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AU'TIiORTS
PREFACE'.
ix-
tify the
soul against faith and obedience, and
in
oth
-,
ers, weaken
all
grace,
and
endanger eternal
ruin.
For
if
we love
the
world,
the
love
of
the Father
is
not
in
us
;
and when the world
fills
our
thoughts,
it
will
entangle
our affections. And
first,.
the present
state
of
public
affairs
in
it,,
with
an
apprehended
con
-,
cernment
of
private persons therein,
continually
ex
erciseth
the
thoughts
of many, and
is almost
the only
subject of
their
mutual
converse.,
For the
world
is
at,
present
in
a
mighty hurry,
and
being
in many
places
cast
off
from
all
foundations of steadfastness, it
makes,
the
minds of men giddy
with its revolutions,
or dis-
orderly
in
the expectations
of them.
Thoughts
about
these things
are both
allowable
and
unavoidable,
if they take
not the
mind out of
its
own,
power, by
their
multiplicity, vehemency, and
urgency,
until it
be
unframed
as
to spiritual things, retaining
neither room nor
time
for
their
entertainment..
Hence, men walk and talk,
as if the world were
all,
when comparatively it
is
nothing.
And when
men come
with
their
warmed affections
reeking
with the
thoughts
of
these thugs,
to
the per
formanee
of, or
attendance to, any spiritual
duty,
it
is
very
difficult
for them,
if
not
impossible,
to
stir up
.
any
grace to
a
due
and vigorous
exercise.
Unless
this
plausible
advantage which
the
world
hath
obtained,
of
insinuating itself and its occasions into
the minds
.
of
men,
so
as
to
fill
then
and possess them, be watch-
ed against and
obviated,
so
far,
at least,
as
that
it may
not transform
the
mind into
its
awn
image and
like-
ness,
this grace
of being spiritually minded,
which
is
life and peace, cannot be
attained nor kept
to
its
due
exercise.
Nor
can we be any of us delivered from
this
snare