My brethren, if GOD has prescribed such religion as this; if saints of old, ay, and men and women of our own times too, have been thus religious; it must be important, and, I would fain hope, acceptable, for you who profess and desire to be religious, but are not, to learn wherein you differ, why you fail. The text tells you: “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.” “The things of the Spirit of GOD” (the matters, that is, of revelation) are foolishness to the natural man, and he cannot know or appreciate them. My brethren, are the things of the Spirit of GOD ever regarded by you as foolishness? Start not, nor be offended at the question. You would, doubtless, deem it very blasphemy to say, “it is folly,” of anything GOD has revealed. You would rush from the bare thought. Still, you may practically allow what you thus shudder at when exhibited in its plainness. Let us see. Do you ever deliberately do what religion forbids? Do you ever deliberately omit what religion requires? Do you never weigh the things of the world against the things of the Spirit, and then choose the former? Do you never prefer pleasure to duty? staying away from church, or curtailing your religious worship, to take your leisure, to enjoy a friend’s company, to go for a pleasant walk, to read an interesting book, to see some unusual sight, to frequent some place of secular entertainment, to forward some worldly end? Do you not, at least, excuse yourselves from acts of religion, by pleas that you would not admit in these other cases? Do you not find time for earthly things, that you do not find for spiritual? Do you not make exertions for worldly ends, that you do not make for heavenly? Do you not curb, and restrain, and deny yourselves, in the one case, and use no such discipline in the other? Well, of course you do this through some appreciation of the thing sought; because it interests you, is pleasant, or expedient, or profitable. You do not deliberately choose “folly,” you pursue it as the wise course, _i.e._, you treat the opposite as though it were unwise, not realising it to be wisdom, you put it aside as foolishness. Then, again, of restraints, and sanctions, and hopes. Would you not forbear to do in the presence of a fellow-being what you unhesitatingly do under the eye of GOD? Do you not fear a parent, a husband, a wife, a master, a friend, a customer, more than GOD? Does the thought of eternal punishment concern you as much as the prospect of chastisement at the hand of man? of failure in business? of serious illness? of bodily disfigurement? Do you act chiefly with regard to the praise of GOD, or the admiration of your fellow-beings? Do you _feast_ on the expectation of heaven, or on that of some worldly joy or honour? Do you like, above all things, the thought of dwelling for ever where