is therefore certainly most agreeable to Reason, as well as Scripture, there should be at least a continuation of that sense and understanding we had of our actions in this world, when we are passed out of it, whether in relation to happiness or misery, that all should not begin anew in our acknowledgement of them, and evil men that have been some thousands of years out of Being, as men, should yet be forced to own those things they did so long ago, having also been so many other things since, in the various shapes the matter of their Bodies may easily have been supposed to pass into, and in which they may have deserved better, or at least been more innocent and harmless; and if there be nothing higher than that matter tuned to rational motion, (as men of this opinion suppose) we may easily allow an expiation may have been made by that same matter for the offences committed, while it made up such a man, in the innocency or better demeanour of itself in some other state into which it removed afterward; and so on the other side the matter that hath been virtuous, while it was such a man, may afterwards come to be debauched in its future disguises, and so a demerit of its former worthy performances ensue; and thus body not be found by either sort of men such as they left it. So unreasonable are these Hypotheses, that are set up against the Souls immortality. Nor would it easily be believed, that there should be a segregating care of God, to keep every man's body distinct, so as never to serve any other purpose in the material Creation, it being against evident experience; though we do not at all doubt of his calling home so much of that matter to unite with the Soul at last, wherever it may have wandered, as is necessary to the verity of the Doctrine of the Resurrection, it being united to a Soul always distinct, and able to give a distinctness to the matter to which it is reunited. But indeed upon the whole matter, I conclude it of greatest probability, that the Scripture doth most often in its discourses of immortality and the Resurrection, intent the whole state of eternity or future life, from the Souls first leaving the body, and entrance into an everlasting condition, throughout the endless Ages of eternity, without precise distinctions of the periods before and after the Resurrection of the body, there being only a circumstantial difference between the Soul in a body or out of it. Yet this state is generally expressed by the Resurrection, both because that gives greatest assurance to Spirits in bodies, and seems to them the most bulky, solid, and intelligible subsistence; and also because the Resurrection is the consummation of all things in relation to God's righteous Government of the world, and judgement upon it, and the illustration or manifestation thereof, in that way his wisdom hath thought most meet, that is, in a visible, sensible way with respect to mankind.  
Including then, and confessing this Article of the Resurrection of the Body, as most true and certain; I say the Scripture doth by the Resurrection express the whole state of an everlasting condition, whether out of the body before the Resurrection, or in the body after the Resurrection, yet always fixed primarily in the Soul. For except the Resurrection be thus understood, there could be no reason to them, that acknowledge a Soul, why the very foundations of Religion should be rested so much upon this principle of the Resurrection; for they might be well secured by the firm belief and full acknowledgement of a future state, of happiness or misery, reward or punishment in the Soul, a complete Being without the body, as in the Soul made apparent by a body. But if we thus expound the Resurrection, of the whole future state, and that this future state for the former reasons is expressed most of all by the notion of Rising again with the body, there is both a reason why all Religion is rested upon it, because the whole life to come is intended by it, and also why rising again in the body is the fittest expression of that state, because by us as in bodies the future state is best understood so.  
For this separated state of the Soul is that Hades, that state of invisibility, in which according to the Rules we go by, and the apprehensions of things we have in this world, men seem to be lost, and we account them so in the state of the dead, as to be wholly removed from the notions we as men of this world have of life, though even then they live to God, to whose eye the visibility and invisibility of his Creatures is all alike, and he calleth those that are invisible to us as visible, and is their God, even as he is of those most visible to us; his account of them is as strict, his care and provision equal, or rather superior; He is not ashamed to be called their 
Heb. 11. 16.  God, for he hath provided them a City; and that they are invisible to us, lessens them not at all to him, they stand as fair in his Register of Being's, in his Book of life.  
Out of this Hades therefore Christ arose, the first begotten from the dead, and ascended indeed into a glory out of sight, but yet he left thereby such an argument of a future state, as we are most able to accept. And this very same Hades or state of invisibility shall give up all that are now in it, into the most visible representations of happiness or misery.  
Having now settled the distinction betwixt Body and Spirit, I come to give such descriptions of Spirit and spiritual nature, as may make further discovery of man's Soul, and for a general description of Spirit, I would choose to express it in this manner:  
Spirit is the most perfect kind of Being, that hath none of the disadvantages and encumbrances of body, but hath all the force and advantage that can possibly be supposed in body, or ascribed to it, much transcended in itself; the reality and substance body seems to us to have, Spirit hath much more; the motion or force body hath impressed upon it, is much higher and more excellent in Spirit, as much more excellent as self motion exceeds motion merely imprinted; the Sense Body seems to challenge is a thousand times quicker in Spirit, and of a nature unexpressibly higher, more refined, and surpassing; and so throughout; all privilege of Being is much more, and more exalted in Spirit.  
But more particularly, we may deem of Spirit by these Characters of it.  
1. Spirit is purely and perfectly what it is without any mixture or allay, without any encumbrance of less noble parts; it is wholly and perfectly itself; That expression of God concerning himself, I am what I am, may in a degree be accommodated to every Spirit, It is what it is. Thus the Soul of man, an inferior Spirit, is in the Image of God the Supreme Spirit. The Body is several things, several humours, and parts amassed, and distributed into some order, distant in situation, different in their allay, some more excellent, some base. But Spirit is All one, one All, All of an excellency, All one Thing; this may be truly said of the Soul, though not in that high sense, as of God.  
2. It is a Being that cannot be divided or separated. It is like a beam of the Sun; who can cut off a beam in the midst? It flies back and recoils into itself; so does the Soul, the Spirit of a man: You can take nothing off from it, for what can you take but itself, seeing it is All self? It is like virtue, like light, nothing can be pared off from virtue or light. All is one and the same, the very nature of these things forbids precision; the Soul goes all together, and never loses or leaves any thing of itself behind it.  
3. It is a Being of perfect communion and communication with itself, like a Diamond cut to greatest advantage, you see it at one glance, at one eye, the whole runs as it were into every point; thus the Spirit of a man shines every way into itself, and rebounds upon itself: The more fine, pure, and active any thing, though in bodily nature, is, the more it reciprocates with itself, and runs, as it were, every part into every part of itself, as Light, Fire, Air, which therefore resemble Spirits, whose property it is more perfectly to do this.  
Now that these are true Characters of a Spirit, besides that we have some kind of intuitive knowledge, or downright look into these things, by the very virtue of a Spirits knowledge of itself, and that general sense and experience we have of our own Being's, and the motions and activities of them, it may yet farther be assured by what we find and perceive daily to be the disadvantages of bodies, for we find by effects (as hath already been insisted upon) that there must be a higher order of Being's, than body, which we call Spirits, and that of this order the Supreme Being is the first, and that inferior natures are so, because they are made in his Image and likeness; we must then ascribe to the Supreme Spirit such essential Attributes and Characters, wherein he is infinite, as may answer those effects, for which we seek so great a Cause; and so in created Spirits, seeing there are depressions and inconveniences, that peculiarly belong to body, by reason of which we cannot allow to them such and such effects, that are plainly above them, we must therefore fix such Characters upon these spiritual Natures, which we say are created in Divine likeness, as may ennoble them above those inconveniences, which befall mean matter.  
As when first we ascribe to Spirit simplicity, It is easy to argue, that the more any thing is simple, sincere, and one with itself, with the more certainty it doth hold its own subsistence, in that it can run no hazard, but of its entire single essence, whereas compounded Being's are in perpetual danger of a dissolution; and the more one and single any thing is, with the more force and power it proceeds to its effects, seeing it moves at once with its whole self, and a perfect union of its strength: whereas also compounded Being's must be accountable for their parts, which must be made good, that there may be a full force for the effect; but parts being but loosely set together, if any be lost, the whole is impaired, and weakened according to the nobleness and value of the part it hath lost: Lastly, that self-communion and communication, whereby any Being hath its centre every where in itself, and hath in every point of itself, the centre of its own Intelligence of itself, is vastly necessary, that any efficient may work with counsel and design, and the full improvement of itself to every thing it would bring to pass; so that these things are hereby manifested, to be true Characters of such a Being, as we call Spirit, infinite in the infinite Spirit; in created Spirits suitable and proportionable to the rank of their Creation, and so in the Soul of man, (though under the restraint and disadvantages of a Body joined with it) in which we are particularly to take notice of the great force and consequences of these Characters.  
1. From hence it follows, The Soul is a most active Being, of greatest life, vigour, and motion, in a perpetual intellectual selfmotion, like the Sun that is always playing its beams and light; God hath prepared the Soul for such a motion; in its very creation he designed it for motion, and set it into motion, a rational motion of understanding, will, affection, imagination, and remembrance, self-reflexion, and conscience. In these it hath a most lively agitation of itself, as soon as ever it was in being, from the very first moments of its being, and in the very nature of its being, it became a perpetual motion, a selfmotion, or mover of itself; we may perceive it in the quick and free motion of Thought, the continual motion of Thought, that never rests. The purity, fineness, and simplicity of it, assures it cannot but be natural to it, to move, and move itself. God impressed it with life and action in the very make of it; seeing it is all self, and all of it received motion alike from the first mover, it can have no heavy and sluggish parts to heave from their rest, and carry along with it, by which its motion, being controlled, should grow dull. The most vivacious parts of Body, and which are most active, having so much load, so much dull matter, to inspire and move on, are easily damped, but it is not so with Spirit.  
And then from without, Bodies continually have their motion arrested, by encountering other Bodies of a contrary intention, imprinted with the just opposite motion; but Spirit finds nothing abroad to cool, but every thing provokes, every thing stirs up their motion: For it is moved to move self, by every thing that presents itself to it, and the more object the more motion; like a violent recoil from a hard body, the motion back is made fiercer. Every thing the Soul meets, instead of abating its motion, reflects it with a new force, and returns it upon more vehement examination and enquiry; that is, more earnest motion, if it be in things pertaining to its knowledge; but if in things related to its affection, the action is more forcible upon itself with pleasure or vexation, according to the nature of what is encountered.  
Whatever is to be abated from this account of the Souls motion, must be imputed to the inconvenience of its working by Body, whose channels are so tender and brittle, and cannot endure too great vehemency; in compassion to which the motion is moderated, the conduits are so straight, and obstructed through the Senses unexercised to the uses and ends of the Soul, that its action cannot stream out like itself: Lastly, the instruments and organs grow weary and heavy, by the disadvantages and rencounters, the parts of matter have between themselves; upon which the Souls motion seems slower, and tired also.  
Yet there is no time wherein Thought stands still, though in the narrowest Soul, and how meanly soever it be employed, as it is in ignorant and sordid minds. But further, there are at all times great Examples of the lively motions of the Soul of man, in wise and excellent persons, and of the greatness and vehemency thereof; which is yet a thousand fold greater, and will be perfect in the everlasting state: Its motion will be then wound up to the highest, and there will be no allay from a heavy Body; then all the thoughts, affections, powers, will sally out with an unimaginable life. Oh how necessary is it, that we prepare by holy motion, and action now, to that motion, that it may be blessed, seeing there is no rest from it, there is no quieting it, nor so much as slackening the swiftness of it. If it be not a motion that makes happy and blessed, it is yet as high a motion, but in misery, and to the perfection of misery.  
2. Hence it follows, the Soul is immortal, because it is perfectly itself, and so separated from all things else; for the alteration of things in matter is from their composition, one thing having many meeting to make it up, and these either struggling and contesting among themselves, the stronger subduing the weaker, or by the forcibleness of outward impression upon one, or more of the ingredients, a dissolution of that composure is brought to pass. The Heavens, and heavenly Bodies being purer, and more uncompounded have stood so many Ages with so little alteration.  
A Spirit being simply and entirely itself can neither be forced asunder by feuds within itself, nor by violence from without; there being nothing in its substance to make any intestine War, nor any thing weaker or stronger to subdue, or be subdued; and therefore it receives all strokes upon its whole self, as an Anvil that is beaten closer and more united by all the Hammers that fall upon it. All the griefs and troubles, and disquiets that rise up in it, are only the crosses and counter motions, and actions of its sentiments and apprehensions; yea the very dismal falls of Divine Displeasure upon it, do but awaken and stir up sad and grievous apprehensions in it, but do not in the least touch the essence or substance of the Soul to weaken it.  
This is that death, the only death of the Soul, that it is capable of a darkness in the loss of that Beauty, and excellency of holy motion, and in the deprivation of happiness and blessedness, the favour of God, a loss of its perfection without any diminution of Being. And though it be now in the Body, and seems to be lost in the ruins of that, yet it is indeed so perfectly itself, so separable in its nature from the Body, (as I have already discoursed at large) so distinct and complete in itself, that it is only acquitted from that in death, not at all altered or changed in its substantial self.  
So then this simplicity of the Soul witnesss the Immortality of its nature, and that it cannot be dissolved like the things of this world, that consist in the union of several things, that conspire and meet together, and afterwards fly asunder; but the Soul hath nothing to lose, or part from, but its whole self, being one simple thing; One All, and All One, there can be no dissolution.  
Nay the things of this world, although they are several things, united and made up so into one, as several things can be, and when those several things fly asunder, that one thing is dissolved; yet because the parts still continue to be, they become something else; for there can be no annihilation, or bringing things back to nothing but by the omnipotency that created them; so that all the death and dissolution, that is in whole nature, is but only a continual flux and reflux; a perpetual passing out of one shape, figure, nature, into another, which, because things love to be as they are, look for the present like death, perishing, and the decay of the world itself; although the composition, for that time being, is only brought to ruin; and although the parts, it may be, are meliorated, made more beautiful and advanced; as when a Vessel of Silver designed for base use is broken to pieces, purged in the Refiners fire, and then made a Vessel of honour, and the materials of a meaner and decayed Building taken down, and laid into a nobler Structure; yet while this is doing, it hath the appearance of spoil and destruction, whereas indeed all, even to the very Fragments, is gathered up that nothing may be lost, not so much as the filth of the Vessel, or the dust of the Building.  
We may then thus far derive from lower Nature, what may make the Immortality of the Soul an easier Notion to us: For we see, It is the twisting things together, with such unequal strengths of the Parts in motion one against another, and the liableness of those Parts to the impression of Foreign Motion, that let in the Mortality and Frailty that is in worldly Things; that so by the prevalency sometimes of one thing, sometimes of another, there might be those continual Changes and Vicissitudes, that God hath appointed for Purposes most agreeable to the greatness and mysteriousness of his most wise Government and Providence.  
But the simpler, and more self any thing is, the more hardly it is altered, till we come to that which is called First Matter and Motion, which in the abstract Notion of them, and as they are by themselves, cannot be changed or lost, but by annihilation.  
For that we call First Matter, or Matter, as we understand it unimpressed by Form, or Particular Nature; though as it is in Particular Nature it by always dying out of one Shape, Figure, Nature, into another; is yet so immortal in itself, that it cannot itself perish but by annihilation: And that Motion which is used by God for the twirling this Matter into so many several Forms, and is perpetually flitting from one part of it to another, and is even driven and expulsed by the Contrasts it hath with itself, as it is in those several parts of Matter, from one to another; cannot yet be spent in the Sum, or any Degree of it be abated in the Total.  
These two, because thus abstracted, they are perfectly and entirely themselves, have thus much of Immortality, that they never take End, till an End is put to them by Almighty Efficiency: But Matter is laid by God, and so lies as a Foundation of his Works, that cannot be removed; and Motion is the Instrument he hath prepared for the management of those his Works; and these in their simple selves have no Jars within, nor cannot be touched by any extern Hand; but as they are in composition, undergo those several Changes, and hasten out of the posture into another, as it pleased God; being still the same in themselves: For all that Matter can be squeezed into, is Matter; and all that Motion can be overcome into, is Motion; and so they will be, till they are disannulled by God.  
And thus the Soul, it's own Substance, it's own Motion, receiving both from God in its very Being, and so being all Self, as an unshaken Rock, or First Matter, bears and lies under all the disposes of God, and as highest Life turns every way with, & subserves his admirable Administrations upon itself, which are all in Righteousness, Holiness, Justice, and Mercy. This Spirit, I say, lies under all possible Impressions that can be made on a Soul; and yet it is a Soul still, it is always the same; It is always the same as to its Essence, and cannot be so altered or changed, as to become another Thing: It must be itself, or it must be nothing; and all Action upon it, can but provoke it to Intellectual Action: So it is found, and so it is left by every thing that comes near it, except God should come to make a final Determination upon its Being. There is no change upon the Substance of a Spirit, but Annihilation: The State, and Condition, and Quality of it may be changed from Good to Evil, from Evil to Good, from Happiness to Misery, from Misery to Happiness; the very Being remains unalterable, while it is.  
The only way then of the Souls coming to an end, must be by Annihilation, or being crushed to Nothing by Infinite Power: Concerning which, let us further consider,  
It is true, the Essence and Existence of the Soul are several things: that is, There is the Nature of the Soul in general, and this is one thing, and is called its Essence; and this considered in a possibility of Actual Being, or not Being, as it may be, or may not be: When it is, we call it Existence, or Actual Being; and this is another thing from its Essence. Therefore it might either not have come into Being at all; or after it is come into Being, it may be turned out of Being by the immediate Power of God, who gave it Being, who only can annihilate or bring to nothing that which is.  
In all these things the Soul is beyond all expression excelled by God, who only, as the Apostle speaks, hath immortality: For he it is alone that in the truest sense is what he is; so inconceivably and perfectly Himself, that he is only of, and from himself; and Himself so infinitely, that he comprehends and embraces in himself the whole Divine Nature, and there is not a second God. He is alone, and besides him there is no God; he knows not any other; with him there is no variation nor shadow of turning, neither in his Being, nor in any of the Attributes of his Being: Most Great and Good, Most Happy and for ever Best. For he hath all within himself, and there is nothing without him of any compare with him, not any thing, but what receives Being from him; so that neither from within, nor from without, can there be any occasion of change in him: He it is, whose Essence and Existence are one and the same Thing. His Essence, in the very true Notion of it, riseth up into immediate and absolute Existence: For there is no other Notion of his Essence, but in his Existence. It is his very Essence or Nature to Be. He is never so little, as in a possibility to Be; but always so great, that it is impossible he should not Be. He is without the allay of a possibility to Be, which also includes a possibility not to Be. He is the highest and most perpetual Act of Being; Eternal in the very Life of Being. To grant the Nature of God no incompossible Notion, is to wrap up a Man's self in the conclusion he is, and that unchangeably: For he is a necessary Being, a Being that cannot but Bebritia  
And it is of much consideration concerning his Being, that there should be such a Lock upon the Mind of Man, that it can no sooner grant, There may be a God; but it is surprised with this, There must be a God: for the very Nature of Deity concludes a necessity of Being, Absolute Being.  
God is Paramount in these Prerogatives of Being; and the Soul cannot be likened to him, from whom it hath its All. But yet a much truer and nobler Immortality have the Spirits and Souls of Men, than Matter and Motion before spoken of; seeing Spirit is designed, prepared for, and in its own Nature, and immediately in itself, of much higher Excellency, Purity, Selfmotion, fit for Intelligency, and all Rational Enjoyment; as much above any Notion of Matter, or appearance of it in any Form, or acted by any Motion, or into any Nature whatever, as Heaven is above Earth.  
And beyond this, It is the Nature of Spirits, having their Substance, Nature, Motion, all within themselves, to be always distinct, and to have Subsistence in themselves, proper and peculiar to themselves, and divided from all others: whereas the others, as they are made up in such and such Natures, and out of which they are not found, are continually altering and changing, and passing out of one Form into another, and have no other actual Subsistence in themselves, but what they have in these so continually variated Appearances.  
For the whole Stock of Matter and Motion, that is in the World, is made use of by God in common; and these two are always running every way, into all the successive Compositions the Creator hath designed them for, and as they are governed by him: But all the whole Nature of Spirit, that hath ever been in the Creation, from the very Beginning, hath without any confusion, or running one Spirit into another, been preserved in strictest distinction and separation one from another, so many proper Subsistences, always known to God, understood, and taken notice of by him, in this their distinctness; and so are, and shall be known to themselves for ever; and as such, they shall be manifested and exposed to the universal Assembly of themselves, Angels, and Men, and judged according to their Works; because they have been their own, and not another's with them.  
So then, though the Spirits and Souls of Men, even as Matter and Motion, are dependent upon the Pleasure of the Creator, whether they shall continue in Being, or not, if we speak of the thing absolutely; yet it is very evident, from the consideration of the whole state of the matter, that Spirits are the most proper and natural Inhabitants of Immortality; and howsoever it may please the Creator to determine upon the other Parts of the Creation, yet there is as great assurance as Reason can rise unto, and higher yet from Divine Revelation, that he intends that our Souls should be for ever; seeing he hath made them with Faculties, and Powers of Action, Intellectual, Moral, and immediately respecting himself; which are so connatural to the true state of Immortality, and so plain an approach to, and resemblance of him, who only hath Immortality, that it is almost impossible to a serious Considerer to think, that there could be any other designation of them by God, but for an immortal duration; seeing he hath so prepared them for such a Condition, who does nothing in vain, nor does so debase his own Image, as to draw the Lineaments of it in Dust. It remains then, That the Soul in the Nature given it by Creation, and in the designation of the Almighty, who gave it that Nature, is an Immortal Spirit.  
3. From the Character of a Spirits self-communication, it follows; The Soul is an Understanding: For the highest degree of Self-communication is Understanding. Even in things artificial, when any thing seems to communicate with another, and to receive Intelligence from another, and imparts it again to it, there is a semblance of understanding; as in the Sympathetique answer of one Lute to another: When the Heaven hears the Earth, in the Prophet's phrase, it seems to understand it. The mutual Returns of one Creature to another, are a kind of Understanding in them; or rather that Great Understanding of God runs through them all, and is an Understanding in their behalf. Life, within the compass and sphere of that Being that hath it, is self-communicated Motion: for all the Parts are in a confederacy one with another, and at an agreement among themselves, for the motion of the whole Frame, as if they had treated, and still held intelligence one with another: But in Diseases they grow strange to one another; their Language, like that of Babel, is confounded, and in death utterly silenced. But the higher the Life, still the more appearance of Understanding, because there is a higher Self-communication, till we come indeed to the Life of Understanding, and so up to the highest Life and highest Understanding, which is also the highest, most true, and perfect Self-communication, that is, the Life and Understanding of God, who hath not only a Life and Understanding within himself, but also of, and from himself; An Eternal Self-communication, or Reflection of himself, to, and within himself, upon himself: And this Infinite Spring of Being, and Self-communication, never ceases, nor can cease to communicate himself to himself, ever knowing, understanding himself, enjoying, conversing with himself, which is Eternity of Life; for he that does thus, can never have been out of Being, nor can ever die: A perpetual Circle of deriving himself from himself, to himself: A purest Intellect and Mind, ever beholding, and most divinely resenting itself in unintermitted Knowledge, and understanding of itself, and so living for ever: For, what understands, lives; and what understands highest, lives highest; and what understands for ever, lives for ever.  
All Creatures of Life, even of highest Life, the Life of Understanding, have in an abated sense only Life within themselves, or a Self-communication, having received it at first, and receiving it still every moment from God. In Christ was Life as in the 
Johan. 1.  Fountain, that is, that high Life of Understanding; and this Life was the Light of Men, that is, the Spring and Original of their Understanding.  
And this Understanding, in resemblance of God's Life, is the proper Life of the Soul: For the Soul lives by feeling itself in these Self-communications, by perceiving its own Cogitations, Conceptions, Comprehensions, Affections, and whatever else are the natural Results and Activities of a Rational and Intellectual Life; even as we feel and perceive Natural Life, by the several Motions and Self-communications of that Life: And this Life, if we speak strictly of it, as it is a Life of Reason and Understanding, hath no Contrary, it hath no Adversary to encounter, nor is there any Privation of it conceivable, except by the destruction of the Soul itself into nothing.  
For this Life is as near to the Soul, as Lustre and Splendour is to Light; if you take it away, the very Nature itself is lost; all the Wickedness and Misery in Hell cannot quench it: For who more knowing, sagacious, restless, in all Motions natural to Spirits, than the Devils? That which comes nearest to the stupefying this Life, is being sunk down into Body; in the lower state of which yet this Life remains, though greatly covered and concealed; and it cannot be long so concealed. This Life is therefore, in this regard, plainly a Life immortal; except God himself by an immediate hand extinguish it; and this cannot be believed, seeing it is so near a resemblance of his own Life: For, that he should make an Intellectual Life, so high in its Nature, to so low a purpose, is not agreeable with the Wisdom of all the Works of God.  
Now this Understanding, as we have said, is Self-communication: For as Reasoning or Ratiocination is the communicating of Things one with another in a way of compare, a collating of them one with another, and balancing them together, and then giving the account; and the quicker and more sudden this motion is made, the more lively is the Ratiocination, and the more excellent is the Understanding: So the Principle of this Ratiocination every moment confers with itself, what it hath attained by this course of Reason, and reciprocates with itself all it hath observed. God in an infinite manner knows himself within himself, and all that is, in a moment, by an Omnipresent Understanding: but according to the advantage the Soul hath to work with, as it is in the Body, or in the state of separation from it; so the Understanding of Man goes a greater or lesser Circle, for the communicating with Things; but every moment it communicates with itself, what it gathers by its communication with other things. This self-communication both of the Divine and Humane Spirit, the Apostle thus expresses to us; The Spirit 
1 Cor. 2. 10, 11.  searches the deep or most retired things of God. There is nothing in God reserved, or afar off from himself; he eternally communicates his whole self with himself: so he hath given to Man to understand himself; The things of a man knows no man, but the spirit of a man that is within him; and that knows them. So then a Man hath a power of self-communication, or understanding the things within himself: Yet God communicates with Man's Soul nearer than he can with himself; that is, he understands more of Man, than Man himself does; he is greater than our 
1 Joh. 3. 20. Psal. 139. 2.  hearts, and knows all things; he understands our thoughts afar off. The Reason is, He is the Fountain of this Life of Understanding; In him we intellectually live, and move, and have our being; and he knows in himself what is done in us, by the virtue that goes out of him for the doing of it: for he communicates with himself, all that he enables his Creatures to do.  
From all this than it appears, That to understand any thing, is to communicate with it. The Mind communicates with all it understands; and the Nature of Understanding, is communicating with Things, and self-communication. The Mind communicates with itself all it receives by communication with other Things: The Understanding goes out, to understand things at a distance from it; It communicates with them; It enters into their Natures, as far as it can: Yet it is not in this chief an Understanding, but that it reflects within itself its own Observations, in that it communicates with itself all the while, it communicates with other things, and feels within itself its own Perceptions, as the Eye perceives its own Receptions. In this it is chief an Understanding; not like a dead Instrument or Trepan, that enters within things, and knows not that it does so; that takes hold, without any apprehension: or like the Eye of a Beast, that looks upon things without Knowledge, and comes no nearer them, than Sense can do. Things that cannot communicate themselves within themselves, cannot understand. Understanding increases itself by more plentiful and continual Self-communication: Understandings increase one another by mutual communication, and grow greater Understandings, and as it were into one common Understanding. This is the proper Nature, and the Specification of an Understanding; and the Soul in its very Essence is an Understanding.  
