A Funeral Sermon On the Decease of That worthy Gentlewoman M rs Margaret Baxter Who died the 28th of June 1681. By JOHN HOWE Minister of the Gospel LONDON Printed for Brabazon Aylmer at the Three Pigeons over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhil 1681. To the very Reverend Mr. Richard Baxter SIR WHen you assign'd unto me that part not of forming a Memorial for your excellent deceased Consort which is reserved to the fittest hand but of instructing the People upon the occasion of her decease This Text of Scripture occurring also to my thoughts which I reckon'd might sufficiently agree with the design you generally recommended to me tho I am sensible how little the prosecution did so it put me upon considering with how great disadvantage we set our selves at any time to reason against bodily Inclination the great Antagonist we have to contend against in all our Ministerial Labours An Attempt which if an higher Power set not in with us looks like the opposing of our faint Breath to the steady course of a mighty River I have often thought of Cicero's wonder That since we consist of a Mind and a Body the skill of curing and preserving the Body is so admir'd as to have been thought a Divine Invention That which refers to the Mind is neither so desired before it be found out nor so cultivated afterwards nor is approv'd and acceptable to so many yea is even to the most suspected and hateful Even the Tyrant Phalaris tells one in an Epistle tho by way of menace That whereas a good Physician may cure a distemper'd Body Death is the only Physician for a distemper'd Mind It works not indeed an universal Cure But of such on whom it may how few are there that count not the Remedy worse than the Disease Yet how many thousands are there that for greater hoped bodily advantages afterwards endure much more pain and trouble than there is in dying We are a mysterious sort of Creatures Yet I acknowledg the Wisdom of God is great and admirable in planting in our Natures so strong a love of this bodily Life without which the best would be more impatient of living on Earth so long as God thinks it requisite they should And to the worst Death would not be a sufficiently formidable punishment And consequently humane Laws and Justice would be in great part eluded And the same Divine Wisdom is not less admirable in providing there should so generally be so much of mutual Love as doth obtain among near Friends and Relatives For thereby their Cohabitation and mutual Offices towards each other are made more pleasant and easie which is a great compensation for the concomitant Evil that by the same Love their parting with one another cannot but be rendered grievous But for you who live so much upon the Borders and in the pleasant view of the other State The one separation is I doubt not much easier to your sense and the other to your fore-thoughts than they are with the most A perfect indifferency towards this present bodily State and Life is in mine eyes a most covetable thing and my daily aim Wherein I entreat your Prayers may assist Your most respectful though most unworthy fellow-Servant and Expectant in the Work and Hope of the Gospel JOHN HOWE A Funeral Sermon 2 COR. 5.8 We are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the Body and to be present with the Lord. THe solemn Face of this Assembly seems to tell me that you already know the present special occasion of it And that I scarce need to tell any of you that our worthy honoured Friend Mrs. Baxter is dead You have 't is like most of you often met her in this place when her pleased looks were wont to shew what delight she took to have many share in those great Advantages wherein she had a more peculiar Interest You are now to meet her here no more but are met your selves to lament together that our World hath lost so desirable an Inhabitant And to learn as I hope you design what so instructive an occasion shall of it self or as it may be improv'd serve to teach us It doth of it self most obviously teach the common Document that we who are of the same make and mould must all die too And our own prudence should hereupon advance one step further and apprehend it a most covetable thing that the temper of our minds might comply with this unalterable state of our case And that we be in a disposition since we must die to die willingly and with our own consent Nothing can be more irrational or unhappy than to be engaged in a continual quarrel with Necessity which will prevail and be too hard for us at last No course is so wise in it self or good for us as to be reconciled to what we cannot avoid to bear a facile yielding mind towards a determination which admits of no repeal And the Subject now to be insisted on may help us to improve the sad occasion to this very important purpose And shew us that dying which cannot be willed for it self may be join'd with somewhat else which may and ought to be so and in that conjunction become the object of a rational and most complacential willingness A Subject recommended to me though not the special Text by one than whom I know no Man that was better able to make a fit choice as in the present case none could have that right to chuse I cannot stay to discuss and open the most fruitful pleasant series of discourse in the foregoing Verses though there will be occasion to reflect somewhat upon it by and by But in the Text the Apostle asserts two things concerning the temper of his Spirit in