An exposition with practical observations continued upon the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters…

That the soul of man is The man, The soul goes away with the ¹name of the whole person: The soul is not the man in a natural consideration, (as some have philosophized, asserting that man is nothing but a soul clothed with a body) for, man is man by the union of soul and body, and the perfection of man as man, consists in that union; but the soul is the man in a moral consideration, because it is the more noble and excellent part of man: and it is usual to denominate the whole from that part which is more excellent. The body is but as the Cabinet, the soul is the Jewell; the body is but as the sheath or the scabbard, the soul is as the knife or the sword; You know when a man buyeth a sword, he buys a scabbard too, or when he buys a knife, he buys the sheath too, yet he saith, this knife cost me so much, or I gave so much for this sword he makes no mention of the scabbard or of the sheath; now the body is the sheath or scabbard of the soul (Dan. 7. 15.) you have it expressed so, I was grieved (saith the Prophet) in my spirit in the middest of my body, so we translate it, but the Chaldee is (and so we have it in some Margents) in the middest of my sheath; The soul is the blade, a blade of admirable mettle and temper; the body how beautiful soever by nature, or gay by art is but a velvet, or an embossed sheath and scabbard: therefore at first, when God formed man out of the dust of the earth, and had breathed into him the breath of life, the result of all is, and man became a living soul; it is not said, man became a living body, though life was breathed into the body, and the body stood up and lived, yet the best part is named for all, the dust and the clay are (as it were) quite forgotten in the story, man became a living soul. And that may be a reason, why the fear of God and keeping ²his Commandments (Eccles. 12. ult) is called all man, because these things chiefly concern that part of man, which (upon the matter) is all man. The fear of God and keeping his Commandments, are soul work, and tend to the eternal welfare of the soul; and though the body shares in all the blessings, and assists in most labours of the soul, yet the soul labours most for, and is the chiefest seat of blessedness. How strangely have some departed from this point of truth, which the Scripture every where writes as with a Sun-beam: