“The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of GOD: for
they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they
are spiritually discerned.”
ALL of you, my brethren, to some extent profess, and to some extent
desire, to be religious. All of you assent to the truth, that religion
is the “one thing needful,” and yet many of you, if you knew your hearts,
and examined your ways, would be constrained to admit that religion is
not the ruling power of your life. You are indeed religious according to
the standard of the age, _i.e._, you come to church on Sunday, perhaps
occasionally to holy communion, you say your prayers morning and evening,
you read the Bible now and then, you do not grossly offend against any
one of the ten commandments, you sigh over your frailties and
infirmities, you give _something_ to the poor. All this entitles you, in
the estimation of others, to be classed among what are called religious
people; and suggests to yourselves the comfortable thought, that, at
least, you are not worse than other men; that, in fact, you are much
better than many. Still, if you are careful readers of your Bible, if
you are observant of the world within and around you, if you are given to
self-searching, you must often feel that your religion is but a sorry
counterfeit of what GOD has taught and saints have reflected; that you
are scarcely half in earnest about it; that you experience very little
advantage from it; that you render very empty homage to it. For
instance, you read the Sermon on the Mount, or the reiteration of many
parts of it here and there, in the epistles; you put together the several
characteristics of true religion there displayed; and then, turning an
eye upon yourselves, looking back upon the path you have trodden,
surveying the ground upon which you now stand, testing your practice,
scanning your motives, asking yourselves, “By what am I mainly
influenced? whither tend my chief desires? what are my feelings?”
“Alas!” you exclaim, “where, in all these, are the influences and
operations of the religion taught by Christ and His apostles?”
Or, again, you read of Joseph, stoutly refusing the safe indulgence of a
forbidden pleasure, under a heartfelt conviction of required sanctity,
and present accountability, which found its vent in those memorable
words, “How can I do this great wickedness and sin against GOD?” And
then you find him, after shining thus brilliantly as a saint, patiently,
religiously bearing the treatment of a sinner. Or you read of Abraham,
giving up at a word’s bidding the comforts of home, the ties of kindred,
and the means of support; wandering henceforth throughout his life in a
strange land, apparently coming no nearer to the promised rest and
blessedness, yet cheerfully, hopefully, thankfully, admitting and feeling
that all was, and would be right and well for him. Or you read of Moses,
refusing the honours, the pleasures, the riches of a court life, and
choosing to be a wanderer, to endure all kinds of hardships and
reproaches, that he might avoid sin and serve GOD. Or you read of Job,
subjected to concentrated miseries and undeserved chastisements and
rebukes, and blessing the Hand which had imposed them, or at least had
not interfered to ward them off. Or you read of David, weeping over a
forgiven sin, setting it always before him, making frequent mention of it
in his prayers, accepting often reverses as the due chastisement of it,
and thanking GOD for them. Or you read of Stephen, cruelly maligned,
savagely beaten to death, and yet spending his dying breath, not in
protesting, not in invoking vengeance, but in praying, “LORD, lay not
this sin to their charge.” Or, once more, you read of Paul, testifying
that to die is gain, and, in the least adverse circumstances of his
converted life, coveting to depart.
You read, I say, of these things; you consider under what feelings and
hopes they were borne and encountered, and you sadly exclaim, “Where, in
me, in deed or feeling, in aim or restraint, in perseverance or patience,
is the religion of Joseph, of Abraham, of Moses, of Job, of David, of
Stephen, of Paul? Do I thus resist temptations to unlawful pleasures?
Do I set loose my natural affections, give up my worldly goods, go forth
into unknown and unguessed-at circumstances at Divine bidding? Do I
refuse proffered honours, riches, pleasures, not because they are in
themselves sinful, but because they _may_ possibly lead me into sin? Do
I patiently and thankfully endure even merited chastisements? Do I
struggle with myself and with GOD to prevent past sins from escaping out
of my remembrance? Do I seek to bless those who revile or injure me? Do
I feel that to die is gain; and do I covet to depart?”
