OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. 249 be temporary impressions made on the affections, that shall seem, for a season, to have turned the stream of them. And thereon we have many, who every day will be wholly, as it were, for God, resolved to forsake sin, and all the pleasures of it; but the next, return to ill their former excesses. For this is the effect of those impressions, that whereas men ordinarily are predominantly actuated by love, desire, and delight, which lead them to act according to the true natural principles of the soul; now they are for a season actu- ated by fear and dread, which put a kind of force on all their inclinations. Hereon they have other thoughts of good and evil, of things eternal and temporal, of God, and their own duty, for a season. And hereon, some of themmay, and do, persuade themselves, that there is a change in their hearts and affections, which there is not; like a man who persuades himself that he hath lost his ague, because his present fit is over. The next trial of temptation carries them away again to the world and sin. There are sometimes sudden impressions made on spiritual affections, which are always of great advan- tage to the soul, renewing its engagements to God and duty. So was it with Jacob, Gen. xxviii. 16 -20. So is it often with believers in hearing the word, and other occasions. On all of them they renew their cleavings to God with love and delight. But the ef- fect of these impressions on unrenewed affections, is neither spiritual nor durable. Yea, for the most part, they are but checks given in the providence of God to the raging of their lusts. Psal. ix. 2. Secondly. They are liable to an habitual change This the experience of all ages gives testimony to. There may be an habitual change wrought in the pas-
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