AU'TIiORTS PREFACE'. ix- tify the soul against faith and obedience, and in oth-, ers, weaken all grace, and endanger eternal ruin. For if we love the world, the love of the Father is not in us ; and when the world fills our thoughts, it will entangle our affections. And first,. the present state of public affairs in it,, with anapprehended con-, cernment of private persons therein, continually ex erciseth the thoughts of many, and is almost the only subject of their mutual converse., For the world is at, present in a mighty hurry, and being in many places cast off from all foundations of steadfastness, it makes, the minds of men giddy with its revolutions, or dis- orderly in the expectations of them. Thoughts about these things are both allowable and unavoidable, if they take not the mind out of its own, power, by their multiplicity, vehemency, and urgency, until it be unframed as to spiritual things, retaining neither room nor time for their entertainment.. Hence, men walk and talk, as if the world were all, when comparatively it is nothing. And when men come with their warmed affections reeking with the thoughts of these thugs, to the per formanee of, or attendance to, any spiritual duty, it is very difficult for them, if not impossible, to stir up . any grace to a due and vigorous exercise. Unless this plausibleadvantage which theworld hathobtained, of insinuating itself and its occasions into the minds . of men, so as to fill then and possess them, be watch- ed against and obviated, so far, at least, as that it may not transform the mind into its awn image and like- ness, this grace of being spiritually minded, which is life and peace, cannot be attained nor kept to its due exercise. Nor can we be any of us delivered from this snare
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