elf ordered, all those distempers cured, all
those defilements washed. This is the business he is about in this world,
to wash his heart from wickedness, (Jer. iv. 14,)--to cleanse even vain
thoughts, and shut up, from that ordinary repair,(177) his own heart. He
is about the enclosing it to be a garden to the well-beloved, to bring
forth sweet fruits. He is about the renewing of it, the adorning it with
the new man, against that day of our Bridegroom's appearing, and bringing
him up to celebrate the marriage. Though he be in the flesh, yet he is
most taken up with his spirit, how to have it restored to that primitive
beauty and excellency, the image of God in it; how to be clothed with
humility, and to put on the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit,--that he
accounts his beauty; how to rule his own spirit,--that he accounts only
true fortitude; and thinks it a greater vassalage and victory to overcome
himself than his enemy, and esteems it the noblest revenge, not to be like
to other men that wrong him. He is occupied about the highest gain and
advantage, viz. to save his spirit and soul; and accounts all loss to
this,--to bring Jesus Christ into the heart. That is the jewel he digs for,
and esteems all dung in comparison of it.

If you be Christians after the Spirit, no doubt you are busied this way
about your spirits. For others, they are busied about the flesh,--to make
provision for its lusts; and there needs no other mark to know them by.
Alas! poor souls, to this you have never yet adverted that you have
spirits, immortal beings within you, which must survive this dust, this
corruptible flesh; what will ye do, when you cannot have flesh to care
for,--when your spirits can have nothing to be carried forth into, but must
eternally dwell within the bosom of an evil conscience, and be tormented
with that worm, the bitter remembrance of the neglect of your spirits, and
utter estrangement from them, while you were in the body? Then you must be
confined within your own evil consciences, and be imprisoned there for
ever, because, while yet there was time and season, you were always
abroad, and everywhere, but within your own hearts and consciences,--and is
not that a just recompense?

Then again, as Christianity descends from the Father of spirits, into the
spirit of a man, to lodge there for a while, it doth at length bring up
the spirit of a man, and unites it to that eternal Spirit; and so, as the
original was high an