Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament

³¹ The “babes” then “in Christ” who have yet place in the Church, who are still natural and carnal, and cannot “perceive,” that is, understand and know what they have, have this Spirit. For how could they be babes in Christ except they were born anew of the Holy Spirit? Nor ought it to seem any wonder that one may have something, and yet not know what he has. For to say nothing of the Divinity of the Almighty, and the Unity of the Unchangeable Trinity, who can easily perceive by knowledge what the soul is; and yet who is there that has not a soul? Finally, that we may know most certainly that “babes in Christ,” who do not “perceive the things of the Spirit of God,” have notwithstanding the Spirit of God; let us look how the Apostle Paul, when a little while after he is rebuking them, says, “Do you not know that you are the temples of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” This surely he would in no wise say to those who are separated from the Church, who are described as “having not the Spirit.”