spiritualness that lies in our nature. If men become truly aware of it,
To cease from duty, in part or in whole, due to the aversion of sin to its spirituality, is to give sin the rule, and to obey its lusts. Yield not, then, to it, but hold out the conflict; wait on God, and you shall prevail: Isaiah 40:31,
"Those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."
But what is now so difficult will increase in difficulty if we give way to it; but if we abide in our station, we shall prevail. The mouth of the Lord has spoken it.
4. Carry about a constant, humbling sense of this close aversion to spiritualness that lies in our nature. If men become truly aware of it, what could be more powerful to bring them to walk humbly with God? That after all the revelations that God has made of himself to them, all the kindness they have received from him, his doing them good and not evil in all things, there should still be such a heart of unkindness and unbelief that it contains an aversion to communion with him, - how ought the thoughts of it to cast us into the dust! to fill us with shame and self-abhorrence all our days! What have we found in God, in any of our approaches or addresses to him, that it should be thus with us? What iniquity have we found in him? has he been a wilderness to us, or a land of darkness? Did we ever lose anything by drawing nigh to him? has not all the rest and peace we have obtained lain therein? Is not he the fountain and spring of all our mercies, of all our desirable things? has he not welcomed us when we have come? Have we not received from him more than heart can conceive or tongue express?
So what ails our foolish and wretched hearts, to harbour such a cursed secret dislike of him and his ways? Let us be ashamed and astonished as we reflect on it, and walk in a humbling sense of it all our days. Let us carry it about with us in our most secret thoughts. And as this is in