If not, why not? It is so that GOD willed men to do; it is so they have
in many cases done; and it is so that many still do. Yes, there are
still such saints; men and women who steadfastly resist wrong pleasures,
under the heart-conviction of required sanctity, and of accountability to
a present GOD; who give up, even while they hold them, all worldly
possessions, and go forth, in feeling, in desire, in deed if need be,
without distrust, with happy, thankful, confidence, when and
whithersoever GOD bids them; who forego proffered advantages, and content
themselves with a low seat when they might, perhaps, have the highest,
because it is _safer_ for them as servants of GOD; who weep and abhor
themselves, and desire to be chastened for their sins; who love to do
good to their enemies; who holily yearn to die. There are men and women
who do make religion the one thing needful; who hold themselves in check
by its restraints; who urge themselves on by its promises; who bask in
its sunshine, and reflect its glorious image in their lives. There are
men and women whose business is religion; who kneel long and often in
prayer; who meditate day and night on the Bible; whose hearts ever leap
to GOD; who grieve to forego an opportunity of holy communion; who never
stop away from church because there are only prayers, or because their
favourite preacher will not be in the pulpit, or because it is hot or
cold. Good citizens they are, attentive to their callings, provident
parents, dutiful children, affectionate husbands and wives, cheerful
companions, most useful in their generation, and yet truly religious,
bent upon religion; regarding this life as an apprenticeship to it, and
striving so to use their apprenticeship as to be perfect in their
calling, ere they are summoned to exercise it (their ardent expectation)
as partners with angels, and patriarchs, and apostles, and perfected
saints, under the rule of the LORD of Glory, in the city of the New
Jerusalem.
My brethren, if GOD has prescribed such religion as this; if saints of
old, ay, and men and women of our own times too, have been thus
religious; it must be important, and, I would fain hope, acceptable, for
you who profess and desire to be religious, but are not, to learn wherein
you differ, why you fail. The text tells you: “The natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of GOD: for they are foolishness unto him:
neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” “The
things of the Spirit of GOD” (the matters, that is, of revelation) are
foolishness to the natural man, and he cannot know or appreciate them.
My brethren, are the things of the Spirit of GOD ever regarded by you as
foolishness? Start not, nor be offended at the question. You would,
doubtless, deem it very blasphemy to say, “it is folly,” of anything GOD
has revealed. You would rush from the bare thought. Still, you may
practically allow what you thus shudder at when exhibited in its
plainness. Let us see. Do you ever deliberately do what religion
forbids? Do you ever deliberately omit what religion requires? Do you
never weigh the things of the world against the things of the Spirit, and
then choose the former? Do you never prefer pleasure to duty? staying
away from church, or curtailing your religious worship, to take your
leisure, to enjoy a friend’s company, to go for a pleasant walk, to read
an interesting book, to see some unusual sight, to frequent some place of
secular entertainment, to forward some worldly end? Do you not, at
least, excuse yourselves from acts of religion, by pleas that you would
not admit in these other cases? Do you not find time for earthly things,
that you do not find for spiritual? Do you not make exertions for
worldly ends, that you do not make for heavenly? Do you not curb, and
restrain, and deny yourselves, in the one case, and use no such
discipline in the other? Well, of course you do this through some
appreciation of the thing sought; because it interests you, is pleasant,
or expedient, or profitable. You do not deliberately choose “folly,” you
pursue it as the wise course, _i.e._, you treat the opposite as though it
were unwise, not realising it to be wisdom, you put it aside as
foolishness. Then, again, of restraints, and sanctions, and hopes.
Would you not forbear to do in the presence of a fellow-being what you
unhesitatingly do under the eye of GOD? Do you not fear a parent, a
husband, a wife, a master, a friend, a customer, more than GOD? Does the
thought of eternal punishment concern you as much as the prospect of
chastisement at the hand of man? of failure in business? of serious
illness? of bodily disfigurement? Do you act chiefly with regard to the
praise of GOD, or the admiration of your fellow-beings? Do you _feast_
on the expectation of heaven, or on that of some worldly joy or honour?
Do you like, above all things, the thought of dwelling for ever where
there will be no money-getting, no earthly indulgences, no flattery, no
vain glory, no frivolity, no unseemliness, no rest from the praising of
GOD, and the company of saints? If a message came to you now, that
within an hour you should be removed to paradise, would you not shrink
from the announcement? would you not cling to earth? would you not wish
your removal to be deferred? Then do you not appreciate something more
than the things of the Spirit of GOD? Do not your desires, and hopes,
and fears, deal with them as though they were comparatively foolishness?
