Sermons (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Sermons This is the earliest utterance which expresses the relation Of indifference or hostility between man and man which was one of the results of the disobedience Of our first parents. As St. Paul says tersely, By one man's disobedience many were made sinners. Most assuredly they were sinners against God, sinners against their fellow-men. Adam could not transmit that robe of righteousness which had been at the first super added to his natural endowments, and which was forfeited by his sin. And this man, left to the purely animal instinct of uncontrolled and unaided nature, became estranged, not only from God, but also from his brother man. As his higher intelligence was obscured, so his affections were contracted. He shrank back into himself. He lived. He worked, he thought for himself; and self-preservation and self-assertion absorbed all the energies which were due, first, to the honour of his Maker, and then to the care Of and consideration for his brethren. Had Adam never fallen, we may certainly presume that the human family might have multiplied indefinitely, while all its members would still have been united by the bonds of an unchanged affection. But the withdrawal of supernatural grace at the Fall meant the impetuous insur gence Of selfish passion, and the blood of Abel and the question of Cain marked the new relations Of enmity or of indifference between man and man which were its first results. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.