SERMON XXIII.
FLESH AND SPIRIT.

WHITSUNDAY.

S. JOHN iii. 6.

"That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."

THE great work of God the Holy Ghost, which He came down to do as on this day, is our new birth and our new life. We were naturally lost and dead in sin: but He descended, in order to join us to Jesus Christ our Lord, and so to make us partakers of a new, a heavenly and Eternal Being. Our minds are naturally therefore turned at this time to the sayings of our Divine Master concerning our new birth and our new life, and concerning that good Spirit, Who is the Almighty worker of so great a change in men. And as, after the accomplishment of any great undertaking, people look back with a special kind of interest to its first rude and tender beginnings, to the time when it was first thought and talked of; so Christians in all times, since first the kingdom of heaven was set up on the day of Pentecost, have ever thought very much of the obscurer and more private hints and sayings of our Lord, when He first began to give notice of that kingdom. Their minds have turned back in earnest consideration to that solemn discourse which our Lord held by night with Nicodemus, when they two alone discoursed of the way, in which He was to save us. Nicodemus did not then understand Him; but he treasured up all His words, and bye and bye he came to understand Him. At the time, it was too strange and hard a saying for him, that a man must be born again of water and the Spirit, or ever he can enter into the kingdom of God. But when our Lord had died, and was risen again, and had gone up into heaven, and when, as on this good Day, He sent down His Holy Spirit to make men partakers of a new life through and in Him, Jesus Christ: and when Nicodemus saw that this unspeakable gift was bestowed upon believers not without water; for so the Apostles told them in Christ's Name,"Repent and be baptized every one of you: and ye shall receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost: "then he understood what at first had been too hard for him; then he remembered the remarkable words which our Lord had spoken to him by night, and no doubt gave special thanks to Him Who was so gloriously accomplishing those words in sight of the whole world. And when he saw, what a new life that converted and regenerate people presently began to lead, how they walked with God all day long, how they "continued stedfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayer: "how they were all of one accord and of one mind, and what fervent charity they practised among themselves, as if what they had was only lent them for the help of their brethren who needed it: I say, when Nicodemus beheld all this in lives of the first believers, he might well remember and understand the next saying of our Saviour, ''That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." He might say to himself, "Now I see and know what those words meant; and how truly they prophesied of the difference between the natural and spiritual man."

For as children are partakers of the same nature as their parents, and are commonly more or less like them in their bodily shape and features, so Christian persons, children of God, are partakers through Christ of a heavenly and divine nature, and ought to shew their high parentage by their actual resemblance to Him Who so begat them. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh;" i. e. Adam's posterity, all of them, children as they are of a frail and sinful parent, inherit from him frailty and sin. You may know them by their likeness to their fallen and corrupt father. And no less surely on the other hand, "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Those who by the power of the Holy Ghost have been made parts of the family and household of our only Lord and Saviour, children as they now are of Him that is perfect, inherit from Him holiness and righteousness: wisdom to know what is good, a good will to choose it, and strength to bring that good will in very deed to good effect. All this they have from their heavenly Father, Who has adopted them to be His sons, because of their union with Him, Who is His true and only Son, Jesus Christ. As the natural man, man left to himself, has all bad tokens from fallen Adam; so the spiritual man, man regenerate and born again in Jesus Christ, has or may have all good tokens from Him, our risen and ascended Lord and Saviour. Let us endeavour to set the two side by side, and see how the one differs from the other, in respect of all the chiefest things, on which our good and evil depend, both in time and in eternity.

And first, as concerning faith: He that is born of the flesh only is mere flesh in this respect, that he minds, quite or almost entirely, the things of the flesh, bodily and earthly things, the things of this present world. He is all taken up with meat and drink, company and diversion, work and play, gain and pleasure and praise. If he is well off, he says to his soul, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink and be merry:" "to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant." If he is poor, he says, "I have my bread to get: that is care enough for me: why should I trouble myself about things in another world, so far off, and out of sight? why may I not divert and indulge myself in what little leisure I have?" Thus, every way, the children of this world, they which are born of the flesh, live by sight only and not by faith: as Adam and Eve, when they ate of the deadly fruit, thought only of what they saw, and would not at all turn their minds to what God had told them.

But that which is born of the Spirit is spirit, and tends upward to the place from whence it came. That is to say, those souls, which by God's special grace are made partakers of the new and divine birth in Holy Baptism, have that in them (if they quench it not by their sins) which will hinder them from being quite satisfied with any thing that they find here on earth. Our Saviour Himself said, "I am come to send fire on the earth:" the sacred fire of His good Spirit, which should spread over all nations, kindling one heart after another, and causing all to mount upward, as flames might from an altar, with earnest desire to be where He is, Who is their Fountain, from Whom they have all their light and heat. This holy fire laid hold of us; it kindled upon us, as it were, at our Baptism. Is it now alive within us or no? The question is a very serious one, a mournful one, alas! for too many of us; yet let us not shrink, let us not be afraid to ask it of our own consciences, now on the great Day, in which we celebrate the first lighting-up of that fire on earth. Are our thoughts, and desires, and wishes, turned towards heavenly things, regularly, as a matter of course? Do we think within ourselves very often, when we set about anything, "Will it hurt or help me in the next world?" Do we try, when we can, to consider seriously, that the Eye of the invisible God is looking down upon us? Do we look backward to the Cross of Christ, and forward to the Day of Judgement? If not, it is a sad confession, but surely we dare not deny it,--though we were once born of the Spirit, we are so far in the flesh again: we are driving away the heavenly Guest, after He has come to dwell within us: we are quenching the fire which God Himself has kindled in our hearts.

