Treason Against The Soul

“Remember that pleasing the flesh is a great contempt and treachery against the soul. It is a great contempt of an immortal soul to prefer its corruptible flesh before it, and to make its servant become its master to ride on horseback while it goes, as it were, on foot. Is the flesh worthy of so much time, cost, and care, and all the effort made for it in the world? And is not a never-dying soul worth more?

Indeed, it is a betraying of the soul: you set up its enemy before it, and put its safety into an enemy’s hands. You cast away all its joys and hopes just to gratify the flesh. Might it not complain of your cruelty and say, “Must my endless happiness be sold to purchase so short a pleasure for your flesh? Must I be undone forever, and lie in hell, that it may be satisfied for a little time?”

But why do I speak of the soul’s complaint? Alas, it is of itself that it must complain! For it is its own doing. It has its choice: the flesh can only tempt, not force. God has placed the chief power and government into its hands. If it determines to sell its own eternal hopes to pamper what will become worm’s food, it will act accordingly.

You would not think very highly of the intelligence or honesty of a man who would sell the inheritance of all his children and all his friends who entrusted it to him and then sell their very persons into slavery, all to purchase for himself a single day of feasting, sports, and entertainment. And is he any wiser or better who, in effect, sells the inheritance of his own soul and betrays it to hell and devils forever, all to purchase the fleshly pleasure of so short a life?”

— Richard Baxter