SERMON XIV.

TRUE SPIRITUALITY.

ROMANS viii. 9.

Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.

THE one object of Christianity is to make us spiritual men. Its mark of distinction from all the other dispensations of God is, that it is the Dispensation of the Spirit; and that it ministers the Spirit. It becomes therefore of the greatest importance to every Christian that he should carefully ascertain what is this object which Christianity has in view, this blessing which it conveys; what it is to be "in the Spirit," to be" after the Spirit," to have the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of God; in a word, to be a Spiritual man.

And this we shall be able to discover not

* 2 Cor. iii. 8.

+ Gal. iii. 2, 5.

only by its positive but its negative marks. For it is of great advantage to the Student of Scripture that what is in one place expressed by some positive term, is in others, and very frequently in the same place, contrasted with its opposite; and “Truth,” it has been well said, "seldom receives greater light from any thing than from a discovery of the opposite error."

This is especially the case with the subject now before us; for St. Paul is constantly contrasting the spiritual man with the carnal man, and the being in the Spirit with the being in the flesh; as well as stating expressly what Spiritual-mindedness is; from all which passages we shall find, I think, that the Spiritual man is he who is actuated not by animal impulse,-nor by worldly wisdom,-but by heavenly principle.

Not by animal Impulse. For this is the first and lowest character to which the Spiritual man is opposed in Scripture. It is what St. Paul calls in our text, being "in the flesh;" actuated by the mere animal nature, the fleshly, bodily, sensual part of man; and elsewhere, (v. 7) the having a "carnal mind," the having no conceptions but those which the senses supply; and the effects of which condition of mind, the thoughts, feelings and actions which result from

it, are called by him "the things of the flesh" (v. 5); the deeds of the body" (v. 13); "the deceitful lusts" (Eph. iv. 22); "the works of the flesh." (Gal. v. 19.)

And here we must remember that by the word carnal or animal, thus used by Paul, is denoted not merely a man given up to bodily excesses, but much more extensively, one who is impelled in general by appetite, and passion, and prejudice, whose whole character is animal, who acts not by reason and moral principle, who judges only according to sense. There are feelings as well as appetites which are but animal and brutish; nay, there is even a mind which St. Paul calls the "mind of the flesh," a merely sensual understanding. And the "works of the flesh" which he enumerates, are not merely sinful bodily appetites and actions; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, murders, drunkenness, revellings;". but sinful passions; “ hatred, variances, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, envyings ;"-nay, sinful prejudices, sinful exercises of mind and thought; "Idolatry, witchcraft, heresies;" all the grosser perversions of the understanding; all that ignorance and earthliness of mind which David expresses by a similar word when he says of the irreligious man, who discerns not

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God in his works and providence, “A brutish man knoweth not, neither doth a fool understand this:"* and Jeremiah also, when he says of Idolaters, "They are altogether brutish and foolish; the stock is a doctrine of vanities."†

Here, then, we have the first character from which the spiritual man is altogether distinguished above which he has risen into purer principle. To have" crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts," to be " keeping under our body and bringing it into subjection," to be combating our pride, our prejudice, our tempers, our passions; to have raised the mind from utter thoughtlessness and irreligion, from vanity and superstition; to have found within ourselves a soul, a spirit, something more and better than the brutes that perish; to have awaked to the sense of responsibility, of God, of providence, of judgment;-all these are essential marks, without which there is not any the most distant approximation to that noble character, a Spiritual man: all these if we have not in commencement and in progress,—if we have not predominant within us, (for the character is always named by that which is predominant and has most sway and influence,) then are we yet "in the flesh," yet foolish, carnal, brutish. + Jeremiah x. 8.

* Psalm xcii. 6.

And now, Brethren, let us pause for a moment on this first consideration! Let us ask, Is there no one here,-in this congregation even,— whom this very first distinction turns upon, condemns, alarms, admonishes? Is there no one who, if it be true, has no pretensions to the Spirit, no evidence therefore of religious character, no traces even of the one first step out of darkness into light, from the old man to the new, from the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of God? Recollect what follows immediately upon our text. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." The name you may possess, of Christian, but not the character; the outward advantages, but not the inward mind!

What is there here, perhaps, a sensual man; a drunkard, or a fornicator?—or a man of evil passions; envy, wrath and malice?—or a man of foolishness; of gross indifference and ignorance, fearing not God?-And see you not, Brother! your awful danger? Feel you not that Christianity has yet done nothing for you if it has not raised you up above your body, and the earth on which it moves? know you not that "to be carnally minded is DEATH; for the carnal mind is enmity against God?" Or will you urge, "I am not wholly sensual." But