The Plymouth Pulpit. Sermons Preached in Plymouth Church, Brooklyn (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1870 Excerpt: ... out, of spiritual sentiments, that take hold of the invisible, the ineffable and the divine. Here is reason. Here is faith acting through the imagination. And these royalties of the soul are all mixed up. Where conscience ought to be, is pride. Where love ought to be is selfishness. Where there ought to be the sweet blossoms of the higher sentiments, there are the gnawing insects and coiling serpents of the passions. And the soul is all stirred up. Its sympathy and harmony are gone. And is it not ruined? It is not necessary that a man should be all bad to be ruined. No man is bad in everything. Thank God, all men are restrained in various ways, and every man has some virtues and excellences. There are few men who have not some truth, some love, and certain elements of faith. But how many men are there who have a harmonious inward being? A man's moral sentiments ought to be strongest and highest, his social affections ought to be intermediate, and his animal passions ought to be subordinate and entirely obedient. If they are so, he has a beautifully organized and harmonious being. But how few there are that come anywhere near these conditions of organization Man is depraved. He has lost that harmony which belongs to a perfect organization. And so he lives to struggle. And the struggle through which he is passing is the cause of human woe, and sorrow. It is that which has drenched this world in tears, and rolled it in blood, and darkened the heavens, and made the history of the past hideous, and the prospect of the future gloomy. 2. We see, based upon the doctrine of man's sinfulness in his unregenerate state, why it is that the divinity of Christ becomes so important in the development of a truly Christian life. It is said that there are many persons who d...