The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded

Secondly, It is that wherewith above all things the Holy Spirit is grieved. His work it is to give Grace an Increase and Progress in our Souls. He begins it, and he carries it on. And there can be no greater grief unto a wise and gracious Worker, than to have his work decay and go backward under his hand. This is the Occasion of those Complaints of God which we find in the Scripture, of the unprofitableness and backsliding of Men after the use of means and remedies for their Fruitfulness and Cure. What, saith he, could I have done more for my Vineyard than I have done? Why then, when I looked for Grapes, did it bring forth wild Grapes. Can any thing be apprehended to be such a just matter of Grief and Complaint unto the Holy Spirit, to see and find those whom he had once raised up unto Holy and Heavenly Affections, so as that their Delights were in, and their Thoughts much upon the things that are above, to become Earthly or sensual, to have no sensible Actings of any of his Graces in them which is the State of them who are under the Power of Spiritual Decays. And this is the only cause wherein God speaks unto men in the way of complaint and Expostulation; and useth all sorts of Arguments to convince them of their Folly herein.

Secondly, It is that wherewith above all things the Holy Spirit is grieved. His work it is to give Grace an Encrease and Progress in our Souls. He begins it, and he carries it on. And there can be no greater grief unto a wise and gratious Worker, than to have his work decay and go backward under his hand. This is the Occasion of those Complaints of God which we find in the Scripture, of the unprofitableness and backsliding of Men after the use of means and remedies for their Fruitfulness and Cure. What, saith he, could I have done more for my Vineyard than I have done? Why then, when I looked for Grapes, did it bring forth wild Grapes. Can any thing be apprehended to be such a just matter of Grief and Complaint unto the Holy Spirit, to see and find those whom he had once raised up unto Holy and Heavenly Affections, so as that their Delights were in, and their Thoughts much upon the things that are above, to become Earthly or sensual, to have no sensible Actings of any of his Graces in them which is the State of them who are under the Power of Spiritual Decayes. And this is the only cause wherein God speaks unto men in the way of complaint and Expostulation; and useth all sorts of Arguments to convince them of their Folly herein.