4. The fourth Consequence from the Nature of a Spirit, is, That the Happiness or Misery of it must needs be exceeding great: For since such a Being cannot but have great Capacities for one of these States, whichsoever of them it is, it must needs be exceeding great, both because it feels itself throughout in either of them, and must needs do so, in regard of the Reciprocation, Self-communication of all its Powers and Motions; and in regard of the Fineness and Purity of its Being, not abated by Grossness, Distance, and Distinction of Parts, but the Whole running into itself: as also in regard of the Forcible motion of a Spirit, which carries therefore its Griefs or Pleasures with the rapidness of its own motion, and either blesses or torments itself, according to the vehemency of its Nature.  
The Spirit or Soul of Man in the Body discovers somewhat hereof, but in lower degrees, by reason of the distribution of itself to the several Parts, Pleasures, Pains, and various Concernments of Bodily Nature; which while the Soul condescends to, and complies with, it seems to imitate; so that it tastes generally intermixed Pleasures only, and suffers but alleviated Griefs, because this agrees most with the Condition of Body, that hath nothing pure: And further, while it is thus interested, it's own proper Motions and Activities are both damped and confined: For Body is dull and straight; and if the Soul dwells in it, and acts by it, it must proportion itself to it, or else it cannot be its Instrument.  
Yet these Properties of the Soul are not altogether imperceptible, even in Bodily state; for as the Soul is conformed very far to the Body in those Regards, so hath the Body its Conformities to the Soul, and those much more necessary, seeing it is acted and moved by it: For even Bodily Sense pays this resemblance to Spiritual, that in every Part it bears Sympathy with what is felt in any one Part: Yet this is, because the Soul enlivening the whole Body, and undertaking for every Part, feels in itself, as in the Centre, the state of every Part; though it feels according to the manner, nature, and situation of the several parts of the Body.  
In some degree of Likeness also the vigour of the Souls Resentments are seen, in the most spirituous Pleasures or acute Pains of Body, that are able to move Nature high, which fall out only in a lively Constitution, and not taken off, so as to i'll the Pleasure, or dull the Pain; because the Soul hath more Active Bodily Powers to show itself by, and wherein it can give greater Testimony of its own vivid Motion, though but in concernedness for the Body. Thus the Pains of Stone and Gout are much sharper, because they abate so little from the Constitution: and the vigours of Health are necessary for the receipt of Pleasure.  
But the Soul is much more in things proper to itself All Centre, where every one of its proper Pleasures and Pains meet; that is, Spiritual Joys and Sorrows: and then the liveliness, persistency of its Nature, carries up to a height all its Enjoyments, or Sufferings. But this is never so clear, as in its separated and free estate; for then especially, as it is said of Eternity, It is all drawn as it were into every Moment: So whatever can be supposed in any Point of the Intellectual Nature, if we could so distinguish, in the same instant runs through all; which is the first Height of the Happiness or Misery of a Spirit.  
In the next place, the Happiness or Misery of a Spirit can be no other than a Happiness or Misery of a Spiritual nature, and so cannot but be great; for that is the Nature of every thing Spiritual: It is all what it is, and nothing else. Every thing but Spirit hath a great deal of cumber, a great deal of Clothes and Habiliments upon it: But Spirit is purely itself; Spiritual Happiness hath no clog upon it; Spiritual Misery hath no Sheath upon it, it is all Edge: And when we are entered into the Region of Spirits, there will be no heaviness of Body, nor diversions of that in the way. The Bodies of the Resurrection, when we receive them, will be fitted to the velocity and swiftness of our Minds, and prepared so wholly for them, as most perfectly to attend their condition.  
Object. But because we see the Body now such an Obstruction to all Motions of Soul, it may be doubted, whether there may not be a state of Souls, as insensible or more insensible than now.  
To resolve this, the Scripture tells us, God makes the Happiness of his Saints like a River of highest Pleasure, and the punishment of Evil like a sea of flaming Brimstone, both to the height; therefore it withal appears, the Faculties are raised to the height also: Else there could be no such Happiness, nor any such Punishment. Insensible things enjoy nothing, endure nothing; and the lower the Sense, the lower of necessity is also the Enjoyment, and the Pain: There must be therefore an exaltation of the Faculties to the highest Life, that in the meeting of the Object, and the Faculties, there may be greatest Satisfaction or Misery.  
Yet it may be understood upon this very account, there may be Glories and Punishments of higher and lower degrees, according to the advancement or low estate of the Faculties; and that the state of the other World may be proportioned to this, that he, who by a Soul more enlarged in this World, he who by five Talents gained 
Luc. 19 17, 19 Luc. 12. 47, 48.  ten, or that knew his Master's will, and yet did it not; these being agreeably of higher apprehensions, and quicker motions in this World, are in the World to come, by the continuing elevation of those Powers, made Rulers over more Cities, or beaten with more stripes: but those of fewer Talents, and meaner Sentiments, keep still their Ranks, being Rulers over fewer Cities, or beaten with fewer stripes: Yet in each of these, the state of their Souls here, and in Eternity, differs as much in regard of their apprehensions, and the clearness of their Faculties, as Twilight and Noonday. From this state of things that hath been given, it may be briefly inferred in these Particulars following.  
1. If the Souls of Men, that are an Inferior Spirit, are so active and high in their motion; then how exalted, and infinitely adorable are all the Perfections of that Supreme Spirit, lifted up out of all Height! That Eternal-Fountain-Author-Spirit, how infinitely pure is his Being, without any variation or shadow of turning; dwelling in such a Light and Lustre of his own Divinity, that nothing can so much as approach or come within any distance of? Although his Spirit runs through All, yet there is an infinite separation of Excellency between God and all things. How clear and bright is his Understanding, before whom Hell is naked, and Destruction hath no covering! Darkness and Light are all one to him, because Light and Glory are always round about him, and Hell is but the displeasure of his Holiness against Sin, like a Flame that dazzles, and scorches together: A Fire devours before him, and burns up his Enemies on every side.  
How potent are his Efficacies, which way soever he turns them, for Creation, Conservation, or the Change of Things, as he pleases! What is his Favour, or Displeasure, but the highest Efficacies of Kindness, or Severity; of Joy unspeakable and full of Glory, or of weeping and wailing, without all ease or remedy! How do all Spirits Good and Holy, cast their Crowns before him, and laud him with eternal Acknowledgements of both their Being and Happiness, to his Grace and Goodness, and Acclamations to his Praise! And that Stream from himself, that feeds with Being and Spirituality those so unhappy and wretched Spirits, deposed from their Glory and Perfection, necessitates them to survive the Instances of his Justice and Holiness, to the admiration and everlasting wonderment of the Blessed, (yet with profoundest Reverence of unstained Holiness) and their own astonishment and horror without end.  
2. If the Soul is a Being so excellent, how foul is Sin, that defiles it; like a Poison, that presently darkens a Diamond, or infects the very Beams of the Sun, or soils the Light? We should ever resist Temptations to sin, with the sad consideration of defiling so excellent and immortal a Spirit.  
3. It shows how excellent the Price must be that redeems such a Spirit. Great is the Redemption of the Soul by Christ, the Renovation of the Soul by the Holy Spirit.  
4. We should consider this Spirit, that though now it is enclosed in the Body, yet seeing it is prepared to much higher and more excellent motion, it must burst out; it cannot be always held; it must have a freedom, that it may expatiate itself: Else so great Powers, having so little Action now, must have been prepared in vain.  
5. We should meditate much upon this great Character of a Spirit: It cannot die; It is so it-self, that it cannot die: It's very Being is Intellect, Life, and Motion; so that it cannot cease to live, except it cease to be: God, who alone hath power over it, hath designed it to be for ever, and framed it for perpetuity, and so, that it can have no Adversary of its Life or Being: It is so separate from all things else, that nothing of Body can come near its Essence or Life. What Sword or Fire can cut off or consume Thought, much less the Soul, the Original or Spring of it? What most subtle thing in Nature can destroy the Affection of Love or Fear, much less so attaque the Judgement or Reason, as forcibly to suppress them? They can kill the Body; but they have no more that they can do.  
No created Spirit, how principal soever, can come near the Being of the lowest orbed Soul, thus to touch it: Satan the great Enemy of Spirits knows this so hopeless an attempt, as never once to plot it: All his intendments against Humane Spirits, are only to sway them to Evil, and so precipitate them into Misery; but yet they cannot be mastered by the highest Archangel, so much as in the Government of themselves, except they surrender and betray their own Absoluteness.  
One Spirit may imprint Thought upon another, offer Argument, endeavour to induce Affection; but the Soul is at its own choice for acceptation; and whether it accept, or not, its Being is still the same, its Power of Self-reservation the same; so double-guarded is the Soul in this great Privilege of being Itself: Guarded in its Essence or Life, guarded in its Liberty and Freedom; which argues it a Being of greatest account. Now in that it must always live, Holiness and Happiness, the enjoyment, pleasure, and perfection of its Life, are with greatest earnestness, and upon greatest necessity to be sought; Sin and Misery, such a degradation of its Life, that the Scripture calls them Death, are by all means to be avoided and escaped from: And seeing it hath a Secret of its own Freedom, that no Spiritual Principality or Power can enter into or invade, it can only charge its Ruin upon itself: But in the Supreme Spirit, God himself is all its strength, who perpetuates his first Inspiration, maintains its Immunities, guides its Motions aright when it had lost itself, redeems it from that great Enemy-Spirit by his Son, the Lover and great Friend of Souls; governs it by his own Holy and Good Spirit, and is the Happiness and Glory of it for ever. Oh the care that is due to such a Soul as this! A care due from itself to itself, yet miserably neglected by itself, in its true self, for itself, as engaged in a Body, out of which it is yet always hasting, and leaves it in death; itself being in greatest danger of a death exceedingly worse, though of another nature; in the bringing about of which, the malice of Hell is always busy and employed, choosing that as a much higher effect of its spite and cruelty, than Annihilation, if it had been within the Power of Devils to turn a Soul into nothing.  
6. Lastly, What unspeakable Sentiments of Happiness or Misery doth a selfmoving, a self-communicating Spirit enter into, when it enters into its own place! For there it meets those immense Objects, God, his Favour or Displeasure, the true appearances of Sin and Holiness, the General Assembly of Spirits, happy and miserable, with their universal and endless Condition: Itself appearing to itself in its full extent of Nature, Duration, and Relation to all these. Now its selfmotion and self-communication (which are its very Being, and therefore perfect in its own native Element) are active to the highest. Selfmotion turns it every way, with unutterable swiftness, upon these Objects; and Self-communication makes all its own, converts unintermittingly all its Observations upon them, into most beatifying or afflictive Resentments, according to the Order it stands in to those Objects of Happiness or Misery.  
Two principal Accounts of the Soul of Man are now dispatched; the first, of Invisible Being's; the second, of the Nature of a Spirit; in which I laid down for a Ground, That the Right apprehension of the Divine Nature and Being, is the Key of the Knowledge of Man's Soul. As therefore I endeavoured to explain those two Points by it, so I come now more fully to pursue the Resemblance the Soul of Man hath with God, and in this next place to speak of it in the Potency, Force, and Excellency of its Being and Faculties; first taking occasion to make this industrious Reflection upon the Souls likeness to God.  
It is an usual Observation, That every Creature resembles God in that very regard that it hath a Being, however obscure it be; and the more any Creature advances in Being, the clearer the Representation of God, till the Scale of Creatures leads us up to those that God hath exalted into the nearest likeness to himself that Created Natures are capable of; and these are Rational Spirits, Angels, and Souls of Men; of which, Angels are a higher Order, and at greater Freedom, being out of Bodies; and the Souls of Men a lower Order, being under the disadvantage of Bodies; yet in themselves like to God, and like to Angels.  
Now it is the Privilege of Spirits to behold in the whole Creation, especially in their own Natures, the great Perfections of God surmounting themselves (and much more the rest of the Creatures) as Infinite doth Finite; that so God may be understood, and accordingly adored by them; seeing Spirits in his own Image of Understanding and Likeness can alone so far know him, as in a true and proper sense to adore him: and the Glory of God in such an Adoration being the end of Creation, it argues the necessity of such Creatures, and so accomplished, thus to give him his Glory.  
As therefore, by reviews of the Creatures in general, and particularly of our own Minds, and by Observations of what excels amongst all, it is possible without Scripture, though more darkly, to find out the Perfections that are to be ascribed infinitely to God; and when we come to Scripture, and find that agreeing with (though exceeding) Natural Knowledge, in its Attributions to God, we have by this combination of Scripture and Reason, Revealed and Natural Knowledge, (the praeeminence being easily yielded to Revealed) the most satisfying Assurances of God we can have.  
On the other side, by considering the Excellencies and Perfections attributed to God in his Word, and finding the same Lines drawn upon our own Minds, observable both in the Discourses of Scripture concerning them, and in our own experience (though but according to the degree and model of Creatures) we understand our own Souls more fully; so that, as the consideration of ourselves & the Creatures, leads us without Revelation to understand God, though not so clearly; so these Oracles revealing God, and all his Attributes more certainly and evidently to us, reveal also ourselves more plainly, because they tell us, we are made in his Image and Likeness; and so by knowing God with greatest clearness, we know ourselves also most clearly: for the Knowledge of ourselves (as to what concerns the clearness of it) depends upon our Knowledge of God by the Scriptures, more than our Knowledge of God depends upon the Knowledge of ourselves by Natural Knowledge, without Scripture: Yet still the Knowledge of our own Souls, where Men have no Revelation, leads them best to the Knowledge of God; as the Knowledge of God by Revelation, leads us best to the Knowledge of our own Souls; because God and the Soul do mutually represent one another: God, the Original Prototype, and Infinite Exemplar; Man's Soul, the humble Representation and Copy: Upon which Reason the Apostle having said, We are his offspring, 
Acts 17. 28, 29.  immediately argues, Forasmuch as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think the Godhead like to silver and gold. Our own Nature deriving from God, instructs us better concerning him: for seeing we ourselves far excel all those things, however heightened by Art, he that gave us those Excellencies, must needs have them in himself, and in a transcendency; As he that built the house, hath more honour than the house, and the Life excels the Picture: So, on the other side, the Excellencies and Perfections of the Divine Being are every where given us in Scripture as the Rule of Composure for Man's Soul; which could not be reasonable, were not the being of it first given in the Image and Likeness of God, and susceptive of the Divine Nature, that is, of the Virtues of it.  
Touching the Souls Likeness to Angels, we need not labour much, but rather in comparing them with God the Original of both, and occasionally only illustrate the Doctrine of the Soul, by observation of what we are taught in inspired Leaves concerning them, though Philosophy hath not been altogether ignorant herein. In general, they are of a middle state between God and us; nearer to God, in that they are a higher Rank of Spirits, disengaged from Body; much nearer to us, in that they are Finite Spirits, and God infinitely above them.  
In speaking then of the Likeness of Man's Soul to God, we must again have recourse to his Creation, and when God had said, Let us make Man in our own Likeness and Image, and formed the Body, as a curious Statuary doth a most exact Statue, he then breathed into it the Breath of Life. Now this Breathing of God argues, he gave a great semblance of himself, and that God derived something from himself to Man's Soul, that should more immediately express himself, and was taken from himself as the Life. Thus our Saviour breathed upon his Apostles, and made them Partakers of a Spirit that had a great Likeness to his own, in the Infallibility and Heavenliness of his Doctrine, the Power of working Miracles, the Holiness of their Ministry, and whole Apostolic Function. God breathing Man's Soul, it became so like him, that some have called it, A Particle of the Divinity, a Kiss of God, an Imprint of himself.  
Now this Likeness of Man's Soul to God, I believe not to be first in those moral Resemblances of the Truth, Holiness, and Goodness of God, which speak God the best, and in which to be like God, is Man's Rectitude and Integrity, and the Foundation of his Happiness as a Rational Agent, nor only in the Intellectual Faculties; but also in those Attributes which speak God the Greatest, though these be in this present state of Man much obscured, even as the other.  
Of the Soul of Man, an Invisible Spirit, hath been already discoursed: Of other the Greatnesses of God giving a glance, an eye of themselves upon Man's Soul, we may also apprehend;  
There is a Resemblance of his Infiniteness and Ubiquity of Presence, in that swift and sudden Motion of Man's Soul from East to West, summoning things of farthest distance into its presence by Thought and Intellectual Consideration; the Intelligence he endeavours to hold with all the Action and Business of the World, both Natural, Civil, and Moral; the Correspondency he hath with Things Divine and Heavenly. The Freedom and Liberty of the Increated Will is reflected in some degree in the Liberty of Man's Will, that can be no way forced or compelled; in the vastness of his Appetite and Desire, which though now irregular, yet speaks the Original Greatness of his Soul, and that Joy unspeakable he was intended for: The Dominion of God, in Man's Dominion over the Creatures, and the vast and restless Ambition and Desire of Power and Empire so natural to him: The Eternity of God, in the Immortality, and at last Unchangeableness given to Man's Soul: The Divine Blessedness, in the Lustre and Glory Man affects, the Wellbeing he so inseparably from his Nature desires, the Happiness he is capable of, to which he was designed, and to which he is exalted by the Salvation of Christ. From hence there is something like Creation, in the great Works that have been done by Men; and something in Humane Contrivances and Administrations, like Providence.  
And that there is a Force and Potency of Man's Spirit, in a proportion resembling that Power of God that brings Things to pass in Matter, or like the force of Angels, that have wrought upon Matter beyond all the Activity that Matter can be set into by any Material Agency, is not without probability, from the more than ordinary vigorous Action and great Strength of some Men, as Samson, and some others of unusual Force: For I am much inclined, under the Divine Efficacy concurring, to ascribe such Might to the Soul, either acting itself by extraordinary Organs and Instruments of Body prepared and fitted for that Might, as in Giants, and such like; or that God may have made use of some Good Men, in a degree like the Angels, letting out the Powers of their Souls through their Bodies into Actions, above the generality of Mankind; to which I am very subject to attribute those Famous Acts recorded by the Apostle, Hebr. 11. 33, 34. They subdued Kingdoms, stopped the mouths of Lions, quenched the violence of Fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in Fight, put to flight the Armies of the Aliens: For, though these are miraculous, compared with the ordinary State of Mankind, yet they may be natural to the unconfined State of the Soul, in its Efficacies upon Matter; even as working Righteousness, obtaining Promises, not accepting deliverance, that they might be partakers of a better Resurrection, require as supernatural an assistance of Mind, in this degeneracy of Mankind, and do as much exceed the Possibilities of the Soul, so sunk and degraded, as the other do the Powers of a Spirit shut up in Flesh, and in this State of Humiliation: And yet certainly all Acts of Goodness and Obedience to God, are connatural to the true and unfallen Condition of Mankind.  
Now what the Skill and Force of a Spirit not restrained and confined to work by just such Instruments of Body, is in moving Matter with greatest advantage, and most successful operation, is to us hard to be defined; for the Motion and Activity of it is Intellectual, and (as we ordinarily conceive) that alone is a feeble thing; yet when we come to observe what is attributed to Divine Understanding, That by Wisdom the Lord 
Prov. 3. 19  founded the Earth, and by Understanding he established and garnished the Heavens; and that he only declared by his Word the Pleasure and Determination of his Understanding, in the creating every thing, we may be very ready to conceive Infinite Understanding is Infinite Power; and when Wisdom says, I am Understanding, 
Prov. 8. 14.  I have Strength, it gives us the Notion of Infinite Understanding, as Infinite Strength: and if we consider, Wisdom and Power are one in God, it still heightens the apprehension: and further, if we understand, with many Divines, the Son of God to be this Wisdom, the Notion is yet raised higher, and we understand the more by it the Omnipotency of Wisdom. Creation then is the very Effect of Infinite Understanding; and as all Conceptions, Arguments, Reasons of Discourse, are the unquestionable Creatures of our Understanding; so all things that are in the World are the Effects of Infinite Understanding: the World is the Creature of Divine Understanding. His very conceiving things, with a pleasure they should be, gave them Being; He spoke the word, 
Psal. 33. 9  and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast: He called to the Heavens, and they stood up together: There was no other Power used by God, that we read of. Thus Men of great Authority sit still, and speak things into their Execution. As for the mighty Acts of Angels recorded in Scripture, they are veiled as to the manner of their being brought to pass, and the Efficiency that did produce them; only we read in that Emblem of the Prophet Ezekiel, wherein all Worldly things are presented as governed by God, and administered by Angels, that the various Rotations and Changes in this World, shadowed by Wheels, are full of Eyes, that is, of the Wisdom of God, the Supreme Moderator of them, and that they are moved on by the Motion of Angels: For the Spirit of the Living Creatures 
Ezek. 1. 18, 20.  (by which Angels are expressed) was in the Wheels; and when these went, the Wheels went; and when these stood still, the Wheels stood still; This Spirit of the Living Creatures managed all: So that it looks to us, as if the Angels did all by their Spirit or Essence, and that we know is Intellectual: Eyes in the Wheels, and the Spirit in the Wheels, turned all about. The Angels are Understandings inferior to God only, and their Efficacy is represented to us by Lightning, or the most vehement Flame of Fire. When we come down to Man, we find the Creatures in great subjection to Adam; and there is reason 
Genes. 2. 20.  to think, it was to his Understanding they paid their Homage: For as an Introduction to his Rule over them, they were brought to him by God, to receive their Names from him; and according to his insight into their Natures, he called them all by their Names, and so entered into his Dominion over them, by understanding them, and declaring his understanding of them. This was the solemn Act of his Inauguration into his Intellectual Government. Even as God, who governeth the Stars by his Infinite Understanding, telleth the number 
Psal. 147. 4.  of the Stars, and calleth them all by their names; thus the known Wisdom of Men of great Understanding commands the Regard and Obedience of those whom they have imposed Names of Office and Service upon.  
In the generality of Mankind, let us consider how immediately any, or all the Members of the Body move, upon the most silent intimations of the Understanding, and follow its guidance, twining every way, even into the greatest Curiosities of Art; stretching themselves to the most industrious and laborious Employments, adventuring themselves upon the greatest Hazards. We see, that indeed all things that are done by Men in the World, begin at the Counsel, Design, and Intendments of Understanding; and that the Contrivance of one Man's Understanding, dictating to the Understandings of those that are under, hath been the Spring, and given production to the mightiest Effects, the wisest Polities, the most excellent Laws, huge Volumes, the greatest Achievements of Armies, the most magnificent Buildings, Establishments of Empire, the most memorable Projects and Works of Art, the Force of strange Engines, or whatever is accounted of Grandeur in the World: The Force of Understanding hath been given and conveyed from Hand to Hand, insinuated into Matter, and so passed from one Piece and Part of it to another, till it hath reached unto, and rested in the Effect. All this put together, may be an Essay concerning the Power of Understanding.  
Now what ways Understanding hath to move Matter, immediately by itself, we are no competent Judges, that have indeed Understandings, but generally so restrained and imprisoned, that they can find the way of doing little, in comparison of what may be done by that uncontrovertible way of accomplishing Effects by the mediatory Services of Matter: Only this we know, When there was neither Matter to work upon, nor work with, Infinite Understanding brought forth Matter, and stirred it as he pleased. And though there is no comparison between Understanding Finite, and Infinite; yet by this it appears, there is no contradiction for Understanding to produce Matter, when there was none; nor to move it, when it is. We know too, there must be some way, by which our Souls, though acknowledged to be Spirits, move our Bodies, known enough to be gross and material, and that merely by Thought and Consideration what is to be done; and that they obey them speedily, and with ease: although we are not able to expedite all the Questions that may be moved in relation hereunto.  
In the sum, I think it not to be doubted, but that many of the extraordinary and wonderful Achievements of Men, the even prodigious Valours and mighty Prevalencies of some Warriors, that have in heat of Fight moved like Lightning, have been the true and proper Effects and Sallies out of a Soul, through the Freedoms given by God to such Persons, for the bringing about those Changes he hath resolved upon, by their Victoriousness and Conquests. And, to conclude, in all those things that have been done by Men, not plainly miraculous, nor exceeding the Power of Created Spirits, I know no reason why the Wonder should be placed any where else, but upon that admirable Freedom such Souls, by especial Grant from God, have had to work like themselves, and so to exceed the ordinary Operations of Men. And though this doth not equal their present State to, nor bring up their Services to the Services of Angels, that Order of Creatures God in his Wisdom hath appointed for the greater and more remarkable Expeditions and Actions in the World, as being always ready, and, as we say, in procinctu, excelling in prepared and unincumbred strength, always upon the guard, and harkening to the voice of his word: yet in that such great and mighty Works do show forth themselves in the Soul, and there have been so great and wonderful Persons in all Ages, of Famous Memory in their several kinds and virtues, in whom the Greatness of this Soul hath broken forth; it is a marvellous Instance, that the Soul of Man is a Great, Potent, and Excellent Spirit, of vast Activities in its own Nature; and that it hath a near resemblance of God, and Alliance to Angels: that however it be for a little time made lower than Angels, yet it shall be brought into a Condition wherein it shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, equal to Angels.  
For though I make no doubt some Men have greater Souls than others, as one Star differs from another in Magnitude, and as Bodies differ in Strength, Beauty, and Proportion; yet there is the main Excellency of a Humane Body, wherein all agree: So it is in the Souls of Men; the Soul of one Man is a Measure, and carries the Pourtraicture of the Souls of Men in their Universal Nature; even as Face answers Face in the water, so the Soul of one Man returns the Soul of another Man.  
Against all this it lies as a great Objection, That the greatest Effects of a Soul we can observe, are not great and high enough for such a Being as I have described Man's Soul to be; and the great Effects we do see, are found only in some lesser numbers of Men. Let us then inquire into these two things; Why the Effects are not greater, wherein Souls display themselves? and, Why we see them not more generally and universally among Men?  
For the first, it is to be considered, The Soul in the Body is like an Artificer, that works by a very dull and unapt Instrument, though himself of excellent Skill; like a valiant Warrior with a Sword of Lead, or as Samson, if confined to the general Laws of Humane Nature, he had fought with the Jawbone of an Ass only; or like the Eye, though never so quick, looking through a dull Glass, or in a Dark Room; or like a strong and valorous Man in a Cage, or close Dungeon; or like a Light in a Dark Lantern; or like a strong Man asleep: All this is the State of the Soul in the Body; or like a Prince of Just Authority, in Captivity; or like a Jewel closed up in Clay; or a Beauty shrouded under a course Covering.  
