500 CHARACTER OF A SOUND, use his sense (as he can use the world, the objects of sense) In subserviency to faith and his salvation. His eye doth but open a window to his mind, tò behold and admire the Creator in his work: His taste of the sweetness of the creatures is but a means by which the sweeter love of God doth pass directly to his heart. His sense of pleasure is but the passage of spiritual; holy pleasure to his mind. His sense of bitterness and pain is but the messenger to tell his heart of the bitterness andvexatiousness of sin. 1 As God, in the creation of us, made our senses but as the inlet and passage for himself into our minds, (even as he made all the crea- tures to represent him to us by this passage,) so grace doth restore our very senses (with the creature)' to this their holy, original use; that die goodness of God; through the goodness of the creature; may pass to our hearts, and be the effect and end of all. 2. But for the weak Christian, though he have mortified the deeds of the body by the Spirit, and liveth not after the flesh, but be freed from its captivity or reign, (Gal. v. 24. Rom. viii. 1. 7-13.) yet bath he such remnants of concupiscence and sensual- ity as make it a far harder matter to him to live in temperance, and deny his appetite, and govern his senses, and restrain them from rebellion and excess : he is like a weak Loan upon an ill- ridden, headstrong horse, who bath much ado to keep his saddle and keep his way. He is more strongly inclined to fleshly lusts, or excess in meat, or drink, or sleep, or sports, or some fleshly pleasure, than the mortified, temperate person is, and therefore is oftener guilty of some excess ; so that his life is a very tiresome conflict, and very uneasy to himself, because the less the flesh is mortified, the more able it is to raise perturbations, and to put faith and reason to a continual flight. And most of the scandals and blemishes of his life arise from hence, even the successes of the flesh against the Spirit ; so that, though he live not in any gross or willful sins, yet in lesser measures ofexcess he is too frequently overtaken : how few be there that in meat and sleep da not usually exceed their measure? And they are easily tempted to libertine opinions, which indulge the flesh, having a weaker preservative against them than stronger Christians have; Matt. xvi. 22, 23. Gal. v. 13. i. 16. ii. 12-14. Col. ii. 11. 3. Bui the seeming Christian is really carnal; The flesh is the predominant part with him ; and the interest of the flesh is the ruling interest. He washeth away the outward filth, and, in hope of salvation, will be as religious as the flesh will givehim leave; and will deny it in some smaller matters, and will serve it in a religious way, and not in so gross and impudent a manner as the atheists and openly profane. But for all that, he never conquered the flesh indeed, but seeketh its prosperity more than the pleasing
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