Sermon 38
And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only continually. -- Gen 6:5
How widely different is this from the fair pictures of human
nature which men have drawn In all ages! The writings of
many of the ancients abound with gay descriptions of the dignity, of man; whom some of them paint as having all virtue and happiness in his composition, or, at least, entirely in his power, without being beholden to any other being; yea, as self-sufficient, able to live on his own stock, and little inferior to God Himself.
2. Nor have Heathens alone, men who are guided in their
researches by little more than the dim light of reason, but many
likewise of them that bear the name of Christ, and to whom are
entrusted the oracles of God, spoken as magnificently concerning
the nature of man, as if it were all innocence and perfection. Accounts of this kind have particularly abounded in the present century; and perhaps in no part of the world more than in our own country. Here not a few persons of strong understanding, as well as extensive learning, have employed their utmost abilities to show, what they termed, 'the fair side of human nature.' And it must be acknowledged, that, if their accounts of him be just, man is still but ‘a little lower than the angels'; or, as the words may be more literally rendered, "a little less than God."
3. Is it any wonder, that these accounts are very readily
received by the generality of man? For who is not easily persuaded
to think favourably of himself? Accordingly, writers
of this kind are most universally read, admired, applauded. And innumerable are the converts they have made, not only in the gay but the learned world. So that it is now quite ` unfashionable to talk otherwise, to say anything to the disparagement of human nature; which is generally allowed, notwithstanding a few infirmities, to be very innocent, and wise, and virtuous!
4, But, in the meantime, what must we do with our Bibles? —for they will never agree with this. These accounts, however pleasing to flesh and blood, are utterly irreconcilable with the spiritual. The Scripture avers, that 'by one man’s disobedience - all men were constituted sinners'; that 'in Adam all died,' spiritually died, lost the life and the image of God; that fallen, sinful Adam then 'begat a son in his own likeness’—nor was it possible he should beget him in any other; for ‘who an bring a clean thing out of an unclean?'—that consequently we, as well as other man, were by nature ‘dead in trespasses and sins,’ ‘without hope, without God in the world,` and, therefore, children of wrath'; that every man may say, ‘I was shapen in wickedness, and in sin did my mother conceive me’; that ‘there is no difference,’ in that ‘all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,` of that glorious image of God wherein man was originally created. And hence, when ‘the Lord looked down from heaven upon the children uf man, He saw they were all gone out of the way; they were altogether become abominable, There was none righteous, no, not one,’ none that truly sought after God: just agreeable this to what is declared by the Holy Ghost in the words above recited, ‘God saw,' when He looked down from heaven before, 'that the wickedness of man was great in the earth'; so great, that ‘every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.'
This is God`s account of man: from which I shall take occasion, first, to show what men were before the flood: secondly, to inquire, whether they are not the same now: and, thirdly, to add some inferences.