To judge of the Soul now, and according to such Rules as it acts by in the Body, that it shall never be greater and more active than it appears, is to conclude the Soul of a Child shall never show itself greater and more active than it appears while the Child is in Swaddling Clothes: Or, as if the Infant in the Cloister of the Womb, could make a Judgement of itself, and think itself in as good a condition, or better, than it should be in the open Air; and that what it is there, it must be always. The Soul sees now through a glass darkly, and is in the condition of a Child, and of a Child shut up in the Womb.  
That the Body is now a great hindrance to the Soul, is apparent by the necessity that the Soul must be separated from it, and that it must be dissolved into Dust, or changed; and that in the Resurrection, our Bodies must be Spiritual Bodies, fit to cast the Glories and display the Excellencies of a Soul, to discharge the Activities of the highest Elevation of a Spirit. But to return to the present State of the Soul in the Body, why it is ordered thus? that the Body should be such an Instrument out of Tune, to the Soul, such an excellent Harmonist; such a Dungeon to the Mind, Princely in its Creation. We may give it thus.  
In the very first and most innocent state, the Soul was so framed by God, that though the Powers of it were much larger than Body, and independent upon it, yet that they should for a certain season be restrained to the Body, to govern, take care of, and act it according to its Nature and Measures, according to its Preparations to run along under the Powers of the Soul, in their Motion, and not be destroyed by the over-vehemency.  
This Body the Soul was able and fit to act to the utmost of its Capacities, and far beyond them; and yet it was so moderated, as not to overact them: but it could not raise this Body, or the Matter of it, above its Natural Excellency: That was reserved in the Creator's Power alone, as a Reward of the Souls Obedience in that Body for the present time allotted to it.  
The Soul could not make the Body what it would have it be, or fit it to all it would have it do, when it found it short: It could not enable body to all things a Soul had Power for, or a desire to: For it was but a Living Soul, and not a Quickening 
1 Cor. 15. 45.  Spirit; that is, It had a Life given it by God, and such a Life, that it should be always a Living Soul, that it should never decay, and fall down into a Dead Thing; and so it could retain its own Life, against any one but the Author of it, and lose none of that; for this power it had received from God; and what it found fitted by God to its Activity, and convenienced to its Life, it could act, quicken, and manage: But it was not a Quickening Spirit; that is, It had not power to make or give a new Life, to continue a Body in Life, or to raise a Dead Body, or make it more Excellent or Lively than it found it prepared by God: It had not a Power like the First-begotten from the Dead, who can make corruptible put on Incorruption, and mortal put on Immortality, and be even swallowed up of Life; who can change our vile Bodies, that they may be made like his glorious Body, by a Power that subdues all things to itself. So then, though the Soul could work to the utmost extent of Matter and Body, and fill all Bodily Capacities, yet it could not exceed them, nor act according to itself, because it was confined in Body; but must work and act only as the Soul of such a Body: nor could it quicken and advance Body, as it would itself, nor better it above its Rank and Order set by the Creator; and therefore the Soul could display itself, and its own Spirituality, only so far as Body, made by God, the Body of this Soul, could receive and convey into Action.  
And though this was enough, not only to prefer Man to the top of this Lower Creation, and to make him under the Creator Lord of All; but to assure enough, a greater than Body, even a Spirit was there: yet it could not discover, how great and potent this Spirit was.  
Thus the Soul was submitted by the wise Ordination of God, to retire, keep home, and dwell in a Body, being at the very first set in an Orb lower than itself, and to manage fewer and lesser Talents, according to the State of the Lower Creation; and so by its Obedience, Fidelity, and Improvement, to be advanced to richer and more Talents, and to a Rule over greatest Cities; that is, to be exalted to the Heights and full Glory of a perfectest Immortality.  
Thus was the State of Innocency, wherein Body was much more fitted to the Excellency of the Soul, though not to all its Excellency; fitted to it only according to the Lower State of Man in this World, not according to that Supreme State of Immortality; but differing as much from that, as Possibility not to die, doth from an Impossibility to die; or as a Body Natural, just fit to entertain a Soul in a temporary condition, and to yield itself to its displays in a degree convenient to that, differs from a Body Spiritual, framed to bear and discharge all the highest Spiritualities of a Soul, in its unchangeable Estate.  
Yet this was much above the present Condition of Body under Sin; even as Innocency, and the Order, Beauty, and Goodness wherein Man was first enstated by God, excel the Gild, unnatural Deformity, and Confusion he labours under now: Since Sin and Disobedience, the Souls manner of Habitation in Body, is fallen much lower; and it is carefully to be considered, how it fell lower: for it cannot be conceived, that any thing should be abated from the Life, Vigour, and Force of the Soul itself: The Soul loses only in the Holy and Happy State of it, without any diminution in its Esence, or Essential Life; for it cannot lose in the degrees of those: It must lose in the whole, or not at all; being one, whole, entire, indivisible Self, as hath been before asserted: And thus it is only a competent Subject for the Happiness or Misery of Eternity, of which Fallen Angels are a plain Instance, who, notwithstanding their Fall, continue Principalities, and Powers, and Dominions; and though Wickednesses, yet Spiritual Wickednesses, and in High Places. The Soul then losing nothing thus, the Life, Vigour, and Virtue of its Nature must lie close, accumulated and folded up, where there is not room for an Explanation and free Expatiation; as Light, that could reach much further, when stopped by any Dark Body, is reverberated into itself.  
We must therefore conceive, that, as a Punishment upon the Sin of Man, there is a great withdrawing of Divine Blessing from the Lower Creation; upon which ensues an interruption of the benign Order of Things one towards another, so that they are continually at feud, and in contest one with another, hindering, disturbing, and mutually abating the Force, and working to the destruction one of another: to all which Inconveniences the Humane Body becomes subject, and both in regard of its Temper and Composition, more subject than many other parts of Matter; for its Strength is not the Strength of Stones, nor its Flesh of Brass, nor clear and pure like the Heavens, that abide of old. Further, It being the Body of that Soul, that is the great Offender, it is most liable to the Curse: The Soul then, whose Body was at first too narrow for all its Efficacies, is now limited to one, unequal to any one of them, and very disturbing of their Execution.  
For sometimes, by the oppression of other Parts of Matter upon this Body, all the livelier and brisker Particles of it are squeezed out and exhaled, whereby it becomes dull and instagnated; sometimes it is overheated into furious and inordinate motion, and so weakened and disordered in its great end of serving the Soul.  
The Soul on the other side losing nothing of itself, yet being sunk down from the Intellectual Spiritual Life, and from the Happiness therein to be found, which is its true Sphere, becomes also negligent of acting and invigorating the Body, and guiding the Service of it to such worthy Ends; and with a wilful supineness falls down into the Animal Life, and presently finding what State and Temper that Body with which it is joined is of, carries itself, with all its Powers, almost wholly thither.  
If it be a duller Matter or Body, it stays its own Effluxes, the Stream of its Motion, and tastes its Life and Enjoyment in that sloathfulness and sluggishness of Flesh, as it were forgetting it hath any greater Virtue, Force, or other Office, than what serves to the maintenance of so low a Life; that the Soul wilfully enervates, and deadens its own Activity, by slumbering it in the drowsiness of a lazy Body; so that this Sloth becomes the greatest of all Sloth, because of the Pleasure this mighty Spirit hath in that Sloth, having found it to be the Temper of that Matter wherein it hath sheathed itself; there being in this very Sloth, as Philosophers teach of Rest of Bodies, as forcible and great a Cause, as there is of Motion. Thus the great Force of a Soul is defeated this way, the Body being like damped Powder, that will not take the Fire, and so the Fire lies still and does nothing: to such Solomon cries out, Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep; the description of an endless and incurable Sloth, Prov. 24. 33. If the Body be a Composure more lively and spirituous, and apt to overheat, the Soul presently finds this, and committing itself to the Inclinations of Body, such Propensions are promoted and enraged, according to the mighty Force of a Soul, into the Excesses of Lust, Rage, and all Intemperance, beyond the very Brutish Nature, that hath no such Spirit to act it: and thus also the Might of the Soul is lost, as the Force of the Fire with the Powder in a cracked or foul Gun, that is scattered, and recoils with mischief; or as an over-measure of Powder, taking fire without direction; the Effect of which is the slaughter and destruction of all about it. So that every way nothing is achieved worthy the Greatness of this Spirit.  
Thus the Soul is doubly disabled by Matter, wherein it is set; both because that Matter is subject to so many disorders, that can no way be perfectly cured, and so it is unfit for the Souls use; and also, because the Soul crowds up its own Activities into a contentment with what it finds most natural and ready in that Matter with which it is joined, complies with it, and troubles itself no further to amend it: and the longer things continue so, the more stiff and unreformable the Evil grows. All which put together, is a plain Reason, why there are no greater Effects of a Soul in the World, and how it comes to pass, that the multitude of People in it give no other evidence of a Soul, but in a provision of Natural Life, and the Sensualities of Life, somewhat above the Rank of Beasts.  
Now upon the utmost stretch of this Reason, there would be no Examples of greater Virtue or Heroickness among Men: But because this State both of the Body and the Soul is below the Graciousness of the first Creation, and that there are most merciful Relaxations of the Punishment due to the Sin of Man, and many Advantages for the betterment of both Soul and Body, vouchsafed by God through Christ the Mediator, whose Benefits extend to them that do not know him; hence it is, that the State of Mankind excels itself in many great Instances.  
For the Soul retaining its primitive Vigour and Life, which are its very Nature and Being; and Body being capable of Refinement to better use, by the care of the Soul in the Sublimation of it; even as Art polishes the Rude Matter, directs it into the usefulness of any Instrument; as Chemistry purifies and exalts it; as the Skill of the Apothecary corrects, and makes it medicinable: so the Soul designing to mend the Body, sets the Characters of Wisdom, Virtue, and good Ingeny upon it, forms it to a graceful Mine and Deportment, turns and twists the Motions of it to the Curiosities of Artifice, chastises and reforms it to the Precepts of Virtue, and subdues it to the Industry of Study and Contemplation, hardens it to the fearless and resolved Actions of War, quickens it to Service in greatest Works and Undertake, with whatever else we see in the World worthy of consideration to this purpose, being the Inspiration of Mind, and the Performance of Body commanded by it.  
Now that which under such Pressures excites the Souls of Men to these Aspire, must chief be acknowledged to Divine Impressions, awakening some men's Spirits to the exercise of their richer and worthier Faculties; of which Scripture gives abundant Testimony in all kinds: And under this, they may be ascribed to the different Magnitudes of Souls, or the more advantageous Body's Providence hath contrived for some, rather than for others; and then to the Instruction and Examples that fall from such Persons, as Influences from the Heavenly Bodies, and have their Effects upon many, not only of one Age or Country, but of far distant Places, and succeeding Times; so that there have been still springing up great and incomparable Persons, Mirrors of the Greatness and Potency of a Humane Spirit, and their Actions as Monuments of it; and under them, multitudes of others, though not of so high a degree, yet endeavouring to raise themselves somewhat towards the Excellencies of Humane Nature.  
But why upon these so fair Advantages the Excellency of Man's Soul is not more generally retrived, may receive this farther Resolution.  
As the Soul working by Body, must have a well fitted and prepared Body to work immediately by; so it's further necessary to its Operations by Body, that there be a conveniency and an accommodation of several Instruments and Materials, besides and beyond Body, for it to employ the Ministeries of Body upon, and to work at a distance by, that the Action may be memorable and great. He that will build, must first sit down and count the Charge: The King that goes to War, must consider the strength of his Armies, the number of his Men, the Conduct and Resolution of his Captains, the sufficiency of his Treasure: He that separates himself to intermeddle with all Knowledge, must be furnished with the external, as well as the internal Means of Science; else his Success can never amount to Eminency.  
Now the present State of the World is so impoverished by the Sin of Man, that it can supply but Few, in comparison of the Many; so that the straight and low Condition, the unattempting Education and manner of Life, that very many, the most of Mankind are confined to, by reason of Want, fore-prizes the nobler Dare of their Mind, and plunges them so low, that they cannot easily rise. The Experiments of this Case have been very notable in sundry Persons, whose Souls have been kept low, and suppressed by the lowness and narrowness of (as they are called) their Fortunes; but have spread and soared aloft, when their Sphere of Action hath been made more ample and high, by accession of those Fortunes: and we need not make any doubt, but that if the Train had been laid in their Youth to Generous Employment, they would have much more excelled; seeing their Souls have, as it were, started out in their riper years to worthy Menages, being encouraged by plenty of Means, when their Education had been sordid. And the same thing is proportionably to be believed of very many, who yet live and die obscure and concealed, and their name in darkness, through Prejudices of a poor Condition, while their Souls are in themselves as great as any.  
And indeed, it is not intended by God, the degenerate State of this World should be so noble or free, as to bear up the true and native Greatness of Souls in a Multitude, and at their full extent of Action; any more than he hath prepared the Firmament for many Suns. A World of Personages, Great for their Prowess, Virtue, Learning, and Wisdom, would exalt this State too high: It is therefore so ordered, that the Spirits of the most lie still and contracted by the very closeness of their Condition, besides other Misadventures; and are so diverted upon the little things they have to do with, and so straitened by them, that they think of nothing further; and if they do, yet finding no scope or opportunity, they repent the Attempt, and retreat back again.  
For alas, the Necessities of Mankind in these Bodies are so consuming and expensive, and the Riches of the Creation hidden deep, and removed far from use, or else scanty, and daily wasted, that but some of Mankind can be set out for Glory, and their Undertake equipped for Grandeur: for, what one Man hath, and uses, another wants; the Abundance of that one Man, is the Poverty of many about him: How few than can make proof of the Designs and Action of a Soul?  
Further, there are continual Supplantations and Undermine of Humane Nature, and the Virtue of it, by itself; the Endeavours of some to rise are surprised and counter-wrought by the Jealousies of others, who thereupon suspect their own diminution or Ruin. The World is full of Suspicion, Surmise, Envy, and ill Apprehension, because there is not enough for this Soul of Man, whereby to show itself as great as it is, and would fain appear to be.  
This Region is so stinted, that every Greater Intelligence in it thinks it could itself enlighten and move the whole, and is offended with a Joynt-Light, as eclipsing and drowning some of its own. Heaven only entertains an innumerable Company of Glorious Spirits, in their full Lustre: Their number is Ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, without the jealousy or envy of any one.  
Yet in this very low condition of Souls, the Soul itself is not the less, but concealed, as many excellent and most potent Things in Nature. A Diamond may be easily covered, that none of the Beams of it can be seen; the sharp Steel lies quiet in the Sheath; the Fire, that could inflame the whole Course of Nature, is hid in the Flint: How often is the Glory of the Sun muffled up in a Cloud? And, to ascend higher, not only the Angelical, but the Divine Glory is much reserved, while it is much seen: Verily, 
Isa. 45. 15.  thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour of thy People.  
Now this thing ought not to be to 
Practical Inference.  us a Matter of mere Notion or Speculation, but of most serious consideration: for this Greatness and Potency of our Souls determines itself supremely and finally into an Ability and Power to bear Eternal Happiness or Misery; and all else is but accidental, and by the By to it. It was not made great for any Name of things, that is named in this World, or called Great here, how great soever. All things that are Arguments of Potency now, do but fall in; the true intention of the Souls being made so puissant a Being, is, that it might sustain those weights of Glory, Likeness to God, Everlasting Enjoyment of him, without being fainted or overwhelmed: But if it miscarry from this Happiness, or fall short of this Glory, all this its Might and Puissance enable it still to survive, and bear the massy displeasure of God, angry for Sin; and the most forcible and terrible Recoils of its own guilty and enraged self, upon itself.  
Now a Being thus Potent and Great, as to subsist in that Everlasting Blessedness or Misery, can together, and comprehensively do those smaller Great things that are esteemed so in this World: and yet if it should never do any such, nor have the occasion of doing them; to be created to the Intents and Purposes of an Eternal Condition, makes it completely necessary it should be made so Great as we have asserted: And if it were not so, we could make but a very imperfect account, to what ends the Souls of some Princely and incomparable Young Men are prepared; whose rising and growing Virtue appears only so long, as to spring Heroickly, and to give proof of a Divineness in the Bud, and then by Death to fade in this World, as early as it blossoms, and have no opportunity left to ripen. In these at once we see both the Greatness of a Soul, and that this World is not its proper Sphere, or so much as near it; for if it were, such Souls had been made in vain so Great: But the State of Eternity justifies the Wisdom of God, in breathing so rich a Principle of Life, notwithstanding so little Action here; because what is so superabundant now, is then all of use, and nothing to spare.  
And to press this Consideration further, and more generally, the State of Eternity reduces the Souls of Men universally to thus much of Equality, that they are all alike stripped out of the Cumber and Incommodiousness of a Body, and brought to the nakedness and simplicity of Spirit, which is the greatest Advancement of Being, in an abstract Notion of Being, that a Creature is or can be receptive of. Nor is Spiritual Motion fettered or tied up any longer by indigency of subservient Ministeries: All have that which is full enough to their State.  
Souls are then at the height of Immortality and Unchangeableness, under a Full-sail Activity, every way equal to so great a Nature, whether it be employed in Fruitions or Indurances.  
Let us then expatiate thus into Meditation: We that are but of so many Foot of Body, and must be lodged in so many Foot of Earth, the measure of the Grave, have Souls whose Capacities and Action are vaster than the whole Creation of Matter: We that dwell in houses of clay, and 
Job 4. 19  have our foundation in the dust, have yet great and potent Souls. If we could persuade ourselves we are more than this Hand-breadth of Bodily Condition, and present Life, we should prepare ourselves for so great a State of Being, the State that is proper to Souls. All we toil and sweat for, that we design and care for in the World, is Self-preservation, Self-enjoyment, and Wellbeing: Why then should we not mind these in our largest and most excellent Quality? We value ourselves in that which is least, and throw ourselves away in the main and whole Sum.  
Let us then continually reason with ourselves: Our Souls are great; when we go out of the Body, we become Great Spirits. However the Soul keep up close in the Body, yet it may be dilated beyond all possible Imagination; as they say, An Angel of Gold may be beaten out to cover a whole Acre of Ground. We see to what a vastness Education, Study, Advancement in the World, extends the Souls of some Men, that made little appearance at first: To how much a more immense Amplitude will the State of Eternity stretch out the Receipt of a Soul? and what an abundance of Happiness or Misery will it then take in!  
How little then, or how great soever we seem now, all will then be resolved into this final Condition of our Immortal Souls; and the Happiness of these rests in the Favour of God, a Likeness to him in Holiness, springing out into an Eternal Enjoyment of him.  
And while we are here in the World, in this State of our Souls lies our true Greatness and Worth: Some that seem so inconsiderable, that no Man looks after them, yet being greatly Holy, greatly favoured of God, Great Spirits, all Heavenly, the world 
Hebr. 11. 37, 38.  is not worthy of them, though they wander up and down on mountains, in sheepskins, and goatskins, and be hid in dens and caves of the earth. Others Great in the World, and being also truly Good, the Backparts of their Greatness are only seen.  
Yea, even in Bad Men, how small or great soever they are in the World, yet that they pertain to an Everlasting Condition, that they have Immortal Souls, this makes them of greatest consideration. To convert them to God, is therefore a great and excellent Work: To save a Soul from death, how great is the Service! and how great is the Reward! They that do it, shall shine as the Stars in the Firmament. How great a Regard to the meanest or worst of Men should it draw, that they pertain to an Eternal Judgement!  
The Consideration of the Soul, as a Being Invisible, and a Spirit, having invited an often mention of its Eternal or Unchangeable Condition, to which this present State is subordinate, and disembogues itself into it, as the Rivers do into the Ocean; I come in the next place to make a modest Research into the Nature of Eternity, and the Souls Relation to it.  
But in speaking of Eternity, I know he alone is able to declare it, who inhabits 
Isa. 57 15.  it; God himself, or the Angels, those Blessed Spirits, who were early assumed into larger Participations of it: Yet seeing we also are designed to the same Participations, it concerns us, as far as we can, to understand the Wonder of it.  
Eternity then, in its first and highest Sense, is not any thing distinct from God, but his stable unchangeable Being from everlasting to everlasting: There is no other Eternity than this, properly and strictly taken, from which is cast upon the Mind that contemplates a Being so surrounded with itself, and its own invariable Perfection, a Notion of Everlasting Duration, and that which is comprehended by it; because, by reason of the narrowness of our Understanding, it is conceived in a distinction from the Divine Being itself, we in a secondary Sense call Eternity.  
But even, as what we term ubiquity, is that which results to us from the Notion or Apprehension of God the Immense Being filling all, so much as even Imaginary Space, while he himself is the only true ubiquity; even so Eternity is the Infiniteness of God's Being filling all Imaginary Duration, and so filling it, that the Divine Being itself is that very Eternity, of which Everlasting Duration is but the Shadow that falls from it, as Unbounded Space does from his Omnipresence.  
God then, the Supreme Eternal, or rather Eternity, is a Being that must always have been, and ever must be: It is most impossible to conceive he should ever not have been, or ever not be: And he is a Being that never could, and can never be otherwise than he is: So that there are no Marks of Distinction that could ever be taken from his Being, or from the State and Condition of his Being. He is, He was, He is to come, are all 
Rev. 1. 8.  united into one Eternal Point or Period in him, and thus expressed, I 
Exo. 3. 14.  A M: A Being without any variation, 
Jam. 1. 17.  or shadow of turning.  
A thousand years to him, are but 
2 Pet. 3. 8.  as yesterday, when it is past; and one day, as a thousand years. And if it had been said, Ten thousand millions of Years are but as a Minute when it is past, it had been all one in this Case; for there is no New Thing to him, or in him, but all is a Just now.  
For his Being is the most solid substantial Being, that cannot possibly submit to any Alteration: What is Infinitely Perfect, can admit no Change. This is the One, Just, Even, Smooth Eternity.  
And understanding God thus, we understand Eternity: And though it be not where but in himself, and where he communicates the Likeness of it; yet Eternity in a secondary Sense, becomes a distinct Notion or Sense of a Mode of Being in our Minds,; and it is a changeless Duration of any Being in the selfsame State; for if there be not Duration, there must be Change; and if there be Change, it is not a Duration on all sides; for then there could be no Change.  
Now this Notion of Eternity could never have come into our Minds, if it had not been planted there by his Hand, who dwells in it, on purpose that we might know himself by it; nor had there been a substantial Rest for such a Conception, if his Being had not given it: All else is but Imaginary Duration.  
Eternity then, in this our apprehension of it, is one great smooth Sea, without any Curl of Change; or as a vast unmeasurable Plain, wherein the Eye hath not Bound, nor so much as Note of Distinction, no Rise, no Fall; like a great Mountain, that all Generations have passed and repassed, one hath gone, another come, and that hath slidden away too, but the Mountain hath stood firm. It is like a Rock, that hath stood innumerable Ages, without so much as scaling; about which the huge Waters have continually waved and rolled themselves, and dashed asunder; by which smaller Vessels have passed to and again; gallant Ships, and Potent Armadaes have sailed by, and sunk, or mouldered away: this in the mean time without any variation.  
It is like an Hour spent in highest Pleasure, no Moment, no Minute of which is so much as felt. It is like a deep Contemplation, in which the Mind is so lost, so retired from Body, that it reckons not any Motion, it keeps no account of Time for it, nor observes whether any Time passed. It is like an undefinable Point of Just now.  
In the next place, to give the greater Light to Eternity, let us state the Nature of Time. And Time, to speak substantially of it, is nothing but the Coming of a Thing, or a World of Things into Being, that were not in Being before. For this makes a new Note in what we conceive, as Duration: And therefore when the World was made, the Scripture says, In the Beginning. There was then a new Date, because there was something then, that had not been before. In Whole Eternity there was nothing New; All was alike One.  
Now these things coming in by the way of Change, viz. the exchange of the State of Nothing, for the State of Existency, are also every Moment subject to change, and in a continual hover up and down; and while all these things are performing their Motion in their Changes and Vicissitudes, the Mind of Man considering them under such a Mode or Circumstance of their Being, there arises a Notion or Representation of that whole Space, which putting all together, we call Time in the largest sense; of which, that in the Revelation of St. John may fitly be understood, Time 
Rev. 10. 6.  shall be no more; all Change being consummate in the unmoveable State of Eternity. And while it considers their particular Flutters hither and thither, it takes Measures of the more contingent and unsettled Motion of some, by the more settled and stated Motion of others: of which the Heavenly Bodies, in their constant Revolutions of Day and Night, Months and Years, are the supreme Standard, and faithful Witnesses; which the same Divine expresses, by Time, and Times, and Half a Time, 
Rev. 12. 14.  viz. as it is generally understood, a Year, two Years, and Half a Year; or, as it is otherwise spoken, Forty two 
cap. 11. 2, 3.  Months, and A thousand two hundred and threescore days.  
Below these, the Founding and Ruin of Monarchies, the Birth and Death of Princes, make the Public Epoches, and give new Characters to Time, which the Prophet Daniel calls the changing of Times and Seasons: 
Dan. 2. 21.  Even as these Changes in the Condition of Private Persons, make private and particular Distinctions of it, in those Places and Families where they are known and taken notice of: Of which David speaks, not only as a King, but in a general Capacity, My 
Psal 〈…〉  Times are in thy hand.  
If we could suppose all things then above us, round about us, within us, even to a thought standing still, and no alteration, so much as in a thought; where would be the Measure of Time? or what would be the account of it? or where would it be at all?  
The Being therefore of the Things of Time, or rather that project, and cast Time, as a faint Shade from themselves, are made and fitted to move, and shift, and alter; else there could be no Time: even as the Being of God, always the same, gives us Eternity: else there could be none, but an Imaginary Duration, as hath been already asserted.  
If any thing therefore in this World stands faster and longer than other, and suffers no Change, it becomes a nearer Resemblance of Eternity, as the Hills are called Everlasting Hills, and the Eternity of God condescends itself to our Thoughts by compare with them: Before the Hills were 
Psal. 90. 2.  brought forth, even from Everlasting to Everlasting, thou art God. Unmoved Rocks are Rocks of Eternity: God himself is styled the Rock of Ages, 
Isa. 26. 4.  or Eternity.  
