Objection. But some may object, and say, But you denounce all against the soul; the soul, as if the body were in no fault at all; or, as if there were no punishment assigned for the body.
Answer 1. The soul must be the part punished because the soul is that which sins. 'Every sin that a man doeth is without the body,' fornication or adultery excepted (1 Cor 6:18). 'Is without the body; that is, as to the wilily inventing, contriving, and finding out ways to bring the motions of sin into action. Alas! What can the body do to these? It is in a manner wholly passive; yea, all together as to the lusting and purposing to do the wickedness, excepting the sin before excepted; ay, and not excepting that, as to the rise of that sin; for even that, with all the rest, ariseth and proceedeth out of the heart—the soul; 'For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man' (Mark 7:21–23). That is, the outward man. But a difference must always be put betwixt defiling and being defiled, that which defileth being the worst; not but that the body shall have its share of judgment, for body and soul must be destroyed in hell (Luke 12:4,5; Matt 10:28). The body as the instrument, the soul as the actor; but oh! the soul, the soul, the soul is the sinner; and, therefore, the soul, as the principal, must be punished.
And that God's indignation burneth most against the soul appears in that death hath seized upon every soul already; for the Scripture saith, that every natural or unconverted man is dead (Eph 2:1-3). Dead! How? Is his body dead? No, verily; his body liveth, but his soul is dead (1 Tim 5:6). Dead! But with what death? Dead to God, and to all things gospelly good, by reason of that benumbing, stupifying, and senselessness, that, by God's just judgment for and by sin, hath swallowed up the soul. Yeah, if you observe, you shall see that the soul goeth first, or before, in punishment, not only by what has been said already, in that the soul is first made a partaker of death, but in that God first deals with the soul by convictions, yea, and terrors, perhaps, while the body is well; or, in that He giveth up the soul to judicial hardness and further blindness, while He leaveth the body to do His office in the world; yea, and also when the day of death and dissolution comes, the body is spared, while the soul is tormented in unutterable torment in hell.
And so, I say, it shall be spared, and the clods of the valley shall be sweet unto it, while the soul mourneth in hell for sin. It is true, at the day of judgment, because that is the last and final judgment of God on men, the body and soul shall be re-united or joined together again, and shall then, together, partake of that recompense for their wickedness, which is met. When I say, the body is spared and the soul tormented, I do not mean that the body is not then, at death, made to partake of the wages of sin, 'for the wages of sin is death' (Rom 3:23). But I mean, the body partakes then of temporal death, which, as to sense and feeling, is sometimes over presently, and then rests in the grave, while the soul is tormented in hell. Yes, and why is death suffered to slay the body? I dare say, not chiefly for that the indignation of God most burneth against the body; but the body being the house for the soul in this world, God even pulls down this body, that the soul may be stripped naked, and being stripped, may be carried to prison, to the place where damned souls are, there to suffer in the beginning of suffering, that punishment that will be endless.
