380 OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. [PART L
which they design their meditation towards. Their abilities are small, their invention barren, their memories frail, and their judg- ments, to dispose of things into right order, weak and unable. They know not what to think on, for the most part; and when they fix on any thing, they are immediately at a loss as unto any progress, and so give over. Hence other thoughts, or thoughts of other things, take advantage to impose themselves on them, and what began in spiritual meditation ends in carnal vanity. On these considerations ofttimes they are discouraged to enter on the duty, ofttimes give it over so soon as it is begun, and are glad if they come off without being losers by their endeavours, which often befalls them. With respect unto other duties it is not so with them. Unto such as are really concerned in these things, unto whom their want and defect is a burden, who mourn under it, and desire to be freed from it or refreshed in their conflict with it, I shall offer the things that ensue :—
First, That sense of the vanity of our minds which this consider- ation duly attended unto will give us, ought greatly to humble and abase our souls. Whence is it thus with us, that we cannot abide in thoughts and meditations of things spiritual and heavenly? Is it because they are such things as we have no great concernment in? It may be they are things worthless and unprofitable, so that it is to no purpose to spend our thoughts about them. The truth is, they alone are worthy, useful, and desirable; all other things in com- parison of them are but “loss and dung.” Or is it because the facul- ties and powers of our souls were not originally suited unto the contemplation of them and delight in them? This also is otherwise; they were all given unto us, all created of God for this end, all fitted with inclinations and power'to abide with God in all things, without aversation or weariness. Nothing was so natural, easy, and pleasant unto them, as steadiness in the contemplation of God and his works. The cause, therefore, of all this evil lies at our own door. All this, therefore, and all other evils, came upon us by the entrance of sin. And therefore Solomon, in his inquiry after all the causes and effects of vanity, brings it under this head, “Lo, this only have I found, that God made man upright; but they have sought out many in- ventions,” Eccles. vii. 29: for hereby our minds, that were created in a state of blessed adherence unto God, were wholly turned off from him, and not only so, but filled with enmity against him. In this state, that vanity which is prevalent in them is both their sin and their punishment: their sin, in a perpetual inclination unto things vain, foolish, sensual, and wicked,—so the apostle describes it at large, Eph. iv. 17-19, Tit. iii. 3; and their punishment, in that, being turned off from the chiefest good, wherein alone rest is to be
CHAP. X.] RULES FOR ABIDING IN THOUGHTS OF GOD. 381
found, they are filled with darkness, confusion, and disquietment, being “like the troubled sea that cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.”
‘By grace our minds are renewed,—that is, changed and delivered from this frame; but they are so partially only. The principle of vanity is no longer predominant in us, to alienate us from the life of God, or to keep us in enmity against him. Those who are so renewed do not “walk in the vanity of their minds,” as others do, Eph. iv. 17. They go up and down, in all their ways and occasions, with a stream of vain thoughts in their minds. But the remainders of it are effectually operative in us, in all the actings of our minds towards God, affecting them with uncertainty and instability: as he who hath received a great wound in any principal part of his body, though it may be so cured as that death shall not imme- diately ensue thereon, yet it may make him go weak and lame all his days, and hinder him in the exercise of all the powers of life. The vanity of our minds is so cured as to deliver us from spiritual death; but yet such a wound, such a weakness doth remain, as both weakens and hinders us in all the operations of spiritual life. Hence those who have made any progress in grace are sensible of their vanity as the greatest burden of their souls, and do groan after such a complete renovation of their minds as whereby they may be per- fectly freed from it. This is that which they principally regard in that complaining desire, Rom. vii. 24, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?” Yea, they groan under a sense of it every day, nor is any thing such a trouble unto them, observing how it defeats them in their designs to contemplate on heavenly things, how it frustrates their best resolutions to abide in the spiritual actings of faith and love, how they are imposed on by it with thoughts of things which, either in themselves or in their consequences, they most abhor. Nothing are they so afraid of, nothing is so grievous and burdensome unto them, nothing do they more groan for deliverance from. When there is war in any place, it behoveth them that are concerned to have an eye and regard unto all their enemies and their attempts against them; but if they are vigilant and diligent in their opposition unto those that are without that visibly contend with them, and in the meantime ne- glect such as traitorously act within among themselves, betraying their counsels and weakening their strength, they will be un- doubtedly ruined. Wise men do first take care of what is within, as knowing if they are there betrayed, all they do against their open enemies is to no purpose. In the warfare wherein we are en- gaged, we have enemiies of all sorts that openly and visibly, in various temptations, fight against our souls. These it is our duty to