Works of John Bunyan – The Greatness of The Soul, And Unspeakableness 0f theLoss Thereof; What Shall A Man Give In Exchange For His Soul.38

 

THE GREATNESS OF THE SOUL

SECOND, Having thus given you a description of the soul, what it is, I shall, in the next place, show you its greatness.

[Of the greatness of the soul, when compared with the body.]

First, And the first thing that I shall take occasion to make this manifest by, will be by showing you the disproportion that is betwixt that and the body; and I shall do it in these following particulars:

The body, a house for the soul.

1. The body is called the house of the soul, a house for the soul to dwell in. Now everybody knows that the house is much inferior to him who, by God's ordinance, is appointed to dwell therein; that it is called the house of the soul, as you find in Paul's letter to the Corinthians: 'For we know,' saith he, 'that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we would have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens' (2 Cor 5:1). We have, then, a house for our soul in this world, and this house is the body, for the apostle can mean nothing else; therefore, he calls it an earthly house. 'If our earthly house"—our house. But who does he personate if he says, This is a house for the soul; for the body is part of him that says, Our house?

In this manner of language, he personates his soul with the souls of the rest that are saved; and thus to do, is common with the apostles, as will be easily discerned by them that give attendance to reading. Our earthly houses; or, as Job saith, 'houses of clay,' for our bodies are bodies of clay:

'Your remembrances are like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay' (Job 4:19; 13:12). Indeed, he after maketh mention of a house in heaven, but that is not it about which he now speaks; now he speaks of this earthly house which we have (we, our souls) to dwell in, while on this side glory, where the other house stands, as ready prepared for us when we shall flit from this to that; or in case this should sooner or later be dissolved. But that is the first; the body is compared to the house, but the soul to him that inhabits the house; therefore, as the man is more noble than the house he dwells in, so is the soul more noble than the body. And yet, alas! with grief be it spoken, how common is it for men to spend all their care, all their time, all their strength, all their wit and parts for the body and its honor and preferment, even as if the soul were some poor, pitiful, sorry, inconsiderable, and under the thing, not worth ththinking of, or not worth caring for. But,