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2. As this casting of them away supposed God's abhorrence of them, so it supposed God's just repaying of them for their wickedness by way of retaliation.

God in the exercise of His long-suffering and forbearance towards them, did call upon them, wait upon them, and send after them His messengers, to turn them from their evil ways; but they despised and mocked, the messengers of the Lord. Also, they shut their eyes, and would not see; they stopped their ears, and would not understand; and they hardened themselves against the beseeching of their God. Yea, all that day long He did stretch out His hand towards them, but they chose to be a rebellious and gainsaying people; yea, they said unto God, 'Depart from us;' and 'what is the Almighty' that we should pray unto him? (Hosea 6:2; Rev 16:21; Job 21:14,15; Mal 3:14).

And of all these things, God takes notice, writes them down, seals them up for the time to come, and will bring them out and spread them before them, saying, I have called, and you have refused; I have stretched out My hand, and no man regarded; I have exercised patience, gentleness, and long-suffering towards you, and in all that time you despised Me, and cast Me behind your back; and now the time, and the exercise of My patience, when I waited upon you, and suffered your manners, and did bear your contempts and scorns, is at an end; wherefore I will now arise, and come forth to the judgment that I have appointed.

But, Lord, saith the sinner, we turn now.

But now; saith God, turning is out of season; the day of My patience is ended.

But, Lord, says the sinner, behold our cries.

But you did not, says God, behold nor regard My cries.

But, Lord, saith the sinner, let our beseeching find place in Thy compassions.

But, saith God, I also beseeched, and I was not heard.

But Lord, says the sinner, our sins lie hard upon us.

But I offered you pardon when time was, says God, you did utterly reject it.

But, Lord, says the sinner, let us therefore have it now.

But now the door is shut, saith God.

And what then? Why, then, by way of retaliation, God will serve them as they have served Him; and so the wind-up of the whole will be this—they shall have like for like. Time was when they would have none of Him, and now will God have none of them. Time was when they cast God behind their back, and now He will cast away their soul. Time was when they would not heed His calls, and now He will not heed their cries. Time was when they abhorred Him, and now His soul also abhorreth them (Zech 11:8). This is now by way of retaliation—like for like, scorn for scorn, repulse for repulse, contempt for contempt; according to that which is written, 'Therefore it is come to pass, that as He cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the Lord' (Zech 7:13). And thus, I have also showed you that the loss of the soul is double—lost by man, lost by God.

But oh! who thinks of this? who, I say, that now makes light of God, of His Word, His servants, and ways, once dreams of such retaliation, though God to warn them hath even, in the day of His patience, threatened to do it in the day of His wrath, saying, 'Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out My hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all My counsel, and would none of My reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon Me, but I will not answer; they shall seek Me early, but they shall not find Me' (Prov 1:24-28). I will do unto them as they have done unto Me; and what unrighteousness is in all this? But, 

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The casting away, then, mentioned in Luke, is a casting away by the hand of God, by the revenging hand of God; and it supposes two things: 1. God's abhorrence of such a soul.  God's just repaying it for its wickedness by way of retaliation.

It supposes God's abhorrence of the soul. That which we abhor, that we cast from us, and put out of our favor and respect with disdain, and a loathing thereof. So when God teacheth Israel to loathe and abhor their idols, He bids them 'to cast away their very covering as a stinking and menstruous cloth, and to say unto it, 'Get you hence' (Isa 30:22), 'He shall gather the good into vessels, and cast the bad away' (Matt 13:48; 25:41). Cast them out of My presence. Well, but where must they go? The answer is, Into hell, into utter darkness, into the fire that is prepared for the devil and his angels. Wherefore, to be cast away, to be cast away by God, shows unto us God's abhorrence of such souls, and how vile and loathsome such are in His divine eyes.

 And the similitude of Abigail's sling, mentioned before, doth yet further show us the greatness of this abhorrence—"The souls of thine enemies,' said she, 'God shall sling out as out of the middle of a sling.' When a man casts a stone away with a sling, then he casteth it furthest from him, for with a sling he can cast a stone further than by his hand. 'And he,' saith the text, 'shall cast them away as with a sling.  But that is not all, either; for it is not only said that He shall sling away their souls, but that He shall sling them away out of the middle of a sling.' When a stone is placed, to be cast away, in the middle of a sling, the slinger casts it the furthest of all. Now God is the slinger, abhorrence is His sling, and the lost soul is the stone, which is placed in the very middle of the sling, and is from there cast away.

