them as "dead in sin;" not diseased merely, but dead; not dead to the claims and obligations of holiness, but dead in sin. And hence, in enforcing this truth, the Scriptures also so familiarly represent it as necessary that they should be "born again," and "pass from death unto life," before the first pulse of spiritual life, or true holiness, throbs within their bosoms. Such men sin as constantly as they act; the "ploughing of the wicked is sin," because it comes from so sinful a heart. They sin as constantly as they think; nor can the amount of their iniquity be estimated without a due estimate of the unnumbered thoughts and emotions of wickedness that pass with such amazing rapidity through their minds. There is not a single claim of God or of his truth, of his purposes or his government, of his law or his gospel, of what he is, has done, or will perform, toward which the state of their hearts is not just the opposite of what he requires. Such is the extent and universality of their wickedness.

Still another fact to which this first definition of human wickedness bears witness is, THAT WHAT

IS THERE AFFIRMED OF ONE AGE OF THE WORLD IS TRUE OF MAN EVERYWHERE AND IN ALL AGES.

The objection that this description of human wickedness is applicable only to a very corrupt age, and a very degenerate race, is more plausible than solid. Where is the evidence that

human nature is essentially changed from the days of Noah to the present hour? The language of the sacred historian is certainly strong and comprehensive. It is the wickedness of man of which he speaks; they are the imaginations of the thoughts of man's heart, wherever he is found, until he is renewed by the grace of God. When you look at the character of the antediluvian world, and compare it with the character of subsequent ages, under the same moral culture, do you not perceive that it is the true index of fallen humanity all over the world? You inspect the conduct of such men as Nimrod, Pharaoh, Jeroboam, Manasseh, and Ahab; and though you see human nature in some of its

worst

forms, you only see what is in the heart of man. It is the eagle allured by the scent of prey; and "where the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together." You look into the pages of history, and read the achievements of ambition, the plots of treachery, the deeds of wrong and violence, of lust and blood; and what do you survey, if not the character of man? You observe the human character in the great marts of business; you advert to places and scenes where wicked men are congregated in large masses; you traverse the streets of London, or Paris, or Lisbon, or Stockholm, or Constantinople, where the habits are formed under influ

ences not the most favorable to moral virtue; and what do we observe if not the character of man? If you ask the merchant and the shipowner what views they have formed of human nature; it might call up the blush of shame upon their face to give an honest answer. If you inquire of the judge on the bench, or the barrister at the bar, and who have more or better opportunities of scrutinizing the characters of men, they will tell you that there is very little sterling virtue in the world. The melancholy fact is, that those who know the most of mankind, in all countries, in all climates, and under all circumstances, know the most of human wickedness, and have the most humiliating impressions of human depravity. Nor can the universal fact be accounted for, that the old are so much more suspicious than the young, but that the more men themselves know of men, the more are they convinced that they are not trustworthy. If it be still said, that this is unfair and disingenuous reasoning, we demand again, where is the unfairness? If you reply, it is not true that all men are thus wicked; we reply, we do not affirm that they are so; and only affirm that such examples indicate what is in man, and that left to himself, he is no better than this. We do not, as it is slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say, assert that the character of the race is to be decided by its prisons; but

this we say, that the hearts of the best of men are, by nature, no better than the hearts of the worst of men. If the conduct of one wicked man is not so bad as the conduct of another, or if in any of its forms it differs from that of others; it is not because there is naturally any radical difference in their hearts, but because their character is formed under different exterior influences. All have not the same capacity for wickedness; nor the same strength of appetite and passions; nor the same opportunities of sinning; nor the same temptations and inducements. Man is substantially the same being everywhere; under the same training and motives, his heart will act itself out much in the same way. The stream of corruption without never rises higher than the fountain of corruption within. The reason why some men are good and some are bad, is that the difference is made by the grace of God. The reason why some wicked men are more wicked than others, and the reason why the same men are more wicked at some times than at others, is that their minds are not so vigorous at one time as at another, and they are impelled by stronger considerations. Their wickedness is always as great as the state of their minds and their outward condition will allow, because "the imagination of the thoughts of their heart is evil, only evil continually."

With this view of human wickedness, what must

be our reflections? What everlasting unworthiness

of all good, and what befitting us as men!

everlasting desert of evil are What an aggregate of wickedness is treasured up against the man whose iniquity is unpardoned! If the reader can number the sands on the shore, or weigh the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance, then can he estimate his own ill-desert. How deep the wickedness in the heart of man; how deep the abyss of misery into which he deserves to fall! "Infinite upon infinite" scarcely fathoms these depths. All the plagues that are written in God's book do not adequately measure the desperate wickedness of the human heart.

Why is it, then, that so many cry, peace! peace! but that the heart of man is "deceitful above all things." Men are strangely blind to their own character. How true it is, that "he that trusteth to his own heart is a fool!" Memory is treacherous; but the heart is more treacherous. The imagination is full of lying vanities; but the heart is a greater liar even than the imagination. It is made up of deception, because it is made up of wickedness. It deceives others and it deceives itself. It practises its deceptions with marvellous and dire success, overreaching and outrunning its own original intentions of wickedness, breaking its promises and vows, and hurrying men down the vortex of their own passions when they