Twenty-First Argument. Twenty-Second Argument.
venom through his lips, darting their baleful influence through his eyes, or, at least, stirring and hissing in his disturbed breast? If any one never felt them he may be pronounced more than mortal: but if he has, his own experience furnishes him with a sensible demonstration that he is a fallen spirit, infected with the poison that rages in the devil himself. TWENTY-FIRST ARGUMENT.
Bad roots, which vigorously shoot in the spring, will naturally produce their dangerous fruit in the summer. We may therefore go one step farther and ask, Where is the man thirty years old, whose depravity has not broke out in the greatest variety of sinful acts? Among persons of that age, who never were esteemed worse than their neighbours, shall we find a forehead that never betrayed daring insolence? A cheek that never indicated concealed guilt by an involuntary blush, or unnatural paleness? A neck that never was stretched out in pride and vain confidence? An eye that never cast a disdainful, malignant, or wanton look? An ear that an evil curiosity never opened to frothy, loose, or defaming discourse! A tongue that never was tainted with unedifying, false, indecent, or uncharitable language? A palate that never became the seat of luxurious indulgence? A throat that never was the channel of excess? A stomach that never felt the oppressive load of abused mercies? Hands that never plucked or touched the forbidden fruit of pleasing sin? Feet that never once moved in the broad downward road of iniquity? And a bosom that never heaved under the dreadful workings of some exorbitant passion? Where, in short, is there a face, ever so disagreeable, that never was the object of self-worship in a glass? And where a body, however deformed, that never was set up as a favourite idol by the fallen spirit that inhabits it?
If iniquity thus works by all the powers and breaks out in all the parts of the human body, we may conclude by woful experience not only that the plague of sin is begun, but that it rages with universal fury; and to use again the evangelical prophet’s words, that “from the sole of the foot even to the head” of the natural man, “there is no” spiritual “soundness in him; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores.”
TWENTY-SECOND ARGUMENT.
What can be said of each individual may, with the same propriety, be affirmed of all the different nations of the earth. Let an impartial judge take four unconverted men or children from the four parts of the world: let him examine their actions and trace them back to their spring; and if he makes some allowance for the accidental difference of their climate, constitution, taste, and education, he will soon find their dispositions as equally “earthly, sensual,” and “devilish” as if they had all been cast in the same mould. Yes, as oak trees are oaks all the world over, though by particular circumstances some grow taller and harder, and some more knotted and crooked than others; so all unregenerate men resemble one another; for all are proud, self willed, impenitent, and “lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.” Do not sloth, gluttony, drunkenness, and uncleanness; cheating, defrauding, stealing, and oppression; lying, perjury, treachery, and cruelty; stalk openly or lurk secretly every where? Are not all these vices predominant among black and white people, among savage and civilized nations, among Turks and Jews, heathens and Christians? Whether they live on the banks of the Ganges or the Thames, the Mississippi or the Seine? Whether they starve in the snows of Lapland, or burn in the sands of Guinea?
O sin, thou fatal pest, thou soul-destroying plague, would to God thy fixed abode were only in the Levant! and that, like the external pestilence, thou wert chiefly confined to the Turkish dominions! But, alas! the gross immorality and profaneness, the various crimes and villanies, the desperate impiety and wild blasphemy under which every kingdom and city have groaned, and still continue to do night and day, over the face of the whole earth, are black spots so similar and symptoms so equally terrible, that we are obliged to confess they must have a common internal principle; which can be no other than a bad habit of soul; a fallen corrupted nature. Yes, the universality and equality of the effects show to an unprejudiced mind that the cause is universal, and equally interwoven with that nature which is common to all nations, and remains the same in all countries and ages. FIVE OBJECTIONS.
I. IF the self-righteous moralist answers, that “sin and wickedness are not so universal as this argument supposes:” I reply, that the more we are acquainted with ourselves, with the history of the dead and secret transactions of the living; the more we are convinced that, if all are not guilty of outward enormities, all are deeply tainted with spiritual wickedness.
Even those excellent persons, who, like Jeremiah, have been in part “sanctified before they came forth out of the womb,” can from sad experience confess with him, that “the heart is deceitful above all things;” and say with David, “My heart showeth me the wickedness of the ungodly.”