And, therefore, it is said again, that 'such shall go into utter, outer darkness"—that is, furthest off of all. This therefore shows us how God abhors that man who, for sin, has lost himself. And well he may; for such a one has not only polluted and defiled himself with sin; and that is the most offensive thing to God under heaven, but he has abused the handiwork of God. The soul, as I said before, is the workman's hip of God, yea, the top piece that He hath made in all the visible world; also, He made it for us to be delighted with it and to admit it into communion with Himself. Now for a man to thus abuse God; for a man to take his soul, which is God's, and prostrate it to sin, to the world, to the devil, and to every beastly lust, flat against the command of God, and notwithstanding the soul was also His; this is horrible and calls aloud upon that God whose soul this is to abhor, and to show, by all means possible, His abhorrence of such a one.

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The loss of the soul a double loss.]

Secondly, As the loss of the soul is, in the nature of the loss, a loss peculiar to itself, so the loss of the soul is a double loss; it is, I say, a loss that is double, lost both by man and God; man has lost it, and by that loss has lost himself; God has lost it, and by that loss, it is cast away. And to make this a little plainer unto you, I suppose it will be readily granted that men do lose their souls. But now how doth God lose it? The soul is God's as well as man's—man's because it is of themselves; God's because it is His creature; God has made us this soul, and hence it is that all souls are His (Jer 38:16; Eze 18:4).

Now the loss of the soul does not only stand in the sin of man but in the justice of God. Hence He says, 'What is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away' (Luke 9:25). Now this last clause, 'or be cast away,' is not spoken to show what he that has lost his soul has done, though a man may also be said to cast away himself; but to show what God will do to those that have lost themselves, what God will add to that loss. God will not cast away a righteous man, but God will cast away the wicked, such a wicked one as by the text is under our consideration (Job 8:20; Matt 13:50). This, then, is that which God will add, and so make the sad state of them that lose themselves double. 

The man for sin has lost himself, and God by justice will cast him away; according to that of Abigail to David, 'The soul of my lord,' said she, 'shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God; and the souls of thine enemies, them shall He sling out, as out of the middle of a sling' (1 Sam 25:29). So that here is God's hand as well as man's; man's by sin, and God's by justice. God shall cast them away; wherefore in the text above mentioned he doth not say, or cast away himself, as meaning the act of the man whose soul is lost; but, 'or be cast away' (Luke 9:25). Supposing a second person joining with the man himself in the making up of the greatness of the loss of the soul—to wit, God himself, who will verily cast away that man who has lost himself. God shall cast them away—that is, exclude them His favour or protection, and deliver them up to the due reward of their deed! He shall shut them out of His heaven, and deliver them up to their hell; He shall deny them a share in his glory, and shall leave them to their own shame; He shall deny them a portion in His peace, and shall deliver them up to the torments of the devil, and of their own guilty consciences; He shall cast them out of His affection, pity, and compassion, and shall leave them to the flames that they by sin have kindled, and to the worm, or biting cockatrice, that they themselves have hatched, nursed, and nourished in their bosoms. And this will make their loss double, and so a loss that is loss to the uttermost, a loss above every loss. A man may cast away himself and not be cast away of God; a man may be cast away by others, and not be cast away of God; yea, what way soever a man be cast away, if he is not cast away for sin, he is safe, he is yet found, and in a sure hand. But for a man so to lose himself as by that loss to provoke God to cast him away too, this is fearful.

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They cannot sit down by the loss.

(3.) All that he who has lost himself can do is sit down by the loss. Do I say, He can do this? Oh! if that could be, it would be to such, a mercy; I must therefore here correct myself—That they cannot do; for to sit down by the loss implies a patient enduring; but there will be no such grace as patience in hell with him that has lost himself; here, we will also want a bottom for patience—to wit, the providence of God; for the providence of God, though never so dismal, is a bottom for patience to the afflicted; but men go not to hell by providence but by sin. Now sin being the cause, other effects are wrought; for they that go to hell, and that there miserably perish, shall never say it was God by His providence that brought them hither, and so shall not have that on which to lean and stay themselves.

