Abernathy - Houston-Packer Collection BX9178.A33 S4 1748 v.3

neceffary to the attaining of it. 181 agreeable to him, Whether therefore we S E x M. are fincere lovers of wifdom, we may judge, VII, by the pleafure we take in its ways and in 4ru &ions. The experience of delight, and the high relifh of agreeable objects will powerfully determine the mind for its own fake to meditate upon them, and by this we may know whether we are after the fefh or the fpirit ; for they that are after the flefh, mind the things of the flefh., but they that are after the fpirit, mind the things of the fpirit, Rom. viii. g. For whatever kind of object yields us the greateft joy, that it is which the mind will naturally attend to, and fre- quently entertain itfelf with, Let us then compare the joy which arifeth from wifdom, and that which we have in other things,, and thus judge of our own difpofitions A perception of pleafure in the gratification of our natural appetites is the neceffary effe& of our conflitution, and therefore is not to be condemned as if there were any thing criminal in it ; but the mind is impo- tent and irreligious which is entirely under the power of them, and hath no tafle of the rational and fuperior pleafantnefs of wifdom's ways, in which they who are Wife perceive a vafily greater dignity and happinefs, Thefe are the ways, tilde the N 3 fe tip

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