Moreover, this frame of spirit alone will keep us on our watch against all those ways and means whereby the vanity of the mind is excited and maintained. Such are the wandering and roving of the outward senses. The senses, especially that of the eye, are ready to become purveyors to make provision for the vanity and lusts of the mind, Hence the psalmist prays, “Turn away mine eyes from be- holding vanity.” If the eyes rove after vain objects the mind will ruminate upon them. And another affirms that he had “made a covenant with his eyes,” to preserve them from fixing on such ob- jects as might solicit lust or corrupt affections. And it were a use- ful labour, would this place admit of it, to discover the ready service- ableness of the outward senses and members of the body unto sin and folly, if not watched against, Rom. vi. 13, 19. Of the same nature is the incessant working of the fancy and imagination, which of itself is evil continually and all the day long. This is the food of a vain mind, and the vehicle or means of conveyance for all tempta- tions from Satan and the world. Besides, sundry occasions of life
488 OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. [PART IL.
and conversation are usually turned or abused unto the same end, exciting and exercising of the vanity of the mind. Wherever our affections are fixed on spiritual things, our mind will constantly be under a warning or charge to keep diligent watch against all those things whereby that vanity which it so abhorreth, which it is so bur- dened withal, is maintained and excited. Nor without this preva- lency in the mind will ever a work of mortification be carried on in the soul, Col. ii. 2, 4, 5.
CHAPTER XXI.
[Spiritual mindedness life and peace. ]
Havine declared wherein this duty of being “spiritually minded” doth consist, that which remains, in compliance with the text from whence the whole is educed, is to manifest how it is “life and peace,” which is affirmed by the apostle. This shall be done with all brevity, as having passed through that which was principally designed.
And two things are we to inquire into:—I. What is meant by “life and peace.” II. In what sense to be “ spiritually minded” is both of them.
I. 1. That spiritual life whereof we are made partakers in this world is threefold, or there are three gospel privileges or graces so expressed :—
(1.) There is the life of justification. Therein the just by faith do live, as freed from the condemnatory sentence of the law. So “the righteousness of one cometh” on all that believe “unto justi- fication of life,” Rom. v.18. It gives unto believers a right and title to life; for “they that receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Christ Jesus,” verse 17. This is not the life here intended, for this life depends solely on the sovereign grace of God by Jesus Christ, and the imputation of his righteousness unto us, unto pardon, the right to life and salvation.
(2.) There is a life of sanctification. As life in the foregoing sense is opposed unto death spiritual as unto the guilt of it and the condemnatory sentence of death wherewith it was accompanied, so
in this it is opposed unto it as unto its internal power on and efficacy
in the soul, to keep it under an impotency unto all acts of spiritual
life, yea, an enmity against them. This is that life wherewith we are -
“ quickened” with Christ Jesus, when before we were “dead in tres- passes and sins,” Eph. ii. 1-5. Of this life the apostle treats directly in this place [Rom. viii.]; for having in the first four verses of the chap- ter declared the life of justification in the nature and causes of it, in
CHAP. XXI.] SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS LIFE AND PEACE. 489
the following he treats of death spiritual in sin, with the life of _ sanctification, whereby we are freed from it.
And to be spiritually minded is this life in a double sense :—
[1.] In that it is the principal effect and fruit of that life. The life itself consists in the infusion and communication of a principle of life,—that is, of faith and obedience,—into all the faculties and powers of our soul, enabling us to live unto God. To be spiritually minded, which is a grace whereunto many duties do concur, and that not only as to the actings of all grace in them, but as unto the degree of their exercise, cannot be this life formally; but it is that wherein the power of this principle of life doth in the first and chiefest place put forth itself. All actings of grace, all duties of obedience, internal and external, do proceed from this spring and fountain. Nothing of that kind is acceptable unto God but what is influenced by it and is an effect of it. But it principally puts forth its virtue and efficacy in rendering our minds spiritual; which if it effect not, it works not at all,—that is, we are utterly destitute of it. The next and immediate work of the principle of life in our sanctification is to renew the mind, to make it spiritual, and thereon gradually to carry it on unto that degree which is here called being spiritually minded.