They shall justify God, and lay the fault upon themselves, concluding that it was sin with which their souls did voluntarily work—yea, which their souls did suck in as sweet milk—that is the cause of this torment. Now this will work in another manner, and will produce quite another thing than patience, or a patient enduring of their torment; for their seeing that they are not only lost, but have lost themselves, and that against the ordinary means that of God was provided to prevent that loss; yea, when they shall see what a base thing sin is, how that it is the very worst of things, and that which also makes all things evil, and that for the sake of that, they have lost themselves, this will make them fret, and, gnash, and gnaw with anger themselves; this will set all the passions of the soul, save love, for that I think will be stark dead, all in a rage, all in a self-tormenting fire. You know there is nothing that will sooner put a man into and manage his anger against himself than a complete conviction in his conscience that, by his own only folly, and against caution, counsel, and reason to the contrary, he has brought himself into extreme distress and misery. But how much more will it make this fire burn when he shall see all this come upon him for a toy, for a bauble, for a thing that is worse than nothing!

Why, this is the case with him who has lost himself; and therefore he cannot sit down by the loss, cannot be quiet under the sense of his loss. For sharply and wonderful piercingly, considering the loss of himself, and the cause thereof, which is sin, he falls to tearing of himself in pieces with thoughts as hot as the coals of juniper, and to gnashing upon himself for this; also, the Divine wisdom and justice of God helpeth this self-tormentor in his self-tormenting work, by holding the justice of the law against which he has offended, and the unreasonableness of such offense, continually before his face. 

For if, to an enlightened man who is in the door of hope, the sight of all past evil practices will work in him 'vexation of spirit,' to see what fools we were, (Eccl 1:14); how can it but be to them that go to hell a vexation only to understand the report, the report that God did give them of sin, of His grace, of hell, and of everlasting damnation, and yet that they should be such fools to go thither? (Isa 28:19). But to pursue this head no further, I will now come to the next thing.

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And now the fancy or imagination doth start and stare like a man by fears bereft of wits, and doth exercise itself, or rather is exercised by the hand of revenging justice, so about the breadth and depth of present and future punishments, as to lay the soul as on a burning rack. Now also the judgment, as with a mighty maul, drive down the soul in the sense and pangs of everlasting misery into that pit that has no bottom; yea, it turned again, and, as with a hammer, it riveted every fearful thought and apprehension of the soul so fast that it can never be loosed again for ever and ever. Alas! now the conscience can sleep, be dull, be misled, or batter, no longer; no, it must now cry out; understanding will make it, memory will make it, fancy or imagination will make it. Now, I say, it will cry out of sin, of justice, and of the terribleness of the punishment that hath swallowed him up that has lost himself.

Here will be no forgetfulness; yet nothing shall be thought on but that which will wound and kill; here will be no time, cause, or means for diversion; all will stick and gnaw like a viper. Now the memory will go out to where sin was heretofore committed, it will also go out to the word that did forbid it. The understanding also, and the judgment too, will now consider of the pretended necessity that the man had to break the commandments of God, and of the reasonableness of the cautions and of the convictions which were given him to forbear, by all which more load will be laid upon him that has lost himself; for here all the powers, senses, and passions of the soul must be made self-burners, self-tormentors, self-executioners, by the just judgment of God; also all that the will shall do in this place shall be but to wish for ease, but the wish shall only be such as shall only seem to lift up, for the cable rope of despair shall with violence pull him down again.

The will indeed will wish for ease, and so will the mind, etc., but all these wishers will by wishing arrive to no more advantage but to make despair which is the most twinging stripe of hell, to cut yet deeper into the whole soul of him that has lost himself; wherefore, after all that can be wished for, they return again to their burning chair, where they sit and bewail their misery. Thus, will all the powers, senses, and passions of the soul of him that has lost himself be out of his own power to dispose for his advantage, and will be only in the hand and under the management of the revenging justice of God. And herein will that state of the damned be worse than it is now with the fallen angels; for though the fallen angels are now cast down to hell, in chains, and sure in themselves at last to partake of eternal judgment, yet at present they are not so bound up as the damned sinner shall be; for notwithstanding their chains, and their being the prisoners of the horrible hells, yet they have a kind of liberty granted them, and that liberty will last till the time appointed, to tempt, to plot, to contrive, and invent their mischiefs, against the Son of God and His (Job 1:7; 2:2).