Try yourselves again, my brethren, by your prayers. The natural man, he who is either yet unregenerate, or who by his sins has cast himself back into a heathenish and unregenerate mind; such an one has no love for his prayers; no constant love, I mean; no such mind towards them, as that he will say them regularly and try to think of them, though it be ever so much trouble and inconvenience to him. He readily puts up with excuses for being careless about prayer, saying to himself, "God knows my meaning and my wants, without my trying to express them to Him; He knows my sins, without my particularly confessing them; He knows, whom I mean to pray for, without my pausing to remember them. He can hear me, as well sitting as on my knees; any where else as in Church; half asleep or broad awake." And so persons go on, till they have excused themselves in all sorts of hurry and irreverence: the fact being, that all the while they have no real love for their prayers, no real faith in God as in Him Who heareth prayer. But he that is born of the Spirit, and is not in the way to quench that Spirit, to him prayer is a great and real work. He knows and considers that no one thing which can happen to him in the whole day is of so much consequence to him as his prayers, well or ill performed: that no company that he goes into can be worthy of such careful preparation as the Presence of the great King of heaven and earth, with Whom, would he but lay it to heart, he is alone as often as he prays. This is the mind concerning prayer, which the good Spirit puts into the hearts of those Christians who are willing to obey His godly motions: and their prayers do them good indeed: for they are not so much their own, as the prayers of the Holy Ghost within them. I do not say that they always pray comfortably, that they feel as if God were answering them in mercy: on the other hand, I suppose that they are for the most part troubled and ashamed to think, how very ill they pray: how their thoughts wander, how soon they grow weary, how hard they find it to set God always before them. But after all, praying as they try to do in earnest, and with a full purpose of heart to live accordingly, their devotions are devotions indeed, and they are counted before God as "continuing instant in prayer."

Another difference between the partakers of the spiritual and only of the carnal birth, is this: that the one use the creatures of God only for their own present maintenance or enjoyment, the other lift up their minds from them continually to the great things out of sight. It is this which our Saviour noticed when He said, "Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you." Thus He taught us in His Sermon on the Mount, to consider the flowers of the field. All persons, even the most carnal and earthly, consider the flowers, so far as to admire their beauty when they see them. "But you Christians," says Jesus Christ, "ought to learn something heavenly from them: how to trust in God and His fatherly Providence." So in regard of such a common matter as the weather, and the changes in it: the world's family consider it only as it affects them, their health and wealth: but God's family learn always to see His Hand in it, and to think of Him ordering it all for His own wise purposes, secret to us.

But of all created things, those which most bring out the difference between the carnal and spiritual mind are perhaps the holy Sacraments. The water of Holy Baptism, the Bread and Wine of Holy Communion, are nothing to an irreligious man: but to a true believer they are in a sense every thing: and so, in proportion, it is with respect to all other things which God vouchsafes to use in His solemn service. Unbelief scorns them, as Naaman did the waters of Jordan; but faith uses them as so many steps prepared by our Almighty Friend to bring us nearer and nearer to heaven.

We are employed, as you know, all the week long, each in his own line of life; some in building, some in trade, some in service, the most part in tilling the ground; some in other ways which we cannot now reckon up. Now a person may look at these several works merely as works, merely as ways of procuring employment, of spending time, of getting their bread or of maintaining the state of the world. Or each one may look upon his own worldly employment as being, what we know it is, God's special way of dealing with him especially: God's especial trial of each one, whether or no he will remember Christ, pray to Him at all times, and for Christ's sake do always to others, as he would have others do to him. To a person who really tries to look on things in this way, whatever happens in his own work and trade is one token more of God's aweful and gracious Presence; one call more to remember the great unspeakable things which have been done for us; one remembrancer more of eternity.

How differently again do men behave in regard of the pain and sickness, from which so many of us are at all times suffering! How differently do we ourselves feel tempted to behave at different times! That within us, which is born of the flesh, and is flesh, is led away sometimes into murmuring and complaining, sometimes into anxious inordinate care about the future; sometimes it merely strives, as well as it can, after some ease and refreshment; but that which is born of the Spirit, and is spirit, makes it all an occasion of high Christian virtues. The more the body suffers, the more steadily will he that is spiritual submit himself to God, deny himself, provide as he may for the comfort of his afflicted brethren: and so he will turn the present bitterness into a blessing which will last for ever.

Thus anyone who will just look around him, may perceive something of the opposite fruits of the spirit of the world and of the Spirit which is of God. But to know their difference perfectly, we must wait and see their end. We must wait until Christ returns to Judgement, and then we shall not only see but feel the deep the infinite importance of our doings here. God grant us so to live, so to believe, to pray and to use all His good creatures, that the good Spirit Who descended even now to prepare us for that day, may be our Comforter when it comes!

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