The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded

2. So great a Part of Mankind as the Mahometans, unto whom God hath given all the principal and most desirable parts of the World to inhabit and possess, do conceive the state of future Blessedness to consist in the full satisfaction of their sensual Lusts and Pleasures. An Evidence this is, that the Religion which they profess, hath no power or Efficacy on their Minds to change them from the Love of Sin, or placing their Happiness in fulfilling the Desires of the Flesh. It doth not at all enlighten their Minds to discern a Beauty in Spiritual things, nor excite their Affections unto the Love of them, nor free the Soul to look after Blessedness in such things as alone are suited unto its rational Constitution. For if it did, they would place their Happiness and Blessedness in them. Wherefore, it is nothing but an Artifice of the god of this World, to blind the Eyes of men unto their Eternal Destruction.

2. So great a Part of Mankind as the Mahumetans, unto whom God hath given all the principal and most desirable parts of the World to inhabit and possess, do conceive the state of future Blessedness to consist in the full satisfaction of their sensual Lusts and Pleasures. An Evidence this is, that the Religion which they profess, hath no power or Efficacy on their Minds to change them from the Love of Sin, or placing their Happiness in fulfilling the Desires of the Flesh. It doth not at all enlighten their Minds to discern a Beauty in Spiritual things, nor excite their Affections unto the Love of them, nor free the Soul to look after Blessedness in such things as alone are suited unto its rational Constitution. For if it did, they would place their Happiness and Blessedness in them. Wherefore, it is nothing but an Artifice of the god of this World, to blind the Eyes of men unto their Eternal Destruction.

3. Some of the Philosophers of old did attain an Apprehension that the Blessedness of men in another world doth consist in the Souls full satisfaction in the Goodness and Beauty of the Divine Nature. And there is a Truth in this Notion which contemplative men have adorned with excellent and rational Discourses. And sundry who have been and are Learned among Christians, have greatly improved this Truth, by the Light of the Scripture. From Reason they take up with Thoughts of the Goodness, the Amiableness, the self-sufficiency, the all-sufficient satisfactoriness of the infinite Perfections of the Divine Nature. These things shine in themselves with such a glorious Light, as that there is no more required unto a perception of them, but that men do not wilfully shut their eyes against it, through bestial Sensuality and Love of Sin. From Reason also do they frame their Conceptions