And though Satan knows that this at last will work for his future condemnation, yet at present he finds it some diversion to his trembling mind, and obtains, through his so busily employing of himself against the gospel and its professors, something to sport and refresh himself withal; yea, and doth procure to himself some small crumbs of minutes of forgetfulness of his own present misery and of the judgment that is yet to pass upon him; but this privilege will then be denied to him that has lost himself; there will be no cause nor matter for diversion; there it will; as in the old world, rain day and night fire and brimstone from the Lord out of heaven upon them (Rev 14:10,11). Misery is fixed; the worm will be always sucking at and gnawing of, their soul; also, as I have said afore, all the powers, senses, and passions of the soul will throw their darts inwards, yea, of God will be made to do it, to the utter, unspeakable, and endless torment of him that has lost himself. Again,

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by Thomas Sadler, oil on canvas, 1684

There are several things that fall under this first head, upon which I would touch a little.

He that has lost himself will never be more at his own disposal.

(1.) He that has lost his soul has lost himself. Now, he that lost himself is no more at his own disposal. While a man enjoys himself, he is at his own disposal. A single man, a free man, a rich man, a poor man, any man that enjoys himself, is at his own disposal. I speak after the manner of men. But he that has lost himself is not at his own disposal. He is, as I may say, now out of his own hands: he has lost himself, his soul-self, his own self, his whole self, by sin, and wrath and hell hath found him; he is, therefore, now no more at his own dispose, but at the dispose of justice, of wrath, and hell; he is committed to prison, to hell prison, there to abide, not at pleasure, not as long and as little time as he will, but the term appointed by his judge: nor may he there choose his own affliction, neither for manner, measure, or continuance. It is God that will spread the fire and brimstone under him, it is God that will pile up wrath upon him, and it is God himself that will blow the fire. And 'the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it' (Isa 30:33). And thus it is manifest that he that has lost himself, his soul, is no more at his own dispose, but at the dispose of them that find him.

He that hath lost himself, is not at liberty to dispose of what he hath.

(2.) Again, as he that has lost himself is not at his own dispose, so neither is he at liberty to dispose of what he has; for the man that has lost himself has something yet of his own. The text implies that his soul is his when lost, yea, when that and his all, himself is lost; but as he cannot dispose of himself, so he cannot dispose of what he hath. Let me take a leave to make out my meaning. If he that is lost, that has lost himself, has not, notwithstanding, something that in some sense may be called his own, then he that is lost is nothing. The man that is in hell has yet the powers, the senses, and passions of his soul; for not he nor his soul must be thought to be stripped of these; for then he would be lower than the brute; but yet all these, since he is there, are by God improved against himself; or, if you will, the point of this man's sword is turned against his own heart, and made to pierce his own liver.

The soul by being in hell loses nothing of its aptness to think, its quickness to pierce, to pry, and to understand; nay, hell has ripened it in all these things; but, I say, the soul with its improvements as to these, or anything else, is not in the hand of him that hath lost himself to manage for his own advantage, but in the hand, and in the power, and to be disposed of as is thought to meet by him into whose revenging hand by sin he has delivered himself—to wit, in the hand of God.

So, then, God now has the victory, and dispose of all the powers, senses, and passions of the soul for the chastising of him that has lost himself. Now the understanding is only employed and improved in and about the apprehending of such things as will be like daggers at the heart—to wit, about justice, sin, hell, and eternity, to grieve and break the spirit of the damned; yea, to break, to wound, and to tear the soul in pieces. The depths of sin which the man has loved, the good nature of God whom the man has hated, the blessings of eternity which the soul has despised, shall now be understood by him more than ever, but yet so only, as to increase grief and sorrow, by improving the good and of the evil of the things understood, to the greater wounding of the spirit; wherefore now, every touch that the understanding shall give to the memory will be as a touch of red-hot iron, or like a draught of scalding lead poured down the throat. The memory also letteth those things down upon the conscience with no less terror and perplexity.

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by Thomas Sadler, oil on canvas, 1684

OF THE LOSS OF THE SOUL.]

