GF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. 15 and the distance in a manner infinite, because an eter- nity, in blessedness or misery doth depend upon it. And this at present is evidenced by the different fruits and effects of the principles and their operations, which constitute these different states; which is expressed in the opposition that is between the predicates of the proposition ; for the minding of the flesh is death ; but the minding of the spirit is life and peace. 1. To be carnally minded is death. Death, as it is absolutely penal, is either spiritual, or eternal. The first of these it is formally, the other meritoriously. It is formally death spiritual; for they that are car- nally minded, are dead in trespasses and sins, Eph. ii. 1. For those who fulfil the desires of the flesh and of the mind, are by nature children of wrath, v. 3. are penally under the power of spiritual death. They are dead in sins and the uncircumcision of the flesh, Coll. ii. 13.' And it is death eternal, meritoriously. ' For if ye live after the flesh ye shall die, Rom. viii. 13. as the wages of sin is death, chap. vi. 23. The reason why the apostle denounces so woful a doom, so dreadful a sentence, on the carnal mind, he declares in the two next verses: ' for the carnal mind is enmity against God ; for it is not subject unto the law of God, nor indeed canbe ; so then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. If it be thus with the carnal mind, it is no wonder that to be carnally minded is death ; it is not meet it should be any thing else. That which is enmity against God, is -under the curse of God. In opposition hereunto it is affirmed, that tobe spirit- ually minded, or the minding of the spirit, is life and peace. And these are the things whichwe are particu-
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