The Third Branch: Purity

By "purity," I understand a due abstractedness from the body, and mastery over the inferior appetites, or such a temper and disposition of mind as makes a man despise and abstain from all pleasures and delights of sense or fancy which are sinful in themselves, or tend to extinguish or lessen our relish of more divine and intellectual pleasures. This also infers a resolution to undergo all those hardships he may meet with in the performance of his duty. So that not only chastity and temperance, but also Christian courage and magnanimity may come under this heading.

Well, yes, to a certain degree. But Scougal here adopts what sounds to me to be almost a gnostic division of the physical and spiritual. Humans are certainly prone to pursuit of sinful satisfaction of physical appetites, yet there is an appropriate way to appease those appetites, which were after all created by God. And there are sinful ways to relish intellectual pleasures, too. So rather than striving in an ascetic sense to discipline the body, we should look to discipline our whole selves toward holiness, while acknowledging the due and proper enjoyment of the gifts God has given.