h

days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow and continueth not. And dost thou open thine eyes upon such an one, and bringest me into judgment with thee? Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one. And Bildad also says, "How can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? Behold even to the moon and it shineth not, yea, the stars are not, pure in his sight: how much less man that is a worm; and the son of man which is a worm?" "What is man," says Eliphaz, "that he should be clean? and he which is boru of a woman that he should be righteous? Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints, yea the heavens are not clean in his sight. How much more abominable and filthy is man which drinketh iniquity like water.”

In many other parts of the Old Testament the prevailing depravity of mankind is painted in the strongest colours; thus in the Fourteenth Psalm, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God: they are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were h Job xiv. 1. &c. Job xxv. 4, 5, 6. i * Job xv. 14, 15.

D

one."

any that did understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy there is none that doeth good, no not And in the Book of Proverbs, the wise man enquires, "Who can say I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?" Again in the Book called Ecclesiastes he declares, "Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright," that is, originally, "but they have sought out many inventions." He also says, "There is no "There is no man that sinneth

not.""

1

The Prophet Isaiah makes this confession, "All we like sheep have gone astray : we have turned every one to his own way.' And again, "Behold thou art wroth, for we have sinned,---we are all as an unclean thing.” Jeremiah also saith, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? 9

The passages in proof of this doctrine in the New Testament are still more numerous, but it will be sufficient to notice only a few of them. In the Fifteenth Chapter of the Gospel of St. Matthew, our Lord represents the heart of man as the fruitful source of all those evil things which defile the world; "Out of the heart

1

Prov. xx. 9.

• Isai. liii. 6.

m Eccles vii. 29. 1 Kings, viii. 46.
P Isai. Ixiv. 5, 6, 9 Jer. xvii. 9.

S

proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. ---These are the things which come forth from the heart, and they defile the man." Now since these things are evil, the spring from which they issue must be evil too, as "a fountain doth not send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter." In another place our Lord says, "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy spirit to them that ask him?" He expostulated with the Jews in these severe terms, "O generation of vipers, how can ye being evil speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasures of the heart, bringeth forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things." That Christ did not consider any man as having a good heart by nature, is manifest from his declaration to Nicodemas, that "except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God:" saying moreover, "that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." "

n

Luke xi. 13. Matt. xii. 34, 35.
"John ii. 3, &c.

St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans clearly proves that all mankind, both Jews and Gentiles, were under sin, alienated from God and under the influence of a carnal mind which is enmity against God. In the Third Chapter he fully describes the corrupt condition of man, and speaks of him as being utterly depraved in all his faculties. According to his representation, man's understanding and will are not destroyed, but perverted; the understanding is become blind as to the things of God, and no longer beholds the glory and perfections of the divine nature; the will chooses not God as its chief portion, nor delights in the knowledge of his ways, and in the works which he requires. In the Fifth Chapter he refers to the cause of this hereditary corruption, this depravity which descends from parents to their children, saying that "by one man's disobedience," that is, by Adam's, "many were made," or became, "sinners." In the Seventh Chapter he confesses, "I know that in me, (that is in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not. I find a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me

into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" He then gives thanks to God through Jesus Christ, as having provided in his Gospel the only means of deliverance.

It is unnecessary to bring forward any more statements from the writings of the Apostles in confirmation of this important doctrine, for they all agree with the other sacred writers, being all under the guidance of the same Spirit.

It appears also from the general history of the world that mankind have always been prone to evil. What else indeed is the history of the world, for the most part, than a developement of the selfishness and corrupt affections of the human heart, displayed in secret assassinations, and horrible massacres, and bloody wars? The most excellent and salutary laws have often been found insufficient to restrain the raging power of iniquity; and wickedness, like an overwhelming deluge, has sometimes raged without any check, and has left nothing behind it but wretchedness and misery. In all ages of the world, and in most countries, the number of the ungodly and depraved has far exceeded the number of the righteous.