The excellency of a gracious spirit Delivered in a treatise upon the 14. of…The excellency of a gracious spirit Deliuered in a treatise upon the 14. of…

Seventhly, The choiceness of a ¹mans spirit strengthens it against the impressions that sensitive objects use to leave upon soft and weak spirits. Most men have their spirits formed, and fashioned according to sensitive objects; it is not what they apprehend in abstract notions, that works upon them, let them be what they ⟨p. 413⟩will; yet, when they have to deal with sensitive things, the sweetness, desirableness, glory of them, works the most powerfully; their hearts are altered according to the impression that they leave upon them, and this is great weakness, and an effeminate softness of spirit: Hence the word translated Effeminate, 1 Cor. 6. 9. signifies ²soft-spirited men. This distemper in the spirit, is like that in the flesh, when it is corrupted with the dropsy; the flesh is soft, and if you put your finger to it, the impression of your finger sticks in it, and pits the flesh; so the impression of sensitive objects, sticks in distempered, weak, soft spirits, as it was in the other Spies who were sent with Caleb and Joshua; the terrible things they saw in the land, stuck mightily in their hearts, they brought with them the impression of them fastened in their spirits: hence Numb. 13. 33. according to the translation of the Greek Translators, it is, They brought the fear of the land with them: But ⟨p. 414⟩³this choiceness of spirit that was in Caleb, and is in those who are truly godly, keepeth from this: and there must be this firmness in the spirit of a man, or else it will never carry him after the Lord fully, 2 Sam. 22. 26. With the upright thou wilt show thy self upright; the word translated upright, signifies strong and perfect: There is required strength, and that more than ordinary too, to carry on the soul to perfection.