Christian Theology - Media Sabda Org

in which we were created. 2. We are ungodly; having lost our strength to
do good, we have also lost all power to worship God aright. The mind
which was made for God is no longer his residence. 3. We are sinners;
feeling we have lost our centre of rest, and our happiness, we go about
seeking rest, but find none. What we have lost in losing God we seek in
earthly things; and thus are continually missing the mark, and multiplying
transgressions against our Maker. 4. We are enemies; sin indulged
increases in strength; evil acts engender fixed and rooted habits; the mind,
everywhere poisoned with sin, increases in averseness from good; and
mere aversion produces enmity, and enmity acts of hostility, fell cruelty,
&c. So that the enemy of God hates his Maker and his service; is cruel to
his fellow creatures; "a foe to God was ne'er true friend to man;" and even
torments his own soul! Though every man brings into the world the seeds
of all these evils, yet it is only by growing up in him that they acquire
their perfection: Nemo repente fuit turpissimus, "no man becomes a
profligate at once;" he arrives at it by slow degrees; and the speed he
makes is proportioned to his circumstances, means of gratifying sinful
passions, evil education, bad company, &c., &c. These make a great
diversity in the moral states of men. All have the same seeds of evil:
Nemo sine vitiis nascitur, "all come defiled into the world;" but all have
not the same opportunities of cultivating these seeds. Besides, as God's
Spirit is continually convincing the world of sin, righteousness, and
judgment, and the ministers of God are seconding its influence with their
pious exhortations,—as the Bible is in almost every house, and is less or
more heard or read by almost every person,—these evil seeds are
receiving continual blasts and cheeks, so that, in many cases, they have
not a vigorous growth. These causes make the principal moral difference
that we find among men; though in evil propensities they are all radically
the same.
This completes their bad character; they are downright atheists, at least
practically such. They fear not God's judgments, although his eye is upon
them in their evil ways. There is not one article of what is charged against
the Jews and Gentiles here that may not be found justified by the histories
of both, in the most ample manner. And what was true of them in those