Church discipline

The difference betwixt the natural and spiritual knowledge of divine truth is not only real but great. It is as the difference betwixt darkness and light, or betwixt night and day. Every natural man, however educated, is ‘alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in him.’ He may be more learned in the letter of the Scriptures, more thoroughly furnished with all literary erudition, more scientific in his dogmatic orthodoxy, more eloquent in illustration and argument, than many of those who are ‘taught of God;’ but ‘I say unto you, He that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.’ It is not a difference in degree, but in kind. In that which is common to both, the natural man may have a higher degree of learning than the spiritual; but in that which is peculiar to such as are taught of God, there is no room for comparison; that kind of knowledge, although it, too, admits of degrees as it is possessed by the people of God, belongs to none else, to none but such as are taught by his Spirit. And this difference is great, insomuch that the people of God, whose eyes are opened to understand the Scriptures, are said to have ‘a new understanding given to them.’ ‘The Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true;’ not that another faculty is created, but that the old one is thoroughly renewed. And this change is wrought on the understanding itself. It is not enough that the affections be disengaged from sin, so as to remove obstructions to the right operation of a mind supposed to be in itself ‘pure, noble, and untainted;’ no, the understanding has shared in the ruins of the fall, and is itself perverted; and as such it must be renewed by him who created it, otherwise it will for ever distort the light, however clearly it may shine from the page of Scripture.

As the understanding is the leading faculty of the soul, and plainly designed to influence, control, and govern every other by its light, so darkness here is the prolific cause of much moral and spiritual evil. The understanding, therefore, must be enlightened, if the heart is to be renewed. Spiritual darkness is spoken of in Scripture, not as a mere passive or negative thing, but as a positive power;‘the power of darkness’ is expressly mentioned, and the apostate angels are represented as kept in ‘chains of darkness,’ as if it imposed fetters on the soul, and truly none can break those fetters, but he who caused the iron chain to fall from off the hands and feet of his imprisoned disciple.