OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. 215 the mind and affections; and hereon it comes to this duty with earnest desires to have the like tastes, the like experience, yea, to have them increased; then is it in the way of a hopeful progress. And this also will make us persevere in our endeavors to go through with what we undertake ; namely, when we do know, by former experience, what is tó be attained in it if we dig and search for it as treasure. If you shall think that the right discharge of this duty may be otherwise attained; if you suppose that it deserves not all this cost and charge about it; judge by what is past, whether it be not advisable to give it over and let it alone. As good lie quietly on the ground, as continually attempt to rise, and never once effect it. Remember how many successive attempts you have made upon it, and all have come to nothing, or that which is as bad as nothing. I cannot say that in this way you shall always succeed; but I fear you will never have success in this duty without such things as are of the same nature and use with it. When after this preparation you find yourselves yet perplexed and entangled, not able comfortably to per- sist in spiritual thoughts, to your refreshment, take these two directions for your relief. 1. Cry and sigh to God for help and relief. Bewail the darkness, weakness, and instability of your minds, so as to groan within yourselves for deliverance. And if your designed meditations do issue only in a renew- ed gracious sense of your own weakness and insuffi- ciency, with application to God for supplies of strength, they are by no means lost as unto a spiritual account. The thoughts of Hezekiah, in his meditations, did not seem to have any great order or consistency, when he so expressed them ; ' like a crane or a swallow, so did
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