Casuistical morning-exercises the fourth volume /

In the first Creation Man while innocent was immortal, for although his B••y was compounded of jarring Elements, that had a natural tendency to dissolution, yet the Soul was endowed with such virtue, as to embalm the Body alive, and to preserve it from the least degree of putrefaction. But when Man by his voluntary sin was separated from the fountain of life, the Soul lost its derivative life from God, and the active life infused by its union into the Body. It cannot preserve the natural life beyond its limited term. A righteous retaliation. Thus the Apostle tells us, Sin came into the World, and death by sin. Even infants who never committed sin, die having been conceived in sin. And death brought in its retinue evils so numerous and various, that their kinds are more than words to name and distinguish them. Man that is born of a Woman is of few days, and full of trouble: at his birth he enters into a labyrinth of Thorns, this miserable World, and his life is a continual turning in it: he cannot escape being sometimes pricked and torn, and at going out of it, his Soul is rent from the embraces of the Body. 'Tis as possible to tell the number of the waves in a tempestuous Sea, as to recount all the tormenting passions of the Soul, all the Diseases of the Body, which far exceed in number all the unhappy parts wherein they are seated. What an afflicting object would it be, to hear all the mournful lamentations, all the piercing complaints, all the deep groans from the miserable in this present state? What a prospect of Terror, to see Death in its various shapes, by Famine, by Fire, by Sword, and by wasting or painful Diseases, triumphant over all mankind? What a sight of woe, to have all the Graves and Charnel-houses opened, and so many loathsome Carcasses, or heaps of dry naked Bones, the trophies of Death exposed to view? Such are the afflicting and destructive effects of sin. For wickedness burns as a fire: it devours the Briars and Thorns.

In the first Creation Man while innocent was immortal, for altho his B••y was compounded of jarring Elements, that had a natural tendency to dissolution, yet the Soul was endowed with such vertue, as to imbalm the Body alive, and to preserve it from the least degree of putrefaction. But when Man by his voluntary sin was separated from the fountain of life, the Soul lost its derivative life from God, and the active life infused by its union into the Body. It cannot preserve the natural life beyond its limited term. A righteous retaliation. Thus the Apostle tells us, Sin came into the World, and death by sin. Even infants who never committed sin, die having been conceived in sin. And death brought in its retinue evils so numerous and various, that their kinds are more than words to name and distinguish them. Man that is born of a Woman is of few days, and full of trouble: at his birth he enters into a labyrinth of Thorns, this miserable World, and his life is a continual turning in it: he cannot escape being sometimes prick'd and torn, and at going out of it, his Soul is rent from the embraces of the Body. 'Tis as possible to tell the number of the waves in a tempestuous Sea, as to recount all the tormenting passions of the Soul, all the Diseases of the Body, which far exceed in number all the unhappy parts wherein they are seated. What an afflicting object would it be, to hear all the mournful lamentations, all the piercing complaints, all the deep groans from the miserable in this present state? What a prospect of Terror, to see Death in its various shapes, by Famine, by Fire, by Sword, and by wasting or painful Diseases, triumphant over all mankind? What a sight of woe, to have all the Graves and Charnel-houses open'd, and so many loathsom Carcasses, or heaps of dry naked Bones, the trophies of Death expos'd to view? Such are the afflicting and destructive effects of sin. For wickedness burns as a fire: it devours the Briars and Thorns.