The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded

(2) That Disorder which is by nature in the Affections and Passions of the Mind, which is directly opposite unto spiritual Life and Peace, is cast out, or cured hereby. It is a blessed Promise of the times of the New Testament, of the Kingdom and Rule of Christ, that through the Efficacy of Gospel Grace, The Lion shall lye down with the Lamb, and the Leopard with the Kid, Isaiah 11.6. Persons of the most intemperate and outrageous Passions, shall be made meek and lovely. Where this is not in some measure effected, ⟨p. 330⟩according unto the Degrees of the Prevalency of such Passions in us, we have not been made Partakers of Evangelical Grace. It were an easy Task to demonstrate how the Disorder of our Affections and Passions is destructive of Spiritual Life and Peace. The Contrariety that is in them, and Contradiction unto one another, their Violence, Impetuousness, and Restlessness, their readiness to receive and take in Provocations on all Occasions, and frequently on none at all, but what Imagination presents unto them, are sufficient Evidences hereof. Can we think that Life and Peace do inhabit that Soul, wherein Anger, Wrath, Envy, Excess in Love unto earthly things, no dwell? and on all Occasions exert themselves; there, where there is a continual Tumult, Fighting and Rebellion, as there is where the Passions of the Mind are not under the Conduct of Reason, nor of Grace?

(2) That Disorder which is by nature in the Affections and Passions of the Mind, which is directly opposite unto spiritual Life and Peace, is cast out, or cured hereby. It is a blessed Promise of the times of the New Testament, of the Kingdom and Rule of Christ, that through the Efficacy of Gospel Grace, The Lion shall lye down with the Lamb, and the Leopard with the Kid, Isaiah 11.6. Persons of the most intemperate and outragious Passions, shall be made meek and lovely. Where this is not in some measure effected, ⟨p. 330⟩according unto the Degrees of the Prevalency of such Passions in us, we have not been made Partakers of Evangelical Grace. It were an easy Task to demonstrate how the Disorder of our Affections and Passions is destructive of Spiritual Life and Peace. The Contrariety that is in them, and Contradiction unto one another, their Violence, Impetuousness, and Restlesness, their readiness to receive and take in Provocations on all Occasions, and frequently on none at all, but what Imagination presents unto them, are sufficient Evidences hereof. Can we think that Life and Peace do inhabit that Soul, wherein Anger, Wrath, Envy, Excess in Love unto earthly things, no dwell? and on all Occasions exert themselves; there, where there is a continual Tumult, Fighting and Rebellion, as there is where the Passions of the Mind are not under the Conduct of Reason, nor of Grace?