Remember, brethren, I am not now inveighing against sin; I am not
attempting to make a catalogue of your offences, that I may reproach you
on account of its length. My object is simply to lead you to ascertain
how you regard the things of the Spirit of GOD; and so to help you to
answer for yourselves the important questions, why you are not more truly
religious, why religion is not with you the one thing needful. Murmur
not, then, at home-thrusts. Plead not excuses for what is felt to be
amiss. Simply answer to yourselves whether or no your life approves the
things of the Spirit as _wisdom_; and, if not, be anxious to learn (that
you may profit by the knowledge) _why_ it treats them as foolishness.
Now, St. Paul tells us, that it is the natural man to whom these things
are foolishness; and the spiritual by whom they are discerned to be
wisdom. In proportion, then, as you receive them not, or undervalue
them, you are natural in contradistinction to spiritual. And what is it
to be thus natural? It is to regard the things of religion as one doth
other things, from a mere human point of view; and with the faculties and
feelings that belong to our human nature, independently of the operation
on it of the enlightening and persuading and strengthening influences of
the Holy Spirit. It is to attempt to acquaint ourselves with them by
natural observation and scrutiny; to expect to understand them through
natural instruction received into natural ears; to try to picture them by
the exercise of natural imagination. This is to be natural; and this is
what we too frequently are. We get our religious notions as we do our
acquaintance with natural science, or with secular history: from
observation, or reading, or hearing. We strive to be religious (simply
mechanically) by obeying certain laws, and following certain prescribed
courses, just as we become peaceful subjects or approved servants; aiming
to do what is bidden, to avoid what is prohibited: not from appreciating
the sanction or restriction; not from loving what is ordered; but simply
from following it as appointed and obligatory obedience. And we get our
conception of heaven, of eternal bliss, of GOD Himself (just as we form
ideas about countries afar off, or men who lived before us), by putting
together for ourselves, and making to assume a shape of fancy, what we
have read or heard about them. It is the mere man—the brain, the mind,
the human soul, the natural affections, the unassisted innate
energy—which conceives and aims at the observance of the things of the
Spirit of GOD. Hence the failure. The natural powers, which alone we
use, cannot grasp spiritual things. “_Eye_ hath not seen, nor _ear_
heard, neither have entered into the _mind_ of man to conceive the things
which GOD hath prepared for them that love Him:” and yet it is the eye,
the ear, or the mind, which alone we use to discern them. We have indeed
a _theory_ which contradicts our practice. We know of an external
power—the Holy Spirit, which alone can take of the things of GOD and show
them unto us, and influence us to love, and enable us to follow them. We
know how that power is to be appropriated, and sustained, and made
effectual. We talk of its imparted gift, and we use certain words of
prayer for its continuance and efficacious working, but still we go on
thinking our own thoughts and doing our own deeds, as though there were
no such power; and we wonder and grieve that we are not religious; that
we do not heartily approve and follow what GOD has enjoined and promised.
Believe me, my brethren, or, rather, believe the apostle, it will never
be otherwise till you are thoroughly convinced of the utter inability of
the natural man to discern the things of the Spirit of GOD; till your
religion consists of earnest entreaties for Divine instruction and
impulse, of ready, eager use of all appointed means of securing and
vivifying within you the operation of Divine grace, of entire submission
to the Spirit’s rule, of watchfulness for His motions, of zealous
co-operation with Him. You may spend your life in trying to learn and
practise religion, and yet be irreligious after all; unless you renounce
all the independent thoughts and efforts of the natural man; unless you
give yourselves, actively and passively, in all things, to the special
illumination and direction of the Holy Spirit of GOD. Trust not to the
eye, to the ear, or to the mind: they cannot inform or influence you.