Now Time, however full of Fluctuations it is in itself, can yet make no disturbance upon Eternity, or at all affect it; all its various Shapes can imprint no Change there: For whether we consider Eternity as One with God; As our Saviour speaks of Abraham, Before Abraham was, I am; so 
Joh. 8. 58.  it may be said of all the Particulars of Time, Before them, from everlasting God is. His Being did not wait their coming into Being, nor does it lay down itself, when they go out of their present Being: Thou 
Psal. 90. 3.  (O God) turnest Man to destruction, and sayest, Return ye Children of Men: The Heavens wax old as a Garment, 
Psal. 102. 26, 27.  as a Vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed: But thou art the same for ever, and of thy years there is no end. Or whether we consider Eternity in a secondary Notion, and as we conceive it in Everlasting Duration; it is always quiet and uninterrupted in the Divine Being: There is Duration, without any shadow of change, which is the absolute Eternity, and gives the most perfect Notion of it, and is no where to be found, but in God.  
But Time, whether we understand it as that space of Duration in which these Changeables are running their several Risks, it is encircled and comprehended by Eternity, as a Drop by the Ocean, above it, within it, round about it: and indeed it is but the same Duration, distinguished only by those Chequers and Spots of Change upon it: Or if we understand by it the Creatures of Time, in those their several Changes, they are created and upheld by the Eternal Power: He that changes Times and Seasons, without any Variety in himself, rules and governs them all, till at his command they surrender themselves back into that Fixed State his Wisdom and Righteousness disposes them into for For Ever, to which their Motion in this incertain State prepares them.  
Thus, as all things that move must have some certain and unshaken Bottom to move upon; and things not self-subsistent, but dependent, must have some independent Strength to rest upon: so fluid, and never-resting, weak Time, or rather those movable Being's that give it its Name, must be upheld by unshaken and all-potent Eternity, to which they pay themselves, as their Great End: For he by whom are all things, is the same with 
〈…〉 17.  him who was before all things, and for whom all things are: Yesterday, 
〈…〉. 13. 8.  and to day, the same for ever.  
Now to collect the Sum of this Explication of Eternity, and Time; it is this: Eternity is stable and invariable, as the Divine Being that inhabits it, or indeed is Eternity itself. Time, as it includes what we call Duration, is not properly Time; for so it falls in with Eternity, as Created Being doth with the Ocean of Being Increated: but as it is in perpetual Change, so it is Time, and so it falls in with the mutable Creatures, that reside upon it, and are indeed in those Motions of Change allowed to them, the true substantial Time itself.  
And all this speaks the substantialness of the Being of God, and the Nothingness of all the Things of Time: For if Things had such a Being as they could like and be contented with, and could continue in it, when they like it, as long as they would, they would be always what they are: but because they are neither strong enough to choose their Condition, nor to retain it, they continue in every Condition, whether Good or Evil, just so long as is appointed by his Pleasure who keeps Times and Seasons all in his own 
Acts 1. 7.  hand.  
But, on the other side, the Eternity of God must needs be Blessedness and Happiness: For Eternity expressing Absolute Being, Perfection of Being, Being with all advantage; Being and Wellbeing conspire and meet in one in him, even of necessity. The Apostle, in contemplation of this, adores God, the only Blessed 
1 Tim. 6. 15, 16.  and Happy Potentate; and subjoins, who only hath Immortality, and dwells in that Light to which no Man can approach.  
It is true, Created Being's may be Immortal, and yet miserable: that is, because Created Being doth not, as Increated, result from itself, nor is Absolute Being; but is given, and upheld, and continued at the pleasure of the Creator, and so receives variety of Condition, according to the Laws he hath set to it, while it is yet maintained in its Duration and Continuance; the Favour or Displeasure of God, the Righteous or Unrighteous State of it, making vast differences herein.  
This then is the Eternity of God, his always alike Being, infinitely Happy, infinitely Blessed. This is the Eternity of Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Son of God eternally begotten, that though he proceeded and came forth from God the Father, yet he made no new Date, no Beginning: Eternally begotten, without the least shadow of turning, to denominate Time, as the Creatures do by Beginning; but as a Beam from the Sun, as soon as it is, making no new thing in the Sun; or as Apprehension from the Mind, as soon as the Mind is; or as the immediate Image and Likeness of the Face, as early as the Face is: thus, and infinitely more, even incomprehensibly, is Christ the Son of the Father, coeternal with him. This is the Eternity of the Son of God; but what is the Father's Name, or what is his Sons Name in Eternity, none 
Pro. 30. 4.  can tell; for who can declare his generation? but, Before all things that were made, and by being made, made a Beginning; before all things that beginning to be, cast the shadow of Time; even before all things, is the 
Col. 1. 17.  Saviour of the World; that is, he is Eternal.  
Indeed, as he is the Son of Man, he gave great, and the greatest Characters to Time it hath, the richest Aera and Epochs it hath; His Incarnation, in dating itself from which, Latter Time glories and triumphs; His Death and Passion, his Resurrection and Ascension, His Appearance the second time from Heaven, to give a Period to Time. Thus, as the Son of Man, he hath enriched and ennobled Time: But, as the Son of God, he only governs Time, that is, the Things of Time, and changes Times and Seasons, by setting up, and pulling down what he pleases; whence Time is variously embossed: but by any Change in himself, he doth not give the least Shade of Time.  
The Eternity of Angels is much below this perfect, this absolute Eternity; for they had a Beginning, they came out of the State of Not Being, into Being: but this of Eternity they have, that their Being given them, continueth for ever, lasts for ever. Indeed even this Duration is not by any necessity of Nature, as in the Son of God, the only begotten of the Father; for he can neither have begun to be begotten, nor cease to be begotten, but it must make a Change in God, a substantial Change. Thus also incomprehensibly stands the Eternity of the Divine Spirit, proceeding Eternally from the Father and the Son: But the Everlastingness of Angels hath its certainty from the Purpose of God unchangeable concerning it.  
Further, Their Eternity is not like to the Eternity of the Divine Being, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in that as they received a Beginning, so there was a Space wherein their Condition was alterable, as appears by the Fall of some, and the generally received Confirmation of others: And that it is alterable in Degrees, may be argued by their daily increase in Knowledge, Additions to which Good Angels receive from the Church, while they stoop down to look into the things of the Gospel; daily Experience in both sorts; Increases of Glory to the Holy ministering Spirits, as a Reward of their Ministry; Aggravations of Punishment to the Fallen Angels, for their many and great Hostilities to God, his Son, and Servants: The Compliment therefore of either State, is not till the Day of Judgement be past.  
These things already spoken, lead to the Description of the Eternity of the Souls of Men, consisting in three things.  
1. That they shall continue for ever in Being, the unchangeable Decree of God upholding them in a never-ending Existence.  
2. That the Substance of their Condition shall never be altered; upon which account the Scripture often speaks of a For Ever, as a Happiness incorruptible, and that fadeth 
1 Pet. 1. 4.  not away; on the other side, of Eternal Punishment, of a Worm that never 
Mat. 25. 46. Marc. 9 44.  dies, a Fire that is never quenched: All which speak, as much as Words can convey to us, such an unchangeable State.  
3. There is no Interruption or Alteration in the Degrees of their State; there are no Marks of Distinction, that these Souls should say, Now more happy, now less happy; Now more miserable, now less miserable: But as highest Delight takes away all sense of the Motion of Time in this Life, & as sense of extreme Pain makes an Hour like an Age; how much more in Eternity does the Perfection of Happiness, and the Extremity of Misery, the substantialness and absoluteness of either State, swallow up all Notes of Distinction? God is no more Happy by any addition of Moment's we suppose in the Duration of his Happiness; (I say, we suppose) for indeed he is his own Happiness, and his own Duration. So in proportion, this State is its own Duration, Heaven one entire united Moment of endless Delight, Hell of Misery.  
1. Now this State of the Souls of Men in Eternity arises, first, from the fitness such a Nature as Man's Soul is of, that is, a Spiritual Nature, (as I have already discoursed) to be Everlasting: A Nature which God hath with Infinite Wisdom and Power contrived to be a resemblance of himself. Thus the Heavens, as they are more durable, are also of choicer Matter, and less corruptible, than other Parts of the Creation: And those things that by God are designed for For Ever, are made so perfectly agreeable to their State, that they need not be altered; as if a Vessel of purest Metal were made so substantial, that it could suffer no change in the Quantity, Weight, Figure, Oriency of it, either by Fire, Hammer, or the several Accidents that fall out in length of Time; nor that there could be so much as a possible Reason to desire the change of it.  
2. From the Will of God, and his unchangeable Decree, that it should be so; which he makes good and effectual by continually feeding these Being's with Eternity; that is, from himself he sends them all the Powers of Life and Motion: So that to ask, When shall these Souls, and the several States of them, in Happiness or Misery, have end? is to ask, When will a Stream be dry, that is fed by a Fountain that can never be exhausted, nor the Supply of it be possibly cut off from that Stream? His Favour is an Eternal Principle of Life and Blessedness; His Presence of Wrath, and the Glory of his Power set against us, is as great a Source of Misery and Torment. While therefore he will uphold our Being's and Faculties, and keep up their Motion, so long they must be; and while he pleases either to shine out graciously upon us, or to dart against us the Lightning of his Displeasure, so long we must be either happy, or miserable: And when either of these is done, to the height and perfection of either, as they are in the World to come, then according to the Revelation of his Will, guided with that Wisdom by which he hath weighed out all things, they are to be For Ever. For the most Perfect of all Things now, and that are absolutely the highest of his Creation, that is, Spirits; and that which is the Top of their Condition, as that to which the Last Judgement affixes them is, are designed by God for For Ever.  
3. The proper Exercises of Man's Soul, which are in Understanding, Righteousness, Holiness, declare the designment of it for Eternity. For these things being such evident Beams from the Divine Glory and Being, cannot die; and those Natures that have their Action placed in them, are thence argued Immortal. For seeing these things in themselves, in their pure and abstract Notions, are unchangeable; the Soul being a Seat so peculiarly dedicated to them, and immediately fitted for them, and a very Principle of them, as made by God; it is a very great presumption of its Eternal State.  
There remains nothing I intent further touching this Vastness of Eternity, (concerning which, all Discourse is but as the drop of the Bucket, or the small dust of the Balance; nothing, and less than nothing) but more clearly to exalt the Eternity of God, above that of his Everlasting Creatures; and to fall into Practical Meditations upon Everlasting Duration.  
1. It is in the first place certain, No Created Being hath an Eternity before Time: Of God only, and of no Created Being, can it be said, It never began, Thus it always was, It never made any new Date: From Everlasting to Everlasting only God is; Of him only it can be said, He was Ever, as he is, and is to come.  
2. Of no Creature can it be said, absolutely, or in regard of itself, (though it be in its Everlasting State) It must be, or It must be thus, It can be no otherwise: It can be only said so, upon account of the unchangeable Decree of God. There is a high agreeableness in the Nature of Spirits to Be; but this, It must be, is only proper to God. Of him only to acknowledge, He may be, is (as hath been said) to enfold ourselves in a positive Assurance, He is, and must be. He is no precarious Being; not a Being at the  of any; no Chance Being; not a convenient Being only; A Being, of which it may be said, It is better, and best he should be; though this be true, and that infinitely. But he is an Infinitely necessary Being; His Being is the First, the Eternal, the Fundamental Verity.  
3. He only is his own Eternity: He alone lifts up his Hand to the Heaven, 
Deut. 32. 40.  and says, I live for ever; He lifts it up in the Triumph and Power of Being: All Creatures depend upon his Eternity; Himself, and his Eternity are One; Himself is Eternity, and Eternity is himself. To speak otherwise of Eternity, is only to speak as children, to speak out of weak apprehension to weak apprehension: In the Perfect State, we shall put away these childish things from us. A Creature cannot be said with propriety to be Eternal; but in a low Sense, in a Sense expressing God's Communication of himself. The Creature's Everlasting is measured by God's Eternity: His own Being is the only unmeasurable Measure, the unaccountable Account of his Eternity; even as his Righteousness, Truth, Omnipotency, are all Himself; and there are no other of these, but himself, and his Communications: Even so is his Eternity.  
Into what lowest and most profound 
Meditation 1.  Adorations of the Divine Being should the Thought of Eternity cast us? Oh infinitely rich and amazing Perfection of Being, Life, and Blessedness! What can be worthy of our Thoughts, but thyself only! What are all the Creatures of this World, compared with thee, but despicable, and even to be abhorred Nothings! Why do we not always gaze with humblest and most astonishing, yet most delightful and ravishing admiration upon thee! If we could stand near, and behold Angelical Glories and Heights, not as thy Servants here have done in Bodily unfitness, but in the Freedom of Spirits; and then compare with thy infinitely surmounting Glory, we should even disdain (while yet we honour and value them as thy Creatures of the highest Order, as Thrones and Dominions under thee) to interrupt our Adorations of thee, to worship them; and see what reason they have to cover their Faces before thee, and that thou mayest charge the loftiest Seraph with Folly: Their Longeve State would shrink into a Moment old, comparing it with thy never-beginning Eternity; and that Being of theirs, which compared with Mortality seems so substantial, would appear, if brought near to thee, but a Shadow, which thy Being casts upon them; at the highest, but a Beam from thy Splendour. Let our Souls never cease beholding and contemplating thee, till we lose ourselves, and All things; till we find all again in thy most Blessed and Eternal self; in thy Son, the substantial Image of thy Eternity; in thy Spirit, eternally breathing from and resting in thyself.  
Yet let us put that Value upon ourselves, that thou hast put upon us, in communicating with us such a Beam of thy Eternity, in making us Spirits, in resolving us for an unchangeable, and unalterable State.  
2. This teaches us the Vanity, Folly, and even Ridiculousness of Atheistical Scoffers, that dream thus, Why did not God create the World sooner? Why did his Wisdom, Power, Goodness, sleep so many Ages, ere it began to manifest itself, and make the World? As if Eternity had Sooner, and Later; as if that infinitely extended, unbounded, changeless State, both backward and forward, arising to us immediately and necessarily from the consideration of God, could be called to account by the Measures of Time. If the World had been Millions of Years older than it is, there had still been an Eternity before it: A Being, with whom a thousand years are but as yesterday, when it is past. Nor is there any thing more requisite in Time, but that the Creatures of it should run the Race set them by the Infinite Creator, and so fix in their unchangeable Condition.  
3. We should often reason with ourselves, We are made for this unchangeable, endless State; and if it be not Happiness, how then can we endure it? this stable, never-altering State! We find now all Confinement, though not to Pain, but only to one Posture, to one Place, to one Company, to one Action, tedious; this is, because we find not a perfect enjoyment of Good in them: We are even weary of Pleasures, because they are but thin and shallow: Even of those things that at the first we wish ourselves a Perpetuity in, we afterwards grow weary, and they are tiresome to us, because we come suddenly to all that is in them.  
Divine Things are burdensome to us, because, though they have endless Delights, yet our Faculties are not suited nor raised enough to them: Nay, those things that are grateful to the Sensual Appetite, yet if they surcharge it, are not its Pleasure, but its great Disease. O therefore how little shall we be able to endure one Posture of Misery for ever! most adverse to all our Faculties, and yet they so raised and held up, as perfectly to take in and endure that Misery; and that Misery so extracted and spirituous, as to penetrate them throughout; and not coming in by Drops, and lesser Rivulets; but Eternity, being all alike, crowds in upon every Moment: whereas now either the Torment is dulled and rebated, or instilled and proportioned by such a Succession, as carries hope of Change; or, if it be extreme, it presently does all it can do; for it consumes what it hath to work upon.  
On the other side, How great is the Happiness of Eternity! One smooth, plain, undisturbed Blessedness, without any diversity, For Ever! The highest Faculties, in their perfectest State, gratified with highest Enjoyment! Faculties so strong, that they cannot flag; the Enjoyment so unfathomable, that we can never feel Bottom in it! One Moment of endless Pleasure! A Moment; for it hath no Tediousness: A Moment; for it hath no Change, but is all one, and yet it is endless and eternal: An Eternity, the Duration of which we cannot so much as take notice of, being in one Ecstasy of Enjoyment.  
When we see miserable Men and Women, going up and down the World, living and dying without any Observation, it damps the sense of these things; and who would think, that such are prepared for such an unchangeable State? But how strange is it, that Men hearing so often of Immortality out of the Gospel, and that there is so much in their own Souls resounding to it, that they are not Men concerned to lay hold upon Eternal Life, and to fly from the Wrath that is to come! Let us look upon this great Level Ocean, that hath not so much as one Wave of Change rising up in it; this huge and vast Champaign, swelling with no Hills, sinking with no Dales.  
And this know, Men may go down to Hell in a moment, thinking they die, and end together: They may perish without feeling it beforehand, or so much as a Conceit about it: But whoever are saved by Christ, they perceive themselves Immortal; Christ 
2 Tim. 1. 10.  brings Life and Immortality to light in their Souls, and kindles the sense of it within them; those to whom he gives Eternal Life, they find this Life begin in the apprehensions they have now of Eternity.  
4. O how vain are those troublesome turmoiling Thoughts and Cares we have about Time, and the Things of it! Trundling, rolling, wheeling Time, that hath no continuance, that is so made on purpose; the Things that cast it are so weak, that they are restless in their sudden Changes. O Wheel! as it was cried out in Ezekiel: 
Ezek. 10. 13.  O changing Time, every Moment something differing! Let us only mind it, as it hath reference to Eternity; for therein it is only of moment: Eternity, that bears it up, itself unconcerned in its changeableness, yet receives it into itself, and swallows it up in itself.  
5. How necessary is it to change, while we may, from Sin to God? to take the advantage of Time, in the true Conversion of ourselves to God, seeing Eternity endures no Change? To be wicked in our Eternal State, is Wickedness unalterable; there are no Reviews or Amendments there. To turn, is the Advantage offered to Sinners within Time: In Eternity Repentance finds no place. On the other side, Eternal Life is Love of God, Delight in Holiness, without end. The Motions of Spirits in Eternity are so swift and perpetual one way, that there is not the least Moment to design a Change in: A Motion that is always one and the same, and is a Rest, while a Motion: Even as the most rapid Motion of a Globe round, that is so swift and rapid, that it is not discerned; and so even and just, that it looks like standing still. So is the State of Eternity, Action to the height, and most unalterable.  
What I have hitherto discoursed of the Soul, hath tended chief to illustrate it in those things that do immediately concern its Natural Perfections, or its very Being, and the Privileges it therein hath, as it was made in the Image of the Divine Being, and its Perfections. For, that it is an Invisible Spirit, Immaterial, Immortal, of such mighty Operations, and vehement Motions, is of immediate Relation to its Being, simply considered. Now these Excellencies of the Soul I have endeavoured so to abstract, in the Discourse of them, that they might appear (so far as is possible) in their so abstract and distinct Consideration: and yet, as the very Thread and Nature of the Thing led me, I have taken care to follow their close and inseparable Connexion, or, (to speak more truly) their perfect Union or Sameness with Intellect; and to observe the Operations to be the same with Intellectual and Moral Operations, that flow from an Understanding: To which purpose I have laboured in this Assertion, That such a Being as the Soul of Man is, must be an Understanding; and such Operations as those proper to Man's Soul, must be Intellectual Operations, however clouded and obscured, while in the Body.  
But I shall now address myself more fully to treat of the Soul, as it is this Intellectual Spirit, in its Intellectuality or Intelligency itself; and of its Intellectual and Moral Operations, wherein it is universally acknowledged to be made in the Image of God: So that the former Parts of the Discourse described, what a kind of Being, and of what exalted Motion this Intellect or Understanding is; and that an Intellect can be no less than such a Being; or, no less a Being than such a one, and of such a Motion, can be an Understanding; and that such a Being, so moving, must be, can be no less, can be no other than an Understanding. What now follows, shall be designed more closely to discover what the Intellectuality of this Great Being, and its Selfmotion are; or what Understanding itself, and the Motions of Understanding are. In which pursuit, I will first make some display upon this great Matter, in that frequent Resemblance of it by Light, the Scripture so much delights to use concerning it.  
The Spirit of a Man is the Candle 
Prov. 20. 27.  of the Lord, shining into and searching the innermost parts of the Belly. The Soul of Man, as it is an Understanding, is a great Light reflected upon itself.  
This is the Soul, a Beam from the Sun, a Candle lighted from the Light of Heaven; and the Light of this Candle is ever streaming out, and reflowing upon itself; like a Diamond always playing with, and in its own Light: It may be covered over, and hid; it may be masked with the thickness and grossness of Earthly Vapours from Body: but it is inseparable from its Nature, to be Light: It cannot but in some degree shine, and send out itself, though its Beams be but pale and wan; but when it hath any greater freedom, or when it industriously and resolvedly moves itself, there is a Circle of Rays about it, that have broken out from itself. In its Creation, in its Native Splendour, to allude to that of the Prophet, It was an anointed Cherub upon 
Ezek. 28. 13, 14.  the Holy Mountain of God; it walked up and down in the midst of the Stones of Fire, and every Precious Stone was its Ornament: It was of an Angelical Brightness, near to God; and Divine Glories, and all the Excellencies of Understanding, were its proper Lustre: and in Eternity it will again rend all its Clouds, and shine without interruption, and For Ever.  
The Soul of Man is a Light begotten of the Father of Lights, and the 
James 1. 17. Heb. 12. 9  Father of Spirits. Lights and Spirits explain one another; for Rational and Intellectual Spirits, and their Intellectual Accomplishments, are all Lights.  
The Increated and All-creating Spirit is the Father of them, with whose perfect Light there is no variation, nor shadow of turning. He is Light, as well in that as he is All-understanding, as All-pure; and in him is 
1 John 1. 5.  no Darkness at all, either of Ignorance, or Unrighteousness.  
The Son of God is The Light. To the All-knowing Spirit the Light shineth 
John 1. 7, 8. Psal. 139. 12.  as the Day: The Darkness and the Light are both alike to him, because Himself is All Light.  
The Angels are Seraphims, shining and burning Lights; He maketh his Angel's Spirits, his Ministers a Flame of Fire.  
The Life of the Souls of Men, that is, their Life of Reason, is Light lighted from the Son of God; for his Life communicating itself, is the Light of Men; He is that True Light, 
John. 1. 9  that inlightneth every Man that cometh into the World.  
Light then being chosen by the Divine Wisdom, as the most easy and familiar Conveyance of the Nature and Excellency of Spirits in general, as they are Intellects; and particularly, of Man's Soul, as it is an Understanding: Let us consider the principal Sense and Intention, avoiding the Notices of lower and collateral Similitude, between Light, and the Soul of Man.  
That which will best conduct us to our main purpose, is the Description the Apostle gives us of Light, That it makes manifest; For whatever (says 
Ephes. 5. 13.  he) makes manifest, is Light: To which our own Experience fully agrees; for we can make no Discovery nor Judgement of Things, but by Light, that expounds all things to us, and is the first and plainest Commentary upon Nature. When we therefore say, Man's Soul is a great Light reflected upon itself, we speak this Sense.  
The Understanding of Man manifests, and lays open, and makes known within the Soul, and within itself (for itself is the Soul) whatsoever is known to the Soul; or the understanding of man is that, which discovers and discloses to itself all that is known to it; for thus our Saviour says, The light of the body is the Eye, because it receives the light, and sees by it; so the Understanding is the Eye of the Soul; and further it is its own light, so that it is its own Eye and its own Light; but the manner and way how this is to be understood, and by which the Understanding discharges this great Function, is of further enquiry.  
There can be no doubt of the thing itself, for besides the great proofs the Soul of man hath given hereof in those many successful Experiments it hath made in all kinds of knowledge, even those that have denied a Soul distinct from Body and Matter, in its Essence, yet cannot but acknowledge, There is some excellent motion in man, by which he understands and perceives more than the Beasts of the Field. There is in some sense or other A Spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding.  
This then being out of doubt, let us consider the infinity of Divine Knowledge, and so attain the measures of Humane Understanding in the resemblances of him, in whose likeness it was made. We read of the Son of God the true Light, that he perceived 
Mark 2. 8.  in his own Spirit the thoughts of men. The Son of God, an omniscient Spirit knows all things in the light of his own Spirit, in that infinite understanding essential to him; created Spirits, the Souls of men, having a measure of this perfection, a communication of it, though not as Christ, may also in a degree perceive in and by their own Spirit.  
God then understands all things within himself, he being all Eye, all Light, able perfectly to see into, and comprehend all things, that either are, or are possible to be, or that can possibly stand in the place of Object, and all this within himself. For himself being fully known to himself, as an infinitely seeing and self-reflected eye; other things that are or may be, are also within himself, as the original of all Being and Motion: And as his own Understanding and Contrivance what they should be, and his pleasure they should be what he contrived them, gave them being and motion; and there is no other way of being and motion; thus and on this account, and infinitely beyond what we can conceive and express, God knows what is, what is done by the virtue that is in himself, and continually goes out of himself; so that by virtue of himself perfectly known to himself, all other things are perfectly known to himself also, Thus known to God are all his Works from the foundation 
Act. 15. 18.  of the World: Even to him who is all Eye, all Light, all Object, and before whose infinite eye all things stand present at once, as one single point, so naked and open that they are all perfect surface and outside, while itself rests on them.  
The Soul made in this Image, is in its degree Eye and Light, an intellectual Eye, an intellectual Light. The motions of the reasoning contemplating Soul are like the motions of the Sun, an illuminating motion, light and sparkles fly out: the openings of its faculties are like the openings of the Eyelids of the morning, like some Eyes that see in the dark, by their own fire; for what can the motions of an Understanding, Conscience, Reason, intellectual Memory be, but moral and intellectual Light? It's very self is its Eye, and its motion it's enlightened air. Thus it bears the Image of the Divine Understanding in its visive power. And that it may in some lower degrees perceive in its own Spirit, we may very rationally suppose; there are some fundamental Ideas, some Images, some Notions or Verities portrayed upon, and given to the Soul, that are as so many rays from the Father of Lights and Truth, and make it like the Eye full of Light; and it being natural to the Soul to move itself, (at least assoon as ever it is excited by Object from without) it first makes a survey upon things abroad, with the observation of which it immediately retires into itself, to find what is within, and when ever the Soul thus moves through the intimacy of these to it, they move also, and result to the Soul; upon this their appearance to the Soul, the Soul reasons about them, judges of them, and finding their close connexion with itself, establishes, and settles them, as assured principles, of which it cannot doubt, having an immediate native power to discern, and approve them upon their appearance to itself, and its own actuation of itself upon them; and so they become to it in speculation and enquiry foundations to build all further knowledge and assurance upon. By these the Soul takes its measures, and finds out the proportion of things at further distances from it, and reduces them under its own cognisance and jurisdiction; it makes its searches into those Objects that strike it from without, according to those Tests of Truth it hath within; and these are the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so much spoken of in speculation or science, and in things that pertain to practice, and that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, that Law written in the Heart, the Law of 
Rom. 2. 14, 15.  Nature, the Soul hereby becoming a Law to itself.  
