Sermons to the Natural Man | Page 4

due to the great lack, not merely in the lower but the higher classes, of
calm, clear self-intelligence. Men do not know themselves. The
Delphic oracle was never less obeyed than now, in this vortex of
mechanical arts and luxury. For this reason, it is desirable that the
religious teacher dwell consecutively upon topics that are connected
with that which is within man,--his settled motives of action, and all
those spontaneous on-goings of his soul of which he takes no notice,
unless he is persuaded or impelled to do so. Some of the old painters
produced powerful effects by one solitary color. The subject of moral
evil contemplated in the heart of the individual man,--not described to
him from the outside, but wrought out of his own being into
incandescent letters, by the fierce chemistry of anxious perhaps
agonizing reflection,--sin, the one awful fact in the history of man, if
caused to pervade discourse will always impart to it a hue which,
though it be monochromatic, arrests and holds the eye like the lurid
color of an approaching storm-cloud.
With this statement respecting the aim and purport of these Sermons,
and deeply conscious of their imperfections, especially for spiritual
purposes, I send them out into the world, with the prayer that God the
Spirit will deign to employ them as the means of awakening some souls
from the lethargy of sin.
Union Theological Seminary, New York, _February 17_, 1871.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
I. THE FUTURE STATE A SELF-CONSCIOUS STATE
II. THE FUTURE STATE A SELF-CONSCIOUS STATE (continued)
III. GOD'S EXHAUSTIVE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN
IV. GOD'S EXHAUSTIVE KNOWLEDGE OF MAN (continued)
V. ALL MANKIND GUILTY; OR, EVERY MAN KNOWS MORE
THAN HE PRACTISES
VI. SIN IN THE HEART THE SOURCE OF ERROR IN THE HEAD
VII. THE NECESSITY OF DIVINE INFLUENCES
VIII. THE NECESSITY OF DIVINE INFLUENCES (continued)
IX. THE IMPOTENCE OF THE LAW
X. SELF-SCRUTINY IN GOD'S PRESENCE
XI. SIN IS SPIRITUAL SLAVERY

XII. THE ORIGINAL AND THE ACTUAL RELATION OF MAN TO
LAW
XIII. THE SIN OF OMISSION
XIV. THE SINFULNESS OF ORIGINAL SIN
XV. THE APPROBATION OF GOODNESS IS NOT THE LOVE OF
IT
XVI. THE USE OF FEAR IN RELIGION
XVII. THE PRESENT LIFE AS BELATED TO THE FUTURE
XVIII. THE EXERCISE OF MERCY OPTIONAL WITH GOD
XIX. CHRISTIANITY REQUIRES THE TEMPER OF CHILDHOOD
XX. FAITH THE SOLE SAVING ACT
SERMONS.
THE FUTURE STATE A SELF-CONSCIOUS STATE.
1 Cor. xiii. 12.--"Now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also
I am known."
The apostle Paul made this remark with reference to the blessedness of
the Christian in eternity. Such assertions are frequent in the Scriptures.
This same apostle, whose soul was so constantly dilated with the
expectation of the beatific vision, assures the Corinthians, in another
passage in this epistle, that "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither
have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared
for them that love Him." The beloved disciple John, also, though he
seems to have lived in the spiritual world while he was upon the earth,
and though the glories of eternity were made to pass before him in the
visions of Patmos, is compelled to say of the sons of God, "It doth not
yet appear what we shall be." And certainly the common Christian, as
he looks forward with a mixture of hope and anxiety to his final state in
eternity, will confess that he knows but "in part," and that a very small
part, concerning it. He endures as seeing that which is invisible, and
cherishes the hope that through Christ's redemption his eternity will be
a condition of peace and purity, and that he shall know even as also he
is known.
But it is not the Christian alone who is to enter eternity, and to whom
the exchange of worlds will bring a luminous apprehension of many
things that have hitherto been seen only through a glass darkly. Every
human creature may say, when he thinks of the alteration that will
come over his views of religious subjects upon entering another life,

"Now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. I
am now in the midst of the vapors and smoke of this dim spot which
men call earth, but then shall I stand in the dazzling light of the face of
God, and labor under no doubt or delusion respecting my own character
or that of my Eternal Judge."
A moment's reflection will convince any one, that the article and fact of
death must of itself make a vast accession to the amount of a man's
knowledge, because death introduces him into an entirely new state of
existence. Foreign travel adds much to our stock of