Sermons to the Natural Man | Page 3

is shown to
completely meet and satisfy all these legal demands which have been
so thoroughly discussed and exhibited, is the real virtue and power of
the Cross made manifest.
But if the Cross is merely held up as a decorative ornament, like that on
the breast of Belinda, "which Jews might kiss and infidels adore;" if it
be proclaimed as the beautiful symbol of the Divine indifference and
indulgence, and there be a studious avoiding of all judicial aspects and
relations; if the natural man is not searched by law and alarmed by
justice, but is only soothed and narcotized by the idea of an Epicurean
deity destitute of moral anger and inflicting no righteous
retribution,--then, there will be no conviction of sin. Whenever the
preaching of the law is positively objected to, and the preaching of the
gospel is proposed in its place, it will be found that the "gospel" means
that good-nature and that easy virtue which some mortals dare to
attribute to the Holy and Immaculate Godhead! He who really, and in
good faith, preaches the Cross, never opposes the preaching of the law.
Still another reason for the kind of religious discourse which we are
defending is found in the fact that multitudes are expecting a happy
issue of this life, upon ethical as distinguished from evangelical
grounds. They deny that they deserve damnation, or that they need
Christ's atonement. They say that they are living virtuous lives, and are
ready to adopt language similar to that of Mr. Mill spoken in another
connection: "If from this position of integrity and morality we are to be
sent to hell, to hell we will go." This tendency is strengthened by the
current light letters, in distinction from standard literature. A certain
class, through ephemeral essays, poems, and novels, has been plied
with the doctrine of a natural virtue and an innate goodness, until it has
become proud and self-reliant. The "manhood" of paganism is glorified,
and the "childhood" of the gospel is vilified. The graces of humility,
self-abasement before God, and especially of penitence for sin, are

distasteful and loathed. Persons of this order prefer to have their
religious teacher silent upon these themes, and urge them to courage,
honor, magnanimity, and all that class of qualities which imply
self-consciousness and self-reliance. To them apply the solemn words
of the Son of God to the Pharisees: "If ye were blind, ye should have no
sin: but now ye say, We _see_, therefore your sin remaineth."
It is, therefore, specially incumbent upon the Christian ministry, to
employ a searching and psychological style of preaching, and to apply
the tests of ethics and virtue so powerfully to men who are trusting to
ethics and virtue, as to bring them upon their knees. Since these men
are desiring, like the "foolish Galatiana," to be saved by the law, then
let the law be laid down to them, in all its breadth and reach, that they
may understand the real nature and consequences of the position they
have taken. "Tell me," says a preacher of this stamp,--"tell me, ye that
desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law,"--do ye not hear its
thundering,--"cursed is every one that continueth not in ALL things
that are written in the law, to do them!" Virtue must be absolutely
perfect and spotless, if a happy immortality is to be made to depend
upon virtue. If the human heart, in its self-deception and self-reliance,
turns away from the Cross and the righteousness of God, to morals and
the righteousness of works, then let the Christian thinker follow after it
like the avenger of blood. Let him set the heights and depths of ethical
perfection before the deluded mortal; let him point to the inaccessible
cliffs that tower high above, and bid him scale them if he can; let him
point to the fathomless abysses beneath, and tell him to descend and
bring up perfect virtue therefrom; let him employ the very instrument
which this virtuoso has chosen, until it becomes an instrument of
torture and self-despair. In this way, he is breaking down the
"manhood" that confronts and opposes, and is bringing in the
"childhood" that is docile, and recipient of the kingdom.
These Sermons run the hazard of being pronounced monotonous,
because of the pertinacity with which the attempt is made to force
self-reflection. But this criticism can easily be endured, provided the
attempt succeeds. Religious truth becomes almighty the instant it can
get within the soul; and it gets within the soul, the instant real thinking
begins. "As you value your peace of mind, stop all scrutiny into your
personal character," is the advice of what Milton denominates "the sty

of Epicurus." The discouraging religious condition of the present age is