52 OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. their expressions. It hath been so with sundry per- sons who have been discovered to be rotten hypo- crites, and have afterwards turned cursed apostates. Wherefore all these things may be, where there is no gracious spring, or vital principle, acting itself from within in spiritual thoughts. Some, it may be, will design an advantage by their conceptions, unto the interest of profaneness and scoffing ; for if there be these evils under the exer- cise of the gift of prayer, both in constancy, and with fervency if there may be a total want of the exercise of all true grace with it and under it ; then it may be, all that is pretended of this gift, and its use, is but hypocrisy and talk. But, I say, 1, It may be as well pretended, that because the sun shining on a dunghill doth occasion offensive and noisome steams ; there- fore all that is pretended of its influence on spices and flowers, causing them to give out their fragrancy, is utterly false. No man ever thought that spiritual gifts did change, or renew the minds and natures of men; where they are alone, they only help and assist unto the useful exercise of natural faculties and powers; and, therefore, where the heart is not sa- vingly renewed, no gifts can stir up a saving exercise of faith; but, where it is so, they are a means to cause the savor of it to flow forth. 2. Be it so, that there may be some evils found under the exercise of the gift of prayer, what remedy for them may be proposed l Is it that men should renounce their use of it, and betake themselves unto the reading of prayers only l 1. The same may be said of all spiri- tual gifts whatever ; for they are all of them liable to abuse. And shall we reject all the powers of the world to come, the whole m ln-, ` ° ' _;e+, `"T
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