OF SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. 343 them on all occasions, as those which are natural to them, as milk is to new born babes. (2.) Affections so disposed, constantly find a gust, a pleasant taste, a relish, in spiritual things. They do in them taste that the Lord is gracious, 1 Pet. ii. 3. To taste of God's goodness, is to have an experience of a savory relish and sweetness, inconverse andcom- munion with him. And persons whose affections are thus renewed and thus improved, do taste a sweet savor in all spiritual things. Some of them, as a sense of the love of Christ, are sometimes as it were too hard for them, and overpower them, until theyare sick of love, and rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Neither is there any of them, however condic- ted with afflictions or mortifications, but is sweet to them, Prov. xxvii. 7. Every thing that is wholesome food, that is good nourishment, though it bebut bitter herbs, is sweet to him that is hungry. And when by our affections we have raised up in us a spiritual appe- tite to heavenly things, however any of them in their ownnature, or in their dispensation, may be bitter to flesh and blood, as are all the doctrines of the cross, they are all sweet to us, and we can taste how gracious the Lord is in them. When the soul is filled with earthly things, the love of this world, or when the appetite is lost by spiritual sickness, or vitiated and corrupted by any prevalent sin, heavenly things are unsavory and sapless, or, as Job speaks, like the white- of an egg, wherein there, is no taste. There may be in the dispensation of the, word a taste, or pleasing relish, given to the fancy # there may be so to the notional understanding, when the affections find no complacency in the things themselves. But to them who are spiritually minded to the degree intended,
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