The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded

4. Where Persons do cherish secret predominant Lusts in their hearts and lives, God is not in their Thoughts as he ought to be. He may be, he often is much in the words of such Persons, but in their Thoughts he is not, he cannot be in a due manner. And such Persons no doubt there are. Ever and anon, we hear of one and another whose secret Lusts break forth into a discovery. They flatter themselves for a season, but God ⟨p. 134⟩oft times so orders things in his holy Providence, that their Iniquity shall be found out to be hateful. Some hateful Lust discovers it self to be predominant in them. One is Drunken, another Unclean, a third an Oppressor. Such there were ever found among Professors of the Gospel, and that in the best of times; Among the Apostles one was a Traitor, a Devil. Of the first Professors of Christianity, there were those whose God was their Belly, whose end was Destruction, who minded earthly things, Phil. 3.18, 19. Some may take Advantage at this Acknowledgement, that there are such Evils among such as are called Professors. And it must be confessed that great scandal is given hereby unto the world, casting both them that give it, and them to whom it is given, under a most dreadful woe. But we must bear the reproach of it, as they did of old, and commit the issue of all things unto the watchful care of God. However it is Good in such a season to be jealous over our selves and others, to exhort one another daily whilst it is called to day, lest any be hardened through the Deceitfulness of sin. See Heb. 12.13, 14, 15, 16, 17. And because those with whom it is thus, cannot be spiritually minded; yet are there some Difficulties in the case, as unto the predominancy of a secret Lust or Sin, I shall consider it somewhat more distinctly.

4. Where Persons do cherish secret predominant Lusts in their hearts and lives, God is not in their Thoughts as he ought to be. He may be, he often is much in the words of such Persons, but in their Thoughts he is not, he cannot be in a due manner. And such Persons no doubt there are. Ever and anon, we hear of one and another whose secret Lusts break forth into a discovery. They flatter themselves for a season, but God ⟨p. 134⟩