CHAP. XXI.
Having 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 afiirmed 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.
First, What is meant by life and peace.
Secondly, In what sense to be spiritually minded, is both of them.
First, 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 comes on all that believe unto the justification of life;' Rom. v. 18. It gives unto be- lievers a right and title to life; for they that 'receive the abundance of grace, and the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Christ Jesus ;' ver. 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 righteous- ness unto us, unto pardon, right to life and salvation.
2. There is a life of sanctification. As life in the fore- going sense is opposed unto death spiritual as unto the guilt
486 THE GRACE AND DUTY OF
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 by Christ Jesus,' when before we were ' dead in trespasses and sins;' Ephes. ii. ] — 5. Of this life the apo- stle treats directly in this place; for having, in the first four verses of the chapter, declared the life of justification in the nature and causes of it; in 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 communica- tion of a principle of life, that is, of faith and obedience, unto all the faculties and powers of our soul, enabling us to live unto God. To be spiritually minded, which is a grace where- unto many duties do concur, and that not only as to the act- ings of all grace in them, but as unto the degree of their exercise, cannot be this life formally. But it is that where- in 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 accept- able 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 sanctifi- cation, is to renew the mind, to make it spiritual; and there- on gradually to carry it on unto that degree which is here called being spiritually minded.
2. It is the proper adjunct and evidence of it. Would any one know whether he be spiritually alive unto God, with the life of sanctification and holiness ? The com- munication of it unto him, being by an almighty act of creating power, Ephes. ii. 10, it_is not easily discernible, so as to help us to make a right judgment of it, from its essence or form. But where things are themselves indis- cernible, we may know them from their proper and insepa-
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rable adjuncts, wliich are therefore called by the names of the essence or the form itself. Such is this being spiritually minded with respect unto the life of sanctification ; it is an inseparable property and adjunct of it, whereby it infallibly evidenceth itself unto them in whom it is. In these two respects it is the life of sanctification.
3. Life is taken for the comforts and refreshments of life; so speaks the apostle, 1 Thess. iii. 8. ' Now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord ;' now our life will do us good, we have the comforts, the refreshments, and the joys of it. * Non est vivere, sed valere vita.' The comforts and satisfactions of life, are more life than life itself. It is life, that is, that which makes life to be so, bringing in that satisfaction, those refreshments unto it, which make it pleasant and desirable. And I do suppose this is that which is principally intended in the words of the apostle; it is life, a cheerful joyous life, a life worth the living. In explication and confirmation whereof, it is added, that it is peace also.