rticular objects, and sets it at
liberty to expatiate in that universal good, the infinite fulness of God,
and grace which is in Christ Jesus, and hence a Christian is called one
"after the Spirit" that is, whose spirit is rid and delivered from that
natural bondage and slavery to the creatures, and is espoused, at least in
affection and endeavour, to the all-sufficient and self sufficient God.

We told you that this new nature of a Christian shows itself in affection
and motion, in minding and walking, both are signs of life, and the proper
actions of it. As the natural man is easily known by what he minds and
savours, and what way he walks, so is the spiritual man. Minding or
savouring comprehends, no doubt, all the inward acts of the soul, all the
imaginations, cogitations, thoughts, affections, desires and purposes of
the soul. To express it shortly, there is a concurrence of these two,
cogitation and affection, the understanding and the will, in this
business. The natural man knoweth not the things of the Spirit, so he
cannot taste or relish them, since he doth not know them, 1 Cor. ii. 14.
How can they believe on him whom they have not heard? But far more, how
can men love and desire that which they do not know? Though it be hard to
convince some that they know not God, nor the things of the Spirit,
because they have some form of knowledge, and seem to understand, and can
discourse on religion, yet I wonder that the most part of men, whose
ignorance is written in their foreheads with such palpable characters,
should have so much difficulty to take with this challenge. I am sure,
many that persuade themselves of heaven, are yet shut up in that dungeon
of natural blindness and darkness of mind, and that so gross and thick
darkness that it is not possible to make them conceive any notion of
spiritual things, the common twilight of nature is almost extinguished,
and little or nothing increased by their education in the visible church.
How can you prize and esteem Jesus Christ, of whom you know nothing but
the bare name? How can you savour heaven, when you have never admitted one
serious thought of the life to come? O that you could be persuaded, that
the grace of God is inconsistent with such gross ignorance, as is in the
generality light of you! Truly grace is a light shining in the soul, that
opens the eyes to see that that surrounds us in the gospel. But will you
consider, beloved, how ready you are to receive other