THE WANTS OF MAN AND THIER SUPPLY 1
The Oberlin Evangelist.
July 19, 1854.
THE WANTS OF MAN AND THEIR SUPPLY
By PRESIDENT FINNEY.
Reported by The Editor.
"He began to be in want."--Luke 15:14.
"Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled."--Matthew 5:6.
The parable of the prodigal son is intended to illustrate the case of the sinner, coming to himself, opening his eyes to his true condition, and feeling himself destitute, empty, and wretched.
Man, as he stands revealed to himself in consciousness, is a wonderful being. By the earliest teachings of consciousness he finds himself to be a duality, consisting of body and soul. Farther revelations made in consciousness show him to be in some respects a tri-unity. For example, he has three classes of mental attributes: sensibility, intellect, and will. Still further, and yet more important in its bearings, he finds himself a tri-unity, inasmuch as he has three sides to his nature; one related to the material universe around him; another to all objects of thought and knowledge; and still another, related to God and to duty. He has first a body, and through this, peculiar relations to the world he lives in. He has appetites for food, and numerous wants that terminate on the physical universe. These wants crave their appropriate supplies, and cannot be satisfied with anything else. In the order of time, these are earliest developed. They are few in number, that is, they may be; and those which are real are so. This class alone cease at death. Yet while they exist, they must be supplied.
Another fact deserving notice in reference to this class of wants is that man immediately assumes the existence of the objects to which his physical wants are correlated. The infant assumes this by instinct. There is no need that you should prove to man that these objects exist. He assumes this, and has only to inquire where they may be found. By a necessity of his nature he assumes their existence, and sets himself forthwith to search for them.
July 19, 1854.
THE WANTS OF MAN AND THEIR SUPPLY
By PRESIDENT FINNEY.
Reported by The Editor.
"He began to be in want."--Luke 15:14.
"Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled."--Matthew 5:6.
The parable of the prodigal son is intended to illustrate the case of the sinner, coming to himself, opening his eyes to his true condition, and feeling himself destitute, empty, and wretched.
Man, as he stands revealed to himself in consciousness, is a wonderful being. By the earliest teachings of consciousness he finds himself to be a duality, consisting of body and soul. Farther revelations made in consciousness show him to be in some respects a tri-unity. For example, he has three classes of mental attributes: sensibility, intellect, and will. Still further, and yet more important in its bearings, he finds himself a tri-unity, inasmuch as he has three sides to his nature; one related to the material universe around him; another to all objects of thought and knowledge; and still another, related to God and to duty. He has first a body, and through this, peculiar relations to the world he lives in. He has appetites for food, and numerous wants that terminate on the physical universe. These wants crave their appropriate supplies, and cannot be satisfied with anything else. In the order of time, these are earliest developed. They are few in number, that is, they may be; and those which are real are so. This class alone cease at death. Yet while they exist, they must be supplied.
Another fact deserving notice in reference to this class of wants is that man immediately assumes the existence of the objects to which his physical wants are correlated. The infant assumes this by instinct. There is no need that you should prove to man that these objects exist. He assumes this, and has only to inquire where they may be found. By a necessity of his nature he assumes their existence, and sets himself forthwith to search for them.
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