THIRD, I shall now come to the third thing which was propounded to be spoken to; and that is, to show you what we are to understand by the loss of the soul, or what the loss of the soul is—"What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?'

[He that loseth his soul loseth himself.]

First, The loss of the soul is, by nature, peculiar to itself. There is no such loss, as to the nature of loss, as is the loss of the soul; for that, he that hath lost his soul has lost himself. In all other losses, it is possible for a man to save himself, but he that loseth his soul, loseth himself—"For what is a man advantaged, if he gains the whole world, and loses himself?' (Luke 9:25). Therefore, the loss of the soul is a loss that cannot be paralleled. He that loseth himself, loseth his all, his lasting all; for himself is his all—his all in the most comprehensive sense. What is what a man gets, if by the getting thereof he loseth himself? Suppose a man goeth to the Indies for gold, and he loadeth his ship therewith; but at his return, that sea that carried him thither swallows him up—now, what has he got? 

But this is but a lean similitude with reference to the matter in hand—to wit, to set forth the loss of the soul. Suppose a man that has been at the Indies for gold should, at his return, himself be taken by them of Algiers, and there made a slave of, and there be hunger-bit, and beaten till his bones are broken, what has he got? what is he advantaged by his rich adventure? Perhaps, you will say, he has got gold enough to obtain his ransom. Indeed this may be; and therefore no similitude can be found that can fully amplify the matter, 'for what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?' 'Tis a loss that standeth by itself, there is not another like it, or unto which it may be compared. 'Tis only like itself—'tis singular, 'tis the chief of all losses—the highest, the most significant loss. 'For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?' 

A man may lose his wife, his children, his estate, his liberty, and his life, and have all made up again, and have all restored with advantage, and may, therefore, notwithstanding all these losses, be far enough off from losing of himself. (Luke 14:26; Mark 8:35). For he may lose his life, and save it; yea, sometimes the only way to save that, is to lose it; but when a man has lost himself, his soul, then all is gone to all intents and purposes. There is no word that says, 'he that loses his soul shall save it;' but contrariwise, the text supposeth that a man has lost his soul, and then demands if any can answer it—'What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?' All, then, that he gains that loseth his soul is only this, he has gained a loss, he has purchased the loss of losses, he has nothing left him now but his loss, but the loss of himself, of his whole self. He that loseth his life for Christ, shall save it; but he that loseth himself for sin, and for the world, shall lose himself to perfection of loss; he has lost himself, and there is the full point.

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The might of the soul further shown.

11. The soul, by God's ordinance, while this world lasts, has a time appointed it to forsake and leave the body to be turned again to the dust as it was, and this separation is made by death, (Heb 9:27); therefore, the body must cease for a time to have sense, or life, or motion; and a little thing brings it now into this state; but in the next world, the wicked shall partake of none of this; for the body and the soul is at the resurrection rejoined, this death, that once did rend them asunder, is forever overcome and extinct; so that these two who lived in sin must forever be yoked together in hell. Now, there the soul is joined to the body, and death, which before did separate them, being utterly taken away, the soul retains not only its own being, but also continues the body to be, and to suffer sensibly the pains of hell, without those decays that it used to sustain.

And the reason why this death shall then be taken away is, that justice in its bestowing its rewards for transgressions may not be interrupted, but that body and soul, as they lived and acted in sin together, might be destroyed for sin in hell together (Matt 10:28 Luke 12:5). Destroyed, I say, but with such destruction, which, though it is everlasting, will not put a period to their sensible suffering the vengeance of eternal fire (2 Thess 1:8,9).

This death, therefore, though that also be the wages of sin, would now, were it suffered to continue, be a hindrance to the making known of the wrath of God, and also of the created power and might of the soul. (1.) It would hinder the making known of the wrath of God, for it would take the body out of the way, and make it incapable of sensible suffering for sin, and so removing one of the objects of vengeance the power of God's wrath would be so far undiscovered. (2.) It would also hinder the manifestation of the power and might of the soul, which is discovered much by its abiding to retain its own being while the wrath of God is grappling with it, and more by its continuing to the body a sensible being with itself.

