158 OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. nication, with their foolish designs, do all manifest, that the vigor of their spirits, and the most intense contri- vances of their minds, are engaged in things below. Some refuse, transient, unmanaged thoughts, are some- times cast away on Gad, which he despiseth. 4. Where persons do cherish secret predominant lusts in their hearts and lives, God is not in their thoughts as he ought to be. He may be, he often is, much in the words of suchpersons, but in theirs houghts he is not, he cannot be, in a due manner. And such persons, no doubt, there are. Ever and anon, we hear of oneand another whose secret lusts break forth into a discovery. They flatter themselves for a season, but God oft-times so orders things in his holy providence, that their iniquity shall be found out to be hateful. Some hateful lust discovers itself tobe predominant in them. One is drunken, another unclean, a third an op- pressor. Such there were found among professors of the gospel, and that in thebest of times ; among the apostles, one was a traitor, a devil. Of the first profes- sors of Christianity, there were those, whose God was their belly, whose end was destruction, who minded earthly things. Phil. iii. 18, 19. Some may take ad- vantage at this acknowledgment, that there are such evils among such as are called professors. And it must be confessed, that great scandal is given hereby unto the world, casting both them that gave it, and them to whom it is given, under a most dreadful wo. But we must bear the reproach of it, as they did of old, and commit the issue of all things to the watchful care of God. However, it is good in such a season to be "jealous over ourselves and others, to exhort one ano- ther daily whilst it is called to-day, lest any be harden- ed through the deceitfulness of sin." See Heb. xii.
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