2. By the consideration that the claims of God on our supreme reverence, love, and obedience, which are habitually and univeisally disregarded by unrenewed men, are infinitely great. That is, they are so great that they cannot be imagined to be greater. These claims are not only ignored in times of excitement and passion, but habitually and constantly. Men live without God. They are, says the Apostle, Atheists. This alienation from God is so great and so universal, that the Scriptures say that men are the enemies of God ; that the carnal mind, i. e., that state of mind which belongs to all men in their natural state, is enmity against God. This is proved not only by neglect and disobedience, but also by direct rebellion against his authority, when in his providence he takes away our idols ; or. when his law, with its inexorable demands and its fearful penalty, is sent home upon the conscience, and God is seen to be a consuming fire.
3. A third proof of the dreadful evil of this hereditary cor- ruption is seen in the universal rejection of Christ by those whom He came to save. He is in himself the chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely ; uniting in his own per- son all the perfections of the Godhead, and all the excellences of humanity. His mission was one of love, of a love utterly in- comprehensible, unmerited, immutable, and infinite. Through love He not only humbled liimself to be born of a woman, and to be made under the law, but to live a life of poverty, sorrow, and j)er- secutlon ; to endure inconceivably great sufferings for our sakes, and finally to bear our sins in his own body on the tree. He has