Owen - BV4501 O84 1844

150 OF SPIItITUAL MINDEDNESS. are all things." Under that consideration alone are they to be the objects of our spiritual meditations, namely, as they come from him, and tend tohim. All other things are finite and limited; but they begin and end in that which is immense and infinite. So God is all in all ; he, therefore, is, or ought to be, the only supreme absolute object of our thoughts and desires; other things are from and for him only. Where our thoughts do not either immediatelyand directly, or me- diately and by just consequence, tend to, and end in him, they are not spiritual. .1 Pet. i. 21. To make way for directions how to exercise our thoughts on God himself, some things must be pre- mised concerning a sinful defect herein, with the causes of it. 1. It is the great character of a man presumptuously and flagitiously wicked, that God is not in all his. thoughts. Psal. x. 4. That is, he is in none of them. And of this want of thoughts of God there are many degrees; for all wicked men are not equally forgetful of him. 1. Some are under the power of atheistical thoughts : they deny or question, or do not avowedly acknow- ledge, the very being of God. This is the height of what the enmity of the carnal mind can rise to. To acknowledge God, and yet to refuse to be subject to his law or will, a man would think were as bad, if not worse, than to deny the being of God : but it is not so. That is a rebellion against his authoritythis, an ha- tred to the only Fountain of all goodness, truth, and being ; and that because they cannot own it, but, with- al they must acknowledge it to be infinitelyrighteous, holy, and powerful, which would destroy all th sir de- sires and security. Such may be the person n the

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