words
"person," "substance," "procession," "generation," to an ordinary
person, mean almost nothing. So this language of the apostle, when
rendered into English, shows no difference whatever between "soul" and
"spirit." We say, for instance, that the soul of a man has departed
from him. We also say that the spirit of a man has departed from him.
There is no distinct difference between the two; but in the original
two very different kinds of thoughts--two very different modes of
conception--are represented by the two English words "soul" and
"spirit."

It is our business, therefore, in the first place, to understand what
is meant by this threefold division. When the apostle speaks of the
body, what he means is the animal life--that which we share in common
with beasts, birds, and reptiles; for our life my Christian
brethren--our sensational existence--differs but little from that of
the lower animals. There is the same external form, the same material
in the blood-vessels, in the nerves, and in the muscular system. Nay,
more than that, our appetites and instincts are alike, our lower
pleasures like their lower pleasures, our lower pain like their lower
pain, our life is supported by the same means, and our animal
functions are almost indistinguishably the same.

But, once more, the apostle speaks of what he calls the "soul." What
the apostle meant by what is translated "soul," is the immortal part
of man--the immaterial as distinguished from the material: those
powers, in fact, which man has by nature--powers natural, which are
yet to survive the grave. There is a distinction made in scripture by
our Lord between these two things. "Fear not," says He, "them who can
kill the body; but rather fear Him who can destroy both body and
soul in hell."

We have again, to observe respecting this, that what the apostle
called the "soul," is not simply distinguishable from the body, but
also from the spirit; and on that distinction I have already touched.
By the soul the apostle means our powers natural--the powers which we
have by nature. Herein is the soul distinguishable from the spirit. In
the Epistle to the Corinthians we read--"But the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto
him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
But he that is spiritual judgeth all things." Observe, there is a
distinction drawn between t