Death, therefore, must now be removed, that the soul may be made the object of wrath without molestation or interruption. That the soul, did I say? yea, that soul and body both might be so. Death would now be a favor, though once the fruit of sin, and also the wages thereof, might it now be suffered to continue, because it would ease the soul of some of its burden: for a tormented body cannot but be a burden to a spirit, and so the wise man insinuates when he says, 'The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity;' that is, bear up under it, but yet so as that it feels it a burden.

We see that, because of the sympathy that is between body and soul, how one is burdened if the other is grieved. A sick body is a burden to the soul, and a wounded spirit is a burden to the body; a wounded spirit who can bear?' (Prov 18:14). But death must not remove this burden, but the soul must have the body for a burden, and the body must have the soul for a burden, and both must have the wrath of God for a burden. Oh, therefore, there will be a burden upon burden, and all upon the soul, for the soul will be the chief seat of this burden! But this, is much to show you the greatness of the soul.

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The soul capable of diving into the depths and mysteries of hell.

9. But again, as the soul is thus capable of enjoying God in glory, and of prying into these mysteries that are in him, so it is capable, with great profundity, of diving into the mysterious depths of hell. Hell is a place and state utterly unknown to any in this visible world, excepting the souls of men; nor shall any forever be capable of understanding the miseries thereof, save souls and fallen angels. Now, I think, as the joys of heaven stand not only in speculation, or in the beholding of glory, but in a sensible enjoyment and unspeakable pleasure which those glories will yield to the soul (Psa 16:11), so the torments of hell will not stand in the present lashes and strokes that by the flames of eternal fire God will scourge the ungodly with; but the torments of hell stand much, if not in the greatest part of them, in those deep thoughts and apprehensions, which souls in the next world will have of the nature and occasions of sin; of God, and of separation from Him; of the eternity of those miseries, and of their help, ease, or deliverance forever. 

O! damned souls will have thoughts that will clash with glory, clash with justice, clash with law, clash with itself, clash with hell, and with the everlastingness of misery; but the point, the edge, and the poison of all these thoughts will still be galling, dropping, and spewing out their stings into the sore, grieved, wounded, and fretted place, which is the conscience, though not the conscience alone; for I may say of the souls in hell, that they all over are but one wound, one sore! Miseries as well as mercies sharpen and make quick the apprehensions of the soul. Behold Spira in his book, Cain in his guilt, and Saul with the witch of Endor, and you shall see men ripened, men, enlarged and greatened in their fancies, imaginations, and apprehensions, though not about God, heaven, and glory, but about their loss, their misery, their woe, and their hells (Isa 33:14; Psa 1:4; Rev 14:10; Mark 9:44, 46).

The ability of the soul to bear.

10. Nor does their ability to bear, if it is proper to say they bear those dolors which there forever they shall endure, a little demonstrate their greatness. Everlasting burning, devouring fire, perpetual pains, gnawing worms, utter darkness, and the ireful souls, faces, and strokes of Divine and infinite justice will not, cannot, make this soul extinct, as I said before. I think it is not so proper to say the soul that is damned for sin doth bear these things, as to say it doth ever sink under them: and, therefore, their place of torment is called the bottomless pit, because they are ever sinking, and shall never come there where they will find any stay. Yet they live under wrath, but yet only so as to be sensible of it, as to smart and be in perpetual anguish, by reason of the intolerableness of their burden. But doth not their thus living, abiding, and retaining a being(or what you will call it), demonstrate the greatness and might of the soul? Alas! heaven and earth are short of this greatness, for these, though under less judgment by far, do fade and wax old like a moth-eaten garment, and, in their time, will vanish away to nothing (Heb 1). Also, we see how quickly the body, when the soul is under fear of the rebukes of justice, how soon, I say, it wastes, molders away, and crumbles into the grave; but the soul is yet strong, and abides sensible to be dealt withal for sin by everlasting burnings.

Works of John Bunyan – The Greatness of The Soul, And Unspeakableness 0f theLoss Thereof; What Shall A Man Give In Exchange For His Soul.45

 

'Tis the soul that acts the body.

