text in conformity to their favourite and preestablished opinions. With the view of offering some remedy for this evil, I have made choice of a text, in which the inspired writer asserts, in very unequivocal terms, the inherent and extensive depravity of human nature. The heart of the sons of men is full of evil. From the numerous passages of Scripture, which bear decisive testimony to this truth, perhaps it would be difficult to adduce a text in which the doctrine is exhibited in a more concise and comprehensive view. In discoursing on these words, I purpose to employ them for obviating some misconceptions which prevail on the subjects, I. Of man's Natural Corruption. II. Of his Renewal to Holiness. I. One prevailing misconception on the subject of Human Corruption respects the seat of the disorder. The wickedness of the lives of men is readily admitted. Their ambition, cruelty, injustice, animosity, revenge, their evil tempers, their immoral practices, are too notorious to be denied. But while the effects are acknowledged, the cause from which they spring is overlooked. These violations of the law of God are represented as resulting from weakness, from inadvertency, from surprise, from the violence of temptation, from the force of habit, from the influence of example. They are described as irregularities, greatly indeed to be lamented, but accidental and extraneous, not necessarily connected with any inward principle of evil. What is the daily language of numbers? "Our lives, it is true, “are not exempt from blame. We are guilty "of many indiscretions. But our heart is "good." In opposition to this language, the text asserts that the origin of all the evil is within. The heart of the sons of men is full of evil. Not the streams alone are filthy and defiled; but the fountain is polluted. The disease is not merely external; not the extremities only are affected; but the blood is tainted, the very vitals are unsound. The Corruption is a radical Corruption. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit. Where so much practical wickedness abounds, the heart cannot be good. See if the whole tenor of the word of God accords not with the assertion in the text. Does not the Almighty declare, The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked?* Is not the perverse and ungodly conduct of mankind repeatedly ascribed to their walking after the imaginations of their evil heart? From *Gen. viii. 21. Jer. xvii. 9. + Jer. vii. 24. whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence; even of your lusts, which war in your members?* The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity; an unruly evil,-full of deadly poison. But it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaketh†. To what source does Christ, who knew what was in man, refer every evil of which man is guilty? To the evil principle which operates within. Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies‡. Another ground of misconception on the subject of Human Corruption respects the degree and extent of the disorder. Though "the heart, it is admitted, be bad, yet it is 66 66 only partially bad. If some propensity to "evil be found within us; yet many contrary "dispositions exist to counteract it. Look "at the most barbarous nations. Even among these, generosity, gratitude, fidelity, and "other similar good qualities frequently a"bound. Look at the young, and at such as are not deeply sunk in vice. They will uniformly applaud an instance of integrity, "of disinterestedness, or of any other virtue, placed before them in practice or in nar * James, iv. 1. ↑ Matt. xii. 34. "rative; and will condemn a contrary con"duct. Do not these examples prove that "there is some tendency in man to what is "good: that goodness maintains even a pre ponderating influence in the heart?" But what says the text? The heart of the sons of men is full of evil. The Corruption is not only radical, but total. In the figurative language of the prophet, the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot, even unto the head, there is no soundness*. The propensity to evil, far from being counteracted by contrary dispositions, naturally experiences no check. The examples adduced prove nothing to the purpose for which they are advanced. Generosity, gratitude, fidelity, and the exercise of many other pleasing qualities between man and man; the spontaneous applause of virtue and morality; the decided condemnation of immorality and vice, may all exist, without any tendency in man to what is truly good. They are not necessarily connected with any inward principle of goodness, in the Scriptural meaning of the word. For what is goodness, as opposed to evil in the text? It is godliness: It is holiness. It is a spiritual conformity to the law, to the will, to the image of the *Isaiah, i. 5, 6. Almighty. Goodness, thus considered, far from maintaining a preponderating influence in the heart, is utterly excluded. Evil alone exists and reigns within. Such is the universal language of the word of truth. I know, says the apostle, that in me (that is in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing. It is emphatically said, that the carnal mind is enmity against God. In what light does the Almighty, before whom all things are naked and opened, view the human heart? He sees that every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart is only evil continually* Words cannot more strongly and copiously depict the total depravity of man. Observe the force and fulness of the expressions. The thoughts of man's heart, the imaginations of the thoughts of his heart, are evil: evil without exception, for it is every imagination which is evil: evil without any intermixture of good, for it is only evil: evil without any interruption, for it is evil continually or Another ground of misconception still remains to be considered. "If such," it is contended," be in some instances the state of "the heart, yet it is not always, nor even generally such. It is not every man, nay "perhaps, in modern times, at least in } * Rom, vii. 18. viii. 7. Gen. vi. 5. |