378 OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. [PART L
plaints of the church in its greatest dangers and calamities: Isa. xl. 28-31, “ Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the ever- lasting God, the Lorp, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lorp shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”
Take one instance, which is the continual concernment of us all. We are obnoxious unto death every moment. Itis never the farther from any of us because we think not of it as we ought. This will lay our bodies in the dust, from whence they will have no more dis- position nor power in themselves to rise again than any other part of the mould of the earth. Their recovery must be an act of external almighty power, when God shall have a desire to the work of his hands, when he shall call, and we shall answer him out of the dust. And it will transmit the soul into an invisible world, putting a final end unto all relations, enjoyments, and circumstances here below. I speak not of them who are stout-hearted and far from righteous- ness, who live and die like beasts, or under the power of horrible presumption, without any due thoughts of their future and eternal state; but as unto others, what comfort or satisfaction can any man have in his life, whereon his all depends, and which is passing from him every moment, unless he hath continual thoughts of the mighty power of God, whereby he is able to receive his departing soul and to raise his body out of the dust?
Not to insist on more particulars, thus is it with them who are spiritually minded; thus must it be with us all if we pretend a title unto that privilege: They are filled with thoughts of God, in opposi- tion unto that character of wicked men, that “God is not in all their thoughts.” And it is greatly to be feared that many of us, when we come to be weighed in this balance, will be found too light. Men may be in the performance of outward duties; they may hear the word with delight, and do many things gladly; they may escape the pollutions that are in the world through lust, and not run out into the same compass of excess and riot with other men: yet may they be strangers unto inward thoughts of God with delight and com- placency. I cannot understand how it can be otherwise with them whose minds are over and over filled with earthly things, however they may satisfy themselves with pretences of their callings and law- ful enjoyments, or that they are not any way inordinately set on the pleasures or profits of the world.
CHAP. X.] | RULES FOR ABIDING IN THOUGHTS OF GOD. 379
To “walk with God,” to “live unto him,” is not merely to be found in an abstinence from outward sins, and in the performance of outward duties, though with diligence in the multiplication of them. All this may be done upon such principles, for such ends, with such a frame of heart, as to find no acceptance with God. It is our hearts that he requireth, and we can no way give them unto him but by our affections and holy thoughts of him with delight. This it is to be spiritually minded, this it is to walk with God. Let no man de- ceive himself; unless he thus abound in holy thoughts of God, unless our meditation of him be sweet unto us, all that we else pretend unto will fail us in the day of our trial.
This is the first thing wherein we may evidence ourselves unto ourselves to be under the conduct of the minding of the Spirit, or to be spiritually minded; and I have insisted the longer on it, be- cause it contains the first sensible egress of the Spirit of living waters In us, the first acting of spiritual life unto our own experience. I _ should now proceed unto the consideration of our affections, of whose frame and state these thoughts are the only genuine exposition; but whereas there are, or may be, some who are sensible of their own weakness and deficiency in the discharge of that part of this duty in being spiritually minded which we have passed through, and may fall under discouragements thereon, we must follow Him, as we are able, who “ will not quench the smoking flax, nor break the bruised reed,” by offering something unto the relief of them that are sincere under the sense of their own weakness.
CHAPTER X.
Sundry things tendered unto such as complain that, they know not how, they are not able to abide in holy thoughts of God and spiritual or heavenly things, for their relief, instruction, and direction—Rules concerning stated spiritual meditation.
Some will say, yea, on many occasions do say, that there is not any thing in all their duty towards God wherein they are more at a loss than they are in this one, of fixing or exercising their thoughts or meditations on things heavenly or spiritual. They acknowledge it a duty; they see an excellency in it, with inexpressible usefulness: but although they often try and attempt it, they cannot attain unto any thing but what makes them ashamed both of it and themselves. Their minds, they find, are unsteady, apt to rove and wander, or give entertainment unto other things, and not to abide on the object