Reverend Brethren,
It has been observed, that men of sense and parts are not always on the side of Christianity: And it is asked, how the unbelief of such men can consist with the honour of that Religion?
We find this topic insisted upon, or insinuated at least, with much complacency, in all the free writings of these times. And some of them, however offensive for their impiety, being composed with vivacity, and delivered in a popular style, gain more credit with unwary readers than they deserve.
It behoves us to be on our guard against those insinuations, and to prevent their having an effect upon others. It will not therefore be unsuitable to the design of our meeting, if I suggest to the younger part of you (for the elder and more experienced have no need of my instruction), if I expose in few words the folly of inferring the falshood of religion from the rejection of it by a few plausible or learned men. And to give what I have to say the greater weight with you, I shall deliver my sentiments on the subject in a short comment on a remarkable text of St. Paul; who has indeed long ago obviated this prejudice, and fully accounted for the supposed fact, without derogating in any degree from the honour of our divine Religion.
For no sooner was Christianity published to the world, than it was opposed by all the wisdom of that age, which was, in truth, distinguished by its wisdom. But then it was human wisdom only, confiding in itself, and wholly unacquainted with divine wisdom. These were often at variance, and sometimes irreconcileable with each other. No wonder then, that not many wise men after the flesh, as the Apostle expresseth it, were called, i. e. converted to Christianity, and that the wisdom of Revelation was deemed folly (as it is in our days, and as it always will be) by the idolaters of their own carnal wisdom.
This early and popular prejudice, therefore, against the religion of Jesus, the great Apostle of the Gentiles found it expedient to remove. And he does it effectually in that oracular sentence delivered by him in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, in these words;
“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[35].”
The meaning of the words is clearly this: “That no man can, by the force of his natural understanding, however improved, discover the doctrines of the Gospel; nor even relish them, when they are proposed to him, so long as he judges of them by the light of his reason only: and that upon this account, because those doctrines are solely derived from the wisdom of God, which is superior to our wisdom; and will even seem foolishness to such a man, because those doctrines are not such as his natural reason, or wisdom, would suggest to him.”
The text therefore, you see, consists of two distinct affirmations, with a reason assigned for each. 1. That the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him: and 2. that he cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
I begin with the last of these assertions. I. That the natural man cannot know, i. e. discover, the doctrines of the Gospel, is so clear, that this assertion hardly requires any proof; or, if it do, the reason given in the text is decisive—because they are spiritually discerned—i. e. because the knowledge of them is derived from the spirit of God. For, how can man’s understanding penetrate the secrets of divine counsels? Or, as the Apostle himself manages the argument much better, What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth no man, but the spirit of God.