Now, the mind maybe considered two ways: — (L) As it is theore- tical or contemplative, discerning and judging of things proposed unto it. So it is its office to find out, consider, discern, and appre- hend the truth of things. In the case before us, it is the duty of the mind to apprehend, understand, and receive, the truths of the gospel as they are proposed unto it, in the manner of and unto the end of their proposal. This, as we have manifested, by reason of its depra-
CHAP. III.] OF THE MIND BY SIN. 281
vatiou, it neitlier doth nor is able to do, John i. 5; 1 Cor. ii. 14. (2.) It may be considered as it is practical, as to the power it hath to direct the whole soul, and determine the will unto actual oper-ation, according to its light. I shall not inquire at present whether the will, as to the specification of its acts, do necessarily follow the deter- mination of the mind or practical understanding. I aim at no more but that it is the directive faculty of the soul as unto all moral and spiritual operations. Hence it follows: —
(1.) That nothing in the soul, nor the will and affections, can will, desire, or cleave unto any good, but what is presented unto them by the mind, and as it is presented. That good, whatever it be, which the mind cannot discover, the will cannot choose nor the affec- tions cleave unto. All their actinscs about and concernino- them are not such as answer their duty. This our Saviour directs us to the consideration of. Matt. vi. 22, 23, " The light of the body is the eye : if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of dark- ness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" As the eye is naturally the light of the body, or the means thereof, so is the mind unto the soul. And if darkness be in the eye, not only the eye but the whole body is in darkness, be- cause in the eye alone is the light of the wdiole; so if the mind be under darkness, the whole soul is so also, because it hath no light but by the mind. And hence both is illumination sometimes taken for the whole work of conversion unto God, and the spiritual actings of the mind, by the renovation of the Holy Ghost, are constantly pro- posed as those which precede any gracious actings in the will, heart, and life; as we shall show afterward.
(2.) As the soul can no way, by any other of its faculties, receive, embrace, or adhere unto that good in a saving manner which the mind doth not savingly ap^^rehend ; so where the mind is practically deceived, or any way captivated under the power of prejudices, the will and the affections can no way free themselves from entertaining that evil which the mind hath perversely assented unto. Thus, where the mind is reprobate or void of a sound judgment, so as to call good evil, and evil good, the heart, affections, and conversation will be conformable thereunto, Rom. i. 28-32. And in the Scripture the deceit of the mind is commonly laid down as the principle of all sin whatever, 1 Tim. ii. 14; Heb. iii. 12, 13; 2 Cor. xi. 3.
And this is a brief delineation of the state of the mind of man whilst unregenerate, with respect unto spiritual things. And from what hath been spoken, we do conclude that the mind in the state of nature is so depraved, vitiated, and corrupted, that it is not able, upon the proposal of spiritual things unto it in the dispensation and
282 LIFE AND DEATH, [BOOK III.
preaching of the gospel, to understand, receive, and embrace them in a spiritual and saving manner, so as to have the sanctifying poiuer of them thereby brought into and fixed in the soul, without an in- ternal, especial, immediate, supernatural, effectual, enlightening act of the Holy Ghost; which what it is, and wherein it doth consist, shall be declared.
CHAPTER IV.
LIFE AND DEATH, NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL, COMPARED.
Of death in sin — All unregenerate men spiritually dead — Spiritual death two- fold: legal; metaphorical — Life natural, what it is, and wherein it consists — Death natural, with its necessary consequents — The supernatural life of Adam in innocency, in its principle, acts, and power — Differences hetween it and our spiritual life in Christ — Death spiritual a privation of the life we had in Adam ; a negation of the life of Christ — Privation of a pynciple of all life to God — Spiritual impotency therein — Differences between death natural and spiritual — The use of precepts, promises, and threatenings — No man perish eth merely for want of power — No vital acts in an state of death — The way of the communication of spiritual life — Of what nature are the best works of persons unregenerate — No disposition unto spiritual life under the power of spiritvial death.
Another description that the Scripture gives of unregenerate Tiien, as to their state and condition, is, that they are spii^itually dead; and hence, in like manner, it follows that there is a necessity of an internal, powerftd, effectual work of the Holy Ghost on the soids of men, to deliver them out of this state and condition hy regeneration. And this principally respects their wills and affections, as the dark- ness and blindness before described doth their minds and understand- ings. There is a spiritual life whereby men live unto God; this they being strangers unto and alienated from, are sj)iritually dead. And this the Scripture declares concerning all unregenerate persons, partly in direct words, and partly in other assertions of the same import- ance. Of the first sort the testimonies are many and express: Eph. ii. 1, "Ye were dead in trespasses and sins;" Verse 5, "When we were dead in sins;" Col. ii. 13, "And ye being dead in your sins, and the uncircumcision of your flesh;" 2 Cor. v. 14, "If one died for all, then were all dead;" Rom. v, 4.5, " Through the ofience of one many are dead ;" Verse 12, "Death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." And the same is asserted in the second way, where the recovery and restoration of men by the grace of Christ is called their "quickening," or the bestowing of a new life upon them : for this supposeth that they were dead, or destitute of that life which in this revivification is communicated unto them ; for that alone can be said to be quickened which was dead before. See Eph. ii. 5 ; John v. 21, vi. 63.