Sunday, August 10, 2008


Soul

Neither is it better in the soul of man, where ignorance dwells and passion rules. After the fall there entered also a swarm of passions. And the will obeys everything but God. Our judgment is often abused in matters of sense, and one faculty guesses at truth by confuting another; Our fancy is often abused, and yet creates things of its self, by trying desperate things together, that can cohere no more then music and a cable, then meat and syllogisms: and yet this alone does many times make credibility’s in the understanding.
Sometimes we forget those millions of sins which we have committed, we scarce remember so many as to make us sorrowful, or ashamed. Our judgments are baffled with every Sophism, and we change our opinion with a wind, and are confident against truth, but in love with error. We use to reprove one error by another, and lose truth while we contend too earnestly for it. Infinite opinions there are in matters of Religion, and most men are confident, and most are deceived in many things, and all in some; and those few that are not confident, have only reason enough to suspect their own reason. We do not know our own bodies, nor what is within us, nor what ails us when we are sick, nor whereof we are made; nay we oftentimes cannot tell what we think, or believe, or love. We desire and hate the same thing, speak against something and then run after it. We resolve, and then consider; we bind our selves, and then find causes why we ought not to be bound, and want not some pretences to make our selves believe we were not bound. Prejudice and Interest are our two great motives of believing; we weigh deeper what is extrinsical to a question, then what is in its nature; and oftener regard who speaks, then what is said.

The diseases of our soul are infinite. Mankind of old fell from those good things which God gave him, and now is fallen into a life of passion and a state of death. In sum, it follows the temper or distemper of the body, and sailing by such a Compass, and being carried in so rotten a vessel, especially being empty, or filled with lightness, and ignorance, and mistakes, it must needs be exposed to the danger and miseries of every storm.

Jeremy Taylor - Photo by Asya Schween

1 comment:

Mel said...

We are our own worst enemies. I love posts like this, because they remind me again how helpless and worthless we are--just empty, lifeless dust--without God. They get my eyes off myself and back to where they belong, focused on the One who is truly glorious. :)