reference to Death His Confidence and Complacency 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. His Confidence or his Courage and Fortitude We are confident I say He had said it before Vers. 6. We are always confident and assigned the Cause knowing that while we are present in the Body we are absent from the Lord. And declared the kind of that knowledg viz. which he had of that presence of the Lord whereof he was deprived by being present in the Body that is that it was the knowledg of Faith not of Sight Vers. 7. Now here he adds We are confident I say It notes a deliberate courage And the fixedness of it that it was not a suddain Fit a passion soon over He had said above 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We are confident at all times It was his habitual temper And here the ingemination signifies increase as if he had said We grow more and more bold and adventurous while we consider the state of our case and what we suffer by our presence in the Body Sense of injury or damage heightens and adds an edg unto true valour We would venture upon a thousand Deaths if the matter were left entirely to our own Option rather than be
commodious and fitter for the uses of a glorified Soul which hath its own more inward clothing peculiar to it self in respect whereof that of such a Body would be an additional one a superinvestiture as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imports his desire is thus limited and modified for this reason In as much as being thus clothed we shall not be found naked or without any Body at all which the Law of our Creation admits us not to affect or aspire unto And therefore in qualifying our desire thus we shall contain our selves within our own bounds and not offer at any thing whereof humanity is by the Creator's pleasure and constitution uncapable Therefore he inculcates the same thing over again We groan not to be unclothed but only to be clothed upon Where that unclothed the thing he desired not must signify the state and not the act only is evident in that being clothed the thing which he did desire must plainly be so understood For was it only an entrance into Glory he desired and not continuance in a glorified state Nor can this being unclothed much less refer as an act to the present clothing of this earthly Body as if it were our being divested of that which he intended in this 4 th Vers. as the thing he desired not for then the 4 th Verse would contradict this 8 th where he tells us he did desire it The meaning then is that he did not desire to be exempted from wearing a Body or to be without any at all He did only covet to be absent from this Body gross and terrene as now it was that he might be present with the Lord with which he found being in such a Body and in the several accompanying Circumstances of this bodily state to be inconsistent Wherefore it was a terrestrial Body the earthly House of this Tabernacle as 't is Vers. 1. which he was now better pleased to quit upon this account And I say it is the genuine temper of an holy Soul to be like-minded not their constant explicite discernible sense We must allow for Accidents as we shall note afterwards but when they are themselves and in their right mind and so far as the holy divine Life doth prevail in them this is their Temper And now that I may more fully open this Matter to you I shall 1. Endeavour to unfold somewhat more distinctly the state of the Case in reference whereto good and holy Souls are thus affected 2 ly Shall shew you what is their true and genuine temper or how it is that they stand affected in reference to that case 3 ly Shall discover how agreeable this temper is to the general frame and complexion of an Holy Soul And then make such reflections upon the whole as may be more especially useful to our selves 1. We are to take as much as we can a distinct view and state of the case We see the Apostle speaks by way of comparison 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we are willing rather We are therefore to consider that we may comprehend clearly the true state of this Case what the things are which he compares And between which his mind might be supposed as it were to have been before at least in order of Nature before in some suspence till at last it come so complacentially to incline and be determined this one way Take the account of the whole Case in these particulars 1 st There are here two principal terms between which the motion and inclination of such a Mind lies from the One to the Other The Lord and The Body Both do as it were attract and draw or are apt to do two several ways The Lord strongly draws on the one hand and the Body hangs on and holds and draws in as strongly to it self as it can on the other The Body as having us present in it And how not locally only but in the way of vital union and communion with it And that shews how we are to understand being present with the Lord too not by a meer local presence but of more intimate vital union and commerce Where as in the union between the Soul and Body the more excellent communicates Life the other receives it so it must be here Though now The Lord is present thus in some measure which this attraction supposes Yet speaking comparatively that presence is absence in respect of what we are to look for hereafter Both these Vnions are very mysterious and both infer very strong and powerful drawing or holding together of the things so united There is no