The Soul then encompassed with these Beams tries all things in the Light of its own Countenance, and judges of them there, in some lower proportions of likeness to God; I say in some lower proportions, for whereas the Divine Understanding comprehends all things within itself, in the Souls of men we do not suppose these Notions to extend further, than to those things that do intimately concern the perfection and happiness of man's Being, being either such as do immediately fit it for the enjoyment of God, the true estimation of, and care for itself, the Duties of intrinsic goodness towards men; or are the necessary foundations of all Knowledge, and so prepare it for intellectual advances. So that as to the perfection of Divinity pertains Omnisciency, resulting from his Nature or Universal Being; so to the perfection of man's Being is required a Science, though of a much narrower sphere than Gods; even as the Being of Man is infinitely narrower than the Being of God.  
And although it be allowed to Humane Understanding to examine and search into all other things, that are beyond the Confines of itself, yet exposed to it by God, either in his Word or Works, and to aspire to some imitation of the Knowledge of God, it can notwithstanding do it only by pursuits of Reason, knitting one principle to another, and deriving one thing from another, and all this in a way of treaty with the things, and reflecting them within that great mirror of itself, to itself, and so understanding them as far as it can; not as God, who sees all things as in one view, and within himself, yet to the perfection of Knowledge, even to the utmost that things can be known.  
In the second place, Although I cannot see, how the Soul can judge of things without such a standard, such a principle, connatural to it, by which it may examine all things, if there be not something within, that answers to the offertures from without; and what can that be so well, as certain hidden Characters of Truth, created with the Soul, that immediately leap up at the first salutation of Things from abroad, and do more plainly discover themselves upon farther Treaties? Yet if any will allow no more, than a power of discerning and judging of things, of which I have already spoken, and will have it, that all the Soul hath to work by is this only, and all it hath to work upon are the Objects offered from without to it by sense; from which it receives in all appearances, and by its motions upon them searches and finds out their Natures, and stays the Images of them in itself, as Sense hath taken them, till it can understand them; we will not dispute, but suppose, that as God brought before Adam the several Creatures to see what he would call them, therein recommending them to that Soul he had so newly breathed from himself, that, in that yet unstained and unsullied Light, they might be discerned and pronounced of; so are the several things in the world first exposed to the Senses, and by them recommended from hand to hand, till they are brought into the very presence of the Soul, and there, though not with that speed, ease, clearness, and certainty, as at first, yet are perceived, comprehended, and judged of by it; and from this considering and understanding things arise speedily some standard principles of Truth, which being settled, advance it in its aspire to further knowledge and notices of Things.  
3. The Soul is a great Receptacle of all that Light, that is offered to it from without, it is prepared in its nature to be kindled and illustrated by all Rational Proposes, either from God the highest Understanding, from Angels by Divine Appointment, from representations of Reason, proposed by one man to another, either by speaking or writing; so that all the Knowledge former Ages have derived upon these that come after, and all the Monuments of Learning that have been set in any time or part of the World, and the mutual Conversation that Learned men have one with another, increase this Light: Thus the Understandings of men are as so many Torches enlightening and enflaming one another.  
This way of exciting Reason and Understanding to its proper motion, and action, and so heightening it to its native splendour, seems the most plain, general, and experimental: and though all such addresses suppose that inward power and virtue of the mind, and by their success prove there is such a one; yet it must be confessed, the Understanding of Man does commonly lie dead, till it be in this manner raised: And therefore it may be acknowledged, that the great Learning and Knowledge that is in the World, hath been at first by instruction, or inward representation from God to Man's Soul, and from Men so instructed to those that have received from them by the same way of discipline and instruction.  
Yet this derogates no farther from the inward and native power of Man's Soul, than to acknowledge that the motions of it are suppressed by Bodily obstruction, and slumbered by that ignorance which is fallen as an unnatural dimness upon it, degrading it because of sin, from which it is yet vindicated by earnest and vehement stirring itself; but this dimness is also accompanied with a lothness to stir at all, or at least not with such an earnestness as is necessary, except it be some way incited, awakened, and encouraged; and the most usual and fit way is that of Instruction; which doth at the same time lay together the hidden, and almost buried sparks, and also blow them up into a light flame; for which reason we commit the minds of Children early to Masters and Tutors, who may draw out and sharpen this Understanding. And yet to show Understanding hath its force from itself, and not from Instruction, Teachers are often exceeded by those whom they have taught. Sometimes Instruction is but a short hint or intimation to the Soul, quick of apprehension, that presently enlarges much further upon it; and many Instances there are of those, who have cut their own way to Knowledge, and such a one as hath been altogether untrodden before them. Notwithstanding this, the advantage of Instruction is evident, and most evident in that part of Knowledge, which concerns us towards God, the Knowledge of his gracious Intentions towards us, and our Duty to him; wherein Divine Revelation hath been always the first, and is ever the most sure and undoubted Guide.  
Yet even in this the Spirit of Man is the Candle of the Lord: For God doth not, that he may make known himself, create any new Understanding; but applies himself in Grace to his first Creation, the Soul of Man, of which there is no abolition by Divine Illumination; but, as the Scripture speaks of the Sun, the Light of it grows sevenfold: The Candle that burned dim, and was even choked up, is trimmed, and becomes Light on all sides, and sends out its Beams from every part.  
The Sum than is this: The Soul of Man is the same Candle of the Lord, whose Natural Power of Understanding is raised and made more clear by the Irradiation of Instruction, whether the Power be an innate Force of Trying and Judging of Things by itself, as it is a Faculty able to try and judge by the Nature of its Being, or by some implanted Sentiments given to it with its Being, or by Maxims to be collected by itself through the ministry and mediation of Sense.  
However these things be, it is always of the Nature of Understanding, that there be a Resentment and Feeling of the agreeableness of Truth to itself: There must be a Knowing in its own Spirit, by every Intelligence, the Reasonableness and Verity of the Things proposed, or there can be no Understanding.  
Even Faith itself is an Intellectual, that is, an Explicite, not an Implicit Act; else it would be but a mere childish Memory of what hath been received, as Catechism: But all true Acts of Understanding have a Taste and Relish; and what is proposed to Mind, must have a Gustfulness to it: Knowledge and Faith not at all differing in this, but only that in things of Knowledge, the Understanding arrives at that Knowledge, or at least acquiesces in it, upon Grounds more its own; in things of Faith, by Assurances more out of itself, yet having Instruments of its own for the acceptation of such, when so offered; Characters and Tests within itself, of what is offered, whether it be worthy to be believed; Resentments within itself of Pleasure or Trouble, according to the Quality of what it hath received, when so offered.  
To draw all this that hath been spoken, to what is mainly to be intended, that is, That the Understanding is the Candle of the Lord, especially lighting us to himself: Let us therefore inquire after some Principles that are Standards in the great Concernments we have with God; which whether they are settled in the Soul by the Hand that created it, or do immediately result from the Observation of Things without, improved by the Mind, running through its own Circuits and Trains of Reason concerning them; or whether it is led into them by the Instructions God is still giving into the World; or whether all these concur to their establishment in the heart of Man; yet they are such, as are universally consented in, and are the Foundation of Religious Practice, and also such a Receptacle for supernatural Revelation, that there it may be tasted, acknowledged, and savoured as Divine; with these, as with a Helm, the great Governor of Spirits turns them whither soever he listeth, either for Conviction or Conversion, Repentance and Reformation; or (as he pleases) to Self-condemnation: And all the boisterousness of their contrary affections are overruled and controlled hereby. Such Principles I esteem these Four.  
Princip. 1 That there is a God: The Soul cannot move, but it acknowledges God; a Soul cannot look up, but it sees God; and this Principle in the Soul is a great Light: God hath so carved himself into Understanding, that there cannot be an Understanding in Motion and Activity, but there must be a sight, a conception, an apprehension of such a Being as God; as the Eye cannot open, but it sees the Light; or if it seems to lie hid, yet upon the least collision, as between the Flint and Steel, upon any conflict of Thought with itself, or with the Propose of this Truth from without, this Light breaks forth: It is manifest in men, because God hath showed it to them; 
Rom. 1. 19  that is, In the very making them Souls he hath set it in them: In the first solemn action of the Understanding, the acknowledgement of a Supreme Being rebounds and leaps up to them; the Soul no sooner sees any thing by inward sense, but it sees God the Author, as a Man that sees the impression in the Wax presently thinks of the Seal: Many Men endeavour to reject and disannul this Principle, but they cannot deface it, much less wear out the apprehension. And when the Soul hath considered further, and more vehemently, the more it reasons, the more it confirms, and settles itself in the assurance of the Divine Being; even when it endeavours to Reason out this Belief of it, it prevails the more: And besides what it hath within concerning God, The invisible Things 
V 20.  of him from the Creation of the World are clearly seen, being understood by the Things that are made and done; even his eternal Power and Godhead. So that the Soul can neither consider without nor within but it sees God.  
Princip. 2: That we have a Soul: Many have violently oppressed this Sense, thus far, as to deny a Soul, a Spirit, distinct in its Essence; yet they cannot but acknowledge a vehemency of Motion, an Activity that teaches us more than the Beasts of the Field: Every man must say, There is a Spirit in Man above any other Creature, a force and excellency of Motion, the Motion of Reason and Understanding: No Man can stir, but he finds, There is a Breath of the Almighty that gives him Understanding.  
Now these two Principles, as they do mutually enlighten one another, so they give great and illustrious light to all holy Practice; they enlighten themselves; for he that apprehends a God, whose very Being is absolute Perfection, retires out of all things bodily and weak, to conceive aright of him, and find him out; and when he is thus understood, the Notion of an inferior and subordinate Spirit that yet hath a likeness to him, is easy: And whoever finds out in himself a diviner part than Body, hath an easy ascent to God, in whom all the lesser Perfections of his own Being are transcended, and at the height. And how do they both shine upon holy Practice, seeing God is the great both Exemplar and Argument of all Goodness! And no Man can suppose himself to have received such great powers of Understanding for mean, much less unworthy ends, but that he should be holy, and like God by them.  
Princip. 3 The excellency of Holiness and true Goodness, and the Evil of Sin and Vice are immediately felt by the Soul: A distinction between Good and Evil is the next thing to an Understanding; and hereupon excusing Apologies and Accusations are transacted within the Soul, concerning all our actions.  
Princip. 4 An after state of Reward or Punishment: All these the Soul hath very near it, and though it may be disturbed by contrary pretences, yet the Images of these can never be wiped out, but even when it seems to be persuaded otherwise, yet it is still encountered with these appearances: The Soul is so imprinted with these Notions, that it can never look into itself, but it finds them, and they are the very light of its Countenance, which it cannot but see, and see by, whenever it acts itself.  
And by these Principles, either created with Man, or further communicated to him, he tries and searches, and is able to discern the things offered to him by God; for I am fully persuaded, there is no greater trial, nor assurance of Revelation, than the Principles of Natural Religion, cleared and confirmed by that Revelation, giving a lasting and settled assurance to the mind in its coolest and most quiet debates, after it hath been alarmed, and approached by Miracles.  
By these a Man is able to move yet further, into the concatenations and connexion's of Truth with Truth, and judges by them, as a Touchstone within itself; and being aided and assisted by the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Man becomes a much higher Light: For by that higher illumination of the Supreme Light, the Spirit of God, It judges (as the Apostle 
1 Cor. 2. 15.  says) all things; searches into all points of Knowledge, tries and examines, determines and pronounces of every Thing proposed to it either by God or Men; Yet itself is judged by no Man; that is, No Man is able to give a clear and perfect account of it in this life, either in its Nature as a Spirit, or its gracious state, as renewed by the Spirit of God. But in Eternity, this Lamp, thus enlightened by Grace, shall perfectly shine out and break forth; It shall be as the Stars of the Firmament, full of greatest Glory and most comfortable Influence: They that be wise, shall shine 
Dan. 12. 3.  as the Firmament and Stars, and as the Sun; that is, This Lamp shall shine out with all the addition of Light and Lustre, Oriency and Beauty, both of Knowledge and Purity, Glory and Happiness. If it be not thus; it will be as a Firebrand, as a Furnace of enraged Fire, as a flaming Torch tormented with its own Light, and tortured without end in its own Flame.  
For this Light of the Soul is the very Light of Heaven; it is a Light that is Divine, and can never be put out; It is a Beam of that Light, and cannot be quenched. The Soul in its own Essence is a Spark from Heaven, like the Light of a Diamond, a substance so solid, that it cannot corrupt nor moulder. The Light of Truth shining in these Principles is Divine, and of Eternal Truth: These with their Consequences are always true; even as those acknowledged Principles of Science, which all Understandings do, and must acknowledge.  
The Soul then being a Light so unquenchable, (more lasting than those Lamps of ancient Times, that have been found burning many Ages after) and the Principles of Truth inlaid into its very Essence, being as lasting as it; there must be ever a lustre of Glory and Happiness about it, or a Blaze of Torment, according to the sense the Soul hath of its friendship with God, and the Light he hath enlightened it with, or the enmity and resistance it hath made thereunto; for accordingly this Light is again friendly, and the God of it gracious to the Soul; and, in the just indignation of that God, the Light also, seeing it can neither be friendly nor extinguished, must needs vex and amaze, like an angry Light that scorches and dazzles together.  
Thus I have discovered the first part, That the Soul is a Light. The second part is, That this Light is reflected; It is the Candle of the Lord, searching the innermost parts of the Belly; that is, Turning itself inward upon all the secrets and retirements of a Man.  
This Light is a Light not only shining forward, and looking into things without, but shining backward, and looking upon itself: So far as the Soul goes back, so far this Light goes back upon, and into itself.  
The Soul may be resembled to that Breastplate of Vrim and Thummim, upon Aaron's Heart; the Vrim, as Lights, discerning Things abroad; and the Thummim, as perfection or sincerity, judging the goodness and integrity of itself.  
This Light is not only reciprocated with itself, after the manner of an Understanding, but after the manner of a Conscience.  
Both ways it differs from the Sun and Stars; they shine, but they do not know upon what they shine, they bring home no light or observation, concerning all those things upon which they shine: Herein the Soul differs as an Understanding; for it confers with itself concerning all things, upon which its Light shines.  
Again, The Sun and Stars they shine, but do not know they shine, nor can reflect upon themselves, as such Bodies of Light and Glory; nor can they at all judge of themselves, or what they do, how glorious they are, or what spots are upon them, when they are shadowed or eclipsed, or when they shine in their full Lustre: Herein they differ from the Soul, as a Conscience.  
The Soul knows it knows, as well as what it knows, it cannot but know and feel it knows, and is especially knowing of itself, and its own Motions: Thus it excels Natural Light, yet Light gives some resemblance hereof; Light comes into a Room, it comes in at one end of the Room and leaps to the other, it leaps back again, and shines in its own face: The Soul is this through-light, which meets itself, and reciprocates with itself, incircles itself within itself. This is the Soul which shines upon, and back, into and within, and round about itself.  
As to instance first in the Light of Direction it gives: It knows that it knows what is to be done. When the Soul hath shined to itself concerning doing good, and avoiding sin, it knows it hath done so; and God will challenge men upon their own Knowledge, and they will never be able to deny their Knowledge: No man can deny his Knowledge to God, or to himself, even as a man cannot deny his Knowledge to another man, that knows his Knowledge together with him; much less to God, or to himself, who are so perfectly acquainted with him, and all his ways: For the Soul in all cases is made to shine in its own Face, and the secrets of it are in the greater Light of God's Countenance.  
2. For Conviction of what a man is and hath done: Every man must confess, and cannot deny his own Actions; a man must confess, and cannot deny his own Actions to himself, nor a general Character of himself to himself; every man is accused or defended by his own Knowledge: Every man knows his own sincerity, good intention, good action, and is conscious of the contrary: Hence the condemnation and the horror a man receives within himself, and so the comfort and joy of a man, is clear and certain; The heart knows its own sickness 
Prov. 14. 10.  and its own joy, and a stranger cannot intermeddle with either, he cannot interpose against the judgement of the Soul upon itself; This is our 
2 Cor. 1. 12.  rejoicing, the testimony of our Conscience. A man proves himself, and 
Galat. 6. 4.  his own work, and hath rejoicing in his own good sense of himself, or trouble in his own Censure, and not in that of another.  
As a man knows, and finds himself in himself, in a natural sense; so in a moral, The Spirit of a Man knows the things that are within him. We may say in this case, as in things of secrecy, I know what I know; and as in things of certainty, what I know I know.  
The sum is this: In things that are under direction, no man can refuse, deny, or resist the presence of his own Knowledge, in what he does know, any more than he can resist the day, To him therefore that knows it is sin, and commits it, or good, and omits it, to him it is sin of a deep dye.  
In things of sentence and judgement upon a man's self, if a man's heart condemns him, God is greater than his Heart. His Knowledge and purity are greater, and therefore condemns him more; but yet God knows a man together with his heart, and condemns him together with it, and most of all within it: If a man's heart condemn 
1 Joh. 3. 20, 21.  him not, he hath confidence, and just ground of it, towards God; because the very witness of a man's heart concerning him is true and is no lie.  
There may be some very particular cases, in which a man may be so clouded, as to deem more severely of himself, than his state deserves; and there may be some dreams, in which a man fancies himself better, than he is; but not such as deserve to abate from this general account of man's Soul; for these mistakes are but temporary, and by close attention it may vindicate itself from them.  
But the great objection against the Soul being such a Light, is this:  
Object. If the Soul of man be such a Candle of the Lord, how comes it to pass, that men are so ignorant of things, and of themselves?  
Answ. 1. These things are to be discoursed according to their own Truth, their first Nature and Constitution: Now the Soul of Man was created so; and it is still so in its own Nature; though there are many accidental Cover and Obscuring of it in Men; as sometimes the Light of the Sun hath grown pale and wan, and the shinings of it withdrawn.  
2. There fell indeed a great dimness upon this Light by the sin of Man, and there need Lights from without, and much Exercise from within, to recover it; so in great Judgements, the Sun hath been turned into Sackcloth, and the Moon into Blood.  
3. There is much to be attributed to its present state, as thrust down into a gross Body, where it is covered, like a Diamond enclosed in Clay, or like those Lamps that burned in Vaults, and under ground.  
4. How much is to be imputed to those Steams and Vapours of Lust, and Fogs of Sensual Appetite, that rise up and obscure the Soul, like the Sun in a Cloud or Mist?  
5. There is a freedom of the Soul and Understanding, like that of the Eye, though some things dart in upon it, that it must see; and though turning itself every way, it must also see what it would not see; yet it can endeavour, and in part effect the turning itself, from the observation of things most proper to it, and consider those that pertain only to the present life, whither with all its vehemency it carries its Light.  
But lastly, and especially: There is much more a Man knows of himself, and Things, than he seems to know. How many things that are not found, nor can be drawn into the discourse of some ignorant men, much less into their practice, that yet, when you tell them of, they receive not as things they never knew, but only as such they have not dealt with, or usually conversed with; and upon more notable occasions, they break out from them, in whom they were not suspected to have a place.  
And concerning men themselves, though in their careless demeanour towards themselves, they flatter their own hearts, and do not bring their full Eye and Light upon themselves; yet they have a secret notice of themselves, a private mark of their own condition; which, they know, is much more true, than that forced or false Opinion they endeavour to breed and nurse up of themselves.  
In sum therefore; I think the most ignorant man hath this Light in his Soul, however covered; he hath it, though it doth not outwardly show itself, but lies still now, as it doth in Children, without the notable discoveries of what it notwithstanding truly is, and will one day appear to be.  
We should all therefore seriously consider what we are, what Souls we have: There is such a Lamp in us, though it be but as under a Bed or Bushel. As it is most necessary to consider, what Dust we are in our Bodies, so to apprehend what Spirit we are in our Souls; it is a great degree of wisdom to know the frail condition of our Mortality, but it is a far greater to know the Immortality of our Souls. As Princes in their Glory, and in whom Mortality was advanced to the highest, were admonished by Remembrancers chosen on purpose, that they were of the same Clay with other men, capable of the same Corruption, Disease, Death; so they that carry their Souls lowest, should be put in mind by Men of greatest Understanding, Piety, serenity of Conscience, and others of quickest Anguish, and trouble of mind, what Souls they have. Every man may see in them what themselves are, and that those Spirits within them will be at last either shining Suns, or flaming Torches For ever: For in Eternity God will certainly call out all Souls to their Office and Function in Light; whether it be to Life and Happiness, or to Condemnation and Misery.  
How great is the Mercy then, when God calls out and uncovers this Light now, and puts it into Motion, and enlightens it far higher, with the Knowledge of himself in Christ; so making it directive, consolatory, healing light, from the healing wings of the Sun of Righteousness, so making us Lights Burning, Burning and Shining Lights in his Light, which always makes happy.  
Let us continually ascend to the Father of Lights in Christ, That Light, that we may be Seraphims dwelling in that Everlasting Light, and Love, wherein God and Christ inhabit.  
Let us fear, though this Light shall indeed always burn, yet lest it burn black, lest it cast the Darkness of Misery in the midst of Knowledge, and the Blackness of utter Disconsolateness, while it blazes with conviction; that we become not wand'ring blazing Stars, full of the Light of conviction, but which turns us out as Fugitives from God, and ourselves, like Cain having no peace, no rest in our Knowledge; Wand'ring Stars, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness, For Ever. For so as this Candle of the Lord shall burn, such as this Light is, holy and comfortable, or condemning and tormenting; so shall our state be, and that to Everlasting.  
I am now come down as low in the Description I first gave of the Soul, as to speak of it as it is the Source and Fountain of all the Actions of a man; for so it is, whether they are natural or moral.  
And as for natural, It is the most easy description of the Soul to say, it is the Author of them; even as when we would describe God with greatest easiness to be understood, we call him the Creator of Heaven and Earth, the Preserver of all things; that gives to all their Being, Breath, and Motion; so we understand the Soul with least difficulty, when we speak of it, as that which guides, and conducts, and gives spirit to all the motions of Body, all the powers of that; That which a lower Soul doth in Beasts, that the higher doth in Man, but in a more noble way.  
For when God made Adam, and form him of Earth, and prepared all the Instruments of Motion and Action in the Body; when this excellent and curious Machine lay dead before him, he breathed into it the Soul, to stir and move it, and to carry all the Action of it.  
Or as a Musicians Instrument, exactly made and strung, the Musicians Art comes as a Soul upon it; stirs it, and tunes the sound of it, and then strikes it into Harmony and Melody: The first Body given to Man, was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Body subsisting, acted by a Soul; as the Body given in the Resurrection is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, a Body that shall subsist and be acted by a Spirit, that is, A Soul at the highest exaltation.  
What is that then, that sees in the Eyes? That hears in the Ears? That touches in the Hand, and feels in the whole Body? This is no other than the Soul, and it does all this with the superiority of a Rational Agent, much otherwise than the Soul of a Beast can do: for there is a vein of Reason and Understanding, that is, Rational Reflections, directions to Rational ends, running along in the Souls acting the Body.  
When this Soul leaves this Body, though all the Instruments remain, yet the power ceases.  
But of this I will no further inquire, because it is not to the main purpose.  
In the second place, As we rise higher concerning God, we express him an Infinite Wisdom and Understanding; an Infinite Justice and Mercy; a Holiness and Purity unspotted, governing the World in Righteousness and Truth, and exercising compassions in it, which are nearer approaches to the Being of God; so hath the Soul Powers of its own, Senses, and Affections, that closely describe it.  
What is it that Understands? That Reasons? That designs and contrives? Whence are the Notions of Right and Wrong, Good and Evil, and the several Tendencies and Operations either way? Whence are rational and moral Joys? Desires and Delights? Whence are intellectual Sorrows and Complaints? All these are evidently and apparently from such a Spring, as the Soul, and to these it is we must now attend; and that we may do it with better advantage, let us observe that Oracle of Solomon, given us in the way of Counsel: Keep thy heart with all Diligence, for out of it are 
Prov. 4. 23.  the Issues of Life: viz. Those lively Motions and Actions, wherein the peculiar life of a Man is discovered, and which tend if steered, and directed aright, to endless life.  
To discourse hereof, I must again reflect upon the Spirit of a Man, the Candle of the Lord, in regard of whose Light it is said to Man, Keep thy Heart; for it is more than if the Heart of Man were only bidden to keep itself: But to this higher act of the Spirit of Man are all the directions of the Word of God addressed, that it would bear up itself, and control all the lower Motions of the Soul. This therefore I conclude upon, That from the Spirit of a man, as it is the Candle of the Lord, shines a Ray, that is by God preserved according to its Nature, distinct from all the Interest and Intrigues of the Soul, as it is corrupted, that it may always bear witness to himself, and be a Law within a Man; being not only a Witness and a Judge, but a Receiver of the Divine Displeasure in the notices of it, and an Executioner of it upon the Soul; and so in Men finally rebellious and disobedient, it becomes an Instrument of punishment.  
And this Light it is a certain necessary, and immediate act of an Understanding, that cannot but be always the same, that can never be altered, it being always for God and Goodness against Sin, and the very Sinner in whom it dwells, and must and will be the same, even in Hell itself, where the Devils believe and tremble, 
Jam. 2. 19  and know they are justly punished.  
For as the Sun looking upon things most impure, always declares and discovers them, as they are, and can do no otherwise; thus the Candle of the Lord cannot but lay open all the foulness that is in a Man; all the love a Man hath to himself, and the compassion of his own Being, cannot bribe it: All the rage against God and Holiness that is in Hell, can never alter this; else the sting of guilt, and horror of conscience, so great a part of Hell, would be taken away.  
The Light of the Soul, as we have before discoursed, is the highest Director of a Man to all that is good, and is ever ready to be consulted with; if the Good it proposes be embraced, it rejoices in it, applauds, praises, and congratulates the Soul, and derives joy, pleasure, and happiness upon it: But if that Good be not embraced, or the contrary Evil entertained, which is dissuaded; it then chides, upbraids, and afflicts a man; and if there be no Repentance, it extremely afflicts, and afflicts for ever, enforcing self-abhorrence, and condemnation upon the Soul.  
And this untainted part, which is no other, but the pure result of Reason and true Understanding, is always in Glory, applauding the Justice of God against the sinful Soul, in which it lives, and is the very instrument of Misery upon it, as depraved; for this Light being but a single Act of the Understanding, and not obeyed, but a solitary Verdict of the Mind, from which the rest descent, it can derive no happiness upon the Soul, but on the contrary anguish and affliction.  
This being then preconsidered, let us now more pressingly search the nature of Man's Soul, as it is in Scripture styled, The Heart; and the Heart out of which are the Issues of Life; first drawing the powers of Reason themselves, and their motions, and then showing them, as they are derived, (for so they are always) into one of those two Channels, Good or Evil.  
