OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. 307 The mind hereby becomes the temple of God, wherein he dwells by the Spirit ; Christ also dwelleth in believers, and they in him. God is love, and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him.' 1 John iv. 16. Love, in its proper exercise, gives a mutual inhabi- tation to God and believers. In brief, he whose affec- tions are set upon heavenly things in a due manner, will be heavenly minded. And in the due exercise of them, will that heavenly mindedness be increased. The transformation and assimilation that is wrought, .is not in the object, or spiritual things themselves ; they are not changed, neither in themselves, nor in the re- presentation made of them to our minds; but the change is in our affections, which are made like to them. Two cases deriving from this principle and consid- eration, may be here spoken to, and shall be so the first in this, and the other in the following chapter. The one is concerning the slowness and impercepti- bility of the growth of our affections in their assimila- tion to heavenly things, with the causes and reasons of it. The other is, the decays that frequently befall men in their affections to spiritual things, instead of growing and thriving in them, with the reasons and causes thereof. First. This progress and growth of our affections into spirituality and heavenliness, into conformity to the things they are set upon, is oft-times very slow, and sometimes imperceptible. Yea, for the most part, it is a hard thing to find it satisfactorily in ourselves or others. Our affections stand like shrubs in the wil- derness,, which see not when good cometh, and are not like plants in a garden enclosed, which are watered
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