story-book in that spirit; how much more, when he takes up the
Bible! How reverently he ought to examine every word in the New
Testament--this very text, for instance. We ought to be sure that
St. Paul, just because he was an inspired apostle, used the very
best possible words to express what he meant on so important a
matter; and what ARE the best words? The clearest and the simplest
words are the best words; else how is the Bible to be the poor man's
book? How, unless the wayfaring man, though simple, shall not err
therein? Therefore we may be sure the words in Scripture are
certain to be used in their simplest, most natural, most everyday
meaning, such as the simplest man can understand. And, therefore,
we may be sure, that these two words, "flesh" and "spirit," in my
text, are used in their very simplest, straightforward sense; and
that St. Paul meant by them what working-men mean by them in the
affairs of daily life. No doubt St. Peter says that there are many
things in St. Paul's writings difficult to be understood, which
those who are unlearned and unstable wrest to their own destruction;
and, most true it is, so they do daily. But what does "wresting" a
thing mean? It means twisting it, bending it, turning it out of its
original straightforward, natural meaning, into some new crooked
meaning of their own. This is the way we are all of us too apt, I
am afraid, to come to St. Paul's Epistles. We find him difficult
because we won't take him at his word, because we tear a text out of
its right place in the chapter--the place where St. Paul put it, and
make it stand by itself, instead of letting the rest of the chapter
explain its meaning. And then, again, people use the words in the
text as unfairly and unreasonably as they use the text itself, they
won't let the words have their common-sense English meaning--they
must stick a new meaning on them of their own. 'Oh,' they say,
'that text must not be taken literally, that word has a spiritual