alexanderjames
Puritan Board Sophomore
"Again, as all men stand in a near relation to God, so they have still so much of his image stamped on them as may oblige and excite us to love them. In some, this image is more eminent and conspicuous, and we can discern the lovely traces of wisdom and goodness; and though in others it may be miserably sullied and defaced, yet it is not altogether razed—some lineaments at least do still remain. All men are endowed with rational and immortal souls, with understandings and wills capable of the highest and most exalted things; and if they be at present disordered, and put out of tune by wickedness and folly, this may indeed move our compassion, but ought not, in reason, to extinguish our love. When we see a person of a rugged humour and perverse disposition, full of malice and dissimulation, very foolish and very proud, it is hard to fall in love with an object that presents itself unto us under an idea so little grateful and lovely. But when we shall consider these evil qualities as the diseases and distempers of a soul, which, in itself, is capable of all that wisdom and goodness wherewith the best of saints have ever been adorned, and which may, one day, come to be raised to such heights of perfection as shall render it a fit companion for the holy angels; this will turn our aversion into pity, and make us behold him with such resentments as we should have when we look upon a beautiful body that were mangled with wounds, or disfigured by some loathsome disease; and however we hate the vices, we shall not cease to love the man."
- from 'The Life of God in the soul of man'
- from 'The Life of God in the soul of man'
