196 OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. renewed, do not walk in the vanity of their minds, as others do. Eph. iv. 17. They go up and down in all their ways and occasions, with a stream of vain. thoughts in their minds. But the remainders of it are effectually operative in us, in all actings of our minds towards God, affecting them with uncertainty and in- stability. As, he who hath received a great wound in any principal part of his body, though it may be so cured, as that death shall not immediately ensue there- on; yet it may make him go weak and lame all his days, and hinder him in the exercise of all the powers of life. The vanity of our minds is so cured, as to deliver us from spiritual death; but yet such a wound, such a weakness, doth remain, as both weakens and hinders us in all the operations of spiritual life. Hence those wbo have made any progress ingrace, are sensible of their vanity, as the greatest burden of their souls, and do groan after such a complete renovation of their minds, as whereby they may be perfectly freed from it. This is that which they principally re- gard in that complaining desire, Rom. vii. 4. ' 0 wretched man that T am, who shall deliver me from this body of deathV Yea, they, groan under a sense of it every day ; nor is any thing such a trouble to them, observing how it defeats them in their designs to contemplate on heavenly things; how it frustrates their best resolutions to abide in the spiritual actings of faith and love ; how they are imposed on by it, with the thoughts of things, which either in them- selves, or in their consequences, theymost abhor ; no- thing are they so afraid of nothing is so grievous and burdensome to them, nothing do they more groan for deliverance from. When there is war in any place, it behooveth them that are concerned, to have an eye
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