I am sensible, that many are offended, when mankind are compared to beasts and devils. And they might have some shadow of reason for being so, if we asserted in a physical sense, that they were really beasts and really devils. For then, as I once heard a very learned prelate, who was objecting against this comparison, observe, “a man being a beast would be incapable, and being a devil, would be under an impossibility of being saved.” But when we make use of such _shocking comparisons_, as he was pleased to term them, we would be understood only in a moral sense; and in so doing, we assert no more than some of the most holy men of GOD have said of themselves, and others, in the lively oracles many ages ago. Holy _David_, the man after GOD’s own heart, speaking of himself, says, “so foolish was I, and as a beast before thee.” And holy _Job_, speaking of man in general, says, that “he is born as a wild ass’s colt,” or take away the expletive, which as some think ought to be done, and then he positively asserts, that man is a wild ass’s colt. And what says our LORD, “Ye are of your father the devil;” and “the whole world is said to lie in him, the wicked one, who now rules in the children of disobedience,” that is, in all unrenewed souls. Our stupidity, proneness to fix our affections on the things of the earth, and our eagerness to make provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof, evidence us to be earthly and brutal; and our mental passions, anger, hatred, malice, envy, and such like, prove with equal strength, that we are also devilish. Both together conspire to evince, that in respect to his affections, as well as his understanding and will, man deservedly may be termed a piece of marred clay.
The present _blindness of natural conscience_ makes this appear in a yet more glaring light; in the soul of the first man _Adam_, conscience was no doubt the candle of the LORD, and enabled him rightly and instantaneously to discern between good and evil, right and wrong. And, blessed be GOD! some remains of this are yet left; but alas, how dimly does it burn, and how easily and quickly is it covered, or put out and extinguished. I need not send you to the heathen world, to learn the truth of this; you all know it by experience. Was there no other evidence, your own consciences are instead of a thousand witnesses, that man, as to his natural conscience, as well as understanding, will and affections, is much marred clay.
Nor does that great and boasted _Diana_, I mean unassisted _unenlightened reason_, less demonstrate the justness of such an assertion. Far be it from me to decry or exclaim against human reason. CHRIST himself is called the “LOGOS, the Reason;” and I believe it would not require much learning, or take up much time to prove, that so far and no farther than as we act agreeably to the laws of CHRIST JESUS, are we any way conformable to the laws of right reason. His service is therefore called “a reasonable service.” And however his servants and followers may now be looked upon as fools and madmen; yet there will come a time, when those who despise and set themselves to oppose divine revelation, will find, that what they now call reason, is only _reason depraved_, and as utterly incapable, of itself, to guide us into the way of peace, or shew the way of salvation, as the men of _Sodom_ were to find _Lot_’s door after they were struck with blindness by the angels, who came to lead him out of the city. The horrid and dreadful mistakes, which the most refined reasoners in the heathen world ran into, both as to the object, as well as manner of divine worship, have sufficiently demonstrated the weakness and depravity of human reason: nor do our modern boasters afford us any better proofs of the greatness of its strength, since the best improvement they generally make of it, is only to reason themselves into downright wilful infidelity, and thereby reason themselves out of eternal salvation. Need we now any further witness, that man, fallen man, is altogether a piece of marred clay?