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are you chiefly so? Or will you plead, My body and my earthly work must be attended to." But must it so to the neglect and the death of your soul? Or will you argue, " My passions have been given me by nature." But were they given to rule, to tyrannize, to sweep you onward into ruin? Where, I ask, are your chief thoughts set? What is the chief Whither do your

direction of your feelings?

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chief, your prevailing desires tend? Are you making provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof?" Are you Sowing to the flesh ?" Then, O forget not, "He that soweth to the flesh must of the flesh reap corruption! Turn ye therefore, turn ye, for why will ye die! Awake to righteousness, and sin not! Put off the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind,”—its whole temper and character— "and put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness!" Remember! There is but one way of becoming changed from carnal into spiritual—of rising from an earthly to a heavenly nature. Christ came into the world for this very purpose of restoring you. Christ was made flesh for you, that you might be made spirit by Him. Faith in Christ, therefore, is the first step to your

recovery. Turning to God through Him, the only sanctifying way. He who believes in Christ shall have the Spirit of Christ, and he who has the Spirit of Christ shall, through that Spirit, mortify the deeds of the body, and rise into purer feeling, and be drawn up to high and heavenly things, and become a Spiritual man!

But I return-and proceed to remark further, that the Spiritual man is actuated Not by worldly Wisdom.

To be actuated by animal impulse only, is the lowest state of human degradation. Many are there who escape its power, yet who rise not into Christian excellence and spirituality; who have a mind, ay and often a much cultivated mind; who have feelings, ay and often highly sensitive feelings; who have a conduct decent, reputable, zealous ;-but alas, no spirituality; no true religious sense, no heavenly taste, no perception even, of the higher mysteries of Jesus, and the nobler truths of heavenly wisdom. Accordingly, we find the spiritual man contrasted by St. Paul, in 1 Cor. ii. 14, with what he calls" the natural man, who discerneth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither indeed can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned."

And I know not how I can better set forth the character to which the Spiritual man is opposed in this higher sense, than by referring you to the whole context of the 2nd chap. of 1 Corinthians, which I would beg you to turn to while I take a rapid glance of its contents.

St. Paul, you know, had been opposed in the Corinthian church by some false teachers, who had attracted the wavering minds of that fastidious people, by ministering to them the refinements of speculative Theology, and pleasing their itching ears with the artifices of a worldly rhetoric. And their insinuation against St. Paul was that he was but a novice in Christianity, and altogether insufficient any longer to teach or influence such advanced and refined believers as those in Corinth. To all this the Apostle answers,

I did not indeed come to you with forms and phrases of discourse like those of your present favourites. I simply addressed myself to your conscience, and thought no truth of moment, but the fundamental one of reconciliation with God by "Christ Jesus and Him crucified." I spoke not to your head, but to your heart: I entertained you not with high-flown speculations, but sought to arouse you with powerful appeals, (v. 1-5.)

Yet nevertheless I can and I do "speak wisdom among them that are perfect." I have thoughts of high and holy import to unfold to the really advanced Christian who is fitted to listen to me. But this my wisdom is not that which you admire. I gained it not from the world, for the world knew it not. In the deep recesses of my soul it was revealed, and by the Spirit of God it was taught me. (v. 6-12.)

And this wisdom, thus spiritual, both in its character and origin, can be imparted by me only after a spiritual manner. That, whose essence is not dialectic subtlety and petty distinctions, but ideas, principles, convictions, life; -that must be delivered in a very different form, and to very different persons, from the mere notions and abstractions of your Theological School. (v. 13.)

For such wisdom can be received only by those whose hearts the Lord himself has touched; in whom the Spirit of God has stirred up thoughts which rise above the things of sense and of the world. "For the natural man* receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God."

πνεύμα,

* Ψυχικος; One who is moved only by the ψυχη, the Understanding, and not by the vous, the TVEUμa, the Reason. Conf. Suidas: ψυχικὸν καλεῖ ὁ ̓Απόστολος τὸν τοῖς ἀνθρωπικοῖς λογισμοῖς τὰ πράγματα ἐπιτρέποντα.

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He is yet earthly, worldly, carnal, but a babe in Christ. He cannot judge, he cannot approve, he cannot even understand, the higher mysteries, the superior unearthly wisdom of true spirituality. No; those only who have the mind of Christ can understand the things of Christ. Only the Spirit in the heart can interpret the Spirit in the instruction. (v. 13-16.)

And therefore, Brethren, how could I enter upon this true, solid, deeper wisdom, with you? For you have not yet attained to that heavenly mind. You are but children still. You have all the characteristics of an earthly, worldly, carnal spirit still. You have too many prejudices yet cleaving to you; too many passions yet defiling you ;-" for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal and walk as men?" (ch. iii. 1-3.)

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Here then, Brethren, we learn the character of "the Natural man"-The Christian by proa natural man, the Apostle means one who acts on merely human worldly considerations."

In the same sense, and in a similar context, and similarly contrasted with "spiritual," or "heavenly," the word is used by St. Jude, and St. James. See Jude 19; "These be they who separate themselves, sensual,(&uxixoi) having not the Spirit." And James iii. 13: "This wisdom descendeth not from above," (is not heavenly, spiritual,) but is earthly, sensual (uxixn.)

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