148 OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. much courage and resolution, have been wearied and worn out with their continuance. Elijah himself was hereby reduced to pray that God would take away his life, to put an end to his ministry and calamities. And not a few in all ages have been hereby so broken in their natural spirits; and so shaken in the exercise of faith, as that they have lost the glory of their confession, in seeking deliveranceby sinful compliances in the denial of the truth. And although this maybe done out of mere weariness . (as it is the design of Satan to wear out the saints of the Most High,) with reluctance of mind, and a love yet remaining to the truth in their hearts, yet hath it constantly one of these two effects. Some by theoverwhelming sorrow that befalsthemon the account of their failure in profession, and out of a deep sense of, their unkindness to the Lord Jesus, are stirred up immediately to higher acts of confession than ever they were before engaged in, and to an higher provo cationof their adversaries, until their former troubles are doubled upon them, which they frequently under- go with great satisfaction. Instances of this nature occur in all histories of great persecutions. Others being cowed and discouraged in their profession, and perhaps neglected by them whose duty it was rather to restore them, have, by the craft of Satan, given place to their declensions, and become vile apostates. To prevent these evils arising from the duration of suffer- ings, without a prospect of deliverance, nothing is more prevalent than a constant contemplation on the future reward and glory. So the apostle declares it, Heb. xi. 35. When the mind is filled with the thoughts of the unseen glories of eternity, it hath in readiness what to lay in the balance against the long- est continuance and duration of sufferings, which in.
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