362 OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. delight in them, for their own sakes, but are only affected with some outward circumstances and con- cernments of them. (3.) They find not a suitableness in them to the ruling principles of their minds. They do not practi- cally, they cannot truly say, the yoke of Christ is easy and his burden is light; his commandments are not grievous ; or, with the Psalmist, Oh! how do I love thy law. (4.) Their affections are transient, unstable, vanish. lug, as to their exercise and operations. They are on and off, now pleased, and anon displeased; earnest for a little while, and then cold and indifferent. Hence the things which they seem to effect, have no trans- forming efficacy upon their souls ; they dwell not in them, in their power. But where our affections to spiritual things are sin- cere, where they are the true genuine application of the soul, and adherence to them, they are firm and stable ; love and delight are kept up to such a constant exercise, as renders them immovable ; this is that which we are exhorted to, 1 Cor. xv. 58. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. Transient affections, with their occasional operations, deceive multitudes : ofttimes they are pregnant in `their actings, as those that are most sincere : and many effects in joys, in mournings, in complaints, they will produce, especially_when excited by any outward affliction, sickness, and the like. But their goodness is like the early cloud, or morning dew. Let none, therefore, please themselves with the operations of transient affections with respect to spiritual things, be
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