372 or SPIRITUAL MINDEDNESS. and fountain. Nothing of that kind is acceptable to God, but what is influenced by it, and is an effect ofit; 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 sanctification, is to renew the mind, to make it spiritual, and thereon gradually carry it on to that degree which is here called being spiritually minded. (2.) It is the proper adjunct and evidence of it. Would any one knowwhether he be spiritually alive unto God, with the life of sanctification and holiness ; the communicationof it to him being by an almighty act of creating power, (Eph. ii. 10,) it is not easily dis- cernible, so as to help us to make a right judgment of it, from its essence or form ; but where things are in themselves indiscernible, we may know them from their proper and inseparable adjuncts, which are therefore called by the names of the essence, or the form itself. Such is this being spiritually minded, with respect to the life of sanctification; it is an in- separable property and adjunct of it, whereby it infal- libly evidenceth itself to them in whom it is. In these two respects it is the life of sanctification. (3.) Life is taken for the comforts and refresh- ments of life; so speaks the apostle, 1 Thess. iii. 8. 'Nowwe live, if you stand fast in the Lord;' now our life will do us good ; we have the comforts, the re- freshments, 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 to it which make it pleasant and
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