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The Fundamentals not” is at the back of all actual sin; its root principle is the assertion of a will that is not subject to the will of God. THE CARNAL MIND Spiritual truths are spiritually discerned; but when the Apostle Paul declares that “the carnal mind,” that is, the un enlightened mind of the natural man, “is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God” (Rom. 8:7), he is stating what is a fact in the experience of all thoughtful men. It is not that men by nature prefer evil to good; that betokens a condition due to vicious practices. “Given up to a reprobate mind” is the apostle’s description of those who are thus de praved by the indulgence of “shameful passions.” The sub ject is a delicate and unsavory one; but all who have experi ence of criminals can testify that the practice of unnatural vices destroys all power of appreciating the natural virtues. As the first chapter of Romans tells us, the slaves of such vices sink to the degradations, not only of “doing such things,” but of “taking pleasure in them that do them” (Rom. 1 :24- 32). All power of recovery is gone—there is nothing in them to which appeal can be made.* But this is abnormal. Notwithstanding indulgence in “nat ural vice, there is in man a latent sense of self-respect which may be invoked. Even a great criminal is not insensible to such an appeal. For, although his powers of self-control may be almost paralyzed, he does not call evil good, but acknowl edges it to be evil. And thus to borrow the apostle’s words, he consents to the law that it is good.” But, if he does so, it is because he recognizes it to be the law of his own better na ture. He is thinking of what is due to himself. Speak to him o f what is due to God, and the latent enmity of the “car- nal mind 7 is at once aroused. In the case of one who has had *1 cannot refrain from saying that if I can intelligently "justify flie ways of God” in destroying the cities of the plain, and decreeing th e extermination of the Canaamtes, I owe it to Knowledge gained in police work in London, for unnatural vice seem s to be hereditary.
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