Let a person capable of thinking, and such as I have supposed in all other respects, consider what St. Paul could mean by calling him “dead.”  With an almost thrilling consciousness of life, with an almost bounding sense of vigour in body and mind, he is told that he is “dead.”  And stranger still, he is told so by one whose recorded life, and existing writings declare that he too must have had in himself a consciousness of life no less lively; that there was in him an activity and energy which neither age nor sufferings could quell; that he wielded an influence over the minds of thousands, such as kings or conquerors might envy.  If St. Paul could stand by our side, think we that he, any more than ourselves, would be insensible to the power within him, and to the beauty and the glory without?  Yet his words are recorded; he bids us not set our affections on things on the earth; he declares of himself, and of us equally, if we are Christ’s servants, that we are dead, and that our life is hid with Christ in God.

I have put the difficulty in its strongest form, for it is one well worth considering.  What St. Paul here urges is indeed the highest perfection of Christianity, and therefore of human nature; but it is not an impossible perfection, and St. Paul’s own life and character are our warrant that it is nothing sickly, or foolish, or fanatical.  But let us first hear the whole of St. Paul’s language:  “If ye, then, be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.  Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth.  For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory.  Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”  “Mortify,” I need not say, is to make dead, to destroy.  “Ye are dead;” therefore let your members on earth be dead; “fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection,” &c.  As if he had said, By becoming Christians ye engaged to be dead; and therefore see to it that ye are so.  But what he requires us to make dead or to destroy, are our evil affections and desires; it is manifest, then, that it is to these that, by becoming Christians, we engage to become dead.

This is true; and it is most certain that Christ requires us to be dead only to what is evil.  But the essence of spiritual-mindedness consists in this, that it is assumed that with earth, and all things earthly, evil or imperfection are closely mixed; so that it is not possible to set our affections keenly upon, or to abandon ourselves to the enjoyment of, any earthly thing without the danger of those affections and that enjoyment becoming evil.  In other words, there is that in the state of things within and around us, which, renders it needful to be ever watchful; and watchfulness is inconsistent with an intensity of delight and enjoyment.