A65285:2590
A Body of Practical Divinity
A body of practical divinity consisting of above one hundred seventy six sermons on the lesser catechism composed by the reverend assembly of divines at Westminster : with a supplement of some sermons on several texts of Scripture / by Thomas Watson ...
London: printed for Thomas Parkurst, 1692
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
(2.) Second Consideration. The Frame and Contexture of the Body. God hath made the Face to look upwards towards Heaven. Os Homini sublime dedit, coelumque tueri Jussit— Ovid. Anatomists observe, that whereas other Creatures have but Four Muscles to their Eyes, Man hath a Fifth Muscle, by which he is able to look up to Heaven. And as for the Heart, it is made like a Glass Viol, narrow and contracted downwards, but wide and broad upwards. And as the Frame and Contexture of the Body teacheth us to look to things Above, so especially the Soul is planted in the Body, as a Divine Sparkle to ascend upwards. Can it be imagined that God gave us intellectual Immortal Souls, to covet only Earthly things? What wise Man would fish for Gudgeons with Golden Hooks? Did God give us Glorious Souls, only to fish for the World? Sure our Souls are made for an higher End; to aspire after the enjoyment of God in Glory.
(2.) Second Consideration. The Frame and Contexture of the Body. God hath made the Face to look upwards towards Heaven. Os Homini sublime dedit, coelumque tueri Iussit— Ovid. Anatomists observe, that whereas other Creatures have but Four Muscles to their Eyes, Man hath a Fifth Muscle, by which he is able to look up to Heaven. And as for the Heart, it is made like a Glass Viol, narrow and contracted downwards, but wide and broad upwards. And as the Frame and Contexture of the Body teacheth us to look to things Above, so especially the Soul is planted in the Body, as a Divine Sparkle to ascend upwards. Can it be imagined that God gave us intellectual Immortal Souls, to covet only Earthly things? What wise Man would fish for Gudgeons with Golden Hooks? Did God give us Glorious Souls, only to fish for the World? Sure our Souls are made for an higher End; to aspire after the enjoyment of God in Glory.
(3.) Third Consideration. The Examples of those who have been Contemners and Despisers of the World. The Primitive Christians, as Clemens Alexandrinus observes, were sequestered from the World, and where wholly taken up in Converse with God; they lived in the World above the World. Like the Birds of Paradise,1