Chapter IV
What it is to have the heart elevated and suited to all things spiritual, as
spiritual.
But the last and main thing in this definition to be most attended unto
is, what it is to have the heart elevated and suited unto all things spiritual, as spiritual.
There are three things to be inquired into for the explanation hereof.
1. What those things are which are spiritual. 2. What it is to have the heart suited to these spiritual things. 3. An account why this should be added, To spiritual things as spiri
tual.
1. What are things spiritual ? It needs not long be insisted on. The
particulars are become known to us all, if we have hearts unto them : they are the things of God, which the Spirit reveals, the deep things of God, 1 Cor. ii. 10, 14, and Rom. viii. 7. They are things of the Spirit, Rom.
viii. 5. They are another world or system of things, opposed to things of
the flesh, which flesh, or corrupt nature, is suited unto, which are mani
festly fruits of the flesh, Gal. v. 19, downright sins, or things of this world, abused by our lusts, 1 John ii. 16.
CHAP. IV.] IN OUR SALVATION. 165
(1.) First and primarily, God himself and Christ are the chiefest spiri tual things and blessings. They are the first original of all things spiritual, and so are the most spiritual, and have all and only true spiritualness in them. God is a Spirit ; it is his pure nature so to be, and therefore he
* God is holy, therefore be ye holy ; so God is Spirit, therefore be ye spiritual. And
is to be worshipped in spirit by us. Even as it is said,
therefore all things else are spiritual as they refer unto him. As God only is good (as Christ says), so God only is Spirit ; and as the sun only is light, so God only is the Father of all light that is truly heavenly ; God is the
measure, the standard of all things spiritual. And thus also Christ, who
is styled The Lord, is also said to be that Spirit (2 Cor. iii. 17) who
puts all the spiritualness that is in the gospel into our minds.
(2.) There are things that are spiritual derivatively from God and Christ, which are the things of God, and which are not otherwise, no, nor further
spiritual, than as they relate unto God and Christ, and partake of them, and redound to their glory, who is the measure of them. And of this dis
tinction we shall have great use in the sequel ; for in all the benefits be stowed in our salvation, there is no further a spiritualness to be found than as God shines in them, and his excellence and glory are illustrious. And
that, and that alone puts every other thing into the being and rank of
things spiritual.
[l.J All blessings, adoption, forgiveness, redemption, fellowship with God, and heaven itself, are termed spiritual blessings, Eph. i. 3,
* Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ; and these blessings consist not in houses, lands, &c., but in things heavenly.
[2.] Thus all graces of the Spirit are also spiritual. Col. i. 9, true saving knowledge is styled ffvveois Kvsv
tu,arix,rt , spiritual understanding.
[3.] All the immediate duties of God s worship, when God is worshipped in spirit in them, are termed spiritual. Prayer, hearing, &c., all are termed
* spiritual sacrifices, 1 Pet. ii. 5, which become such, so far as God is
sanctified and closed withal in them and by them.
[4.] Every duty of the moral law, as it is directed unto God, is a service
in spirit, Rom. vii. 6. And the whole moral law, and every particle of it, in this right tendency, is spiritual, Rom. vii. 14, The law is spiritual. 2. What is it to have the heart made suitable to these spiritual things ? You all know, by analogy from nature, what it is to have the soul, in the
powers and faculties of it, suited unto the object of it ; as the eye is suited and fitted to colour, and the ear unto sounds. I shall give you some
philosophical instances which the Scripture makes, Eccles. xi. 7, Truly the light (saith Solomon) is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is to behold
the sun. Here is a heavenly outward object, and the visive or seeing
faculty, declared suited or fitted one to the other. The apostle Paul also
(1 Cor. vi. 13) speaking of the present condition of the bodies of men, The
belly (says he) is for meats, and meats for the belly ; that is, they are
by God suited and fitted one for another in this present state. And consider
the purpose of his mentioning this. It is to illustrate how in a proportion able manner, and in a spiritual way, even the bodies of men after the
resurrection, when they shall be made spiritual, 1 Cor. xv., shall then be
suited unto Christ, so it follows, ver. 14, And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise us up by his own power. And it is said too, in ver. 17, He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. Now then to make up the analogy, as he will suit spiritual senses to spiritual things after
