Page:Letters on the Human Body (John Clowes).djvu/170

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150
ON THE BODILY

rience, cannot be continued, unless by the united agency of the heart and lungs, since if this agency be suspended for any length of time, the certain consequence is the dissolution of that life.

Allowing now the existence of the figurative character of these two bodily organs, what is the interesting language which they speak, and what the heavenly wisdom which they preach to us? Do they not cry aloud with a voice of thunder, that the spiritual life of man cannot be continued without the combined operation of will and understanding,—thus not by will alone, nor by understanding alone, consequently, not by affection alone, nor by thought alone, but by the united agency of will and understanding, also of affection and thought? And since the spiritual life of man consists of goodness and truth, or of charity and faith—goodness and charity having their residence in the will and affections, whilst truth and faith have their residence in the understanding and thought—doth it not hence follow as a certain conclusion, that the spiritual life of man cannot be sustained by goodness separate from truth, or by charity separate from faith, still less by truth separate from goodness, or by faith separate from charity?

What a new light then is here thrown on the two distinct bodily organs, the heart and the lungs; and