SERMON IV.

ROMANS VIII. 9.

If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

IN entering on this closing part of our subject, I feel peculiar difficulty, not from any want of scriptural and incontrovertible materials, but from the very nature of those materials, which, being wholly of an experimental nature, can only commend themselves to those who, by actual experience, are qualified to judge of them. There are, as we all know, different kinds of life-vegetable, animal, and rational— each rising above the other, and each, in its order, evincing a manifest superiority above that which is below it. But there is a fourth kind of life, of which the Scripture speaks; viz. a spiritual life, which rises as far above the rest, as any one of them does above another. All have their proper powers, which, however,

they cannot exceed. The vegetable life has productiveness, but no consciousness nor activity. The animal life has feeling, but no perception of the deductions of reason. The rational life apprehends moral truth, but forms no just conception of things which are spiritual. The spiritual life is exercised on things that are matters of pure revelation, which reason is not of itself able to apprehend.

The

But I wish to guard against a common misapprehension respecting this spiritual life. It is by no means correct to speak of it as constituting a new sense; for then it would be a man's misfortune only, and not his fault, if he did not possess it. But it is correct to say, that the spiritual man has a spiritual perception, which the natural man does not possess. merely rational man has a film before his eyes; he views things through the medium of sense, and not of faith; and the medium through which he looks at objects, distorts them, if it do not altogether hide them from his sight. But in the spiritual man, the Holy Spirit, as "eyesalve," clears away the film,* and enables him

Rev. iii. 18.

to discern things as they really are. Faith also assists him, by bringing remote objects with greater clearness to his mind. The power of the telescope to bring to our view things that are invisible to the naked eye is well known. Now this is the office and effect of faith, which enables us, if I may so speak, to behold both God himself and the hidden mysteries of God,* and to obtain a clear perception of things which are altogether beyond the reach of the eye of sense. Hence it appears that the merely rational man labours under a twofold disadvantage in comparison of the spiritual man he looks through a dense medium of sense, which distorts, or altogether conceals, the objects before him; and he wants that peculiar glass of faith, which would present them truly, and bring them, if I may so say, directly upon the retina of his mind. This is what St. John means, when he says, "The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not;"+ and this is, in very explicit terms, declared by St.. Paul to be a matter of universal experience.‡ “The natural man (whoever he may be) receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for

* Heb. xi. 27.

† John i. 5.

1 Cor. ii. 14-16.

they are foolishness unto him; (being seen by him only in a distorted view ;) neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned; (and he wants that spiritual perception whereby alone he can truly apprehend them.) But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, (having a clear and just perception of them ;) yet he himself is judged of no man: (for it were a downright absurdity for a blind man to sit in judgment on one who sees.) For who (i. e. what merely natural man) hath known the mindof the Lord, that he should instruct him, (the spiritual man?) But we (we who are spiritual) have the mind of Christ;" (and are, therefore, able to judge both ourselves and others.)

But whilst, in order to guard against misapprehension, I speak thus, I well know that there are many, very many, in the midst of us, who can form the most accurate judgment of all we say, and who, if not in relation to every word, will yet, as a whole, set their seal to the truth of it; and therefore I hesitate not to lay before you what I verily believe to be in perfect accordance with God's revealed will, though on a subject so recondite and mysterious.

I am not, however, without a consciousness, and with deep grief I utter it, that, under a profession of bringing forth only scriptural truth, some give vent to the veriest absurdities, talking about dreams and visions, and arrogating to themselves I know not what claims of preternatural endowments. But against all such fancies and conceits I would enter my most solemn protest. The truth of God, though elevated above reason, is in perfect accordance with reason and by its reasonableness as a part of divine revelation would I wish every word that I utter to be tried. I ask nothing more than this; that as God, of his own sovereign will and pleasure, bestows on some greater natural gifts than on others, so he may act in reference to spiritual gifts: and that, as all our natural faculties are called forth into action by things visible, our hopes and fears, and joys and sorrows, being excited by them according to the interest we have in them, so our spiritual faculties may be called into action by things invisible, even by all the wonders of redeeming love, according as the blessings of redemption are manifested to the soul, and our interest in them is made the one subject of our present and prospective happiness.