greater mystery in Nature than the union between the Soul and Body That a Mind and Spirit should be so ty'd and link'd with a clod of Clay that while that remains in a due temper it cannot by any Art or Power free it self It can by an act of the Will move an hand or foot or the whole Body but cannot move from it one inch If it move hither and thither or by a leap upward do ascend a little the Body still follows it cannot shake or throw it off We cannot take our selves out By any allowable means we cannot nor by any at all that are at least within meer humane Power as long as the temperament lasts While that remains we cannot go if that fail we cannot stay though there be so many open Avenues could we suppose any material bounds to hem in or exclude a Spirit we cannot go out or in at pleasure A wonderful thing and I wonder we no more wonder at our own make and frame in this respect That we do not with reverent submissive adoration discern and confess how far we are outwitted and overpowred by our wise and great Creator that we not only cannot undo his Work upon us in this respect but that we cannot so much as understand it What so much a-kin are a Mind and a piece of Earth a Clod and a Thought that they should be thus affiix'd to one another or that there should be such a thing in Nature as thinking Clay But hereupon what advantage hath this Body upon the Soul and Spirit In the natural Vnion is grounded a moral One of love and affection Which on the Soul's part draws and binds it down with mighty efficacy Again How mysterious and ineffable is the Vnion of the Lord and the Soul and how more highly venerable as this is a Sacred Mystery And who would not admire at their proud disdainful folly that while they cannot explain the Vnion between the Soul and Body are ready to jeer at their just humble and modest Ignorance that call this other a Mystical Vnion Or because they know not what to make of it would make nothing and will not allow there should be any such thing or would have it be next to nothing Have those words no sense belonging to them or not a great sense 1 Cor. 6.17 But he that is joined unto the Lord is one Spirit And upon
he is pure Implying the Hope of that blessed state to be connate implanted as a Vital Principle of the new and divine Nature And all Hope we know involves desire in it Which is here intimated to be so powerful and prevailing as to shape and form a Man's whole course to an agreeable tenour Which it could not do if Hope were not superadded to Desire for no Man pursues an end whereof he despairs And what else is living Religion but a tendency to Blessedness A seeking Honour Glory and Immortality by a patient continuance in well-doing Rom. 2.7 Nor need we look further than this Context for evidence that this divine Impression upon the Soul hath this reference For when Vers. 4. the Apostle had avow'd the fervor of his desire after that state wherein Mortality should be swallowed up of Life he immediately adds Vers. 5. Now he that hath wrought us to this self-same thing is God c. And indeed after that transforming touch the great Business of such a Soul in this World is but a dressing it self for the Divine Presence a preparation for that state wherein we are for ever to be with the Lord. And 't is not only an incongruity but an inconsistency not only that which is not fit but not possible that a Man should ever design that as his end which he cares not ever to attain or that for his last end which he doth not supreamly desire 2 ly If we consider particular Principles that belong to this holy divine Nature the more noble and eminent Are Faith and Love The former is the perceptive visive Principle The other the motive and fruitive And these though they have their other manifold References have yet both their final to that state of absence from this Body and presence with the Lord the one eying the other coveting it as that wherein the Soul is to take up its final rest Here some consideration should be had of Objections that some may be apt to make use of to shift off the urgency of this Truth and excuse the unsutable temper of their Spirits to it 1. That they are unassured about their states God-ward and how can they be willing to die and be absent from the Body or not be afraid of the Lord's Presence whom they may for ought they know find an angry vindictive Judg when they appear before him Answ. This which is the most considerable Objection that the Matter admits of if it were directly pointed against this Truth as it hath been laid down would answer it self For it is not dying simply that is the Object of this Inclination but dying conjunctly with being with the Lord in his blessed joyous Presence Do not therefore divide the Object and that Objection is no Objection You are unwilling to die and be banish'd the Divine Presence But are you unwilling to die and enjoy it Or upon supposition you should are you willing This is all that we make Characteristical and distinguishing Where there is only an aversion to leave this bodily Life and State upon a fear we shall not be admitted into that blessed Presence there is only an accidental Obstruction to the more explicite distinct and discernable exertions of desire this way which Obstruction if it be removed the Soul would then follow the course which the Divine and Holy Principle in it doth naturally incline to But the mortal Token is when there is no such doubt and yet there is still a prevailing aversion