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Here the apostle informs us how he ran, that he might not run uncertainly; how he fought, so as he might not be like one beating the air:
I (saith he) keep under my body; and bring it into subjection. By body, here, we must not understand only the apostle’s fleshly part (which we usually call our body); no, nor only our more gross and filthy affections and lusts (as some of the schoolmen have thought); but what the apostle elsewhere calleth the old man, under which notion cometh the sinful inclinations of our will, and corrupt dictates of reason, as it is in man since the fall. All this, as it cometh under the notion of the flesh in many other places of Scripture, and of our members which are upon the earth, Col_3:5; so it cometh here under the notion of the body; and, indeed, is that which our apostle calleth the body of death, Rom_7:24. This was the object of the apostle’s action; the object about which he was exercised. For his action, or exercise about this object, is expressed by two words, upwpiazw and doulagwgw the former word (as some think) is borrowed from the practice of those that fought in the afore-mentioned games, who knocked and beat one another till they were black and blue, and forced to yield themselves conquered. The second word signifieth to make one a servant, to bring one under command, so as he will do what another would have him do. By these two words the apostle expresseth that mortification, which he declareth himself to have lived in the practice of, that he might not in his race for heaven run uncertainly, nor in his spiritual fight lose his labour, and reap no more profit than one should reap that spends his time in beating the air. Their sense, who think that this duty of Paul was discharged by acts of mere external discipline, such as fasting, wearing sackcloth, beating themselves, &c., is much too short; these things reach not to the mind of man, his corrupt affections and lusts, which give life to the extravagancy of the bodily members, though indeed they may some of them be good means in order to the greater work. Paul’s meaning was, that he made it his work to deny his sensitive appetite such gratifyings as it would have; to resist the extravagant motions of his will, yea, of his own corrupt reason, so far as they were in any thing contrary to the holy will of God; though, in order to this, he also used fasting and prayer, and such acts of external discipline as his wisdom taught him were any way proper to this end. And this he tells us that he did,
lest, while he preached to others, he himself should be a castaway: from whence we may observe, that Paul thought such a thing possible, that one who all his life had been preaching to others, to bring them to heaven, might himself be thrown into hell at last; and if it had not, our Saviour would never have told us, that he would at the last day say to some: Depart from me, I know you not, you workers of iniquity; who for their admittance had pleaded: We have prophesied in thy name, Mat_7:22,23. Nor must we question but Judas, whom our Saviour calls a son of perdition, was a lost man as to eternity, though it be certain that he, as well as the other apostles, was a preacher of the gospel: yea, so far is this from being impossible, that it was the opinion of Chrysostom, that few ministers would be saved. We may also further observe, that such ministers as indulge their body, giving themselves liberties, either more externally in meats, drinks, apparel, pleasures; or more internally, indulging themselves in sinful speculations, notions, affections, inclinations; take a quite contrary road to heaven than Paul took, and think they have a great deal more liberty to the flesh than St. Paul thought he had, or than he durst use.