33 OF SPIRITUAL MTNDÈDNESS. are sensible .of them, and would be delivered from them ; and I shall give it in a fewwords. First. Remember former things : call to mind how it was with you in the spring and vigor of your affec- tions, and compare your present state, enjoyment, peace, and quiet, with what they were then. This will be a great principle of return to God. Hos. ii. 7. And to put"a little weight upon it, we may consider, First. God himself makes it, on his part, a ground and reason of his return to us in a way of mercy, and of.the continuance of his love. Jer. ii. 2. Even when apeople are under manifold decays, whilst yet theyare within the bounds of God's covenant and mercy, he will remember their first love, with the fruits and actings of it in trials and temptations, whichmoves his compassion towards them. And the way to have God thus remember it, is for us to remember our former experience with delight, and longing of soul that it were with us as in those days of old, when we had the love of espousals of God in Christ, Ter. xxxi. 18-20. Secondly. It is the way whereby the saints of old have refreshed and encouraged themselves under their greatest despondencies. So loth. the Psalmist in many places, as for instance, Ps. xlii. 6. ' 0 my God, my soul is cast down withinme : therefore will l remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.' David, in the time of his perse cation by Saul, when he wandered up and down in deserts, wildernesses, and solitudes, had, under his fears, distresses, and exercise, great, holy, spiritual communion with God, as many of his psalms composed on such occasions testify. And the greater his dis- tresses were, the more fervent were his affections in all his addresses to God. And he wasnever ingreater,
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