In the Heart then are all the powers of Motion.  
1. Here is the immediate directive Understanding or Judgement, which determines to Action; and this is a different thing from the Light of the Candle of the Lord, which is always the same; for this may be debased and corrupted; it may mix itself with lower Considerations; and in the generality of Men it does so, even to the eclipsing and darkening the higher Light, not in itself, but in its oriency and brightness upon the Soul; as the Sun is the same, although its Light may be shadowed from us.  
But this practical Understanding, however it may be corrupted, yet hath the more immediate conduct of all the actions, and contains in itself the Gust, Taste, and Motion of the whole Soul, and immediately foreruns Action; for it determines things with their Circumstances, it balances diviner Reasons and Temptations on the contrary part together; the Love and Fear of God on one side, Enticements from Flesh, and Blood, and the World on the other.  
Now there is a great difference between these two; It is best to be holy and virtuous in itself, and in general; and, It is best for me in particular, and in this particular Action to be holy: Between these two; An Act of Judgement, as it resides in the Understanding; and an Act of Judgement, as it inclines the whole Soul, Motion and Action unto it.  
This very practical Understanding is in Scripture called The Heart, Let 
Prov. 23. 15.  thy Heart be wise: It is this Wisdom of the Heart that denotes a man Good; not that most clear Light that shines from above, and down upon the Heart, not within it, but so without it, that it doth not reside in it, and change it into itself.  
2. Here are the Will and Affections, which are the resolution, vehemency, and keenness of the Judgement, and carry the notion of the nearest and next Powers of Action.  
3. Here is the Memory presenting anew the Images of Things past, and offering what hath been observed of them heretofore, either as to their chuseableness or undeservingness: Here is the Imagination displaying things new and old; and so displaying them, that in things of lesser importance, their appearance is greater than themselves; in Things of truest, and greatest Importance, by the help of Imagination well imprinted, they come nearer to their own greatness, and appear much greater than they would do else; which is the great benefit of sanctified Imagination: in regard of which David prays, That God would keep it always in the imaginations 
1 Chron. 29. 18.  of the people, to fear the Lord, and keep his Laws.  
4. Here is the resort of all outward Objects, with their several Characters of Commendation or Dispraise; as Embassies in the Court of a Prince, so are the several Proposes made, and addressed here, from those several Regions; the Region above, which makes Offertures of greatest Happiness; and the Region below, which sends also the glozed Tenders of Good.  
5. Here are the Habits rising up by the degrees of propensions, inclination, temper, and readiness to Action, till by repeated Action they are so settled, that they become the Treasure of the Heart, out of which it freely expends 
Mat. 12. 35.  every moment, and at a minute's warning, as occasion calls it out.  
And from all these arise restless motions, moveth, and removeth of the Soul itself, and of the Things within itself, about which it treats; endless Thoughts, Imaginations, Remembrances, Willings, Hating, Desiring, Aversations, and Abhorrencies; and these in infinite mazes cutting one another: some weaving one with another, and mutually strengthening themselves; others contracting cool, and suspend the Soul to either part; sometimes the Prints that have prevailed are defaced, and new ones take; and these again thrust out, and the former returning in continual vicissitudes; sometimes the Understanding encourages the Affections and other Powers, and they it, as several Artificers in a Building; at other times there is a Confusion of Languages among them, and they bring forth only a Babel.  
But at all times is found here, that great contest between the higher Soul, and the Reasons and Dictates of that, and the contrary struggles of the lower, through its correspondencies and intelligences with the Body, and its Sensualities; the encounters between the Law of the Mind and the Members, which cause great distractions and rollings of the Soul, this way and that way, according to the liveliness of the one, or the violence of the other.  
Lastly, From the Heart arise both sudden, and every way form and contrived Actions, accomplished, perfected, and fledged; for all the forming and beating out of actions to this or that shape, are upon the Anvil of the Heart, and those that break out on the instant, had yet their first motion from thence; even as all the Arteries and Veins are from the natural Heart, and it hath its Pulses every where; so this Heart we speak of, hath in this Life Moral and Intellectual.  
Now that which makes the Consideration of all we have spoken in this particular great, is, that according to these Issues of life is the state of a Man in Holiness or Sin, and so he is in an order for Happiness or Misery hereby.  
For by these and all these, and no other thing whatever, is a Man what he is; with these a Man is holy, with these he is wicked, nothing else gives him his Temper, his Character; and when these are twisted together, and holily moved by the Grace of God, and incited by heavenly motions, the Soul is then drawn with the Cords of 
Hos. 11. 4.  a Man, but when they are united in Evil, it is drawing Iniquity with a 
Isa. 5. 19  Cart-rope, and sin with the Cords of Vanity, that is, of a Vain Heart.  
For these being neither the higher Reason alone, necessarily resulting from the motion and excellency of an Understanding, nor being only the mere sensuality or inclination of Body, but truly the substance, bulk, and substantial powers and motions of a man; what a man is in these he truly is. Further, the true genuine and sincere motions of these are they that try him; for which ever Sin or Holiness have the Balance, and cast the Scale, that a Man is.  
For on one side, the cunning Heart sends out some actions out of choice and inclination, only in compliance with the higher Soul; (for which it cannot but have a reverence) and again, sometimes, however it be in its own native state corrupt, yet it is forced to receive, or rather suffers the strongly agitated impressions of enlightened Conscience upon it: But this is not accounted of with God, who sees and tries the Heart, and knows the ground and motion of all.  
There is also that unworthier way of the Heart, when merely to contrive its easier passage to sensual Enjoyments, it only counterfeits some agreeable actions to the higher Soul, and pays its Vows, to those ignoble ends, that it may have some greater advantages to Voluptuousness, Riches, or Honour; which is the grossest kind of Hypocrisy.  
On the other side there are many Infestations and troublesome Inroads of sensuality upon a man, that are truly preponderated by the Diviner Principle, that yet do not debase him in account with God; such as the Apostles Thorn in the Flesh, as it is interpreted 
2 Cor. 12. 7.  by some, and the Law of the Members in contest against the Law of the Mind, that yet doth not prevail into the Character of a Man, whose Heart is upright with God.  
The keeping then of the Heart is of greatest moment, and it must be our care, that the Treasure and Temper of it be good; our observation must be ever awake upon all, that passes out of it, that we may take its true Character: Our endeavour must be earnest to reform all we find out of order, to get it swayed by Holiness, to stop the evil Motions of it, till we have so discouraged them, as to alter the very Temper of it; to incline it continually upon all holy and good Actions, till we have endeared them to it; to take heed of all Proffers and Proposes to it, that we may not suffer it to be tempted, to guard it, to offer it to all holy and gracious Converses, to chastise it continually in all it does ill, to encourage it in all it does well; and that we may do all this, we must devocare mentem supremam è Coelo, we must bring that highest Mind, enlightened by Grace, into the Government and Command of it, and detrudere Corpus in imas Terras, we must thrust down Body, the love of which seduces and corrupts the Heart, as low, and as much into subjection, as may be: and above all, we must commit it continually unto God; for the safety, and all the power of even this Supreme Mind is the Free Princely Spirit of 
Ps. 51. 12.  God establishing it, and always joining itself with it; as wickedness is kept afoot, by being acted by the Spirit of wickedness.  
This Heart now let us consider, It is always a beating, the Pulses of it are every minute and every where; the motion of it is vehement, as Fire; to what a boundless measure of sin and iniquity will it rise, if suffered? But to what vast degrees of good might it also rise, if its Motions were improved to good? And so consequently, to what degrees of Happiness or Misery may it rise or fall?  
We must use therefore all our care to be always with it, that we may guide its Motion; that in respect to Evil we may restrain and suppress its Motion, as we do that of Fire; that in relation to Good, we may promote and advance it; that in regard of itself we may always provide it enough of true good to feed upon, that it may not inflame nor break itself, by grinding itself.  
Yea we must take care of the very Rest of it, for even that is accounted equal to Action. Rest in any sinful Action, till we have removed from it by Repentance, is a continuation of that Action; even as Gods Rest from Creation, yet upholding and preserving all Things, is expressed by Working, as our Saviour speaks, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. So men uphold sin by their acquiescence in it without Repentance, though they do not proceed to new Acts.  
The nature of the Soul being now thus far expressed, It remains as the top and sum of all, to show that it is made with great and large Receipts for Happiness or Misery: Whether we consider it immediately in the substantial Nature, or whether we consider it in the Faculties and Motions of it.  
1. In the immediate substantial Nature of it, as hath been already made plain; It is immortal, made to continue for ever. Whatever melts away from its misery, the misery of that is not considerable. If a Prince would put an Assassinate to death with an extreme, but leisurely torment, and he dies at the very first approach of it, he deceives his punishment: So that Happiness is not desirable, that smothers the Being, that should enjoy it by the greatness of itself; but the Soul made for For Ever, is great in either of these, the Happiness of it infinitely desirable, the Misery of it most formidable, because it can abide and survive in either.  
2. It is Immaterial, and of such a Fineness and Purity of Substance, that it pierces far into all Reasons of Joy or Trouble, and is penetrated by them: The sympathies of it in Happiness or Misery are sudden and universal; as the Light spreads itself through the Air in a moment, it receives in all parts the Light the Sun gives, and instantly; thus the Soul, the Favour or Indignation, the Smiles or Frowns of God, when they indeed break out upon it; it is most sensible, presently sensible, all over and most intimately sensible.  
But of these things I have already spoken: Let us further consider the Faculties themselves, whereby it is fully fitted to take in Happiness or Misery, and to execute them in itself. The Faculties indeed compared with God's Favour or Displeasure, are but the Instruments and Organs; God gives the Breath and the Power, yet they are fearfully and wonderfully made by God to these great ends, both in their Capacities and Activities.  
1. The Understanding is that great Receipt of all Principles of Light and Truths, as may conduce either way; and this is such a capacity, as must receive whatever God offers so plainly to it, as he will have it received: Thus God manifested himself in the Hearts of the Gentiles; however prejudiced against the Knowledge of the true God, they could not resist it, but that they must needs be without Excuse: For that which might be known of God was still manifest in them, for God had showed it to them. So the work of the Law was written in their Hearts, and they shown it by their thoughts accusing, or excusing; and this they could not help: A Table must receive what is written upon it; and in the accounts of being Happy or Miserable upon these Principles of Truth, through the Apologies or Accusations of Conscience, and the Motions of the Favour or Displeasure of God upon them, the case is the very same.  
Now this Understanding first entertains, and then lodges Truth; and when that Truth is enlivened and stirred up, suitable impressions of Pleasure or Grief are made, and from thence stream down with all their force into the Rest of the Soul; the Understanding being indeed so much the Soul, that all the rejoices and complaints of it are presently heard and resented through the whole; and the Soul so much itself under several names, that what is in one Faculty of it, is immediately in all, if the impression be indeed to the life; saving only that since the degeneracy of Mankind there remains (as I have already shown) a single Light in the higher Understanding, that may be refused in its dictates by the rest of the Soul.  
Suppose then the Understanding beyond the possibility of Resistance, convinced by such a manner of Demonstration, that it cannot but receive of those things that are the true and perfect Reasons of Joy or Sorrow, and in their perfection also, the Soul must needs be in the same manner affected it is now, when we plainly and undeniably find ourselves within the embraces of any great good, or the gripes of Evil; but with this difference, that so much as the perceptiveness of the Understanding surmounts at any time, or the Good and Evil themselves surpass, so much must the Joy or Grief surmount and surpass also.  
Although therefore it be true, that the multitude of Men and Women are but half persuaded of those Things, wherein Heaven & Hell consist, yet this is only because God is not yet pleased to excite the Understanding after that powerful manner of Conviction he can use; but still every man is at the Mercy of Divine Power and Pleasure, when he will do it: He may do it now, but in Eternity he will do it, and with such a clear representation, as rises up into immediate Bliss or Woe.  
2. The next Faculty to be considered is the Great Will, that is the Spring of all Affections and their Motions: How endless are the Motions of this Will? With what a great Covetousness doth it covet Good? and how long? What an immense aversation and abhorrence of Evil hath it? Let then this Will be denied Good, or pressed upon with Evil; or let it be gratified with Good, and secured from Evil; what either joy or pain will follow?  
Yet further, Let us weigh the Active part of both these Faculties, and then the Enjoyment or Suffering will rise much higher.  
1. First then apprehend but Thought mightily set on work, which is the Understanding in its natural Motion; and if this be but earnestly moved, though it be without tormenting matter, yet how painful is it? When there is not an Oil, a pleasantness and sweetness dropping down upon Thought, it is like stretching the Joints and Sinews of the Body by immoderate motion, which, if moderate, would have been refreshing; or like a great blow that carries the whole force along with it, and falls into the Air only, upon which all the weight of the Body is ready to follow, with a violence most ungrateful to Nature: When a man hath a multitude of Thoughts, he had need have the comforts of God to delight his Soul: A Man had need have good bounds for his Thoughts, else he loses himself in the Wild of them; he had need of good matter to feed them with, else they inflame, like Millstones, feeding on themselves; make but this good, a Man may think For Ever, and it will easily appear, he may be happy or miserable For Ever. For let these thoughts be such as interest a Man in the Reasons of Torment, Pain, and Horror, and how grievous may be his state? What experience may every one have of the trouble and turmoil, of the anguish of Thoughts? a Man may lie easier upon a Rack, than upon some disquieting vexatious Thoughts. On the other side, how sweet and pleasant are Thoughts full of the Ravishment of Divine Consolations? How delightful is the entertainment they give without tediousness or satiety?  
2. Imagination is something beyond Thought; for Thought runs upon things nearer to what they are in themselves, but Imagination makes them something beyond themselves, or aggravates according to their true circumstances, with greatest life. Indeed Imagination cannot exceed in Divine or Everlasting Things, yet it is of use to bring in, and represent to, and fill the Thoughts; it reflects things with a multiplicity of Images, like the Parelii of the Sun, and stays those Images with great Effect; and so it is of great use in Comfort or Discomfort.  
3. The Memory, which doth revive and call things together, and present them anew to the Thoughts and Imaginations, summoning and congregating, and staying Things their due time for consideration. This is a great Instrument too of Happiness, or Misery: I will remember the Years of the Right Hand of the most High, was the Relief of, and Recovery of David's Spirit: Remembering my affliction and 
Lam. 3. 19, 20.  my misery, the wormwood and the Gall, my Soul hath them still in remembrance, and is bowed in me. Remembering this Vale of Tears, exalts the lightsome state of the Holy Hill of God, and Remembering the Good things of this Life an inflammation of misery.  
4. The Conscience is a high and most curious Engine, fitted by God to these ends. What Joy like the Testimony of Conscience, good and serene? The very office of which is to applaud the Soul, and give it greatest Joy in its acceptance with God, and likeness to him; and on the other side, to make acclamations to the Justice of God, and condemn the guilty and impure Soul, within itself, to its greatest horror and amazement.  
Come we now to the Active part of the Will, that is, the Affections, which are but the Will boiling up with great love to its Happiness, or abhorrence of its Misery; and according as the Affections are stirred with desire of Good and flight from Evil, so are they either unexpressibly gratified in an union with that Good, and the utmost distance of the Evil, or enraged with the despair of the Good, that is at an infinite remove from its enjoyment, and detestation of the Evil so abhorred, yet pressing and forcing on itself to be endured; from which different Motion of the Affections spring plainly and sensibly those different conditions of Happiness or Misery.  
Lastly, When the Understanding hath been both the Theatre and Spectator of all these Motions, it comes to examine over again, whether there because for them; and when upon strictest enquiry it finds, the cause deserves the whole that hath passed; and being by the Divine Power held close to this Observation, it than passes itself into that grand Act of the Soul, we call Judgement; upon which all the powers of the Soul either everlastingly triumph, and shout in loud praises to infinite Mercy; or the Veins of Conscience open and bleed afresh, and as by a most undoubted authority, the Heart renews and continues its everlasting Plaints.  
The fundamental capacities of the Soul for Happiness and Misery being now settled, I come now to discourse the correspondent fundamental accounts of that Happiness or Misery, as they are united with the Soul, and its actuations of itself: And these first in relation to its eternal condition.  
1. The first and most essential account of Happiness is the Favour of God in Christ; his Frown, Wrath, and Rebukes are the most fundamental reason of Misery: His Favour and reconciled Face on one side, his Wrath for sin on the other. We are not able yet to understand the absolute dependence of the Soul hereupon, because the present course of Providence allows men in their seeming subsistencies upon the Comfort they receive from the Creatures of this World; God himself in the mean time retiring from their Observation: But this is certain, the smiles of God unexpressibly enliven, encourage, and bear up the Soul; his Rebukes daunt, deject, and amaze it. However these are now for the most part closely conveyed under the appearances of the Creatures, for us or against us, yet God is indeed under them; but it is much more plain and manifest in the more immediate angry or gracious touches of God upon the Conscience, and will be far more evident in the state of the World to come; His loving kindness is better than life; and when he with rebukes corrects Man for iniquity, he maketh his beauty to consume away like a moth; whatsoever seems most flourishing, being so blasted, withers immediately: All the horrors we have heard, or read of, have received their sting from this Wrath; and all Consolations from his Favour; for in his Favour is life; the Eyes of all Creatures are upon God: Every created Thing in its proper way turns its Eye upon the Creator, much more the Soul, the Spirit immortal, turns upon God, the Father of Spirits, that it may live. It is not consistent with the Glory of God, that he should allow any Thing to be Happiness, but Himself and his Favour: Even all the inward Rectitude of Mind cannot be this Happiness immediately; For as if there were a Goodness, of which Gods Nature were not the Rule and Measure, and that Will, which always stands just with that Nature, that would be above God; and so God would not be the Supreme Righteousness, that is, Not God: So if there were any implanted Happiness in any Creature, and that it needed not God, as to the Essence of its Happiness, God would not be God to it; or if its happiness were in any Thing out of itself, and not in God, that would be a God to it.  
This Consideration presses to this, That Happiness is in the Light of God's Countenance, shining out upon the Rational Soul: There is nothing necessary, as the Fountain of Happiness, but God; nothing can supply his place, In thy presence is fullness of Joy, at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore; with thee is the Fountain of Life; In thy Light shall we see Light, but if thou hidest thy Face we are troubled, if banished and driven from thy everlasting presence, we are for ever miserable; for whom can we have in Heaven but thee? and there is none upon Earth besides thee.  
2. Subordinately to this, there can be no peace, but in the Heart made truly and inwardly Good; besides all storms from without, there is an estuation, a tide from corruption within, full of trouble and vexation: Every sin loved and delighted in, is a secret hollow where an Earthquake is bred; it is a wound that secretly disquiets it. All impure Affections, Passions of Dishonour in the Soul, make it like the troubled Sea, that cannot rest; Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost make their repose in Righteousness: The effect of Righteousness, is quietness and assurance 
Isa. 32. 17.  for Ever.  
Even as the Favour of God never embraces any, but a holy Soul; so hath he ordained, that the Evil and corrupt Heart should be in itself unpeaceful, and full of turmoil within, both in regard of the foulness and deformity, very horrible to the Thoughts, whenever understood; as also in regard of the great distraction, and horrible convulsion the mind is forced into, when it comes to any thing of true Sense.  
3. The actuation or gracious motion of the Favour of God towards the Soul, and the actuation of his Holy Spirit upon the Soul, made inwardly Holy and Good, are highly necessary for the making the Spirit of a Man truly sound and vigorous in encountering Evil, happy and comfortable in itself; for else the Soul may be becalmed (if these Motions of Grace from God lie still) and not able to bear up itself: And therefore Men sincerely good are often in great discomposures, when God withdraws himself from them; In the cloudings of his Face they are troubled, in retreats of his Grace not exciting them, they languish, and cannot stir up themselves to take hold of him; and then their sinful Calm ends in trouble.  
On the other side the reasons of horror and amazement are not seen by senseless and secure Men, till Conscience enlightened discovers them, and the flamings of Divine Displeasure make them boil up.  
These than are the true, substantial, solid, and natural Reasons of Happiness or Misery, rejoicing or tribulation to the Soul, and the Soul is plainly the Sense of them: And as for the lesser and smaller interests of this present World, and the life of it, the observation of these two following Principles will determine, and state the case of the soul in relation to them, and so, that it will further appear, that all the touches of Good and Evil upon Man, are originally and principally in his Soul.  
1. The first is, That if God is pleased to let out his Favour in any of these outward Things, and to moderate the desires and motions of the Soul, so that there is a proportion between those motions and desires, and the condition in which a Man is, there is nothing further of necessity to him, he is well enough. But whenever the desires run out, beyond the measures and proportions of his Condition, it is with great disquiet and incredible restlessness of Mind, though the thing, beyond what he has, be but small in itself, and nothing compared with what is enjoyed: When Haman had that abundance of 
Esth. 5. 13.  Glory, yet his desires running out to a very little thing, beyond what he had, a very nothing to it, the obeisance of poor Mordecai, yet it made a nothing of all he had, for it all availed him nothing.  
2. When the goodness of God is pleased to restrain outward Evils in fit degrees, and to preserve the mind from engaging itself by too close reflections upon any disadvantage; or to bend it so close, upon better considerations to lessen and make tolerable that disadvantage, the Spirit of a Man thus guarded will bear any infirmity; but when the Spirit is let out to a continual pondering, and aggravating to itself a very small Counter-accident, and the Reasons that should abate it, are hidden, and carried off from it, a very little thing becomes unappeasably vexatious; and the Spirit so wounded is itself its own insupportable burden. Who can, when God gives a sting to such a Cross, bear it? And when the Spirit of a Man runs forcibly upon it, that Man may turn back, and recoil with highest Rage and Cruelty upon himself: As we see Ahitophel, though but 
2 Sam. 17. 23.  an ordinary thing befell him, yet his Spirit being wounded with it, he went, and hanged himself; whereas David 
1 Sam. 30. 6.  besieged with outward Distress on every hand, and finding the surges of Grief within, yet was upheld by Divine Reasons: He at the same time both diverted his own Spirit from the Evil, qualified the Evil itself, and fortified his mind, encouraging himself in the Lord his God.  
Thus all Contentation and Pleasure, Enjoyment and Happiness, and the contrary Discontent, Vexation, Suffering, and Misery, both here and in Eternity, are laid in the disposes of God upon the Spirits of Men, filling those capacities he hath therein contrived with such infusions of his Favour or Displeasure, as in Wisdom, Righteousness, and Goodness, he hath and shall determine to them; and also putting themselves upon such Exercise and Motion, and that upon such principles within themselves, as must perfectly own, acknowledge, and agree with those his Divine Attributes, and the determinations he makes upon the Souls of men according to them.  
Yet there is always this difference between this present state, and the things pertaining properly to it; and that of Eternity, and the things proper to that; that the former are altogether indifferent, and nothing more needs, but that the Mind be in an equal posture towards them: But the things of an eternal consideration are of a perfect necessity, so that Happiness and Misery will be for ever in act according to them.  
Upon these Grounds thus laid, we may judge of many cases of ordinary and evident experience, that concern both Natural and Religious Affairs.  
1. We see some Men in a low and mean condition, with a little of the World, much more contented than those in a higher; the desires of the one being no larger than their Condition, but the minds of the other running out beyond their greater Estate; from whence it is evident, that man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, nor by the abundance of any thing they have, but by God giving a suitableness between the Desire and the Enjoyment; when God lets out the desire beyond that, all else is as nothing at all.  
2. Again, Some men bear far greater Crosses with much more ease, than others do far lesser; the Spirit of one man centring upon the grief and inconvenience, and the other gliding off from it.  
3. The generality of men having their minds levelly, and but equal at best with their Bodies, are very sensible of all the disadvantages and inconveniences of Body.  
Some more heroic and singular persons are far above them, and little concerned in them; and some strangely insensible and unactive in their Souls, bear them without any more than the just pressure upon the Body requires; lumps of Clay, their Souls are so sheathed in their Bodies, that they discover no Soul, give no sign of a Spirit; they live and die like Beasts; they bear all with the strength of sensitive Nature, they show no Spirit at all, till at last they split into innumerable and endless Complaints and Cries; except we suppose a loathsome stupidity, and fearful darkness of utter want of Consolation and Enjoyment to be the second death of such persons  
On the other side, Some that have great force of Mind, and yet are deeply affected to Body, exasperated and inflame any bodily Distemper, and aggravate it by their terrible impatiences; and the same thing falls out to them in Infamy, Disgrace, Loss, or great Disappointment; according to the measure, business, and activity of the Spirit about them, so is the thing great or small in men's own account and resentment.  
4. From an Overbalance of Mind it comes to pass, that upon several accounts Men become wholly inattendant to their Bodies.  
Some separating themselves, with desire 
Prov. 18. 1.  to intermeddle with all Knowledge, have been wholly careless of all things else: Others engaged in motions of great Valour and Enterprise, have so little valued the Fate of a present life, that in the heat of Valour and Fight, they have not so much as felt the wounds they have received, their Minds being as it were separated from their Bodies.  
Some plunged in deep sorrow and trouble, have without the least relenting and compassion done the greatest cruelty upon themselves.  
Some under great disappointment of their Designs have revenged it with greatest rigour and resolution upon their own Flesh, as Scaevola with an undaunted constancy burned the hand that miss in kill Porsenna, and so deprived him of the Glory, he so earnestly designed himself in that Action.  
Others touched with the Conscience of a great Offence, through the vehemency of that, have thought all other pains of Nature worthy only of neglect, as Cranmer held that hand in the Flame, that had signed his Recantation.  
Yea very Debauchees, in the Risque of their Vices, though their name, even their Flesh and their Body have been consumed, mourn not, while they are in their Carrier, but at last, they are so restless and importunate in wickedness, plotting and performing it, doing it with both hands, that they have no leisure to think of any thing else, and are afraid indeed to offer any such leisure to themselves; and to avoid it are always driving on in wickedness; they prolong their days 
Eccl. 8. 12.  in, and, as it seems, by it, thus far, that their earnestness bears them up; so that they do not fall into reflections upon the sad end of it; their Spirits are carried so whole and together to it, that they have no interruption. And if their pursuit be crossed, and vexed with hindrances, and contrariety of accidents, it becomes very outrageous, and is a continual sickness; for so it is said, Amnon was 
2 Sam. 13. 2.  sick for his Sister Thamar.  
All these, and multitudes of the like, are plain Instances of the Mind governing our Contentment, or Discontent, in these Affairs; and however it enslave itself, as it seems, to the Body, and its satisfactions, yet still it is indeed the Vigour, Force, and mighty action of this Mind, that is ever superior, when it doth most debase itself; and it is not the Body of Flesh, but itself in that Body, or that Flesh, (or as the Apostle calls it, a Fleshly Mind) that thus designs and acts, with a high hand, for its own satisfactions: And if it be thus in things wherein it seems to be fleshly, how much more in those things wherein Body hath no Feeling, no Interest?  
