The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded

CHAP. XV.

Delight of Believers in the Holy, Institutions of Divine Worship. The Grounds and Reasons thereof. The Evidence of being Spiritually-Minded thereby, &c.

That all true Believers whose Minds are Spiritually renewed have a singular Delight, in all the Institutions and Ordinances of Divine Worship is fully evident both in the Examples of the Saints in the Scripture, and their own Experience, which they will never forego. For this hath been the greatest Cause of their suffering Persecution; and Martyrdom it self in all Ages. of the Primitive Christians under the Power of the Pagan▪ Emperors, or the Witnesses for Christ under the Antichristian Apostasy, would, or could have omitted the Observance If them (according to the Advice and practice of the Gnostics) they might have escaped the rage of their Adversaries. But they loved not their Lives, in comparison unto that delight which they had in the Observance of the Commands of Christ, as unto the Duties of Evangelical Worship. David gives us frequently an Instance hereof in himself, Psal. 42.1, 2, 3, 4. As the Hart panteth after the Water-Brooks, so panteth my Soul after thee, O God. My Soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: When shall I come and appear before God. My tears have been my Meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? When I remember these things, I pour out my Soul in me; for I had gone with the ⟨p. 232⟩multitude, I went with them to the House of God; with the voice of Joy and Praise, with a multitude that kept Holy-Day. Psal. 63.1, 2, 3, 4, 5