(2.) It will fiw our thoughts and affections upon the grace and love of God, in communicating such an inestimable mercy unto us as is a sense of his love; which is the only means for the preservation of a relish of it in our hearts. He who is in this frame of mind will remember, call over, and ruminate upon, all such gracious pledges of divine favour, as David is often remembering and calling over what he received in such places as in the “land of the Hermonites and at the hill Mizar,” Ps. xlii. This is the great. way whereby this treasure may be preserved.
(3.) A person so minded, and he alone, will have a due valuation of such intimations and pledges of divine love. Those who are full of other things, whose affections cleave unto them, do never esteem heavenly mercies and privileges as they ought. “The full soul loatheth an honey-comb.” And God is well pleased when a high valuation is put upon his kindness, as he is greatly provoked by the contrary frame; which, indeed, nothing but infinite patience could bear withal. It is a high provocation of God, when men are regardless of and un- thankful for outward, temporal mercies,—when they receive them and use them as if they were their own, that they were lords of them, at least that they are due unto them. Much more is he provoked with our regardlessness of the least of those mercies which are the peculiar purchase of the blood of his Son, and the effects of his eter- nal love and grace. He alone-who is spiritually minded valueth, prizeth, and lays up these inestimable jewels in a due manner.
(4.) Such persons only know how to use and «mprove all commu- nications of a sense of divine love. These things are not granted unto us to lie by us without any use of them. They are gracious provisions wherewith we are furnished to enable us unto all other duties, conflicts, and trials. On all occasions are they to be called over for our spiritual relief and encouragement. Hereby are they safely retained: for in the due improvement of them they grow more bright in our minds every day, and are ready for use; in which pos- ture they are safely preserved. But these things will yet be farther manifest in the instances that ensue.
2. This frame of mind casts out all principles and causes of trouble and disquietment, which are inconsistent with life and peace.
There are in us by nature principles of contrariety and opposition unto spiritual life and peace, with sundry things whose abode and
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prevalency in usis inconsistent with them. I shall give only one or two instances hereof :—
(1.) It will cast out all “ filthiness and superfluity of naughti- ness” from our minds. Without this we can receive no benefit by the means of grace, nor perform any duty in a right manner, James 1.27. Thisis that which stands in direct, immediate opposition and contrariety unto our being spiritually minded, so as they can have no consistency in the same person; and they expel one another like heat and cold. And where there is this “ filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness,” there is neither life nor peace. Unclean lusts of the flesh or of the spirit, working, tumultuating, acting themselves in the minds of men, will not suffer either the life of holiness to flourish in them or any solid peace to abide with them. The soul is weaken- ed by them as unto all spiritual actings, and made like “ the troubled sea, that cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.” Where they are absolutely predominant, there is a hell within of darkness, confusion, and enmity against God, preparing men for a hell of punishment without unto eternity. And according as they remain or have any prevalency in us, so are spiritual life and peace impaired and obstructed by them. Now, the very nature of this grace and its universal exercise is suited to the casting out of all the relics of this “ filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness.” It brings in a prin- ciple into the mind directly contrary unto that from whence they do proceed. All the actings of it which we have described lie in direct tendency unto the extirpation of these causes of filthiness which ruin — life and peace; nor will they by any other way be cast out. If the mind be not spiritual, it will be carnal; if it mind not things above, it will fix itself inordinately on things below.
(2.) That disorder which is by nature in the affections and pas- sions of the mind, which is directly opposite unto spiritual life and peace, is cast out or cured hereby. It isa blessed promise of the times of the new testament, of the kingdom and rule of Christ, that, through the efficacy of gospel grace, “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid,’ Isa. xi. 6. Per- sons of the most intemperate and outrageous passions shall be made meek and lowly. Where this is not in some measure effected, ac- cording unto the degrees of the prevalency of such passions in us, we have not been made partakers of evangelical grace. It were an easy task to demonstrate how the disorder of our affections and passions is destructive of spiritual life and peace. The contrariety that is in them, and contradiction unto one another, their violence, impetuous- ness, and restlessness, their readiness to receive and take in provo- cations on all occasions, and frequently on none at all but what imagination presents unto them, are sufficient evidences hereof.