when Men make no Question if they die they shall go to God and yet they are not willing to go In the former Case there is a supream desire of being with God only suspended take off that Suspension and that desire runs its natural course In the other Case there is no desire at all And the difference is as between a living Man that would fain go to such a place but he is held and therefore goes not And one that is not held but is dead and cannot stir at all For the Life of the Soul towards God is Love Aversion therefore is not an absolute but respective Death or quoad hoc a Death towards him or as to this thing viz. being with him 2. As for the Objection of being more serviceable to Children Friends Relations or the Glory of God in the World and his Church in it Upon which last account this Apostle Phil. 1.22 23 24. though he express a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ yet is in a strait and seems also very well pleased to abide in the flesh a longer time He can himself best judg of our serviceableness The meaning is not that we should be willing to leave the Body before he would have us but that we should not be unwilling then And because we know not when his time will be and it may be presently for ought we know we should be always willing and desirous upon that supposition Our desire herein should not be absolute and peremptory but subordinate and apt to be determined by his Will which can determine nothing but what will be most for his own Glory and for their best good who belong to him But as to this Instance of the Apostle we must consider what there was peculiar in the Apostle's Case and what is common or ought to be to all serious Christians There is no doubt there was this more peculiar to him and to Persons in such a capacity and station as his was viz. As he was an Apostle he was one that had seen the Lord which was a qualification for the more special Work of that Office Whereupon he was as an Eye-witness to testify of his Resurrection upon which so great a stress lay in asserting the Truth of the Christian Religion and in propagating it with the greater assurance in the World To testify as an Apostle therefore could not be done by one of a following Age. And 't is very probable when he expresses to the Philippians vers 25. his Knowledg he should abide and continue yet longer with them all i. e. with the Christian Church in the World for we cannot suppose he was to continue at Philippi for the furtherance of the common Cause of the Christian Faith which was their common Joy and which would no doubt be increased intensively and extensively at once He had some secret intimation that all his Work in this kind was not yet over Nor were such Monitions and Advertisements unfrequent with the Apostles that specially related to the Circumstances of their Work And so entirely was he devoted to the Christian Interest that wherein he saw he might be so peculiarly serviceable to it he expresses a well-pleasedness to be so as well as a confidence that he should As we all ought to do in reference to any such significations of the Divine Will concerning us if they were afforded to us But as to what there is in this Instance that is common and imitable to the generality
upon the account or pretence of Religion whose only design it is to save Souls And how many to save their Bodies destroy even their own Souls Not having learn'd that instruction of our Saviour's not to fear them that can only kill the Body or being unable to suffer some lesser bodily Inconveniences apostatize and abandon their Religion whereby that and their Souls too become Sacrifices to the safety and accommodation of an idoliz'd lump of Clay And how certainly if a seasonable Repentance do not intervene do they who only thus tempt the Souls of other Men destroy their own Nor can it be doubted at this time of day and after the experience of so many Ages wherein Christianity hath been so visibly and grosly carnaliz'd but that it is a Religion perverted to the support of the bodily and animal Interest that hath thus embroiled the Christian World How plain is it that they who desire to make a fair shew in the Flesh to strut in pomp to glitter in secular grandieur and splendor to live in unrebuked sensual ease and fulness are the Men that would constrain others to their carnal Observances Men that serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own Bellies Who can think it is pure love to Souls and zeal for the true ends of the holy peaceable Religion of our blessed Jesus that makes them so vexatious and troublesome to all whom their fleshly Arm can reach and ruin and whom their Spirit and way cannot allure and win Who that understands Religion and the true design of it and the blessed end wherein it will shortly terminate would not be glad to be rescued out of this large diffusive unquiet Empire of the Body that extends it self over all things mingling its odious impurities even with what is most Sacred Who would not long to be from under this Reign of the Beast if he might have a fair way of escape And where Religion is not in the case what multitudes of terrene Creatures earthly-minded Men are stupidly going down to Perdition daily and destroying their Souls by meer neglect while they are driving designs for the Body Which yet in the mean time is at the best but a Prison to the best of Souls O how could they love God! admire and praise him were they once out of this Body But it is not