166 THE WORK OF THE HOLY GHOST [BOOK IV.
the resurrection, so he doth suit men s souls and spirits aforehand in this
life unto the spiritual things manifested in the word, afore the resurrection
of body and soul into a greater glory. And this the Scriptures also speak as expressly to this point of regeneration or grace, as it doth to that other
point of nature : 1 Cor. ii. 9, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath
it entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. The things prepared, &c., are manifestly here the
things of the gospel in this life revealed, and not only those in the world
to come, as by the context hath been long since observed. And the only use at present I make lies in these words, Prepared for those that love him ; that is, aforehand suited and fitted by God unto the new creature, or unto those into whose hearts he puts his love. And if it be not an allusion
intended by the apostle, yet it may well be represented by the correspond
ency that is between the story of the first creation and the new creature, which the apostle intends by those who love God. The apostle in those words of his, As it is written, refers us to Isa. Ixiv. 4,
* Since the
beginning of the world, men have not heard, neither perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, &c. Now consult the story of man s first crea
tion, to which this is a manifest allusion, and it stood thus. God made and prepared a world consisting of, and filled with, variety of creatures, the
making of which cost him six days work. There were delicacies of fruits
for the taste, an entertainment for the eye in all sorts of colours, ligl\t, ornaments, and tapestry, which heaven and earth affordeth to this day. There was a brave world, and richly furnished, as the apostle speaks of it, 1 Tim. vi. The angels stood by, and wondered all the while for whom all
this should be prepared, for they had not senses to be affected with them. God after all, at the latter end of this his work, brings in man, and sets Adam down in the centre of this world ; and lo, he had at the first of his
creation an eye to see and to be taken with all the beauties God had
scattered up and down throughout the whole. He had an ear to hear all
the music which the melodies of birds singing, or the murmurings and
warblings of rivulets, could afford. He had a taste and belly suited to take
pleasure in all these varieties of fruits, or whatever else God had provided as a banquet for him ; insomuch as there was not any one thing God had made but he had some sense, inward or outward, to take in a pleasure from
it, or some faculty in his mind to close with and make use of it. Whence
it was apparent unto himself and the angels, the spectators, that God had
first prepared and set out all these for the man, and then created the man, in like manner prepared and fitted for all these things. He had an ear and an eye (as both the prophet s and apostle s words are) to receive and take
in what was thus made for him. Thus the apostle tells us it falls out in
this new creation, God hath been from everlasting contriving and ordaining,
and in the fulness of time preparing, all those glorious truths and things which the apostle (to whom was committed the news and tidings of this world to come, Heb. ii. 5) by the Holy Ghost, have given us in their writ
ings a full discovery of. And whenever God regenerateth any man, and
constitutes him a new creature, lo, the man hath a new eye to see, an ear
to hear, and all sorts of new senses to take in all sorts of spiritual things, as the Spirit shall be pleased to reveal them to him. He no sooner opens an eye but he finds himself to be come into a new world, and to be
environed with new objects. Thus they are prepared for him, and he for them ; and hence it comes to pass that he hath an eye to see, and an ear
to hear, and a heart to understand, such things as never from the
CHAP. V.] IN OUR SALVATION. 167
beginning of this world entered into the heart of man, no, not of Adam in
his first creation. Now the principle by which he is enabled to this, is
called spirit.
If you will have another scripture that speaks this suitableness between
* Those
this spiritual man and these spiritual things, look into Rom. viii. 5,
that are after the flesh, do mind the things of the flesh ; but they that are
after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. You have here the suitableness
between spiritual things and a spiritual man illustrated by its contrary,
namely, the like of a carnal heart towards carnal things, that so all men, whether carnal or spiritual, might be equal and just judges out of experience, whether they had as yet flesh only, or further, spirit, begun in them ; for
all mankind have experience what it is to mind, to favour, and find a
heart suited to things fleshly and outward. We feel every day how our
bowels work, and our affections are inflamed after things fleshly, as beauty,
pleasure, &c. Now, says he, descend into your hearts, and be righteous
judges ; if ye be after the Spirit, if that supernatural frame of heart be in
you and predominant, you will in like manner be taken with the things of
the Spirit, for both stand upon like just and equal reason; for as flesh is
suited unto things fleshly, so Spirit is suited unto things spiritual, even as
* That which is born of the flesh is flesh, so that which
it is here, John iii.,
is born of the Spirit is spirit.