Christian Theology - Media Sabda Org

primitive times is true of them still. With very little variation, these are
the evils in which the vast mass of mankind delight and live. Look
especially at men in a state of warfare; look at the nations of Europe, who
enjoy most of the light of God; see what has taken place among them
from 1792 to 1814; see what destruction of millions, and what misery of
hundreds of millions, have been the consequence of Satanic excitement
in fallen, ferocious passions! O SIN, what hast thou done! How many
myriads of souls hast thou hurried unprepared into the eternal world!
Who, among men or angels, can estimate the greatness of this calamity!
this butchery of souls! What widows, what orphans are left to deplore
their sacrificed husbands and parents, and their own consequent
wretchedness! And whence sprang all this? From that, whence come all
wars and fightings—the evil desires of men; the lust of dominion; the
insatiable thirst for money; and the desire to be sole and independent.
This is the sin that ruined our first parents, expelled them from paradise,
and which has descended to all their posterity; and proves fully,
incontestably proves that we are their legitimate offspring, the fallen
progeny of fallen parents, children in whose ways are destruction and
misery, in whose heart there is no faith, and before whose eyes there is
nothing of the fear of God.
What an awful character does God give of the inhabitants of the
antediluvian world! 1. They were fleshly, wholly sensual, the desires of
the mind overwhelmed and lost in the desires of the flesh; their souls no
longer discerning their high destiny, but ever minding earthly things, so
that they were sensualized, brutalized, and become flesh; incarnated so
as not to retain God in their knowledge, and they lived seeking their
portion in this life. 2. They were in a state of wickedness. All was corrupt
within, and all unrighteous without; neither the science nor practice of
religion existed. Piety was gone, and every form of sound words had
disappeared. 3. This wickedness was great, "was multiplied;" it was
continually increasing, and multiplying increase by increase, so that the
whole earth was corrupt before God, and was filled with violence;
profligacy among the lower, and cruelty and oppression among the higher
classes being only predominant. 4. All "the imaginations of their thoughts