enough to a Subject wherein Love is implanted and is a part of its Nature to have only the prospect of what is unlovely or be told only what is not to be loved There must be somewhat to invite and draw as well as to depel and drive off Therefore 2 ly Consider also on the other part The Lord and that Life you are to transact and live with him Little can now be said You are not ignorant where much is and your own thoughts may upon much conversing with the Holy Oracles suggest yet more And you have need to use your Thoughts here the more largely where your sense doth not instruct you as on the other part it doth Consider the Descriptions which you are copiously furnish'd with both of him and of the state in which you are to be present with him Recount his glorious Excellencies his immense and all-sufficient Fulness his Wisdom Power Holiness and Love in absolute perfection Consider his high equal comely amiable Regency over the blessed Community above that spiritual incorporeal People the pleased joyful Inhabitants of the Celestial Regions And that he rules over them and communicates himself universally to them in a state of perfect Light Purity Peace Love and Pleasure that is also immutable and never to know end There is nothing capable of attracting an intellectual Nature which is not here But on both parts suffer your selves to be directed also 1. Take heed of over-indulging the Body keep it in subjection use it and serve it not Primitive Nature and the Creator's wise and holy Pleasure ordained it to serve Lose not your selves in it take heed you be not buried where you should but dwell and that you make not your Mansion your Grave Mansion do I say call it as this Apostle doth and another 2 Pet. 1. your Tabernacle only a Tent pitched for you but for a little while Every day look upon it and without fond pity as destin'd to rottenness and corruption And as that which when it ceases to be your cloathing must be Worms meat Labour to make the Thoughts easie and familiar to your selves of leaving it think it not an uncouth thing How doth that part of the Creation that is inferior to you abound with like Instances Of Fruits springing up out of this Earth and growing to ripeness and maturity with Husks Shells or other Integuments which then fall off such as never ripen they and their enfoldings rot together Esteem it your perfection when your Shell will fall off easily and cleaves not so close as to put you to pain when it is to be severed from you Endeavour the Holy and Heavenly Nature may grow more and more mature in you so Death will be the more also an unregretted thing to your Thoughts By all means labour to overcome the fear of it which that you might our Lord also took a Body Forasmuch as the Children are partakers of Flesh and Blood he also himself likewise took part of the same that through Death he might destroy him that had the power of Death that is the Devil And deliver them who through fear of Death were all their life-time subject to bondage Heb. 2.14 15. Reckon not much of that fear which is only the meer regret of sensitive Nature purely involuntary And that can no more obey the empire of the Mind or be regulated by it than you can make strait a crooked Leg by a meer act of your Will or make your Body not feel pain A fear from which the perfection of our Nature in our blessed Lord himself was not exempt But it is one thing to extinguish even that Fear another to overcome it The former is impossible to you the latter necessary It is overcome when a superior Principle governs you and your Resolutions and Course as it did our Lord. He did not because of it spare himself and decline dying You may feel perhaps somewhat of such a fear a secret shrug when you are to be let Blood or have a Wound search'd It governs not in such a less important Case when being convinc'd it is requisite you omit not the thing notwithstanding Labour herein to be hardy and merciless to this Flesh upon the fore-thoughts of the time when God will allow you to step forth and go out of the Body and say to it with an obdur'd mind For all thy craving and shrinking thou shalt be thrown off Labour it may not only not be the matter of your prevailing Fear but be the matter of your Hope Look towards the approaching Season with pleasant chearful expectation Aspire as it belongs to you to do who have received
the first Fruits of the Spirit that blessed Spirit of Adoption and groan for the Adoption the season of your being more solemnly own'd for Sons viz. the redemption of the Body Rom. 8.23 Which though it ultimately refer to the Resurrection may be allowed to have an incompleat meaning in reference to Death too For I see not but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may admit such a construction as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 9.15 i. e. that redemption of the Body may mean redemption from it wherein it is burthensome a grievance and penalty here as well as there The redemption of Transgressions doth truly mean liberation from the penalty of them From which penal Evil of and by the Body so materially at least it is we are not perfectly freed as our blessedness is not perfect till Mortality be swallowed up of Life and all the adopted the many Sons be all brought to glory together How happy in the mean time is your case when Death becomes the matter of your rational well-grounded hope You have many Hopes wherein you are liable to disappointment You will then have