e body, and
making provision for the lusts thereof--as most men do, and all by nature
are now inclined to do--but to be taken up with the immortal precious jewel
that is within, how to have it rubbed and cleansed from all the filth that
sin and the flesh hath cast upon it, and restored to that native beauty,
the image of God in righteousness and holiness. If you, in your practice
and affection, turn the scales otherwise, and make the body and things of
the body, suppose the whole world, down-weight in your affection and
imagination, you have plainly contradicted the just measure of the
sanctuary, and, in effect, you declare that "Christ died in vain," and
gave his life out of an error and mistake of the worth of the soul. You
say he needed not have given such a price for it, seeing every day you
weigh it down with every trifle of momentary fleshly satisfaction.

Lastly, The Spirit binds this fast upon us, for the soul of man he hath
chosen for his habitation, and there he delights to dwell, in the heart of
the contrite and humble, and this he intends to beautify and garnish, and
to restore it to that primitive excellency it once had. The spirit of man
is nearer his nature, and more capable of being conformed unto it, and
therefore his peculiar and special work is about our spirits. First, to
enlighten and convince them, then, to reform and direct them and lead
them, and this binds as forcibly, and constraineth a believer certainly to
resign himself to the Spirit, to study how to order his walk after that
direction, and to be more and more abstracted from the satisfaction of his
body; else he cannot choose but grieve the Spirit, his best friend, which
alone is the fountain of joy and peace to him, and being grieved, cannot
but grieve himself next.

Now, my beloved, consider, if you owe so much to the flesh, whether or not
it be so steadable(209) and profitable unto you? And if you think it can
give you a sufficient reward to compense all your pains in satisfying it,
go on, but, I believe, you can reckon no good office that ever it did you,
and your expectation is less. What fruit have you of all, but shame and
vexation of conscience? And what can you expect but death, the last fruits
of it? What then do you owe unto it? Are you debtors to its pleasure and
satisfaction, which hath never done you good, and will do you eternal
hurt? Consider whether you are so much bound and obliged to it as to lose
your souls for it, (o