This is the explanation of the apparent difficulty in the general, and thus, while acknowledging that there are points in which men, by common consent, make out what is best; and others in which, although they do not make it out, nor at first appreciate it, yet they are very willing to adopt it upon trust, and so come by experience to value it; while, therefore, there are a great many things in which singularity is either a disease or a foolishness; so again there are other points in which men in general have not the power to make out what is good, nor yet the docility to adopt it; and, therefore, in these points, which relate to the great matters of life, singularity is wisdom and salvation, and he who does as others do, perishes.  That is what is called the corruption of human nature.  I shall attempt, on another occasion, to go into some further details, and show, by common examples, how strangely our judgment and practice contain, with much that is right, just that one taint or defect which, as a whole, spoils them.  And this one defect will be found to be, as the Scripture declares, a defect in our sense of our relation towards God.

LECTURE XVII.

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1 CORINTHIANS ii. 12.

We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God.

And, therefore, he goes on to say, our language is different from that of others, and not always understood by them; the natural man receiveth not the things of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.  That is, they are discerned only by a faculty which he has not, namely, by the Spirit; and, therefore, as beings devoid of reason cannot understand the truths of science, or of man’s wisdom, for they are without the faculty which can discern them; so beings devoid of God’s Spirit cannot understand the truths of God.

Now, in order to turn this passage to our profit, we need not consider those who are wholly without God’s Spirit, or inquire whether, indeed, there be any such; it is not that there are two broadly marked divisions of all men, those who have not the Spirit of God at all, and those who have it abundantly:  if it were so, the separation of the great day of judgment would be begun already, nor would it require, in order to effect it rightly, the wisdom of Him who trieth the very hearts and reins.  No doubt there will be at last but two divisions of us all, the saved and the lost; but now the divisions are infinite; so much so that the great body of us offer much matter for hope as well as for fear.  We cannot say, that they are without the Spirit of God; yet neither can we say that they are led by the Spirit, so as to be God’s true servants.  We cannot say, that the things of God’s are absolutely to them as foolishness; yet certainly, we cannot say either, that they are to them as the divinest wisdom.