he natural man and the spiritual. What is
there translated "natural" is derived from precisely the same word as
that which is here translated "soul." So that we may read just as
correctly: "The man under the dominion of the soul 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." And again, the apostle, in
the same Epistle to the Corinthians, writes: "That is not first which
is spiritual, but that which is natural:" that is, the endowments of
the soul precede the endowments of the spirit. You have the same truth
in other places. The powers that belong to the Spirit were not the
first developed; but the powers which belong to the soul, that is the
powers of nature. Again in the same chapter, reference is made to the
natural and spiritual body. "There is a natural body and there is a
spiritual body." Literally, there is a body governed by the soul--that
is, powers natural: and there is a body governed by the Spirit--that
is, higher nature.
Let then this be borne in mind, that what the apostle calls "soul" is
the same as that which he calls, in another place, the "natural man."
These powers are divisible into two branches--the intellectual powers
and the moral sense. The intellectual powers man has by nature. Man
need not be regenerated in order to possess the power of reasoning, or
in order to invent. The intellectual powers belong to what the apostle
calls the "soul." The moral sense distinguishes between right and
wrong. The apostle tells us, in the Epistle to the Romans, that the
heathen--manifestly natural men--had the "work of the law written in
their hearts; their conscience also bearing witness."
The third division of which the apostle speaks, he calls the "spirit;"
and by the spirit he means that life in man which, in his natural
state, is in such an embryo condition, that it can scarcely be said to
exist at all--that which is called out into power and vitality by
regeneration--the perfection of the powers of human nature. And you
will observe, that it is not merely the instinctive life, nor the
intellectual life, nor the moral life, but it is principally our
nobler affections--that existence, that state of being, which we call
love. That is the department of human nature which the apostle calls
the spirit; and accordingly, when the Spir
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