I would therefore press this unknown, this neglected duty on the minds of those of us in an especial manner who are visibly drawing nigh unto eternity. The days are coming wherein what God is in himself (that is, as manifested and exhibited in Christ), shall alone be, as we hope, the eternal blessedness and reward of our souls. Is it possible that any thing should be more necessary for us, more useful unto us, than to be exercised in such thoughts and contemplations? The benefits we may have hereby are not to be reckoned; some of them only may be named: as,—[1st.] We shall have the best trial of ourselves how our hearts really stand affected towards God; for if upon examination we find ourselves not really to delight and re-
364 ) OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. “Pear
joice in God for what he is in himself, and that all perfections are eternally resident in him, how dwelleth the love of God in us? But if we can truly “rejoice at the remembrance of his holiness,” in the thoughts of what he is, our hearts are upright with him. [2dly.] This is that which will effectually take off our thoughts and affections from things here below. One spiritual view of the divine goodness, beauty, and holiness, will have more efficacy to raise‘the heart unto a contempt of all earthly things than any other evidences whatever. [8dly.] It will increase the grace of being heavenly minded in us, on the grounds before declared. [4thly.| It is the best, I had almost said it is the only, preparation for the future full enjoyment of God. This will gradually lead us into his presence, take away all fears of death, increase our longing after eternal rest, and ever make us groan to be unclothed. Let us not, then, cease labouring with our hearts, until, through grace, we have a spiritually-sensible delight and joy in the remembrances and thoughts of what God is in himself.
2dly. In thoughts of God, his saints rejoice at the remembrance of what he rs, and what he will be unto them. Herein have they regard unto all the holy relations that he hath taken on himself to- wards them, with all the effects of his covenant in Christ Jesus. To that purpose were some of the last words of David: 2 Sam. xxiii. 5, “ Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire.” In the prospect he had of all the distresses that were to befall his family, he triumphantly re- joiced in the everlasting covenant that God had made with him. In these thoughts his saints take delight; they are sweet unto them, and full of refreshment: ‘“ Their meditations of him are sweet,” and they are “glad in the Lorn,” Ps. civ. 34. Thus is it with them that are truly spiritually minded. They not only think much of God, but they take delight in these thoughts,—they are sweet unto them; and not only so, but they have no solid joy or delight but in their thoughts of God, which therefore they retreat unto continually. They do so especially on great occasions, which of themselves are apt to divert them from them. As suppose a man hath received a signal mercy, with the matter whereof he is exceedingly affected and de- lighted; the minds of some men are apt on such occasions to be filled with thoughts of what they have received, and their affections to be wholly taken up with it, but he who is spiritually minded will immediately retreat unto thoughts of God, placing his delight and taking up his satisfaction in him. And so, on the other side, great distresses, prevalent sorrows, strong pains, violent distempers, are apt of themselves to take up and exercise all the thoughts of men about them; but those who are spiritually minded will in
CHAP. VIIr.] OBJECTS OF SPIRITUAL THOUGHTS IN HEAVEN. 865
and under them all continually betake themselves unto thoughts of _ God, wherein they find relief and refreshment against all that they feel or fear. In every state, their principal joy is in “the remembrance of his holiness.”
[2.] That they be accompanied with godly fear and reverence. These are required of us in all wherein we have to do with God, Heb. xii. 28, 29; and as the Scripture doth not more abound with precepts unto any duty, so the nature of God and our own, with the infinite distance between them, make it indispensably necessary even in the light of the natural conscience. Infinite greatness, infinite holiness, infinite power, all which God is, command the utmost reve- rential fear that our natures are capable of. The want hereof is the spring of innumerable evils; yea, indeed, of all that is so. Hence are blasphemous abuses of the holy name of. God in cursed oaths and execrations; hence it is taken in vain, in ordinary exclamations; hence is all formality in religion.
It is the spiritual mind alone that can reconcile those things which are prescribed to us as our duty towards God. “To delight and rejoice in him always, to triumph in the remembrance of him, to _ draw nigh unto him with boldness and confidence,” are on the one hand prescribed unto us; and on the other it is so “that we fear and tremble before him, that we fear that great and dreadful name the Lorp our God, that we have grace to serve him with reverence and godly fear, because he is a consuming fire.” These things carnal reason can comprehend no consistency in;—what it is afraid of it cannot delight in; and what it delights in it will not long fear. But the consideration of faith, concerning what God is in himself, and what he will be unto us, gives these different graces their dis- tinct operations, and a blessed reconciliation in our souls. Where- fore, all our thoughts of God ought to be accompanied with a holy awe and reverence, from a due sense of his greatness, holiness, and power. ‘Two things will utterly vitiate all thoughts of God and render them useless unto us,—vain curiosity and carnal boldness.