The Bad Mind makes a Bad Element
I. This subject puts in a sad light of evidence what may well enough be called the weak point of Christianity viz., the fact that the souls to be saved will be always seeing themselves in it, and not seeing it as it is; turning it thus into an element as dry as their dryness, as bitter as their bitterness, as distasteful and oppressive as their own weak thraldom under sin. The grand difficulty in the way of a general conversion is, that the bad minds of the world so immediately convert the gospel into their own figure.
II. We here perceive what is the true value of condition. I do not blame, of course, a true attention to condition; it is even a duty. But the notion that we are really to make our state bad or good by the surroundings of life, and not by what is within us, not only violates the Scripture counsel, but quite as palpably the dictates of good sense; it is, in fact, the great folly of man. For a bad mind is of necessity its own bad state, and that state will be just as bad as the man is to himself, neither more nor less, come what may. If the bad state is in you, then everything is bad; the internal disorder makes all things an element of disorder even the sun in the sky will be your enemy.
III. We discover in this subject what opinion to hold of the meaning and dignity of the state sometimes called misanthropy. This very foolish state of mind has one legitimate cure, and one that is true reason itself conviction of sin. Misanthropy and world-sickness are the bad state felt; conviction of sin is the bad state understood. That is a conceited misery; this the shame of a self-discovering weakness, guilt, and spiritual disorder.
IV. It is clear, on this subject, that we have little reason for troubling ourselves on questions that relate to a place of future misery. The bad mind has the fire and brimstone in itself.
V. The salvation of man is possible only on the ground of a great and radical change in his inmost temper and spirit. What is wanted for the felicity of man is clearly not a change of place or condition, but a change in that which makes both place and condition what they are.
H. Bushnell, Christ and His Salvation,p., 278.