24 of SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. with being spiritually minded ; only they cannot well deny but that it is contrary unto such degrees in that grace, such thriving in that duty, as is recommended unto them. They think well of others who are spiritu- ally minded in an eminent degree. At least they do so as unto the thing itself in general; for when they come unto particular instances of this or that man, for the most part, they esteem what is beyond their own measure to be little better than pretence. But in gen- eral, to be spiritually minded in an eminent degree, they cannot but esteem it a thing excellent and desirable. But it is for them who are more at leisure than they are ; their circumstances and occasions require them to satisfy themselves with an inferior measure. To obviate such pretences, I shall insist on nothing in the declaration of this duty, and the necessity of it, but what is incumbent on all that believe, and without which they have no grounds to assure their conscience before God. And at present in general I shall say, ` Who- ever he be, who doth not sincerely aim at the high- est degree of being spiritually minded, which the means he enjoyeth would lead him unto, and which the light he hath received doth call for; who judgeth it necessary unto his present advantages, occasions, and circumstances, to rest in such measures or degrees of it, as he cannot but know that they come short of what he ought to aim at, and so doth not endeavor after completeness in the will of God herein, can have no satisfaction in his own mind ; hath no unfailing grounds, whereon to believe that he bath any thing at all of the reality of this grace in him.' Such a person possibly may have life which accompanies the essence of this grace, but he cannot have peace, which follows on its degree in a due improvement,
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