Whether it be from the condition in which man is placed in this world, closely surrounded on all sides by what is visible and tangible, or because our understandings have been darkened in consequence of the fall, it is certain that we experience the greatest difficulty in forming any notion of things spiritual. The finite intellect sinks exhausted by the vain endeavour to picture to itself the infinite. Who can "by searching find out God"?
I. Now the natural consequence of this aversion and incapacity of our nature for spiritual ideas is a strong tendency to materialism in religion. And as the spirituality of the Divine nature is the truth most difficult for us to conceive, so it is the one most liable to be lost sight of, or corrupted. We are always prone to form gross and material conceptions of God, to think of Him as "altogether such an one as ourselves." The practical results of this principle are always the same; a low and carnal morality always follows, like a dark shadow, a low and carnal creed.
II. There is a class of errors resulting from this principle, against which we have all need to be on our guard I mean false views of the nature of God's law and of the principle upon which His sentence is awarded. The true answer to all such errors, and the only solution of the difficulty which has caused them, lies in the statement of the truth that the controversy between God and man is about spiritual things, and that our position respecting Him is to be decided by the aspect which our spirits may wear in His eyes, or, as our text expresses it, that "the Lord weigheth the spirits."
III. What is the sin of which a spirit can be guilty against God? Clearly, it cannot be any of these gross transgressions of the letter of the law, which are commonly called sins. To commit these it must be joined to a body. It must be a sin in that faculty which is exclusively spiritual; that is, in the will. The rebellion of the will, in any spirit, is strictly and properly sin; and the banishment from God's presence which is the necessary consequence is eternal death. The law of God denounces eternal death as the punishment for all sins, not because they are all alike in moral guilt, but because they are all alike indications of the same condition of the sinner one of enmity to God. The very lightest transgression proves, as clearly as the very greatest, the innate lawlessness of the perverted and therefore sinful will.
IV. It is true that you have to pass a spiritual ordeal, searching and terrible as the consuming fire of a sevenfold-heated furnace. But you may pass through it unscathed if in the midst of it the Son of man be your companion.
Bishop Magee, Sermons at St. Saviour's, Bath,p. 183.
References: Proverbs 16:2. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xv., No. 849, and My Sermon Notes: Genesis to Proverbs,p. 175.Proverbs 16:2-3; Proverbs 16:18; Proverbs 16:19. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iii., p. 82; W. Arnot, Laws from Heaven,2nd series, p. 59. Proverbs 16:3. J. Budgen, Parochial Sermons,vol. ii., p. 310. Proverbs 16:4. H. Thompson, Concionalia: Outlines for Parochial Use,1st series, vol. i., p. 493.Proverbs 16:5-18. New Manual of Sunday School Addresses,p. 10.