poem. The difficulty is not merely in his will but in his whole mward state. The thing is foolishness to him. So the scrip- tures do not say of the natural man merely that he will not discern the things of the Spirit, because the difficulty in his case is not in the will alone, but in his whole inward state. He cannot know them. And the reason is,
because they are spiritually discerned. That is, because they are discerned through the Spirit. Therefore those who have not the Spirit cannot discern them. If the effisct of sin on the human soul is to make it bhnd to the truth, excellence and beauty of divine things ; if, as the apostle asserts, the natural, or unrenewed, man is in such a state that the things of the Spirit are fooUshness to him, absurd, insipid and distaste- ful, then it follows that he can discern them only through the Spirit. His inward state must be changed by the influence of the Spirit before he can apprehend the truth and excellence of the gospel. There must be congeniality between the per- ceiver and the thing perceived. Only the pure in heart can see God. If our gospel be hid, says |he apostle, it is hid to them that are lost. The only hope of the unrenewed, there- fore, is in doing as the blind did in the days of Christ. They must go to him for spiritual discernment ; and those who go to him he will in no wise cast out.
15. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
To judge here means to discern, to appreciate, and thus pass judgment upon. As the original word is the same in this as in the preceding verse, there is no good reason why the translation should vary. The spiritual man discerns the things which are spiritually discerned, though he himself is not discerned or properly appreciated by any natural man. The all things here spoken of are limited by the context to the things of the Spirit. It is not of the officers of the church only, nor of the church collectively, but of each and every man in whom the Holy Spirit dwells, that the apostle affirms this abiUty to discern the truth, excellence and beauty of divine things. It is as impossible that one man should dis- cern for another what is true and good, as that one man should see for another. "We must see for ourselves or not at all. The right of private judgment in matters of religion, is inseparable from the mdwelling of the Spirit. Those who can