one sure Hope and that will be worth them all none can prevent you of this Hope Many other things you justly hope for are hindred by ill minded Men of their accomplishment But all the wit and power of your most spiteful Enemies can never hinder you from dying And how are you fenc'd against all the intervening Troubles of Life Nihil metuit qui optat mori You have nothing to fear if you desire to die nothing but what at least Death will shortly put an end to Make this your aim To have Life for the matter of your Patience and Death of your Desire 2 ly On the other part also labour to be upon good terms with the Lord secure it that he be yours Your way to that is short and expedite The same by which we become his Ezek. 16.8 I entred into Covenant with thee and thou becamest mine Solemnly and unfeignedly accept him and surrender your selves Without this who can expect but to hear from him at last Depart from me I know you not Know of your selves demand an account Are you sincerely willing to be his and to take him for yours without limitation or reserves Matters are then agreed between him and you And who can break or disanul the Agreement Who can come between him and you I often think of the high transport wherewith those words are uttered The excellent knowledg of Christ Jesus my Lord Phil. 3.8 This is Christian Religion not in a System but as it is a vital principle and habit in the Soul inclining us making us propense towards our blessed Lord addicting and subduing us to him uniting us with him Whereby we come to know by inward sensations to feel the transfusions of his spiritful Light and Influence and our Souls thereby caught and bound up in the bundle of Life So we have Christ form'd within His Holy Truths Doctrines Precepts Promises inwrought into the temper of our Spirits And as it follows in that Context Phil. 3. to have him according to the States wherein he successively was by correspondent impressions represented in us So as that we come to bear the Image of him crucified and dying first then reviving and rising and afterwards ascending and glorifi'd To know him and the power of his Resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable to his Death If by any means we might attain unto the Resurrection of the Dead Vers. 10 11. Let us not be at rest till we find it thus in some measure with us If we feel our selves after this manner internally and initially conform'd to him this will be both a Preparative and a Pledg of our future perfect conformity both internal and external It will fit us to be ever with the Lord and assure us we shall and can be no where else That he and we shall not to eternity dwell asunder We shall neither fear to be externally conform'd to him in his Death to quit and lay down the Body as he did nor despair of attaining with him the Resurrection from the Dead and of being present with him in Glory Or that he shall recover for us out of the Dust our vile abject Bodies the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Body of our Humiliation wherein we were humbled as he was in his as it follows in that Phil. 3. vers 21. and make it like his own glorious Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conform and agreeable by that power by which he is able even to subdue all things to himself In the mean time as this present state admits converse much with him every day Be not strangers to him often recognize and renew your Engagements to him Revolve in your Thoughts his Interest in you and yours in him And the nearer relation which there is between him and you than that between you and this Body Recount with your selves the permanency and lastingness of that Relation That whereas this Body as now it is a terrestrial Body will not be yours long He is to be your God for ever and ever That though Death must shortly separate you from this Body Neither Life nor Death Principalities nor Powers things present nor things to come shall ever separate you from the Love of God which is in Christ our Jesus our Lord. While this Body is a Body of Death to you he is your Life your Hope and your exceeding Joy your better more laudable and more excellent Self more intimate to you than you can be to your self as hath been anciently and often said And for the obtaining whose presence absence from the Body is a very small matter A great Prince in an Epistle to that Philosopher tells him I seem to my self not to be a Man as the saying is while I am absent from Iamblichus or while I am not conversant with him That we can better endure our Lord's absence is surely a thing it self not to be endured We should labour our acquaintance with him such as is fit to be between so great a Majesty and such mean Creatures as we should grow daily Yea and endeavour to make the Thoughts more familiar to our selves of spiritual Beings in the general For we are to serve and converse with him in a glorious community of such Creatures An innumerable company of Angels The General Assembly and the Church of the First Born and the Spirits of just Men made perfect Heb. 12.23 In a Region where an earthly Body remaining such can have no place Why do we make the Thoughts of a Spirit out of a Body so strange to our selves We meet with hundreds of Spirits in Bodies and moving Bodies to and fro in the Streets every day and are not startled at it Is a Body so much nearer a-kin to us than a Spirit that we must have so mean a thing to come between to mediate and reconcile us to it