very uncertain. To direct and provoke men to that which is the only remedy of these sore evils, and which is the alone means of giving them a view and foretaste of eternal glory, is the design of this discourse, which is recommended to the grace of God for the benefit of every reader.

CHAPTER I.

ROM. viii. 6.

"But to be spiritually minded, is life and

peace."

THE expression in our translation is a little different from that in the original: in the margin we read, the "minding of the spirit," and there is a great -variety in reading of the words opovμa e avevμaros, as the wisdom, the mind, the thought, the contrivance, the discretion of the spirit, and that which the spirit favoureth; but all our English translations from the very first (Tindal's) have constantly used the term "spiritually minded;" nor do I know any words, by which the emphasis of the original, and the design of the apostle, can be better expressed.

The whole verse hath two propositions, containing a double antithesis; one

in their subjects, the other in their predicates; the opposite subjects are the "minding of the flesh, and the minding of the spirit;" or the being carnally minded, and spiritually minded. These two do constitute the two states of mankind; unto one or other of which, every other individual doth belong. He is under the ruling conduct of the flesh, or of the spirit. As to the qualities expressed by these terms, there may be a mixture of them in the same person, there is so in all the regenerate: in them "the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit lusteth against the flesh;" Gal. v. 17: but these contrary actings in the same subject do not constitute distinct states. There is no middle state, though there are different degrees in each of them as to good and evil; where either flesh or spirit hath a prevalent rule in the soul, there it makes a different state.

It is of the greatest moment, that we know to which we appertain; for the difference between these two states is great, the distance in a manner infinite; because an eternity of blessedness or misery depends upon it; for the minding of the

flesh is death, but the minding of the spirit is life and peace.

I. To be "carnally minded is death." Death, as absolutely penal, is either spiritual or eternal: it is formally, death spiritual; they that are carnally minded, who fulfil the desires of the flesh and of the mind, are by nature children of wrath, and are penally under the power of spiritual death; they are "dead in sins and the uncircumcision of the flesh." Eph. ii. 1, 3; Col. ii. 13. It is likewise meritoriously, death eternal; "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; the wages of sin is death." Rom. viii. 13, and vi. 23.

The reason why the apostle denounces so dreadful a sentence and doom on the carnal mind, is, because the carnal mind is enmity against God; it is not subject unto the law of God, and they that are in the flesh, cannot please God. If it be thus with the carnal mind, 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 his curse. But in opposition hereto,

it is affirmed,

II. That to be "SPIRITUALLY MINDED

is life and peace." Let us particularly see what this minding of the spirit is, and then, how it is life and peace.

What is implied in minding of the Spirit? The word SPIRIT is often used in a double sense; as for the Spirit of God, or the Holy Ghost, who is, in the context and other places, spoken of as the efficient cause of all the spiritual mercies that Christians do enjoy; and the word is also used for THAT PRINCIPLE of spiritual life which is communicated to all real Christians by the Holy Ghost; "For that which is born of the Spirit, is spirit," John iii. 6. Most probably, spirit is in the text used in the latter sense; for that which is born of the spirit, the principle of spiritual life, which, in its nature, actings, and operations, is opposed unto the flesh, that corrupt principle of depraved nature, whence all evil thoughts and actions do proceed. Unto this spirit, or holy vital principle of spiritual life and new obedience, wrought in the heart by the Holy Ghost, there is opovnμa ascribed, which strongly expresseth the actual exercise of the power of the mind; hence we translate ť φρονειμα, to think,"