han that of society in general; that in
the greatest concerns of human life, the practice of the majority,
though always containing something of good, is yet in its prevailing
character, as regards God, so evil, that they who are content to follow
it cannot be saved.

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.

* * * * *

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