tell how that may be; but he is certainly at this very present time hardening his heart, and doing despite unto the Spirit of Grace.  By the very wickedness of putting off turning to God till a future time, he lessens his power of turning to Him ever.  This is certain; no one can reject God’s call without becoming less likely to hear it when it is made to him again.  And thus the lingering wilfully in the evil things of childhood, when we might be at work in putting them off, and when God calls us to do so, is an infinite risk, and a certain evil;—­an infinite risk, for it is living in such a state that death at any moment would be certain condemnation;—­and a certain evil, because, whether we live or not, we are actually raising up barriers between ourselves and our salvation; we not only do not draw nigh to God, but we are going farther from Him, and lessening our power of drawing nigh to Him hereafter.

LECTURE IV.

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COLOSSIANS i. 9.

We do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.

This is the first of three verses, all of them forming a part of the Epistle which was read this morning, and containing St. Paul’s prayer for the Colossians in all the several points of Christian excellence.  And the first thing which he desires for them, as we have heard, is, that they should be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; or, as he expresses the same thing to the Ephesians, that they should be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.  He prays for the Colossians that they should not be spiritually foolish, but that they should be spiritually wise.

The state of spiritual folly is, I suppose, one of the most universal evils in the world.  For the number of those who are naturally foolish is exceedingly great; of those, I mean, who understand no worldly thing well; of those who are careless about everything, carried about by every breath of opinion, without knowledge, and without principle.  But the term spiritual folly includes, unhappily, a great many more than these; it takes in not those only who are in the common sense of the term foolish, but a great many who are in the common sense of the term clever, and many who are even in the common sense of the terms, prudent, sensible, thoughtful, and wise.  It is but too evident that some of the ablest men who have ever lived upon earth, have been in no less a degree spiritually fools.  And thus, it is not without much truth that Christian writers have dwelt upon the insufficiency of worldly wisdom, and have warned their readers to beware, lest, while professing themselves to be wise, they should be accounted as fools in the sight of God.