From these Grounds we may also discern the several states of Men in Religion.  
1. The great Insensibleness of it in the minds of most men, makes them without any desire or motion after it, they see no beauty in it, why they should desire it.  
2. Hereupon also, though Men have the greatest reason of trouble in relation to their state towards God, yet having no reflections, they are wholly untroubled, even those, who, if Religion be true, have no ground of peace, but the greatest of horror and amazement.  
This is indeed from a Patience of God to the world, and a Judgement also upon it: for so far as it would lead only to the Terrors of Despair, so it is a long-suffering; but as Insensibleness consigns men over to Irreligion, and the consequent Damnation, so it is an exceeding great Judgement.  
And yet it is an Indulgence too of common Providence, that Mankind enjoys a general peace, and quiet of condition, and are not in immediate hellish despairs.  
3. Hence formality in Religion gives many men satisfaction: they cannot be satisfied without it, their Mind being so far awakened concerning it; and yet there being some part dark, they take up with a Shadow in the place of true substantial Goodness.  
4. Hence a just and sober demeanour in the World hath that strength to compose the Mind, we may ordinarily observe. For all degrees of Innocency and Integrity, all Freedoms from Gild, and not being privy to things unworthy ourselves, are a great defence to the Thoughts; and these things are so espoused to Christianity, that where they are found indeed, and in the due Heights, they are never found divided the one from the other: but there may be semblances or some degrees of these; as is very plain in the Instance of the Young Man in the Gospel; he had a truly ingenuous sense of Things, and so well natured, that when Christ proposed to him a Precept above his Orb, he did not sourly reject it, but was sorrowful, 
Mark. 10. 22.  he could not rise to it, yet still he was at a distance from true Christianity.  
But so far as a man attains in the semblances, and degrees of these, he hath also answerable semblances and degrees of tranquillity of Mind, of loveliness and worth; our Saviour loved the Young Man, for so much as 
v. 21.  he had. This made those great Spirits among the Heathen, whose generous Actions we read of.  
To this Head may be referred all high and notable Actions and Undertake, all worthy Studies and Employments, which derive a virtue from that intrinsic value of Goodness, and participations of the Favour and approbation of God, that is upon them, and uphold the Mind, and further so entertain and employ it, that it doth not fall into disturbances.  
Yet so far as these things however excellent, are not universal and uniform in all things, or not endued and ennobled with true Piety, Love of God, adherence to him in the Mediator, so far they come short of the sincere and perfect satisfaction of the Mind.  
Hence most men are but in an equal poise between the Comforts and Fears, that arise from a true sense of Religion, between the Heroic temper of Christianity, and the danger of an unconverted Estate; God not seeing good to give so high a sense of the Danger, nor so triumphant a sense of the Happiness, as that the one should in regard of trouble of Mind, the other in regard of surpassing joy make, all Things in the World, nothing, as either would do.  
Yet notwithstanding from the high sense of Religion, there hath been at some times so high an action, and so triumphing a Comfort, that as the Martyr said, A Bed of Flames was no other than a Bed of Roses, many have offered themselves to death, not accepting Deliverance, they have altogether abandoned all the Pleasures, Profits, and Advantages of Bodily Sense and worldly State, that they might obtain a better Resurrection; and on the other side, some under the horrors of Despair, have as much cast away from them, all the comforts and enjoyments of the present life, and have seized upon Hell, as it were before they went out of the World, or hastened to it as Judas. Again, some good men not having the communications of the Favour of God, have fallen into horrid Agonies of Mind, and have been restored anew to Comforts, according as God hath shone out, or withdrawn himself.  
And through the non-actuation of Grace into their Hearts have fallen into some great sins, and under spiritual desertions, abating from the excellency of a Holy Life, and consequently into discomforts, or want of spiritual Consolation.  
And contrariwise, Men not sound in Christian Obedience bear up betwixt some conformities to religious Action, and the hopes they derive from thence, without sinking down into great despondencies. All which cases plainly and sensibly may be resolved into the former Grounds and Principles laid concerning the Government of God, ordering and disposing the state of men's Souls here in the World.  
Object. If against all this it should be said, It is the Body, and the various changes upon that, that give these various Tempers to the Mind.  
Answ. It must be in the first place allowed, that the Mind sees much by the Body, and things are accordingly presented, as the Body is prepared, just as the Eye sees imperfectly through a dim Glass, and things appear double in a cracked one; yet this only signifies, that the Actions of the Mind, so far as they depend upon the Body, are either disturbed or assisted, by the fitness or unfitness of the Instrument. The Heats of a Fever, by the excess of spirits flying up, disturb the brain, and overact it. Now the Soul acting in, and by these Spirits, and in, and by this their excessive Motion, sallies out into a multitude of Thoughts; which are indeed roving and disorderly, as is the Motion of the Spirits, which are its Instrument; thus the Sun seems in haste, and in a hurry, uneven, and transported, appearing through rolling Clouds, and flying Vapours.  
Again, Sometimes the Spirits are airy and soaring, even into Rapture, and then the Soul disports itself among them, in that we call Wit, and highly exalted Fancy; as the Sun reflects its Beams into that beautiful variety, and pleasant mixture of Colours in the Rainbow, when it finds a Cloud prepared.  
In these cases the Motion is greater than agrees with the order of the Soul in the Body, and so it is violent, and sometimes furious, yet still it argues the greatness of the Soul, and its activity, showing itself to the utmost advantages it receives from the Body's Motion, whether it be orderly or disorderly, wherein the activity is the Souls, and the disorder chargeable upon the Body only; the Soul, even as the Sun, is always the same in itself.  
But besides all this, It is most evident, that the Mind hath considerations of Peace and Disquiet, some in which the Body is not concerned at all, further than the Mind concerns it; and some that first come into the Mind, by representation from without, yet having made no dint at all upon the Body, are considered and judged of first by the Mind, and so by degrees affect the Body, according to the apprehensions the Mind entertains of them, either with vigour, or languishment; yea there have been Examples, wherein the Soul being itself surprised, with excess of Joy or Sorrow, hath in a moment surprised the whole Animal Power also, and extinguished that Life; and how often the Soul gives a Constitution to the Body, we know not; but this is certain, however the case be otherwise, The Comfort or Discomfort of a Man is seated in his Soul; and whencesoever the Causes of them arise, or through whatsoever Conduits they pass, they please or afflict according to the settled Judgement the Mind makes of them.  
But for the further clearing and confirming these things, let us make this account of them.  
1. From the Nature of Man's Soul, it is certainly to be concluded, The Soul is the Man, which way soever the Soul goes, that way certainly the Man goes; and when the Soul is in a high concern any way, it values the Body no more, than the Body does a Garment: For though it is true in the generality of men, and in general Cases, the Soul doth willingly subordinate itself to the Body, or rather itself to itself, as in the Body, and makes the service, the safety, the pleasure of itself in the Body, to be its whole pleasure, safety, and satisfaction; yet there are particular persons by whom, particular cases in which, the Body is slighted, as of smallest consideration. We see good men use the service of it in Study and Contemplation to such a height, that it is macerated, weakened, discouraged, and speedily worn out; they subdue it by daily mortification, they 
1 Cor. 9 27.  offer it up in Martyrdom, deliver and resign it to the Flames, submit it to the Torturer. Bad Men enslave it to vicious affections, lavish it out upon their Lusts; and in their Rage sometimes destroy it by violence upon themselves.  
From all which it is plain, how much the Body is at the service of the Soul, when the Soul is excited to the exercise of its own power.  
2. The great Mystery of the Soul is, That whereas in its own Nature it is thus great and commanding, was made in the Image and Similitude of God, hath a resemblance of his Liberty and even of his infinite Motion, in the displays of Understanding, Will, and Affections; yet notwithstanding it may be as it were silenced and slumbered, and the Motion of it so suppressed, that it seems to have nothing so considerable, as such a Being imports: In this state it is like a strong Man asleep, but that will awake; it sleeps its sleep now, but when God awakens it, it shakes its self, and throws off all its Manacles, or like a strong man that sho●●s by reason of Wine, than its strength and vigour appears. It lies still, as Samson, when his Locks were cut off, it re-enforces itself hereafter, as Samson, when his Locks were grown again; like Water running softly, and in a very weak, and indiscernible Current, afterwards like an Inundation of Water; like a Spark under Ashes, but afterwards like the whole Element of Fire, in fiercest motion; so that there is no judgement to be made of its influences into the Comfort or Discomfort of a Man, when it is in its duller and more stupefied condition, but in its highest Flights now, and in its Everlasting State.  
3. God hath the great power of moving the Soul, he that form the Spirit of a Man within him, he that made it what it is, that gave it his own likeness, he will show when he pleases that he made it such as it is indeed; and it must needs be plainly in his power to do it, who is the Supreme and All-working Spirit; so that all the state and condition of it from the first moments of its Being, throughout Eternal Ages, is a Government and Ordination of God upon it: Nothing then is to be concluded, but by and upon his declarations of himself, and of the manner of his Government he hath prescribed to himself; which is in part made known to us in the Nature, Frame, and Constitution of the Soul itself, and the daily Experiments of it, but most especially in his Word; which describes both the deplumed and low estate of Souls, and the certain exaltation, the lifting them up whether to Salvation or Destruction.  
4. The things the force and strength of the Soul move upon, as descriptive and constitutive of its own state and condition, give temper to its Satisfactions and Disquiets. When it moves upon such things, as have truly the Springs of Joy and Comfort in them, as its own, it hath an exceeding Joy, that carries it above all things. Again, when it moves upon those things, that have indeed the reasons of Sorrow and Affliction, and that it must acknowledge it hath an unhappy Right to; there is an excess of Sorrow and Vexation. If there are but apprehended reasons of either, or lower degrees of them aggravated by that apprehension, the force of the Soul may yet make them great, till it be undeceived; for when there is nothing worthy either way to work upon, yet it's very deceived and deluded Imagination are in the room of a great Object to it, and either very pleasing, or afflictive. Thus it is till Reality takes place of Appearance; and Eternity finds so much employment for all the Powers, upon things so grand, that they have nothing of leisure, either for Appearances, or lesser Things, or to spend their strength in vain.  
Thus far I have argued the Motions of the Soul unto Happiness or Misery, immediately from the Nature of the Soul itself; in the next place, let the account of these things be drawn from the Ordination and Government of God in relation to himself, and the eternal condition of the Soul.  
1. There is an Absolute Will, and Determination of God, that it shall appear, that Himself and Holiness, and the enjoyment of Himself for ever, are the true Happiness of the Soul, and the only Happiness of it; on the other side, That Sin, his Wrath, and Disfavour are the greatest Evils; as God says, I will famish all the Gods of the Earth, so he will all that the Earth calls Good, besides himself, which is a worshipping of the Creature, besides, or in preference to, the Creator, blessed For Ever: Else Men, who are in Covenant with seeming Goods, and in Union with them, would think themselves well enough without God, and without any enjoyment of him; God therefore hath appointed a time, wherein all the Idols of the World shall be smitten, as Dagon before the Ark, and all little Evils, that are so reputed here, shall shrink into none, compared with his Wrath and Displeasure. Then shall Men reflect upon all the Fatigues they have undergone for worldly Pleasure, Profit, and Honour, as so much lost and misplaced labour; and their so earnest recoil from present Evils, though with their eternal hazard, shall be reputed as basest Cowardice; then Religion and Holy Walking, which had so mean an allowance of Deference from them, shall be esteemed of greatest worth and value.  
2. God hath determined to draw out Souls to their own Greatness and Extent, that his Workmanship in them may not be always hid and concealed. The similitude with himself he at first enstamped them with, shall be plainly discovered. It shall then be seen, what Understandings, Wills, Affections, Consciences he hath given them; and that a Soul is not so small a Thing, as it seems to be in the World's History of Being's.  
And these two things are very subservient to the discovery of one another, the Excellency of God, and the Valuableness of the Soul; for God revealing himself, and his own Holiness and Happiness, in their full Beauty and Greatness, the Soul that was shriveled up in ignorance of true Good, opens and stretches out itself, as the Eye to the Sun, or as the Appetite to the most gustful, or delicious meat; and when the Soul is drawn out to its own Largeness, then will it know the vanity of all things besides God, and that its great Affections and Desires cannot be satisfied by any thing Lower, or Lesser, than he is; but shall feel the extremities of want, the necessities of enraged and unsatisfied desire in the loss of him; and the great Motions of Mind will make fiercest reflections on the Evil of Sin, and the Righteous Displeasure of God: But on the other side, Happiness, in the Favour and Enjoyment of God, shall flow in upon the extended Desires and Affections, and the excellency of the Mind shall adore and admire the greatness of Divine Glory, and the blessedness of enjoying it.  
3. God hath resolved upon Degrees of Happiness and Punishment: Now the more the Soul is enlightened, and its Faculties heightened, the more capable it is of Glory; Thus one Star differs from another in Glory; having a greater Orb for the reception of Light, having a purer and quicker Light: So also the more the Faculties are enlarged, the more capable they are of Woe and Punishment, and to be beaten with more stripes. The more therefore any one finds his Faculties now quickened and opened, the more he may apprehend, and so be the more excited to fear the danger, and lay hold on the Happiness.  
4. Seeing all depends upon the Actuation either of the Mercy and Goodness of God, or his Indignation; from hence appears both the Freeness of his Grace and Mercy in Christ, in the glorification of his Saints, and the Liberty of his Indignation and Wrath in the Punishment of wicked men: For though all things that God does in these things, are contrived into the greatest Conveniences and Aptness to their several Ends, yet if he did not continually move them, in whom all things live, move, and have their Being's, that do live and move or have any being, all would lie still, and there is no other Power that could excite them; for who can move before him, or besides him, seeing he moves all himself? and he who is moved only by himself, and from himself, can receive no Motion from any other: The Apostle therefore thus expresses both sides of these things; What if God willing to show his Wrath, and 
Rom. 9 22.  make his power known, and that he might make known the Riches of his Mercy: So than he hath mercy on 
V 18.  whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.  
These things being thus fixed, let us further enlarge upon them, by way of Consectary: And first, we are led by them to these three Petitions.  
1. Let us pray, that God would keep and contain our Desires and Reflections within due bounds, that we may not exceed our Condition, by unruly Appetite; nor poor too much upon the Disadvantages and Vexations of our Condition: For if our Souls are let out above due measure, how full of Torment and Agony may we be? He fashions the hearts of Men alike, or to an equality, to their Condition; for he as the Potter moulds the Clay, and fits it to this or that Figure; The Father of Spirits forms the Spirit of Man within him; and he doth it in Mercy, or Judgement, as he pleases, yet with righteousness, and plenty of Justice: Most necessary it is therefore, that into his Hand we at all times commend our Spirits, not only when we are going out of the Body into those unknown Regions, but while we are here in the Body, that we may be kept within due Measures.  
Further, It is most necessary to pray, That God would feed us with Food 
Prov. 30. 8. 1 Chron. 4. 10.  convenient for us, that he would bless us indeed, and enlarge our Border to just proportions, and that he would keep away Evil from us, in such a degree, that it may not grieve us, piercing us too deep, that we may not fall into Temptations, murmur and discontents against God; into Rages and Fury against ourselves: This is to bless us indeed, when our Minds and our Condition are equally poised; when Divine Providence proportions our Condition to our Minds, and our Minds to our Condition.  
When God does not thus preserve men's Souls, how do they fall, as Saul under an Evil Spirit, forsaken of God? They fall first upon the edge, and point, of their own edged, pointed Thoughts, and then upon their Sword. And thus it would be with all Men, did not God sweeten their Spirits with his Blessings of Goodness, as with the joys of Harvest, and sustain them with his benign Influences, as with the gladness of Corn, Oil, and Wine.  
God gives us many Documents of the force and vehemency of our Souls, in the examples of some transported with Divine Joy, even to Ravishment; another falling into greatest Agonies of Mind and Thought; in the dark and sad part of whose condition, we are not to think, that they had greater sins, or sharper thoughts, than others; but they are our Examples, and teach us, what we should be, if God did not qualify us now; and what we shall be in Eternity, if not reconciled to God, and thereby also to ourselves; we shall fall with greatest Fury and Rage upon ourselves: For it is but a little thing, what a Man executes with his own Hand upon his Body now, in comparison of those Rages, wherewith he will fall upon himself in Eternity.  
2. We have need to pray, That God would draw out our Souls now, that we might see them, and know them; for we do not enough understand our Souls, we consider them not, because we lie still. But why should it be hard to conceive? That as men's Souls are now awakened by Study, Observation, Action, so much more by entering into another World, the most stupid Soul may be awakened, being let lose out of the Body: It should be therefore our most earnest Prayer, that God would open us to ourselves, that we may not make provision for ourselves only, as so little, as we seem to be, and lest when we come to die, we fall into those horrible amazes, that will arise from being mistaken in ourselves; but that seeing, and knowing what we are, we may make so great a provision for ourselves, as our case requires, and so not be for ever miserable, through our not so much as half measures of ourselves, and provisions accordingly.  
3. We have need to pray, That God would draw out our whole Minds upon himself, and Christ our Lord, in a way of Desire and Affection, of Joy and satisfaction; and that we may be replenished with such assurances of the love of the Father in his Son, that we may have no occasion to be cruel to ourselves: For as extremity of want and hunger turns men, as Tigers, upon their own Flesh, so the Horrors arising from the Wrath of God, and the unappeasable want of him, enrage the Soul against itself; but the enjoyment of him infinitely blesses and satiates it with pleasure, sweetens it into greatest love and kindness to its own self. And the Spirit thus supported will bear any other infirmity; as David, having God for his Light and Salvation, feared nothing; Habakkuk deprived of all favourable appearances, neither the Figtree blossoming, nor any Fruit on the Vines, the labour of the Olive failing, the Flock cut off from the Fold, and no Herd in the Stalls, yet he rejoiced in the Lord, and gloried in the God of his Salvation.  
In the second place, We may upon this Head of Discourse, make these doctrinal Recollections.  
1. There is a high pitch of Happiness, or a very low degree of Misery, to which every Man is prepared: For the further description of which, let us consider the two great Orders of Spirits, Happy, and Miserable, Spirits; to one of which we shall ever have a likeness.  
The Head, the Supreme, the Prince of the first Order, is Jehovah himself, who in the highest and most perfect Act of his own Infinite Understanding and Will, and the highest Satisfaction in Himself, and enjoyment of Himself, lives from Eternity to Eternity, the most Happy and only Potentate, with his Eternal Son, and Spirit; without any Dissatisfaction, Discomposure, Weariness, or Tediousness to Himself, or the least Shadow of impression upon him from Without.  
This is infinitely clear concerning God; In his Presence is fullness of Joy, at his Right Hand are Pleasures For Evermore.  
If we could imagine, as indeed we cannot, because Experience so mightily contradicts it, that any Prince should live in all those Delights and Pleasures the most splendid Court affords, without any tediousness or satiety ten thousand years; what a dark representation were this of God? though he could do and enjoy all he would.  
Let us then imagine higher, That a Prince of wisest, most refined, and delightful Speculation, could live in the Height and perfect Rest of a most pleasurable Contemplation, without the least disquiet; how lowly an Emblem would this be of the infinite Blessedness of God? Now God made Man in his own Image and likeness, so that the Soul of Man is capable of a communication of this Blessedness, in the perfection of his Understanding and Will, enjoying God with unexpressible Joy, and Peace, and yet in the highest Life of Action.  
Under God are the Blessed Angels, of whom the Scripture speaks, both of their Knowledge, Perfection, and Power, joined with Holiness and Obedience to God, who have been Participants of the Glory and Blessedness of God, from the first Dawn of Creation, and in all this time have not had least tiredness or satiation, but highest Bliss and Joy. Next to these are the Spirits of Just Men made perfect; who are by succession, as they go out of the World, taken into this Happiness.  
Now in all these Instances it plainly appears, to what a height of Happiness Holy Men are designed, being made like God, equal to Angels, in the assurance of which good men's Souls enjoy the Consolations of that better state in this, and are daily removed into it, when they die.  
For the Order of Spirits Miserable and Unhappy, Spirits, of which the Devil is the Prince, although indeed there cannot be such a Misery, as should stand a counterpoise to God's Happiness; for Misery is but a retreat from God and his Happiness, from his Favour and Grace, as Darkness is from Light, and being under the Executions of his Wrath; yet all this is within the enclosure of a Finite Being, and were there not an unchangeable Will of God, and a Decree of his Justice, that he will not reverse, all Misery might be removed off from the most Unhappy of Being's, and taken quite away.  
But as things are, The Misery of Spirits may be thus understood in the great Exemplar of it, the Misery of Fallen Angels, and the Prince of them, the Devil.  
1. There is a Height and utmost stretch of Action. The Devil is represented as always in Motion, from the first beginning of Misery he hath no Rest, even while he is in Chains, as fierce Mastiffs, he moves as far as he can, and rages at the shortness of his Chain; he hath had no sleepy moments of Non-action, since the day of his fall, no Breathing Time, no Truce: Thus the Soul in Misery is extended, as we now speak, day and night, that is perpetually, without intermission, with an endless Action and Motion. Consider, what is Rest and Sleep to a Man of a tormented Mind, and wearied Thoughts; a Sleep wherein he is not scared with Dreams, and terrified with Visions, how unhappy doth he think himself in the want of it? how unwilling is he to be awakened out of it? And from thence understand the Misery, of being perpetually awake in Misery.  
2. There is an ignobleness, a baseness in all his Motions, he goes upon his Belly, and eats Dust; he hath no Motion that can give him comfort from any glimmering of worthiness, or generosity in it; in all the multitude of his Motions, he has none that can in the least cool the Furnace of his tormented Thoughts: Any Degree of Worthiness in his Action would abate his Unhappiness. All is full of Cruelty, Envy, Black and Malicious Design, breathing the Fire and Smoak of Hell: He goes up and down, Angry, Fierce, Malcontent, Cruel to himself, and full of Rage against others; as a Ravening roaring Lion seeking whom he may devour. This is the state of miserable Souls, There is a continual gnawing and scorching of wickedness, without any thing to cool the tip of the Tongue, any the least intention and motion of Goodness, that might cool one flaming hellish Thought: There is a Rage against God, an Envy at the Blessedness of Heaven, returning with unexpressible Misery, upon those unhappiest of Being's, a Hatred, an Execration of themselves.  
3. There is a Horror, Amazement, and trembling Sense of the Supreme Justice, Holiness, and Power of God over him, with the Conscience of his own Gild; The Devils believe 
Jam: 2. 19  and tremble. The Fountain of Life, Beauty, and Happiness is Hell from Heaven to them; because they find nothing in themselves, but distance, and contrariety, horrid enmity and hatred: They are convinced of that High Justice and Righteousness in the midst of so great Wrath and Vengeance upon them; and this without leisure or intermission, and therefore perpetually shake with Fear and Horror, while they are most Daring against God. Thus also the Souls of Damned Men lie for ever trembling under the Justice of God. Now we know by experience, that some Diseases exercising Men with a continual Trepidation, are therefore most dreadful and dismal; and some men's Consciences being all in an Agony, put them into a most lamentable Trembling. What then is the condition of those, who fall into the extremity of these things, and that For Ever? Into which yet insensible Men hasten in great numbers.  
2. Hence we may learn the more general state of Good and Bad Men here in the World, and the Reasons of both: The state of Good Men not full of the Consolations of God; of wicked Men not full of the Horrors, and Torments of Hell.  
In Good Men, there is a poise between the discomforts of bodily inconvenience, and of the present life, the fears and sad apprehensions that pertain to their state towards God, and the great danger of Hell, on one part; and the Favours of God to them, in the gracious supports of this life natural, inlaid with the more blessed Tokens of his love to them in Christ, the immediate Divine Comforts he gives them, the hopes they have escaped that greatest of dangers, on the other part.  
In Bad Men, there is a poise between the pleasures and enjoyments of Life present, the great inapprehensiveness of Eternal Things, yea foolish Hopes and Dreams of the Blessedness and Happiness of it, giving greater scope to sensuality to play its part; these in one Scale: The many Troubles, Disquiets, and Disappointments they meet with in this World, the sudden Blows of Conscience, and qualmy forethoughts of another World, lying in the other Scale.  
Now all this is a low state of Souls, and a dispensation of God for holy and wise Reasons, intending such a kind of state for the time being; like that of the Jewish Worship, and Promises, which were only outward, and terrene, till the time of Reformation; so is the state of the Souls of Men here in the World, both of good and bad Men.  
This state of Good Men in the World, is both in Mercy and Judgement upon the World.  
In Mercy, For there being such a mixture of the Interests and Concerns of Good Men, with the general Affairs and Interests of the World, there is for their sakes a great care and heed of Providence over the course of this World; and as it is usually said, If there were never a Righteous Man in the World, the whole World would be destroyed; so if their Interests were taken out of it, there would be a present Ruin upon the Affairs of it; their Persons and Interests are of great advantage to the World, that it might not be managed by Evil Men only.  
Now if their Affections were so highly moved after God, Eternal life, and the Things of that Life, and the Consolations received from them were answerable, all the Things of this Life would be of such an undervalue, that they would not mind the care of Things below, nor have any Interests here, as the Primitive Christians, that were negligent of all Things, but the Better Resurrection.  
Again, It is in severity to the World, for if there were such an illustrious presence of Religion, and the Life of it, it would certainly draw many more in to it, as many in those first Times, that had never considered Christianity before, ran into the embraces of it, though upon the Sword, into Flames, and present Death; but now Religion appearing so despicable, not only in regard of its address, carried off from Sense, but much more in the want of the Power, Life, and Lustre of itself, it comes to pass so very few are invited into it.  
It is also in chastisement upon Good Men, and the remaining corruption of degenerate Nature, that they are not more exalted in the Heights and Glories of Christianity, and its Consolation.  
In the second place, That Men unconverted to God are not for the generality more affrighted, and affected with the Fears of eternal Wrath and Punishment, and only moved with the present Evils, according to the degree of impression they make upon them, is in long-suffering, it being much better for Men themselves, and all they have to do with, that they are not in those horrible conditions of Saul, Judas, and Cain, who were not promoted to Repentance by those Terrors, and became a Terror to all round about them: For if Men have not that only use of them, that can countervail their pain, it is a Mercy to be out of this Hell, while they are here upon Earth. Taking then the state of the World, as it is, it is a great Argument of the Patience of God towards Men, and without which the condition of the World could not stand: For Men in those Terrors mind not the World, while they are in it, and violently hasten out of it; so that if the generality of Men unreconciled to God were in such a case, there would be no management of Humane Affairs, no enjoyment of them, but an universal distraction, and disconsolateness.  
