18. There is one thing more I would advise; and that is, to begin your prayers with a psalm.
I don’t mean, that you should read over a psalm, but that you should chant or sing one.
The difference between singing and reading a psalm, will be easily understood, if you consider the difference between reading and singing a common song that you like. Whilst you only read it, you only like it; but as soon as you sing it, you feel the same spirit within you, that there seems to be in the words.
You will perhaps say, you cannot sing.
This objection might be of weight, if you was desired to sing to entertain other people; but it is not to be admitted in the present case, where you are only advised to sing the praises of God in private.
Do but so live, that your heart may truly rejoice in God, that it may feel itself affected with the praises of God; and then you will find, that this state of your heart will neither want a voice, nor ear, to find a tune for a psalm.
19. *The union of soul and body, is not a mixture of their substances, as we see bodies united and mixed together, but consists solely in the mutual power that they have of acting upon one another.
*If two persons were in such a state of dependance upon one another, that neither of them could act, or move, or think, or feel, or suffer, or desire any thing, without putting the other into the same condition, one might properly say, that they were in a state of strict union, altho’ their substances were not united together.
*Now this is the union of the soul and body; the substance of the one cannot be mixed or united with the other; but they are held together in such a state of union, that all the actions and sufferings of the one, are at the same time the actions and sufferings of the other. The soul has no thought or passion, but the body is concerned in it; the body has no action or motion, but what, in some degree, affects the soul.
Now, as it is the sole will of God, that is the cause of all the powers and effects which you see in the world; as the sun gives light and heat, not because it has any natural power of so doing; as it is fixed in a certain place, and other bodies moving about it; not because it is in the nature of the sun to stand still, and in the nature of other bodies to move about it; but merely because it is the will of God, that they should be in such a state: as the eye is the organ, or instrument of seeing, not because the skins, and coats, and humours of the eye, have a natural power of giving sight: as the ears are the organs, or instruments of hearing, not because the make of the ear has any natural power over sounds, but merely because it is the will of God, that seeing and hearing should be thus received; so it is the sole will of God, that is the cause of this union betwixt the soul and the body.