§ 9. I begin now to think, that the strange Love which the Soul hath to this Body (so far as it is not inordinate) is put into us of God, partly to signify to us the great Love which Christ hath to his Mystical Political Body, and to every member of it, even the least: He will gather all his Elect out of the World, and none that come to him shall be shut out, and none that are given him shall be lost: As his Flesh is to them Meat indeed, and his Blood is to them Drink indeed, and he nourisheth them for Life eternal: (His Spirit in them, turning the Sacrament, the Word, and Christ himself in esse objectivo as Believed in, into Spirit and Life to us, as the Soul and our Natural. Spirits turn our food into Flesh, and Blood, and Spirits, which in a dead Body, or any lifeless repository, it would never be;) so as we delight in the ease and prosperity of our Body and each Member, and have pleasure in the pleasant food that nourisheth it, and other pleasant Objects which accommodate it; Christ also delighteth in the welfare of his Church and of all the Faithful, and is pleased when they are fed with good and pleasant Food, and when hereby they prosper: Christ Loveth the Church, not only as a Man must love his Wife, but as we Love our Bodies; And no Man ever hated his own Flesh, Eph. 5. 27, &c. And herein I must allow my Saviour the preeminence, to overgo me in powerful faithful Love! He will save me better from pain and death, than I can save my Body; and will more inseparably hold me to himself: If it please my Soul to dwell in such a House of Clay, and to operate on so mean a thing as Flesh, how ⟨p. 136⟩greatly will it please my glorified Lord, to dwell with his glorified Body, the triumphant Church, and to cherish and bless each Member of it? It would be a kind of death to Christ to be separated from his Body, and to have it die: Whether Augustine and the rest of the Fathers were in the right or no, who thought that as our Bodies do not only shed their Hairs, but by sicknesses and wast lose much of their very Flesh, so Christ's Militant Body doth not only lose Hypocrites, but also, some living justified Members, yet certain it is that confirmed Members, and more certain that glorified Members shall not be lost! Heaven is not a place for Christ or us to suffer such loss in. And will Christ love me better than I love my Body?
§ 9. I begin now to think, that the strange Love which the Soul hath to this Body (so far as it is not inordinate) is put into us of God, partly to signifie to us the great Love which Christ hath to his Mystical Political Body, and to every member of it, even the least: He will gather all his Elect out of the World, and none that come to him shall be shut out, and none that are given him shall be lost: As his Flesh is to them Meat indeed, and his Blood is to them Drink indeed, and he nourisheth them for Life eternal: (His Spirit in them, turning the Sacrament, the Word, and Christ himself in esse objectivo as Believed in, into Spirit and Life to us, as the Soul and our Natural. Spirits turn our food into Flesh, and Blood, and Spirits, which in a dead Body, or any lifeless repository, it would never be;) so as we delight in the ease and prosperity of our Body and each Member, and have pleasure in the pleasant food that nourisheth it, and other pleasant Objects which accommodate it; Christ also delighteth in the welfare of his Church and of all the Faithful, and is pleased when they are fed with good and pleasant Food, and when hereby they prosper: Christ Loveth the Church, not only as a Man must love his Wife, but as we Love our Bodies; And no Man ever hated his own Flesh, Eph. 5. 27, &c. And herein I must allow my Saviour the preeminence, to overgo me in powerful faithful Love! He will save me better from pain and death, than I can save my Body; and will more inseparably hold me to himself: If it please my Soul to dwell in such a House of Clay, and to operate on so mean a thing as Flesh, how ⟨p. 136⟩greatly will it please my glorified Lord, to dwell with his glorified Body, the triumphant Church, and to cherish and bless each Member of it? It would be a kind of death to Christ to be separated from his Body, and to have it die: Whether Augustine and the rest of the Fathers were in the right or no, who thought that as our Bodies do not only shed their Hairs, but by sicknesses and wast lose much of their very Flesh, so Christ's Militant Body doth not only lose Hypocrites, but also, some living justified Members, yet certain it is that confirmed Members, and more certain that glorified Members shall not be lost! Heaven is not a place for Christ or us to suffer such loss in. And will Christ love me better than I love my Body?
