286 OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. with inclination and love to a party, are apt to insinuate themselves with great complacency in our affections, so far as they are unrenewed. And these things dis- cover the true grounds whence it is that the ordi- nances of divine worship are so useless as they are, to many who seem to attend to them with diligence. They maybe referred to these two heads a (1.) They do not come to them, as the means ap- pointed of God, for the exercise of faith and love to Christ, so as to make it their design in their approach- es to them, without which, all that is spoken of advan- tage in and by other duties is utterly lost. (2.) They do not in and under them labor to stir up faith and love to their due exercise. (3.) They suffer their minds to be diverted from the exercise of these graces, partly by occasional tempta- tions, partly by attendance to what is outward only in the ordinances themselves. Spiritual affections find no place of rest in any of these things î such proposals of God in Christ, of his will, and their own duty, as may draw out their faith, love, godly fear, and delight, into their due exercise, is that which they inquire after, and acquiesce in. Two things alone doth faith regard in all duties of worship, as to the ,outward administration of it. The one absolutely, the other comparatively i both with re- spect to the end mentioned, or the exercise, growth, and increase of grace in us. The first is, that they be of divine appointment. Where their original and observance are resolved into divine authority, there, and there alone, will they have a divine efficacy. In all these things, faith hath regard tonothing but divine precepts and promises. Whatever hath regard to any thing else, is not faith, but fancy. And therefore these
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