Trust not, I say, to the eye. People talk of finding out GOD from the
contemplation of His works; of looking from nature up to nature’s GOD; of
examining the evidences of religion, and becoming religious. But who
ever found out the GOD of the Bible from the works of nature; by the
traces of power, and wisdom, and skill, and adaptation, which it is true
are marked upon every part of creation; by theorising about a first
cause; by investigating Scriptural coincidences, and establishing the
authenticity of sacred history? One of the ablest naturalists that ever
lived ascribed the various forms and functions of animals to chance, to
the operations of winds and streams, to shaping in natural moulds. One
of the profoundest astronomers saw no necessity for a first cause; and
the man who penned perhaps the sublimest description of our blessed
LORD’S character and career, and the most cogent argument for accepting
Him as the Messiah, concluded all by saying: “And yet I cannot believe in
Him.”
No! brethren; nature is the _handmaid_ of religion. It will corroborate
what is already revealed; but it is no ladder to heaven; it is no
telescope, to bring near what is afar off. Look at yourselves, and at
all around you, by natural light only. You perceive Providence, but not
love; sin, but not its remedy; mortality, but not immortality. Read
history, ponder probabilities, accredit testimony. Your mind will be
instructed; your heart, perhaps, touched; but your spirit will not be
quickened.
It is for this reason that the advocates of religion protest so stoutly
against harmless, intellectual recreation as a compromise between
godliness and ungodliness; and maintain, on Scripture grounds, that
however sobered, however civilised, however naturally elevated, the man
is not one inch nearer to heaven and spiritual discernment who spends his
Sunday in a crystal palace, or a museum of nature, than he who riots in a
den of infamy. “Eye hath not seen.” The natural man receiveth not the
things of the Spirit of GOD.
Neither, again, hath _ear_ heard them. Others, that is, cannot describe
them to us. It was this which made Paul’s preaching foolishness to the
Corinthians. Judges of beauty, lovers of philosophy, fertile imaginers
they were, but they had no spiritual ear; they were not enabled by the
Holy Spirit; and so the preaching of Christianity sounded to them as some
unknown tongue would to us; as unintelligible, unmeaning jargon. Ask an
unlearned man to give you an account of some abstruse lecture he has
heard; and he will be able to tell you as much as the natural man can
tell you of the religious instruction he has received. He will have
caught certain names and definitions; he will have remembered, that
something was to be thought about _this_, and something to be done about
_that_; and, if he is enthusiastic, he will, perhaps, attempt the
thinking and the doing. But he will not have grasped the subject; he
will have no soul to receive it; for the necessary qualification is
wanting—learning, and love of learning. And so, when the Bible, or the
preacher, sets forth the things of the Spirit, the natural reader, or
hearer, receives them not, and cannot know them. When Christ was on
earth, and spoke in simplest words, the men who heard Him, even His own
disciples, knew not what He said; and if He were now to come down from
heaven and preach to us, all His instruction, all his loving
remonstrances, all His precepts and promises, all his glowing pictures of
bliss, all His threats of wrath, would be heard by the mere natural man
(by those who are not spiritually fitted for spiritual instruction)
without influence, and all but without comprehension.
It is most important, brethren, to be convinced of this. We are all of
us too apt to make our religion consist of hearing sermons; to suppose,
that if we listen patiently, and grasp the intellectual meaning, and feel
a little emotion about what is pathetic and alarming, and have a desire
to do something that the preacher recommended, or to give up something
that he denounced, then that we are receiving the things of the Spirit.
Whereas preaching cannot, under any circumstances, do the least spiritual
good, or at all enlarge spiritual comprehension, unless the hearers are
spiritually prepared. We discourse on heaven or hell: we put together
all that the Bible says or hints about it; we form a kind of natural
picture of a spiritual thing, and we bid you look at it and consider it.
Wherefore? If you are spiritual, to quicken your spirit; if you are
natural, to speak to you a kind of parable, the meaning whereof you may
be prompted to ask of Him who alone can reveal it, the Holy Spirit of
GOD. And so of all preaching; it is an important means to an end. It
talks to men of GOD, of redemption, of probation, of the Holy Spirit, of
heaven and hell: not with any hope of thereby revealing to them these
things; but only to convince their eyes, their ears, their hearts, that
there is a kind of knowledge which ought to be had, but which they cannot
take in; and so to stir them up to the inquiring how it is to be had, and
to enlist them in the right effort to obtain it. Through the ear we
arrest the natural man, as the voice of thunder did Saul on his road to
Damascus; we do not sanctify him; we do not show him the things of GOD;
we only convince him that there is something which he has not rightly
received, or taken into account, and we bid him go elsewhere, to the
Spirit, for instruction and salvation. The only possible good that a
sermon can do, is, by working on the feelings, or appealing to the
understanding, or cross-questioning the conscience, to stir men up to
say: “I will know more of this matter.” And the work of grace is only
then beginning, when the hearer of the sermon becomes a learner of the
Spirit. Ear hath not heard.