And yet there is a Justice in it also, That Men in a Dream of Peace, and deep Ignorance of their Souls, and an Eternal Condition, should move to the Misery of it, and not consider whither they move; their Souls and the Eternal Condition being so much concealed from them. And that great Atheism, Wickedness, and general sensuality of the World, takes advantage and encouragement from hence, and Godliness hereupon becomes not a matter of necessity, but of the Grace of God, and the holy choice of Good Men.  
3. Yet in the third place, God may raise the Soul to a great Degree of the Consolations of Eternal Happiness, and impose a great Degree of the Terrors of Hell upon it, if he pleases.  
Of the first, David's expressions are a Testimony; They shall be abundantly 
Psal. 36. 8, 9  satisfied with the bounties of thy House: Thou shalt make them drink of the River of thy pleasures: For with thee is the Fountain of life: In thy Light shall we see Light: Because 
Psal. 62. 3.  thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. S. Paul's challenge of all things, and defying them, as not able to separate from the love of God in Christ. These are, 
Rom. 8.  with innumerable others, high expressions of a fully satisfied assurance of the Favour and Grace of God, and the Happiness that is to be found in it.  
Of the latter, What dreadful instances are Cain crying out, My sin is 
Gen. 27. 38.  greater than can be forgiven; Esau yelling out so dreadfully for the Blessing; Saul under an evil Spirit, going to the 
1 Sam. 28. 7.  Witch, because God had forsaken him, and at last falling upon the point of his Sword; Ahitophel hanging himself; 
1 Sam. 31. 5.  and Judas strangled with his melancholy Horrors?  
If a Man's Understanding, Affections, Thoughts, Desires, with all their Retinue, were extended, and run high upon God, and Holiness, and the eternal enjoyment of him, and the comforts of God delighting all these, and the Oil of Grace gliding along upon them, even down upon the Body, like the precious Ointment on the Head of Aaron, going down to the skirts of his Garments; how sweet would these interweavings of the Soul and its truest and everlasting Joys be, even unspeakable and full of Glory?  
On the other side, when a Man is first racked, and stretched into vast and insatiable Desires, without satisfaction, and rolled up and down upon a thousand uneasy Thoughts concerning them, and, instead of mitigation, and cooling allays, hath the guilt of his unworthy Actions, and the fears of a Justice to disquiet him; how uneasy must such a Man's Soul of necessity be to him? and if these are wreathed close about him, and pressed home upon him by the Indignation of God, let out against him; as the former is a little Image of Heaven, so is this of Hell.  
Now it is certain, No man hath power over his own Spirit, either to damp the gracious and merciful move of his Divine Spirit, or to keep out and forbidden the angry entrances of Divine Displeasures, and Revenges: God is the God of the Spirits of all Flesh, and acts them as he pleases. No man can imprint upon himself the reasons of Comfort or Disquiet, or flash into his own Soul, Joy or Sorrow, but under the guidance and supreme government of God, who giveth quietness, so as none can make trouble, and so hides his face that none can behold him: As he pleases he casts down, and raises up, and none can stay his hand, so much as within themselves, or say unto him, What dost thou?  
So great is his Freedom herein, that he sometimes answers Men, that are strangers to him, in the joy of their hearts, all their lives; and his word of Blessing goes along with the ordinary favours he does them, so that the Fears of Wrath to come are hid from them; and on the other side, those whom he hath made his Friends, and will use so for ever, are covered with a Cloud, nay sometimes he sets them as a mark for his arrows, and even cuts them off with his Terrors.  
For he is the great Actuator of men's Spirits, without whom, as the first Mover, the whole Motion of Nature would stand still; and he disposes them so, that a Man doth, nor can to any satisfactory account find out himself; and he therefore feels his greatest security in resting upon God, and being guided by him.  
4. But Eternity is that vast season, in which God brings all to a righteous certainty, and which he hath appointed for Happiness without allay, or Misery without mixture, which may be made out three ways.  
1. In that in Eternity the whole power of the Soul runs together one and the same way: In this life the holiest Men have great allays of their holiest and best Motions, and counter-motions of Discontent, and Unbelief to their greatest Comforts; Evil men have generally at least some pleasures, hopes, motions to their advantage, notwithstanding all the crosses they meet with in the World, or the secret sounds of horror they have at certain times in their Consciences.  
In this World the Soul sends out parties of itself, divers ways, or to several ends. The Judgement may be pleased in the main, and yet the Affections disturbed; or these more still, and yet the Judgement dissatisfied and disturbed: One Thought goes out in high discontent, another flies after it, recalls, and reconciles it: On the other side, one Thought leaps out of the Soul with pleasure, another reproves, daunts, and dejects it with a correction of its haste. But in Eternity the Soul is united in its Motions, which way one Faculty goes, all go; and the Thoughts are all concentred as in one whole and entire Thought of Joy or Torment.  
2. In Eternity there is but one state of the Soul, and the prospect of the Soul is but one. In this World change of place, conversation, difference of Events raise different Affections and Motions of Mind; varieties of businesses, occasions, and tempers upon them, do so distract and move all sorts of Men up and down, that there is nothing pure and unconfounded: In Eternity there is one state of Soul, and so one action; there is nothing to mix with either condition: It is one Happiness, or one Misery.  
Even the most sad and dismal prospect, the prospect upon Hell and Eternal Misery, gives to the Saints reason of admiration, and highest adoration of God, in their deliverance from it: On the other side, the most glorious Blessedness and Happiness of Heaven, is to Men in Hell, when they look up to it, their highest Amazement, and inflames their Torment, by reason of their envy against God, and those that dwell with him in Heaven, their reflections upon their own Misery, and Rage against themselves. Thus one State, one Action, one Happiness, one Misery, and all to the height, fill Eternity.  
3. Then it is that God proceeds to the highest actuation of the Soul, drawing out all the powers of it, and setting open all the Windows of Heaven upon it, pouring into it all the always full, and ever flowing Vials of his Love, Grace, and Mercy; or of his Power, Wrath, and Justice; which as they are unintermitted themselves in their streams, so it is impossible, the Soul that is moved, or driven by them should rest from an action answerable to them.  
4. In Eternity there is a Body fitted to the Happiness or Misery of the Mind. In this World Happiness is dulled by the stupidities, or clogged with the slowness of the Body's Motion, or grows cloying by its incapacity to receive more. The pains and griefs of it call the Mind from its enjoyments, to take pity on it, so that the inconveniences of the Body allay the happiness of the Mind; on the other side, this Body submits itself to speedy dissolution, if its own pains are extreme; and its griefs if leisurely and tolerable are abated by being so, as, if over burdensome, they destroy: The troubles of the Mind are much blunted by the grossness of Body, in which the Mind cannot feel perfectly its own sentiments; and the pleasures and divertisements of that Body do often allay the anguish of Conscience; as Cain grew to some quiet with himself, by building a City: But in Eternity 
Gen. 4. 17.  the Body is also spiritual, that is, wholly prepared to the use and service of the Spirit, and to receive, and attend, and display its Motions, and condition, to feel its pleasures and pains, to bear its Glory or Deformity openly; all kinds of these present bodily Pleasures and Pains, Beauties or Deformities being then wholly removed. For either the Happiness or Misery of mere Body is neither worthy of God, nor of the Soul, but would be on the one side a sottish Pleasure, on the other side like the tormenting of a Beast, and so not agreeable to God, or the discourse of Scripture, however things may be represented to our sense, and however the display of these things may pass into the Body, and be all seen there; yet we know, the most excessive pleasures of Body interrupt the proper motions of Soul, in which true Happiness or Misery lie, for neither is a man drenched in an irrational pleasure, nor tormented, and he knows not why; but there is an orderly motion, a sense of sin and guilt, of the supreme Justice of God in his righteous Executions of Judgement; in Happiness an adoring of Infinite Grace and Mercy, a Rational Taste of Holy and Divine Pleasures.  
I shall now, as a Conclusion, draw up all this Discourse into these practical Conclusions flowing from the whole.  
1. Hereby I understand I have an immortal and everlasting Soul, to take care of; we look upon ourselves as Flesh and Blood, but we do not consider these Immortal Spirits, and their great Powers, Understanding, Imagination, Will, Conscience, Affections, and the motion of these to be Everlasting: We do not examine, whether our Souls have a true Health, Peace, and Safety, and a good Provision made for them? Whether our Consciences are quiet, and upon good grounds? Whether our Affections are purified and holy? For a man to consider his Soul thus, is indeed to consider a man's self; What shall it 
Luc. 9 2●.  profit a man, if he gain the whole World, and lose himself? The Soul is a true Self, and how dreadful will the mistake appear to men? who have counted the Body, and the Interests of that, the only Self; and this other true, the greatest Self starts out: A Self, that now lies under as many Covers, as a Body under a multitude of Garments, and so is concealed: But than it breaking out, and not being provided for, that great principle of self preservation, finding now its greatest Object, will force a man to cry out with a most dreadful Ejulation and Complaint, Oh this false Self that I have laboured for, how hath it deceived me? My very Self I never thought of, and so have lost it: What shall I give now in exchange for this my true Self?  
2. I hereby understand, I am made for Holiness, as the true Peace and Greatness of my Spirit, for a converse with God, for an attendance upon him, for an observation of his Favour and Countenance towards me, and that herein is the Life of my Spirit; and on the other side, I am very apt to be tempted to sin, and drawn away from God, to live at a distance from him, to lose him, and herein at last will be found the Torment and Hell of Souls; and therefore I have greatest reason to be awakened about these things, and earnestly to pray to God, that he would put me into a high and vigorous action concerning them, and to be extremely unsatisfied, when I find myself insensible concerning them, and therefore to labour earnestly to be in a good state and condition in relation to them.  
3. I hereby understand, I am made and designed, and shall certainly be unexpressibly Happy or Miserable to extremity; and who can say this to himself, without highest concern upon his own Soul? If any one should tell us, we were ordained to be one of these, extraordinarily happy and prosperous, or deplorably unhappy, and were about to read our Fate or Doom to us, and that we had considerable Reasons to believe such a one, who would not with a most trembling suspense of mind wait what it should be? When any one is to receive the Issue of his Cause from a Judge or Jury, how high and impatient is his expectation? But how much more should our Thoughts wait for this Issue of Things? and God hath placed it in the motions of these our own Thoughts; for when they move, enlightened with his Countenance, cleansed and anointed with his Grace, ennobled with his Spirit, delighted with his Consolations, this is Heaven begun, this is Happiness growing up: When they are base for want of his Spirit, impure with Lust and dishonourable Affections, full of rancour and bitterness, and all spotted and stained with guilt; this is Hell in the Foundations of it laid.  
And however my Soul lie still now, yet when I see how many things draw out men's Souls, even in this Life, Education, better Converse, Solitude, some great danger or loss in the world, higher Condition, Sickness, some notable Discourse, as in Foelix; how much more must I needs think the change into Eternity will do it? and therefore no silence of my Soul now can encourage me upon serious consideration to be careless of it.  
4. I hereby understand my unspeakable dependence upon the Grace of God, and his Free Favour, and hence learn to humble myself before him to nothing; seeing my Happiness consists in those free Beams of his Favour, in the light of his Countenance, in his setting my Soul into a gracious Motion by his Spirit, and raising the Motions of my Spirit to a high communion with him in Bliss; for seeing I can so little yield myself the accounts of Happiness, and receive them all from him, and can so little move myself upon them, when they are offered by him, I am inconceivably bound and beholden to him, both to open the Fountain of Life (that is himself) to me, and to move me by his Spirit, that I may move.  
On the other side, If he leaves me to myself, what Evils shall I run into? and treasure up torment, and sharpen stings against myself by it; and how can he inflame my Soul with his Indignation? and to what degrees he pleases, both now and for ever: For if he hid the face of his Mercy, who can behold him? What Reason have I therefore to reverence him with Godly Fear, and to acknowledge him with greatest dependency! I humbly therefore say, as the Apostle, not only, by the Grace of God, I am what I am; but by the Grace of God alone, I hope, what I hope to be.  
5. I hereby understand, what a great necessity I have of Jesus Christ my Lord, the Son of the Wisdom, Glory, Power, and Holiness of God, the Son of his Love; for he is the Atonement, His Blood offered by the Eternal Spirit, is the most excellent Thing in Heaven or Earth, and that only which can purge the Conscience; the most excellent and divine Instrument of Pacification with God, and within the Conscience itself: Through him the Holy Spirit is given, by him is there an entrance into that Holy of Holies, that Heaven within the Veil; for as the value of Souls for which our Lord gave himself exalts his Redemption, the greatness of the Misery from which they are rescued, the greatness of the Happiness to which they are exalted, all glorify the Saviour of Souls; so do these Souls, of a Nature so supreme, require so great a Ransom and Mediator, no lower, no lesser a Price can countervail them; and it argues them to be a Nature so supreme, that so great a Mediator undertook so infinitely for them.  
6. Hereby I understand, the great and extreme Evil of sin; for if the breaches and disorders of the Creation are so great arguments of the Evil of sin; how much more the breaches, the wounds, the horrors of Conscience! There had never been such a Thing as a wounded Spirit, had it not been for sin: There had been only perfect Peace, Glory, and Honour, Happiness, Pleasure, Joy and Blessedness of Spirit; sin introduced Debasement and Misery.  
7. I hereby understand, what a worthless inconsiderable Thing the World is, if truly estimated, because it is neither that which can be, or aught to be the Happiness of a Man, because not the Happiness of the Soul; and if God be pleased to raise any Soul above it, what can it be now? Indeed a Man may be quiet with it for a time, but the Soul set upon God, and Christ, and Eternal things, is set where it may rest for Ever; and it may be so highly set, and raised upward, that it may have no need of the World, nor of any thing in it; for in the greatest want of it, even now in this life, the Spirit, born up by God, and Christ, by sense of and interest in him, and Eternal Happiness, will bear its infirmity; but because this World can do nothing to help in the amazements of Conscience, in the Agonies of Death, in the Terrors of Eternity, wherein can it serve us? But Godliness hath the promise 
1 Tim. 4. 8.  of this life, and of that which is to come; Now our meat and drink may be to do Gods will, much more will it be the perfect enjoyment of Eternity.  
This World then, and the life we live in it, is only of use to make friends of, that we may be received into everlasting Habitations, to sow to the Spirit with; to cast this life, and all the interests of it, as a Corn of Wheat into 
John 12. 24, 25.  the ground; for except it die into a higher, and more excellent life, it abides alone; we know the utmost can be made of it, it can never rise higher, than it is, and all that can be made of it, the total account is but dying, unhappy man, but being thus sown, it rises in a flourish much more excellent, and brings forth fruit unto Eternal life.  
8. Hereby I understand the state of this World, and of all men in it, and their Motion, even as I understand how the Happiness or Misery of Eternity lies: For when I think of Thoughts, Memory, Affections, Conscience, always and for ever in act and motion; either upon the Consolations, or Terrors of God; and those Powers or Motions inwardly Good and Holy, or Evil and Wicked, so is Happiness or Misery.  
So when I see in the World such an even poise, as there is between the vigorous life of Grace and Comfort, and the suppressions of it, through so great concernedness either in the pleasures, or afflictions of this present life, in Good Men; I herein see, and understand, God doth not call out the Spirit to those high and illustrious Motions of Grace, that are proper to so excellent a state as Grace is; and hence I conclude, the strength and enjoyment of Good Men is not comparable to what it might be upon so excellent Principles.  
Again, On the other side, when I see a like poise in the state of Evil Men, between the Trouble and Disquiets of this World, and the Pleasures of it, between some secret Fears of a future State, and the insensibleness of it; I plainly apprehend, the Patience of God preserves Men from those Horrors they are so every way capable of.  
And when either of these Conditions are brought near to an agreement, or full correspondence with those Principles, upon which they are fixed; that is, to those Joys unspeakable and full of Glory, or to those Woes and Agonies of Mind that cannot be eased, they approach nearer to what they shall be For Ever. And from both these I collect the certainty of a Future and Everlasting State.  
9 I hereby understand, what it is to lose a Soul: It is not to be discharged and acquitted from a Soul, to be as the Beasts, as the Israelites desired to be as the Heathens about them. How glad would wicked men be at last, if this could be? if their Spirits might go downward, if they could be rolled up into utter senselesness, or become nothing; if Rocks might fall upon them, and the Mountains cover them. But this cannot be, Men cannot be Beasts, though they desire it; God hath known them above all the residue of this lower Creation, and brings them to a reckoning so exact, that none can be lost in this sense: The number of Souls cannot be lessened or wanting.  
The loss then of a Soul is to be lost from true Beauty, Excellency, and Goodness, to have an abhorred Deformity, so that they cannot endure to behold themselves, who have lost the Image of God. If ever any Man did recoil from himself, beholding an ugliness, where naturally should be a Beauty; or did abhor himself, being confounded with the sense of his own unworthy Actions; the height hereof is in Hell, both the Deformity, and the Apprehension of it: And this is one degree of the loss of a Soul, its horrible degradation from itself.  
Further, It is to be lost from Life and Blessedness, into an Eternity of Woe and Misery; as a Man is lost that is taken Captive, and made a Slave, that is condemned to the Mines or Galleys; to be for Ever the Captive of Justice, the Slave of the Wrath and Justice of God. This is the loss of a Soul; and it is the greatest loss, like the loss of the Eyes to the Body, or the loss of Life itself; in comparison of which Riches are nothing; a loss that a Man would redeem with a thousand Worlds, and the Pleasures of so many Worlds heaped together, and instead thereof undergo the severest mortification of many Ages of life, and suffer Martyrdoms repeated without number, that he might recover the lost Jewel, his Soul.  
And to conclude, It is the worst way of losing, by which a Soul is lost, it is a losing it by sin and wickedness; not like losing life in a Noble Cause, wherein a Man perishes with Grandeur and Majesty. Hoc tantùm nobile feci, quòd perii. Not so well as losing what we value by mere misfortune, but as a Man, that by Gaming and Debauchery loses his Estate, or by Treason and abhorred wickedness, loses both Life and Honour together.  
There is no way of losing a Soul, but by wickedness, which makes it always a most accursed loss: And they that are so lost are an abhorring of God, Good Angels, Holy Souls, and even of themselves; like the Carcases spoken of by Esay the Prophet, Whose Worm, bred out of themselves, dies not, and the fire prepared to consume them is not quenched; and they are for Ever an abhorring of all Flesh.  
Lastly, From these just Measures I have in the former Discourse given of a Soul, I find very satisfactory solutions to those Pretences, that are thought so mighty, against the Doctrine of the Resurrection. For when I consider, that Body and Matter are always flowing, and in a continual variation, that they are not stable enough to be much valuable in making up the person of a Man, I easily adjudge that Honour due to a more noble and excellent Being within; for if we respect a Body distinctly, who can give an account of the daily Decays and Reparations, the Accessions and Diminutions of it, the alterations of it in its ascendency from Infancy to Youth, from Youth to Manhood, the gradual declinations of it into Old Age? Yet we still account it the same Person, though it cannot be in a distinct sense the same Body; therefore it must be the conjunction with the same never growing, never decreasing Soul, that makes it esteemed the same. I then collect, whatever of Matter is assumed into a Vital Union with the Soul, and fitted for its operations, is truly called its Body; and do we not find, the Soul hath the same love for the new parts of Matter, that daily accrue to it, so long as they continue in conjunction with it? and that it loses its love to those parts of Matter, before united with it, assoon as they are loosed, and fly from it: It imprints rationality upon them by its own use of them, and they become wild, irrational, and insensible again in their departure from it; they are as guilty, as Matter can be, when the Soul viciously inspires them; and as virtuous, as Bodily parts can be, when it uses them in virtuous Motions; the Soul is punished, when they being united with it are in disorder, and finds pleasure in their ease, and good condition. It is yet indifferent to Matter itself, whether the parts of it burn in a Fever, or are in the most equal temper, and so throughout all the varieties of Bodily State; and it is as indifferent to the Soul, whether these material particles are of its older or newer assumption into the participations of its own life, and resentment; its care for, and concern in them is all one. This then being laid, as a certain ground, (for I think it cannot be denied) that the sameness of the Soul retains with itself the whole account of the sameness of the person, no man need entangle himself in unnecessary scruples concerning the Resurrection, or think the Wounds of Atheism deep, and incurable, upon this point of Christianity.  
For first, Let us take that, which seems the most natural sense of the Apostles Discourse of this point, 1 Cor. 15. 36, 37, 38. That the dying Body is as Seed thrown into the Earth, which 
Joh. 12. 24.  dies, that is dissolves, and melts as it were into the Earth, and communicates its seminal virtue to it, and from thence it rises in the very same kind of Body, though with much advantage, and flourish of Nature; we may then conceive a great part of the whole lump or universe of Matter, communicated with the seminal virtue of Humane Bodies, full of that Vis plastica, which lies hid and dead now. But as God doth, according to the several Seasons of his own appointment, raise out of the Earth the ordinary Seeds, so doth he, in that great Period, or Harvest of the World, draw out of the whole Plot of Nature, the Bodies of every Man, Woman, and Child, the seminal virtue of which remain all along, though concealed; And as the rising again of Seeds in common Nature, in the main follows the kind of Seeds dying into the Earth, so it is in this higher and proper Resurrection: Yet there are very great variations of circumstances too, between the Seeds sown, and their rising again, so there is in this Resurrection; insomuch that, though there is certainly so much as to distinguish and appropriate every man's Body to himself, and so much, that a vicious, unclean, and unsanctified Body sown rises the same; and a holy purified Body, made the Temple of the Holy Ghost, riseth such; and this latter with advantage, and that so great, that the Apostle tells us, We know not what we 
1 Joh. 3. 2.  shall be, only this we know, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is: And the Apostle Paul resolves it into this, God gives a Body as it pleases him; a Body spiritual, incorruptible, and immortal, conformed to the glorious Body of the Son of God, and so united with the Soul for Ever.  
And further than this, to approach in a more strict and literal sense to the Article of the Resurrection. In all the revolutions of Matter, out of one shape into another, or the vicissitudes of it in the Bodies of Men, entering first into the Body of one Man, then of another, there is yet no loss of Matter, the Omnisciency of God keeps it all under a strict account, distinguishes it all; his Omnipotency preserves and disposes it, he knows how, and is able, to summon it from every corner; there can then be no want of any particle of any man, and however some of the same Matter may have been common to many Men, yet we may with ease conceive some substantial parts of all Humane Bodies kept so distinct by God, as to make up out of them to every Man his own Body, at the Resurrection, in as full a sense, as Eve was made of the Rib of 
Gen. 2. 22.  Adam, and taken out of Man; for we cannot suppose that done without any addition, but that God made that the Foundation, and built upon it by his own Omnipotency; and yet the whole was so like Adam, that he knew Eve was Bone of his Bone, Flesh 
v. 23.  of his Flesh; even so the Soul shall know its own Body, notwithstanding any alteration or addition: And how little an addition needs in the making up a spiritual Body? Resurrection is too great a Mystery to search into; but this is plain, The same Soul with so much the same Body, much eases the Doctrine of the Resurrection to our Thoughts.  
Nor do I intent this should be understood, as the least intimation, that there is not further proof from Scripture, reconcileable with the principles of true Reason, to ascertain this Article of Christian Faith, in the utmost latitude it is asserted by the Church; but I have only taken advantage from the greatness of the Soul, to show how far the Doctrine of the Resurrection may be verified against the boldest infidelious Sadducee.  
There remains nothing then, but a general review of the state of the Soul in these Bodies of the Resurrection; upon which I have made frequent remarks already, and shall only give now this brief Recapitulation.  
The Bodies of that future state are so proportioned and qualified, that they do not at all damp the lively operations of a blessed, and for ever appeased, or, the enraged motions of a disturbed and tormented Mind. The Bodies of the Saints are fitted to the choice and beatifying Action of their Souls; and those of the Condemned, have such kind of Bodies, as give way to the play of a Conscience, full of the stings of guilt, and rebukes of Justice; of the horrors of sin, and restless Exagitations of itself; for could these motions be dulled by Bodies, there would neither be scope for Divine Mercy, nor Justice, in the other World: But than it is, that the Bodies of Men are prepared for the greatest capacities of Pleasure or Pain, Fine to take in every intimation of either, of freest reception and strength to endure, and bear, in a state of immortality and incorruption to last; which is the difference between the present state of Bodies, and the future; for even an Excess of Pleasure here gluts and overcharges Bodily Nature, and oppresses it; from pain and pressure it vanishes, or is ground to Powder by it: But this immortal state of Bodies is filled with Happiness, Pleasure, and Delight, and yet those Bodies not surcharged; and full of Unhappiness and Misery, yet they abide by it, shrink not from, but rejoin themselves to all they endure, having put on immortality.  
Now this Misery and Unhappiness of the Body arises first from the guilt, and confusion of the Soul, that falls upon it; even as we see the sorrow of the Mind here in the World, prints itself upon the outward Man; and the shame and secret confusions of guilt, of which the Mind is full, diffuse themselves upon the whole surface of exterior Nature, and make the aspect mean and confounded: On the other side, the Peace, Righteousness, and Heavenly Joy of the Saints break out, and illustrate their Bodies; even as we see now a cheerful Heart makes a Countenance full of Light, and a good frame of Soul beautifies the whole Man; A Man's Wisdom now makes his Face to shine, and in Eternity the clearness shall not be only doubled, but in endless degrees grow brighter, even to the brightness of the Sun, for so they shall shine out in the 
Matt. 13. 43.  Kingdom of their Father.  
2. The Bodies of Saints have a distinct Happiness and Glory, besides that which flows from the Soul; and it is that by which Almighty Goodness and Wisdom fits them to the state of the Soul; a Fashioning there is of Bodies like to the Glorious Body of Christ, which returns with greatest delight and satisfaction upon the Soul: On the contrary, the Bodies of wicked Men not accomplished with that Glory, but punished with a deformity, increase the unhappiness and torment of the Soul. We see the Soul now takes pleasure in the grace and happy order of its Body, and is dejected by any thing loathsome, and to be abhorred in it: This will be much more in the unchangeable state; God so disposing, that the Soul and Body lie closer, and nearer one to another; and the passes and reciprocations of Good and Evil are much freer, and more penetrating; and therefore Heaven and Hell are so often described in Scripture by things proper to Bodies, because they are most sensible to us now; and because too the Happiness or Misery (though it be for the Souls sake alone, originally and principally, yet) as far as the Nature of Body united to the Soul extends, do fully and on every side inclasp, and encompass Bodies, as well as Souls for Ever.  
FINIS.