em. I take the two
fountains of all the pollutions, disorders, and defilements among men, to
be the inconsideration and ignorance of God, that eternal Spirit and
Fountain-being, and the ignorance of our own souls, those immortal spirits
within us, which are derived from that Fountain-spirit. This is the misery
of men, that scarce do they once seriously reflect upon their own spirits,
or think what immortal souls are within them, and what affinity these have
to the Fountain of all spirits. Therefore do men basely throw down
themselves to the satisfaction of the lusts of the flesh. Now, indeed,
this is the very beginning of Christianity, to reduce men from these baser
thoughts and employments, to the consideration of their immortal souls
within. And, O how will a Christian blush to behold himself in that light,
to see the very image of a beast upon his nature, to look on that slavery
and bondage of his far better part to the worst and brutish part in
him,--his flesh!

If a man did wisely consider the constitution of his nature, from its
first divine original, and what a thing the soul is, which is truly and
more properly himself, than his body; what excellency is in the soul
beyond the body, and so, what pre-eminency it advanceth a man unto beyond
a beast,--he could not but account religion the very ornament and
perfection of his nature. Reason will say, that the spirit, should rule
and command the body, that, flesh is but the minister and servant of the
spirit, that there is nothing the proper and peculiar good of man, but
that which adorns and rectifies the spirit; that all those external things
which men's senses are carried after with so much violence, do not better
a man, as man, but are common to beasts; that in these things, man's
happiness as man, doth not all consist, but in some higher and more
transcending good, which beasts are not capable of, and which may satisfy
the immortal spirit, and not perish in the using, but live with it. All
these things, the very natural frame and constitution of man doth
convincingly persuade. Now then, may a soul think within itself, O how far
am I departed from my original! How far degenerated from that noble and
royal dignity, that God by the stamp of his image once put upon me! How is
it that I am become a slave and drudge to that baser and brutish part, the
flesh? I would have you retire into your own hearts, and ask such things
at them. Man being in honour, and understanding