The Spurgeon Series 1855 & 1856. Charles H. Spurgeon
may bind him with the green withes of education, you may do what you will with him, since you cannot change his heart, that carnal mind shall still be at enmity against God; and notwithstanding intellect, talent, and all you may give to boot, it shall be of the same sinful complexion as every other child, if not as apparently evil; for, “the carnal mind is enmity against God.”
14. And if this applies to children, equally does it include every class of men. There are some men that are born into this world master spirits, who walk about it as giants, wrapped in mantles of light and glory. I refer to the poets, men who stand aloft like Colossi, mightier than we, seeming to be descended from celestial spheres. There are others of acute intellect, who, searching into mysteries of science, discover things that have been hidden from the creation of the world; men of keen research, and mighty erudition; and yet of each of these — poet, philosopher, metaphysician and great discoverer — it shall be said, “The carnal mind is enmity against God.” You may train him up, you may make his intellect almost angelic, you may strengthen his soul until he shall take what are riddles to us, and unravel them with his fingers in a moment; you may make him so mighty, that he can grasp the iron secrets of the eternal hills and grind them to atoms in his fist; you may give him an eye so keen, that he can penetrate the stolid rocks and mountains; you may add a soul so potent that he may slay the giant Sphinx, that had for ages troubled the mightiest men of learning; yet when you have done all, his mind shall be a depraved one, and his carnal heart shall still be in opposition to God. Yes, more, you shall bring him to the house of prayer; you shall make him sit constantly under the clearest preaching of the word, where he shall hear the doctrines of grace in all their purity, attended by a holy unction; but if that holy unction does not rest upon him, all shall be vain: he shall still come most regularly, but like the pious door of the chapel, that turns in and out, he shall still be the same; having an outside superficial religion, and his carnal mind shall still be at enmity against God. Now, this is not my assertion, it is the declaration of God’s word, and you must leave it if you do not believe it; but quarrel not with me, it is my Master’s message; and it is true of every one of you, — men, women, and children, and myself too, — that if we had not been regenerated and converted, if we have not experienced a change of heart, our carnal mind is still at enmity against God.
15. Again, notice the universality of this at all times. The carnal mind is at all times enmity against God. “Oh,” say some, “it may be true that we are at times opposed to God, but surely we are not always so.” “There are moments,” one says, “when I feel rebellious, at times my passions lead me astray; but surely there are other favourable seasons when I really am friendly to God, and offer true devotion. I have (continues the objector,) stood upon the mountain top, until my whole soul has kindled with the scene below, and my lips have uttered the song of praise, —
These are your glorious works, parent of good,
Almighty, shine this universal frame,
Thus wondrous fair: yourself how wondrous then!”
16. Yes, but note what is true one day is not false another; “the carnal mind is enmity against God” at all times. The wolf may sleep, but it is a wolf still. The snake with its azure hues, may slumber amid the flowers, and the child may stroke its slimy back, but it is a serpent still; it does not change its nature, though it is dormant. The sea is the house of storms, even when it is glassy as a lake; the thunder is still the mighty rolling thunder, when it is so much aloft that we hear it not. And the heart, when we perceive not its ebullitions, when it belches not forth its lava, and sends not forth the hot stones of its corruption, is still the same dread volcano. At all times, at all hours, at every moment, (I speak this as God speaks it,) if you are carnal, you are each one of you enmity against God.
17. Another thought concerning the universality of this statement. The whole of the mind is enmity against God. The text says, “The carnal mind is enmity against God”; that is, the entire man, every part of him — every power, every passion. It is a question often asked, “What part of man was injured by the fall?” Some think that the fall was only felt by the affections, and that the intellect was unimpaired; this they argue from the wisdom of man, and the mighty discoveries he has made, such as the law of gravitation, the steam engine and the sciences. Now, I consider these things as being a very mean display of wisdom, compared with what is to come in a hundred years, and very small compared with what might have been, if man’s intellect had continued in its pristine condition. I believe that fall crushed man entirely; albeit, when it rolled like an avalanche upon the mighty temple of human nature some shafts were still left undestroyed, and amidst the ruins you find here and there, a flute, a pedestal, a cornice, a column, not quite broken, yet the entire structure fell, and its most glorious relics are fallen ones, levelled in the dust. The whole of man is defaced. Look at our memory; is it not true that the memory is fallen? I can remember evil things far better than those which savour of piety. I hear a ribald song, that music of hell shall jar in my ear when grey hairs shall be upon my head. I hear a note of holy praise: alas! it is forgotten! For memory grasps with an iron hand ill things, but the good she holds with feeble fingers. She allows the glorious timbers from the forest of Lebanon to swim down the stream of oblivion, but she stops all the filth that floats from the foul city of Sodom. She will retain evil, she will lose good. Memory is fallen. So are the affections. We love everything earthly better than we ought; we soon fix our heart upon a creature, but very seldom upon the Creator; and when the heart is given to Jesus it is prone to wander. Look at the imagination too. Oh! how can the imagination revel, when the body is in an ill condition? Only give man something that shall almost intoxicate him; drug him with opium; and how will his imagination dance with joy! Like a bird uncaged, how will it mount with more than eagles’ wings! He sees things he had not dreamed of even in the shades of night. Why did not his imagination work when his body was in a normal state — when it was healthy? Simply because it is depraved; and until he had entered a foul element — until the body had begun to quiver with a kind of intoxication — the fancy would not hold its carnival. We have some splendid specimens of what men could write, when they have been under the accursed influence of ardent spirits. It is because the mind is so depraved that it loves something which puts the body into an abnormal condition; and here we have a proof that the imagination itself has gone astray. So with the judgment — I might prove how ill it decides. So might I accuse the conscience, and tell you how blind it is, and how it winks at the greatest follies. I might review all our powers, and write upon the brow of each one, “Traitor against heaven! Traitor against God!” The whole “carnal mind is enmity against God.”
18. Now, my hearers, “the Bible alone is the religion of Protestants”: but whenever I find a certain book much held in reverence by our episcopalian brethren, entirely on my side, I always feel the greatest delight in quoting from it. Do you know I am one of the best Churchmen in the world, the very best, if you will judge me by the Articles, and the very worst if you measure me in any other way. Measure me by the Articles of the Church of England, and I will not stand second to any man under heaven’s blue sky in preaching the gospel contained in them; for if there is an excellent epitome of the Gospel, it is to be found in the Articles of the Church of England. Let me show you that you have not been hearing strange doctrine. Here is the 9th Article, upon Original or Birth Sin: “Original Sin stands not in the following of Adam; (as the Pelagians do vainly talk;) but it is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; by which man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusts always contrary to the spirit; and, therefore, in every person born into this world, it deserves God’s wrath and damnation. And this infection of nature does remain, yes, in those who are regenerated; by which the lust of the flesh, {c} which some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some the affection, some the desire, of the flesh, is not subject to the Law of God. And although there is no condemnation for those who believe and are baptized, yet the Apostle does confess, that concupiscence and lust has of itself the nature of sin.” I want nothing more. Will any one who believes in the Prayer Book dissent from the doctrine that “the carnal mind is enmity against God?”
19. III. I have said that I would endeavour, in the third place, to show the great enormity