that were utterly destroyed by the fall; and the mind thenceforward
habitually exerts those acts that the dominion of sin has made it as
wholly destitute of, as a dead body is of vital acts.

The Spirit of God acts in a very different manner in the one case,
from what He doth in the other. He may indeed act upon the mind of a
natural man, but He acts in the mind of a saint as an indwelling vital
principle. He acts upon the mind of an unregenerate person as an
extrinsic, occasional agent; for in acting upon them, He doth not
unite Himself to them; for notwithstanding all His influences that
they may be the subjects of, they are still sensual, having not the
Spirit (Jude 19). But He unites Himself with the mind of a saint,
takes him for his temple, actuates and influences him as a new
supernatural principle of life and action. There is this difference,
that the Spirit of God, in acting in the soul of a godly man, exerts
and communicates Himself there in his own proper nature. Holiness is
the proper nature of the spirit of God. The Holy Spirit operates in
the minds of the godly, by uniting Himself to them, and living in
them, and exerting His own nature in the exercise of their faculties.
The Spirit of God may act upon a creature, and yet not in acting
communicate Himself. The Spirit of God may act upon inanimate
creatures; as, the Spirit moved upon the face of the waters, in the
beginning of the creation; so the Spirit of God may act upon the minds
of men many ways, and communicate Himself no more than when He acts
upon an inanimate creature. For instance, He may excite thoughts in
them, may assist their natural reason and understanding, or may assist
other natural principles, and this without any union with the soul,
but may act, as it were, as upon an external object. But as He acts
in His holy influences and spiritual operations, He acts in a way
of peculiar communication of Himself; so that the subject is thence