The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded

Take one Instance, which is the continual concernment of us all. We are obnoxious unto Death every moment. It is never the further from any of us because we think not of it as we ought. This will lay our Bodies in the dust, from whence they will have no more disposition nor power in themselves to rise again, than any other part of the mould of the Earth. Their recovery must be an act of external Almighty Power, when God shall have a desire to the work of his hands; when he shall call, and we shall answer him out of the dust. And it will transmit the Soul into an invisible world, putting a final End unto all Relations, Enjoyments and Circumstances here below. I speak not of them who are stout-hearted and far from Righteousness, who live and dye like Beasts, or under the power of horrible Presumption, without any due Thoughts of their future and Eternal state. But as unto others, what comfort or satisfaction can any man have in his Life, whereon his All depends, and which is passing from him every moment; unless he hath continual Thoughts ⟨p. 166⟩of the mighty power of God, whereby he is able to receive his departing Soul, and to raise his Body out of the dust?

Not to insist on more particulars; Thus is it with them who are Spiritually minded, thus must it be with us all, if we pretend a Title unto that Privilege. They are filled with Thoughts of God, in opposition unto that Character of wicked men, that God is not in all their Thoughts. And it is greatly to be feared, that many of us when we come to be weighed in this Balance, will be found too Light. Men may be in the performance of outward Duties, they may hear the Word with some delight, and do many things gladly, they may escape the pollutions that are in the world through Lust, and not run out into the same compass of Excess and Riot with other men; yet may they be strangers unto inward Thoughts of God with delight and complacency. I cannot understand how it can be otherwise with them whose minds are over and over filled with earthly things, however they may satisfy themselves with pretences of their Callings and lawful Enjoyments, or not any way inordinately set on the Pleasures or Profits of the world.