7. But a word or two more to conclude this head. The soul! —why, it is the soul that acted the body in all these things, good or bad, that seems good and reasonable, or amazingly wicked. True, the acts and motions of the soul are only seen and heard in, and by the members and motions of the body, but the body is but a poor instrument, the soul is the great agitator and actor. 'The body without the spirit is dead' (James 2:26). All those famous arts, works, and inventions of works, that are done by men under heaven, are all the intentions of the soul, and the body, as acting and laboring therein, doth it but as a tool that the soul maketh use of to bring his invention into maturity (Eccl 7:29). How many things have men found out to the amazing of one another, to the wonderment of one another, to the begetting of endless commendations of one another in the world. In contrast, in the meantime, the soul, which indeed is the true inventor of all, is overlooked, not regarded, but dragged up and down by every lust, prostrate, and made a slave to every silly and beastly thing. 

O the fantastic darkness that hath covered the face of the hearts of the children of men, that they cannot deliver their soul, nor say, 'Is there not a lie in my right hand?' (Isa 44:20), though they are so cunning in all other matters. Take a man in matters that are abroad, and far from home, and he is the mirror of all the world, but take him at home, and put him upon things that are near him, I mean, that have respect to the things that concern his soul, and then you will find him the greatest fool that ever God made. But this must not be applied to the soul simply as it is God's creature, but to the soul sinful, as it has willingly apostatized from God, and so suffered itself to be darkened, and that with such thick and stupefying darkness, that it is bound up and cannot—it hath a napkin of sin bound so close before its eyes that it is not able—of itself—to look to, and after those things which should be its chiefs concern, and without which it will be most miserable forever.

The soul is capable of having to do with the invisible.

8. Further, as the soul is thus curious about arts and sciences, and about every excellent thing of this life, so it is capable of having to do with the invisible, with angels, good or bad, yea, with the highest and Supreme Being, even with the holy God of heaven. I told you before that God sought the soul of man to have it for His companion, and now I tell you that the soul is capable of communion with Him when the darkness that sin hath spread over its face is removed. The soul is an intelligent power, it can be made to know and understand depths, heights, lengths, and breadths, in those high, sublime, and spiritual mysteries that only God can reveal and teach; yea, it is capable of diving unutterably into them. And herein is God, the God of glory, much delighted and pleased—to wit, that He hath made Himself a creature that is capable of hearing, of knowing, and of understanding of His mind, when opened and revealed to it. I think I may say, without offense to God or man, that one reason why God made the world was, that He might manifest Himself, not only by, but to the works which He made; but, I speak with reverence, how could that be, if He did not also make some of His creatures capable of apprehending of Him in those highest mysteries and methods in which He purposed to reveal Himself? 

But then, what are those creatures which He hath made (unto whom when these things are shown) that are able to take them in and understand them, and so to improve them to God's glory, as He hath ordained and purposed they should, but souls? for none else in the visible world are capable of doing this but they. And hence it is that to them, and them only, He beginneth to reveal Himself in this world. And hence it is that they, and they only, are gathered up to Him where He is, for they are they that are called 'the spirits of just men made perfect,' (Heb 12:23); the spirit of a beast goeth downward to the earth, it is the spirit of a man that goes upwards to God that gave it (Eccl 3:21;12:7). For that, and that only, is capable of beholding and understanding the glorious visions of heaven; as Christ said, 'Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which thou hast given Me; for thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world' (John 17:24). 

And thus the greatness of the soul is manifest. True, the body is also gathered up into glory, but not simply for its own sake, or because that is capable of itself to know and understand the glories of its Maker; but that has been a companion with the soul in this world, has also been its house, its mantle, its cabinet and tabernacle here; it has also been it by which the soul hath acted, in which it hath wrought, and by which its excellent appearances have been manifested; and it shall also there be its co-partner and sharer in its glory. Wherefore, as the body here did partake of soul excellencies, and was also conformed to its spiritual and regenerate principles; so it shall be hereafter a partaker of that glory with which the soul shall be filled, and also be made suitable by that glory to become a partaker and co-partner with it of the eternal excellencies which heaven will put upon it. In this world, it is a gracious soul (I speak now of the regenerate), and in that world, it shall be a glorious one. In this world, the body was conformable to the soul as it was gracious, and in that world, it shall be conformable to it as it is glorious; conformable, I say, by partaking of that glory that then the soul shall partake of; yea, it shall also have an additional glory to adorn, and make it yet the more capable of being serviceable to it, and with it in its great acts before God in eternal glory. Oh, what great things are the souls of the sons of men!