OF SPIRITUAL 1VIINDEDNESS. 99 the things themselves. They who do not think of them frequently, shall never believe them sincerely. They admit not of any collateral evidence, where they do not evidence themselves unto our souls. Faith, as we said, thus exercised, will give them a subsistence, not in themselves, which they have antecedent there- to ; but in us, in our hearts, in the minds of them that believe. Imagination creates its own object : faith finds it prepared beforehand. It will not leave- a bare . notion of them in the understanding, but give them a spiritual subsistence in the heart, as Christ himself dwells in our hearts by faith. And there are two things that will discover this subsistence of them in us : l. When we find them in a continual readiness to rise up in our minds on all occasions wherein the thoughts and remembrance of them are needful and useful to us. There are many seasons, some whereof shall be immediately spoken to ; and many duties, wherein and whereto the faith and thoughts of things invisible and eternal are needful to us, so as that we cannot fill up those seasons, nor perform those duties, in a due manner without them. If on all such occa- sions they do, from the inward frame of our minds, present themselves to us, or through our acquaintance and familiarity with them, we recur in our thoughts to them, they seem to have a real subsistence given to them in our souls : but if on such occasions, wherein alone they will yield us help and relief, we accustom ourselves to other thoughts, if those concerning them are, as it were, out of the way, and arise not in our minds of their own accord, we are yet strangers to this effect of faith. 2., They are realized to us, they have a subsistence in us, when the soul continually longeth to be in them : when they have given such á
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