“Neither hath entered into the mind of man to conceive” spiritual things.
I need not enlarge on this. We know, indeed, that the imagination has
great powers; that it forms a very tangible idea of what neither eye nor
ear has had opportunity to discern; that sometimes it surpasses eye and
ear, and succeeds in grasping what they have but touched. Hence such
sayings as, “It is easier to imagine than describe;” and such practices
as shutting the eyes, when we want to realise an idea. But still, in
spiritual things, if actual observation and study, if faithful
descriptions by qualified persons, a prophet, an apostle, the Bible, the
Spirit, utterly fail to inform the natural man, surely he cannot expect
illumination from the fancies of his unassisted imagination. Religious
ideas come into the _mind_ through the eye and the ear; if, then, these
have all along been closed, it must, of course, be empty.
And now, dear brethren, does not all this show you why you are so little
religious? Have you not, all along, been dealing with the things of the
Spirit too much as though they were things which you could perceive by
observation, by investigating their evidence, by intellectually studying
them? Have not you tried to learn religion as you would a human
language, or a physical science? And have not your highest religious
exercises, your searchings into the deep things of GOD, been the hearing
of sermons; or the indulging of your reason, or your imagination? What
do you know of religion, which you did not in some of these ways acquire?
How much has the Spirit of GOD taught you? that Spirit who alone knows
the things of GOD, and who alone can reveal them; that Spirit which comes
not first into the eye, or the ear, or the mind of man, but into his
spirit. How often do you pray for the Holy Spirit, and strive to prepare
yourselves for Him? What dependence do you place on Him for guidance?
What means do you use to bring Him near; and how much have you Him in
mind while using them? What homage do you render Him? How do you serve
Him? When do you commune with Him? When you regard nature, is it by the
light of the Spirit? When you read the Bible, is it to learn what the
Spirit will say to you, the Spirit invoked to speak? When you hear a
sermon, do you pray the Spirit, “LORD, declare unto me, unto my spirit,
this parable?” When you meditate, is your supplication, “Open thou mine
eyes;” “Except Thy presence go with me, carry me not up hence?” Is your
life—thoughts, words, and deeds—directed by the consideration, “If any
man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of
GOD”? If not, this is why you are not really religious; and the remedy
is in seeking to be and do what I have now described.
Only use your spirit as you have hitherto used your eye, your ear, or
your mind. Only put yourselves under the tutorship of the Spirit of GOD.
Only seek to meet Him in appointed places; at public worship, at holy
communion, over the Bible, on your knees. Only seek instruction from
Him, and refer to Him for interpretations and explanations; and only ask
His help to be spiritually used; and order your life, as far as you can,
in accordance with your prayers. And soon you will be, not smatterers,
but apt scholars of Divine learning; soon you will walk as seeing Him who
is invisible; soon will you _know_ the reality of spiritual things; and,
knowing them, love them and seek for them. They will cease to be
foolishness to you. You will choose them in every circumstance, as
wisdom; you will feel religion to be the one thing needful; you will make
it the business and the pleasure of your lives. The life of a Joseph, an
Abraham, a Moses, a Job, a David, a Stephen, a Paul, will be found to be
not simply possible, but desirable; the only life worthy of the name.
Obedience will be easy; trust will expel care; love will cast out fear;
selfishness will pass away; temptations will lose their power. No matter
will it be to you, where or what you are. Prosperity, adversity, honour,
shame, power, weakness, life, and death, will be indifferent to you. If
you live, you will live to the LORD; if you die, you will die to the
LORD: living and dying, in endurance and desire, thought and deed, you
will be the LORD’S.
Brethren, this is what the Spirit of GOD would make you. That Spirit is
pledged to all of you who ask for Him; He waits to reveal to you the
things of GOD.
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