inward man of the head, (as I beg favour to say, fince the foul of man there chiefly doth exercise its principal faculties) and (fince the other contradiftinct term is fo appofitely given in fcripture, viz) the inward man of the heart; plainly, there is the inward man of nature, and the inward man of grace; there is the inward man of the firft-birth, and the inward man of the fecond-birth, or of regeneration. Now I fpeak here concerning the former of these, that hath ́its decays as age comes on, not at all concerning the latter; and as I have before excluded a state of fin from the text, so I do here wholly exclude a state of grace. The partial falling from divine grace, is not so much as aimed at in this place of fcripture, as the total not in any. Moft certainly true it is, that the work of grace ftands upon its own foundation, not at all depending upon the principles of humanity, either for its creation, or renovation; forasmuch as the Holy Spirit of God, who is as much at liberty as the wind, is both the begetter, and the strengthener. And as a man may be born when he is old, John iii. 4. contrary to the reason of Nicodemus, fo also may he be fresh and flourishing in his old age; Thofe that be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God, they shall bring forth fruit in old age, they fhall be fat and flourishing. David prays, O Lord when I am old and gray-headed forfake me not, Pfal. ix. 13, 14. fpiritual defer 5 tions tions and spiritual manifestations, are immediately handed out from God, and do not at all depend upon the mutability of the nature of man, nor accompany him in the feveral changes. They are only the feveral lights of nature, which, as age comes on, fall to decay without remedy. Now, as God, in making of the greater world, faid, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night; and he made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the leffer light to rule the night, Gen. i. 14, 16. he made the stars alfo : So alfo hath he done in the little world of man; he hath made two great lights, (as they are fet down in this verfe) the one, viz. the greater, to rule the day of man; which is that clear fhining part of man, whereby he is differed from all other created beings whatsoever, and difcerns himself fo to be; and this I understand by the fun, and the light: And the other, viz. the leffer light, to rule the night of man, which is that darker discerning part of man, that hạth very little, or no light in itself, neither doth distinguish him from irrational creatures; and this I understand by the Moon; he made the ftars alfo, as it followeth yet more plain. The SUN. By the fun, I understand here the most fuperior power of the rational part of the foul of C 2 man, man, that primary light of the understanding, that doth at once both receive the fpecies as they are communicated from the imagination, and alfo render them intelligible to the mind; that pure innate light of the mind, without which no man that comes into the world, can either apprehend what is from without transmitted to him, or actuate any of those phantasmes which are already impressed. This we may see illustrated by the light of the body, which is the eye: For in the eye there could be no perception of any outward object, unless. there were an inward implanted light in the proper organ, which doth both difpofe it to receive the visible species, and render them proportionable to the organ, giving them thereby actual seprefentation. Now that which this implanted light of the eye doth in vifion; the fame doth this Sun of the foul in the under ftanding. This is that which in fcripture is so often called the fpirit, or the spirit of the mind, Prov. xx. 27. And fometime in a diftinction from the foul, as where it is faid, I pray God your whole spirit, foul and body may bẻ preferved blameless to the coming of our Lord Jefus, Eph. iv. 23. 1 Thef. v. 23. Now, because this is a difficult point, and hath gravelled most undertakers, I will give one essay more, and that from scripture-light, which hitherto may not have been taken notice of, to the present purpofe; it is faid, The word of God is quick. and and powerful, and sharper than any two-edgedfword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of foul and fpirit, and of the joints and the marrow, Heb. iv. 2. Among many other truths, this place doth afford us this for one; that it is very difficult to divide or diftinguish between the foul and the fpirit, because there is an intimate communion and conjunction between them; fuch an one as in fome meafure bears proportion with that, which is between the joints and the marrow. Now because this latter of the parts of the body (though hard in itself) yet is far easier to be understood, than that former of the parts of the mind; let us well confider this, and poffibly it may give us fome light to the other. The joints are the turning places of the body, upon which all the actions of the limbs are performed, and therefore they are articulated feveral ways, according as the pofition, alteration, motion of the adjacent parts do require; thefe are the most visible acting parts of the body; the marrow (by which we are to understand not medulla offium, the marrow of the bones; but the medulla spinalis, the marrow of 'the back; for this hath much more intimate communion and conjunction with the joints than the other hath) is the apprehending and inftructing part of the body, that which carries the impreffions of external objects to the inward sense, and reconveys the mandates there of to the members of the body, to be put in execution upon the joints. Ejus munus eft fpirituum copias & motuum obeundorum inftinctus extrà deferre, atque fenfibilium impreffiones intus convebere; this is the fecret inward influencing part of the body. In like manner, the foul is the most apparent active part of the mind of man, whereupon all its operations, both speculative and practical, are turned and performed; of which there is a particular account given in the explication of the following word: but the spirit is a more myfterious, and hidden power, that doth moft fecretly, and undifcernably, both gather up those intimations that come from without; and also give forth an effectual influence upon. the whole inward man, to put all its well regulated commands in execution upon the foul: Both which offices of this Sun (viz. both of reception from the outward fenfes, and actuation of the inward) is very clearly expreffed in that speech of Zophar unto Job; I have heard the check of my reproach, and the spirit of my understanding causeth me to answer. As if he had faid, I have received through mine ears the found of my reproach, and an anfwerable impreffion is made upon my spirit; and the fame fpirit also hath drawn forth my understanding into act, towards the formation and production of an anfwer. And this is the conftant manner of the opera * D. Willis, c. 29. · |