losed in a
dark cave, did only ruminate on the ideas and abstracted speculations
of entities; and one other of their company, who had got abroad into the
open light, and at his return tells them what a blind mistake they
had lain under; that he had seen the substance of what their dotage of
imagination reached only in shadow; that therefore he could not but pity
and condole their deluding dreams, while they on the other side no less
bewail his frenzy, and turn him out of their society for a lunatic and
madman.

Thus the vulgar are wholly taken up with those objects that are most
familiar to their senses, beyond which they are apt to think all is but
fairy-land; while those that are devoutly religious scorn to set their
thoughts or affections on any things below, but mount their soul to
the pursuit of incorporeal and invisible beings. The former, in their
marshalling the requisites of happiness, place riches in the front, the
endowments of the body in the next rank, and leave the accomplishments
of the soul to bring up the rear; nay, some will scarce believe there is
any such thing at all as the soul, because they cannot literally see a
reason of their faith; while the other pay their first fruits of service
to that most simple and incomprehensible Being, God, employ themselves
next in providing for the happiness of that which comes nearest to
their immortal soul, being not at all mindful of their corrupt bodily
carcases, and slighting money as the dirt and rubbish of the world; or
if at any time some urging occasions require them to become entangled
in secular affairs, they do it with regret, and a kind of ill-will,
observing what St. Paul advises his _Corinthians, having wives, and yet
being as though they had none; buying, and yet remaining as though they
possessed not_.

There are between these two sorts of persons many differences in several
other respects. As first, though all the senses have the same mutual
relation to the body, yet some are more gross than others; as those five
corporeal ones, of touching, hearing, smelling, seeing, tasting, whereas
some again are more refined, and less adulterated with matter; such are
the memory, the understanding, and the will. Now the mind will be always
most ready and expedite at that to which it is naturally most inclined.
Hence is it that a pious soul, employing all its power and abilities in
the pressing after such things as are farthest removed from sense, is
perfectly