Having endeavoured to ascertain the precise import of the words, we proceed to,
II. Establish the truth contained in them —
In proof of what our text asserts, we appeal,
1. To Scripture —
[Consult the declarations of Almighty God. In the Old Testament he has testified, that every human being, without exception, is corrupt, not in act only, but " in every imagi- nation and thought of his heartf." And this testimony which the heart-searching God himself bore before the flood, as a reason for destroying the earth, he renewed after the flood, as a reason why he would deluge the earth no more ; seeing that, if he should proceed to destroy it as soon as it should become universally corrupt, he would have to repeat his judgments continually, there being nothing but iniquity in every child of raanl In the New Testament we have a similar declara- tion from our blessed Lord. He, assigning a reason why no
c Rom. v. 12. i 1 Cor. xv. 22. e Rom. v. 18, 19.
1 Gen. vi. 5. s Gen. viii. 21.
unregenerate man can possibly behold the kingdom of God, says, " That which is born of the flesh, is flesh h," and therefore incapable of enjoying a spiritual kingdom.
With these declarations of God agree the confessions of his most eminent saints. To his original corruption David traced the sin which he had committed in the matter of Uriah ; not intending thereby to extenuate, but rather to aggravate, its guilt : " Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin hath my mother conceived me1." St. Paul also, speaking of the con- flicts which he yet had to maintain against the corruption that remained within him, says, " In me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing*:" " I see a 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 members1." Thus we see both these eminent saints confessing that their nature, as derived from their first parents, was altogether corrupt.
To these we may add the promises ivhich God has made to his fallen creatures : " A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you : and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh m." What can be the meaning of this ? What need they a new heart, if the old heart be not corrupt ? or why should he pro- mise to take away the stony heart, if the heart be not by nature hard and obdurate ?
Not to multiply passages, which yet might be multiplied to a great extent, we will further appeal,]
2. To experience —
[Let any one make his observations on what passes all around him, or trace the records of his own heart, and say, whether children, as born into the world, be not partakers both of Adams corruption, and Adams punishment.
Is not evexy child full of evil tempers and dispositions? There is, it is true, more evil in some than in others : but who ever saw " a child in whose heart folly and iniquity were not bound up?" If a child be even tolerably free from fretfulness, and impatience, and selfishness, and falsehood, is it not admired as a prodigy ? And when children grow up to the exercise of reason, do they improve that reason in seeking after God? Do they not invariably shew that their dispositions are altogether earthly, and that by nature they affect only the things of time and sense ? Nor is this the case with children of one age or one nation only, but of every age, and every nation, yea, of the most godly parents too, as well as of the ungodly.
h John iii. 6. » Ps. li. 5. k Rom. vii. 18.
1 Rom. vii. 23. m Ezek. xxxvi. 26.