378 OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. minded. This is evident from the very nature of the duty : for, (1.) It is the soul's preserving itself in a frame meet to receive and retain this sense of God's love. What other way can there be on our part, but that our minds, which are so to receive and retain it, are spiritual and heavenly, always prepared for that holy converse and communion with himself, which he is pleased to grant to us through Jesus Christ 2 And, (2.) It will fix our thoughts and affections upon the grace and love of God, communicating such an inesti- mable mercy to us as is a sense of his love, which is the only means for the preservation of a relish of it in our hearts. He who is in this frame of mind, will remember, call over, and ruminate upon, all such gra- cious pledges of divine favor; as David is often remembering and calling over what he received in such places as in the land of the Hermonites, and at the hill Mizar, Psal. xlii. This is the great way whereby this treasure may be preserved. (3.) A person so minded, and he alone, will have a due valuation of such intimations and pledges of divine love. Those who are full of other things, whose affec- tions cleave to them, never esteem heavenly mercies and privileges as they ought. The full soul loatheth the honey comb. And God is well pleased, when an high valuation is put upon his kindness, as he is greatly provoked by the contrary frame i which, indeed, noth- ing but infinite patience could bear with. It is an high provocation of God, when men are regardless of, and unthankful for, outward temporal mercies; when they receive them and use them as if they were their own, that they were lords of them, at least, that they are due to them. Much more is he provoked with our
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