The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded

First. God himself, that is, as revealed in and by Christ, is in the first and chiefest place the proper and adequate Object of our Affections, as they are renewed. He is so for himself, or his own Sake alone. This is the Spring, the Centre, and chief Object of our Love. He that loves not God for himself, that is, for what he is in himself, and what from himself alone, he is, and will be unto us in Christ, which Considerations are inseparable, he hath no true Affection for any Spiritual thing whatever. And not a few do here deceive themselves, or are deceived, which should make us the more strict and diligent in the Examination of our selves. They suppose that they love Heaven and Heavenly things, and the Duties of Divine Worships, which Persuasion maybe fall them on many Grounds and Occasions, which will not endure the Trial. But as unto God himself, they can give no Evidence that they have any Love to him, either on the account of the Glorious Excellencies of his Nature, with their natural Relation unto him, and Dependence on him, nor on the account of the Manifestation of himself in Christ, and the Exercise of his Grace therein. But whatever be pretended, ⟨p. 216⟩there is no Love unto God, whereof these things are not the formal Reason, that proceed not from these Springs. And because that all men pretend that they love God, and defy them that think them so vile as not so to do, though they live in open Enmity against him, and hatred of him, it becomes us strictly to examine our selves on what grounds we pretend so to do. It is because indeed we see an Excellency, a Beauty, a desirableness in the glorious properties of his Nature, such as our Souls are refreshed and satisfied with the thoughts of by Faith, and in whose Enjoyment our Blessedness will consist, so that we always rejoice at the Remembrance of his Holiness; It is our great Joy and Satisfaction that God is what he is; is it from the glorious Manifestation that he hath made of himself and all his Holy Excellencies in Christ, with the communication of himself unto us in and by him? If it be so indeed, then is our Lord generous and gracious, from the Renovation of our Affections But if we say we love God, yet truly know not why, or upon Principles of Education, and because it is esteemed the height of Wickedness to do otherwise, we shall be at a Loss when we are called unto our Trial.

First. God himself, that is, as revealed in and by Christ, is in the first and chiefest place the proper and adequate Object of our Affections, as they are renewed. He is so for himself, or his own Sake alone. This is the Spring, the Center, and chief Object of our Love. He that loves not God for himself, that is, for what he is in himself, and what from himself alone, he is, and will be unto us in Christ, which Considerations are inseperable, he hath no true Affection for any Spiritual thing whatever. And not a few do here deceive themselves, or are deceived, which should make us the more strict and diligent in the Examination of our selves. They suppose that they love Heaven and Heavenly things, and the Duties of Divine Worships, which Perswasion maybe fall them on many Grounds and Occasions, which will not endure the Tryal. But as unto God himself, they can give no Evidence that they have any Love to him, either on the account of the Glorious Excellencies of his Nature, with their natural Relation unto him, and Dependance on him, nor on the account of the Manifestation of himself in Christ, and the Exercise of his Grace therein. But whatever be pretended,