298 OP SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. will he these duties, who hath been partaker of any of these saving mercies and privileges wherewith they are accompanied. Some have been delivered from the worst of temptations, and_, the nearest approach of their prevalency (as to destroy themselves,) by a sud- den remembrance of the frame of their souls, and the intimations of God's love in such, or such a prayer, at such a time. Some have had the same deliverance from temptations to sin ; when they had been carried away under the power of their corruptions, and all circumstances had concurred under the apprehensions of it, a sudden thought of such a prayer or meditation, with the engagement they made of themselves therein to God, hath caused all the weapons of sin to fall out cf its hands, and all the beauties of its allurements to disappear. When others have been under the power of such despondencies and disconsolations, as that no present tenders of relief can approach to them, they have been suddenly raised and refreshed by the remembrance of the intimate love and kindness between Christ and their souls, that has evidenced itself in former duties. Multitudes in fears, distresses, and temptations, have found relief to their spirits, and encouragement to their faith, in the remembrance of the returns they have had to former supplications in the like distresses. These are grounds of spiritual delight in these duties. Heartlegs, lifeless, wordy 'prayer, the fruit of con- victions and gifts, or of custom and outward occa- sions, however multiplied, and whatever devotion they seem to be accompanied with, will never engage spirit- ual affections to them. When these things are absent, when the soul hath not experience of them, prayer is but a lifeless form, a dead carcass, which it would be
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