Meditations and discourses concerning the glory of Christ applied unto unconverted sinners, and saints…Meditations and discourses concerning the glory of Christ applyed unto unconverted sinners, and saints…

THE full Soul loatheth the Honey-comb; but to the hungry Soul every bitter thing is sweet, Prov. 27. 7. Men being grown full of themselves, and of a good conceit of their own Abilities, have ⟨p. 60⟩lost their Spiritual Appetite unto the Word of God; and this makes the Word lose it's Power and Efficacy towards them. That Word which the Psalmist says is sweeter than the honey, or honey-comb, Psal. 19. 10. hath little or no taste or relish in it unto them. If they were hungry, they would find a sweetness in the bitterest of it's Reproofs, beyond what they can now find in the sweetest of it's Promises. They come to hear the Word with sick Desires, and low Expectations, as if they were invited to eat after a Feast, being self-full before. But this loss of a Spiritual Appetite, is an Evidence of the Decay of all other Graces whatever.

2. A neglect of making Religion our Principal business, is another Evidence of the Decay of all sorts of Grace in us: For where Grace is in it's proper Exercise, it will subordinate all things unto Religion, and the Ends of it, as David twenty times declares in the 119th. Psalm. All things, all Occasions of Life shall be postponed thereunto: The Love and valuation of it will bear sway in our Minds, our Thoughts and Affections, and the practice of it shall give Rule unto all other Concernments: But is it so with many amongst us? It is well if Religion be one thing, it is far enough from being the One thing; every other thing is preferred before it, and it can hardly crowd in to possess any place in their Minds. To see Men continually plodding in the Affairs of the World, regulating all their actings by their concernment in them, diverting only at some seasons, as it were out of their way unto Duties of ⟨p. 61⟩Religion, it is vain to say, that they make Religion their Business: But there is scarce a more certain Evidence of a frame of Mind spiritually Decaying in all sorts of Graces, if ever any of them were in it in Sincerity and Power, than this one, that Men do not make Religion their chiefest Business: And a little Self-Examination will help Men to judge what it is that they make so to be.