Christ Set Forth

But now, how far (in our apprehensions of this) we are to cut off the weakness and frailty of such affections as in the days of his flesh was in them, and how exactly to difference those which Christ had here, and those which he hath in heaven, therein lies the difficulty; and I can speak but little unto it.

But now, how far (in our apprehensions of this) we are to cut off the weaknesse and frailty of such affections as in the dayes of his flesh was in them, and how exactly to difference those which Christ had here, and those which he hath in heaven, therein lyes the difficulty; and I can speak but little unto it.

Yet first, this we may lay down as an undoubted Maxim, That so far, or in what sense his Body it self is made spiritual, (as it is called, 1 Cor. 15. 44.) so far, and in that sense all such affections as thus working in his Body are made spiritual; and that in an opposition to that fleshly and frail way of their working here. But then, as his Body is made spiritual, not Spirit, (spiritual in respect of power, and likeness to a Spirit, not in respect of substance or nature) so these affections of pity and compassion do work not only in his Spirit or Soul, but in his Body too, as their seat and instrument, though in a more spiritual way of working, and more like to that of Spirits, then those in a fleshly frail body are. They are not wholly spiritual in this sense, that the soul is the sole subject of them, and that it draws up all such workings into it self: so that that should ⟨p. 126⟩be the difference between his affections now, and in the days of his flesh. Men are not to conceive, as if his body were turned into such a substance as the Sun is of, for the soul (as through a case of glass) to shine gloriously in only; but further it is united to the soul, to be acted by it, (though immediately,) for the soul to produce operations in it. And it is called spiritual, not that it remains not a body, but because it remains not such a body; but is so framed to the soul, that both it self and all the operations of all the powers in it, are immediately and entirely at the arbitrary imperium & dominion of the soul; & that, as the soul is pleased to use it, and to sway it and move it, even as immediately and as nimbly (and without any clog or impediment) as an Angel moves it self, or as the soul acteth it self. So that this may perhaps be one difference, that these affections, so far as in the body of Christ, do not affect his soul, (as here they did, though as then under the command of Grace and Reason to keep their motions from being inordinate or sinful) but further, the soul being now too strong for them, doth as its own arbitrement raise them, and as entirely and immediately stir them as it doth it self.