OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. 153 light of the word ; but none are immediately turned to God by them. As a good shepherd, when a sheep wanders from a flock, and will not hear his call, sends out his dog, which stops him, and bites him; hereon he looks about him, and hearing the call of the shepherd, returns again to the. flock. Job. xxxiii. 19 -25. But with this sort of persons it is the way of God, that where the principal means of the revelation of himself, and wherein he doth most glorify his wisdom and his goodness, is despised, he will not only take off the effi- cacy of inferior means, but judicially harden the hearts, sand blind the eyes of men, that such means shall be of no use to them. See Isa. vi. 8 -12. Acts xiii. 40, 41. Rom. i. 21, 28.. 2 Thess. ü< 11, 12. 2. The contempt of gospel light and the Christian religion, as it is supernatural, (which is the beginning of transgression to all atheists among us,) begets in, and leaves on the mind such a depraved corrupt habit, such a congress of all evils, that the hatred of the goodness, wisdom, and grace of God, canproduce; that it cannot but be wholly inclined to the worst of evils, as all our original vicious inclinations succeed immediately on our rejection and loss of the image of God. The best things corrupted, yield the worst savor, as manna stank and bred worms; the knowledge of the gospel being rejected, stinking worms take the place of it in the mind, which grow into vipers and scorpions. Every degree of apostacy from gospel truthbrings in a propor- tionate degree of inclination to wickedness into the hearts andminds of men. 2 Pet. ii. 21: and that which is total to all the evils that they are capable of in this world. Whereas, therefore, multitudes, from their dark- ness, unbelief, temptation, love of sin, pride, and con- tempt of God, fall off from all subjection of soul and
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