The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded

1. The Soul will come unto a more satisfactory abiding sense of the Reality of them. Things of Imagination which maintain a value of themselves by Darkness, will not bear a diligent search into them. They lose of their Reputation on every serious Enquiry. If rational men would but give themselves the Liberty of free Indagation by their own Thoughts, it would quickly cashier the Fools Paradise of Mahomet, the Purgatory of the Papists, and all such Creatures of Imagination and Superstition. But where things are real and substantial, the more they are enquired into, the more they evidence their being and subsistence. It is not therefore every Profession of a Faith of a future state of Blessedness that will realize it in our Minds. And therefore for the most part it is rather a Notion that men have of Heavenly things which they do not contradict, than any solid satisfaction in, or spiritual sense of their Reality. For these are things that Eye hath not seen, nor Ear heard, nor will enter into the Heart of man to conceive, whose existence, nature and real state are not easily comprehended. But through the continual Exercise of holy thoughts about them, the Soul obtains an entrance into the midst of them, finding in them both durable substance and Riches. There is no way therefore to strengthen Faith unto any degree, but by a ⟨p. 79⟩daily Contemplation on 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 thereunto; but in us, in our Hearts, in the Minds of them that do believe. Imagination creates its own Object; Faith finds it prepared before-hand. 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. (1.) 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 unto us.

1. The Soul will come unto a more satisfactory abiding sense of the Reality of them. Things of Imagination which maintain a value of themselves by Darkness, will not bear a diligent search into them. They lose of their Reputation on every serious Enquiry. If rational men would but give themselves the Liberty of free Indagation by their own Thoughts, it would quickly cashiere the Fools Paradise of Mahomet, the Purgatory of the Papists, and all such Creatures of Imagination and Superstition. But where things are real and substantial, the more they are enquired into, the more they evidence their being and subsistence. It is not therefore every Profession of a Faith of a future state of Blessedness that will reallize it in our Minds. And therefore for the most part it is rather a Notion that men have of Heavenly things which they do not contradict, than any solid satisfaction in, or spiritual sense of their Reality. For these are things that Eye hath not seen, nor Ear heard, nor will enter into the Heart of man to conceive, whose existence, nature and real state are not easily comprehended. But through the continual Exercise of holy thoughts about them, the Soul obtains an entrance into the midst of them, finding in them both durable substance and Riches. There is no way therefore to strengthen Faith unto any degree, but by a