Bridge's remains, being VIII sermons

8ly If your affections be not set on things that are above, how shall your heart be knit, engaged, and united unto God, in opposition to all Apostasy. If you look into Scripture, you shall find there are three degrees of Apostasy. First, The Judgment watches. Secondly, The Affections cool. Thirdly, The Conversation grows worse. Accordingly men ar• said to Apostatize. Sometimes they are said to depart from the faith. 1 Tim 4.1. There is the warping of the Judgment. Sometimes they are said to loose their first love. Mat. 24. Iniquity shall abound, and the love of many s•all grow cold; there is the cooling of their affections. Sometimes they are s•id to make shipwreck of a good Conscience, to forsake the assemblies of the Saints; there is the declining in the Conversation. ⟨p. 33⟩But now if a mans affections be right set, they will keep both the Judgment and the Conversation: ye see t••t if a thing be entangled, it is more hard to loosen it, then otherwise. Now what is it that doth entangle the Soul and Heart of Man, but his affections; no man, saith the Apostle, that goeth to war, entangleth himself; that is, by Purchase or Marriage. So that 'tis affection that entangles, and the more we are affected with any thing, the more we are entangled with it; and the more our hearts are entangled with any thing, the harder it is to part, and to be loosened from it. Would you not therefore part or be loosened from Christ, and the things of Christ: then surely you must set your affections on him, and on things above. Thus upon all these considerations and reasons, ye see it is the duty of all the Saints to set their affections on things that are above.

8ly If your affe•tions be not set on things that are above, how shall your heart be knit, engaged, and united unto God, in opposition to all Apostacy. If you look into Scripture, you shall find there are three degrees of Apostacy. First, The Judgment watches. Secondly, The Affections cool. Thirdly, The Conversation grows worse. Accordingly men ar• said to Apostatize. Sometimes they are said to depart from the faith. 1 Tim 4.1. There is the warping of the Judgment. Someimes they are said to loose their first love.