356 OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. [PART I.
ence. And, for the most part, we need not seek far for evidences of their disregard of God,—the “ pride of their countenances testifies against them,” Ps. x. 4; and if they are followed farther, cursed oaths, licentiousness of life, and hatred of all that is good, will con- firm and evidence the same. Such as these may own God in words, may be afraid of him in dangers, may attend outwardly on his wor- ship; but they think not of God at all in a due manner,—“he is not in all their thoughts.”
3. There are yet less degrees of this disregard of God and forget- fulness of him. Some are so filled with thoughts of the world and. the occasions of life that it is impossible they should think of God as they ought; for as the love of God and the love of the world in prevalent degrees are inconsistent, (for if a man love this world, how dwelleth the love of God in him?) so thoughts of God and of the world in the like degree are inconsistent. This is the state of many, who yet would be esteemed spiritually minded: They are continually conversant in their minds about earthly things. Some things impose themselves on them under the notion of duty; they belong unto their callings, they must be attended unto. Some are shecested unto their manila from daily occasions and occurrences. Common converse in the world engageth men into no other but worldly thoughts. Love and desire of earthly things, their enjoy- ment and increase, exhaust the vigour of their spirits all the day long. In the midst of a multitude of thoughts, arising from these and the like occasions, whilst their hearts and heads are reeking with the steam of them, many fall immediately in their seasons unto the performance of holy duties. Those times must suffice for thoughts of God. But notwithstanding such duties, what through the want of a due preparation for them, what through the fulness of their minds and affections with other things, and what through a neglect of exercising grace in them, it may be said comparatively that “God — is not in all their thoughts.” 1
I pray God that this, at least as unto some degrees of it, be not the condition of many among us. I speak not now of men who visibly and openly live in sin, profane in their principles, and profligate in their lives. The prayers of such persons are an abomination unto the Lord, neither have they ever any thoughts of him which he doth accept. But I speak of them who are sober in their lives, industrious in their callings, and not openly negligent about the outward duties of religion. Such men are apt to approve of themselves, and others also to speak well of them, for these things are in themselves com- mendable and praiseworthy; but if they are traced home, it will be found, as to many of them, that “God is not in all their thoughts” as he ought to be. . Their earthly conversation, their vain communi-
CHAP. VIIL] OBJECTS OF SPIRITUAL THOUGHTS IN HEAVEN. 357
cation, with their foolish designs, do all manifest that the vigour of
_ their spirits and most intense contrivances of their minds are en- gaged unto things below. Some refuse, transient, unmanaged thoughts are sometimes cast away on God; which he despiseth.
4, Where persons do cherish secret predominant lusts in their hearts and lives, God is not in their thoughts as he ought to be. He may be, he often is, much in the words of such persons, but in their thoughts he is not, he cannot be, ina due manner. And such persons no doubt there are. Ever and anon we hear of one and another whose secret lusts break forth into a discovery. They flatter them- selves for a season, but God ofttimes so orders things in his holy pro- vidence that their iniquity shall be found out to be hateful. Some hateful lust discovers itself to be predominant in them: one is drunken, another unclean, a third an oppressor. Such there were ever found among professors of the gospel, and that in the best of
times: among the apostles one was a traitor, “a devil.” Of the first professors of Christianity, there were those “whose god was their belly, whose end was destruction, who minded earthly things,” Phil. iii. 18,19. Some may take advantage of this acknowledgment that there are such evils among such as are called professors; and it must be confessed that great scandal is given hereby unto the world, casting both them that give it and them to whom it is given under a most dreadful woe: but we must bear the reproach of it as they did of old, and commit.the issue of all things unto the watchful care of God. However, it is good in such a season to be jealous over ourselves and others, to “exhort one another daily, while it is called To-day, lest any be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin,” Heb. iii. 13. See chap. xii. 13-17. And because those with whom it is thus cannot be spiritually minded, [and] yet are there some difficulties in the case, as unto the predominancy of a secret lust or sin, I shall consider it somewhat more distinctly :—