Thousands indeed boast of the goodness of their hearts; they flatter themselves that to be righteous, it is enough to avoid the gross acts of intemperance and injustice: with the Pharisees they shut their eyes against the destructive nature of the love of the world, the thirst of praise, the fear of men, the love of ease, sloth, sensuality, indevotion, self righteousness, discontent, impatience, selfishness, carnal security, unbelief, hardness of heart, and a thousand other spiritual evils. Full of self ignorance, like Peter, they imagine there is no combustible matter of wickedness in their breasts, because they are not actually fired by the spark of a suitable temptation. And when they hear what their corrupt nature may one day prompt them to, they cry out with Hazael, “Am I a dog, that I should do this thing?” Nevertheless, by and by they do it, if not outwardly as he did, at least in their vain thoughts by day, or wicked, lewd imaginations by night. So true is the wise man’s saying, “He that trusteth his own heart is a fool.” II. “If historians give us frequent accounts of the notorious wickedness of mankind,” say the advocates for human excellence, “it is because private virtue is not the subject of history; and to judge of the moral rectitude of the world by the corruption of courts, is as absurd as to estimate the health of a people from an infirmary.”
And is private vice any more the subject of history than private virtue? If it were, what folios would contain the fulsome and black accounts of all the lies and scandal, the secret grudges and open quarrels, the filthy talking and malicious jesting, the unkind, or unjust behaviour, the gross or refined intemperance which deluge both town and country?
Suppose the annals of any one numerous family were published, how many volumes might be filled with the details of the undue fondness or forbidden coldness; the variance, animosity, and strife which break out between husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters, masters and domestics, upper and lower servants, &c! What ridiculous, impertinent scenes would be open to public view! What fretfulness, dissimulation, envy, jealousy, tale bearing, deceit! What concealed suspicions, aggravated charges, false accusations, underhand dealings, imaginary provocations, glaring partiality, insolent behaviour, loud passions!
Was even the best moralist to write the memoirs of his own heart, and give the public a minute account of all his impertinent thoughts and wild imaginations, how many paragraphs would make him blush! How many pages, by presenting the astonished reader with a blank or a blot, would demonstrate the truth of St. Paul’s assertion, “They are all gone out of the way, there is none that doeth good,” but spoils his best works by a mixture of essential evil! Far then from findingf37 those vastly superior numbers, who in safe obscurity are virtuously and innocently employed, we may every where see the truth of the confession which our objectors make in the church, “There is no health in us.”
I say every where; for is cabal confined to the court any more than lewdness to the army and profaneness to the navy? Does not the same spirit of self interest and intrigue, which influences the choice of ministers of state, preside also at the election of members of parliament, mayors of corporate towns, burgesses of boroughs, and petty officers in a country parish? We may, then, (notwithstanding the unfortunate comparison on which this objection is founded,) conclude, without absurdity, that as all men, sooner or later, by pain, sickness, and death, evidence their natural weakness and mortality, whether they live in infirmaries, palaces, or cottages; so all men, sooner or later, by their thoughts, words, and actions, demonstrate their natural corruptions, whether they crowd the jail yard, the drawing room, or the obscure green of a country village.
III. The same objectors will probably reply: “If corruption is universal, it cannot be said to be equal: for numbers lead a very harmless, and not a few a very useful life.”
To this I answer, that all have naturally “a heart of unbelief,” forgetful of, and “departing from the living God.” In this respect “there is no difference; all the world is guilty before God.” But thanks be to the Father of mercies, all do not remain so. Many cherish the seed of supernatural grace, which we have from the Redeemer; they bow to his sceptre, become “new creatures, depart from iniquity, and are zealous of good works.” And the gracious power that renewed them is at work upon thousands more; hourly restraining them from much evil, and daily exciting them to many useful actions.
With respect to the harmlessness, for which some unrenewed persons are remarkable, it cannot spring from a better nature than that of their fellow mortals; for the nature of all men, like that of all wolves, is the same throughout the whole species. It must then be owing to the restraining grace of God, or to a happier constitution, a stricter education, a deeper sense of decency, or a greater regard for their character; perhaps only to the fear of consequences and to the want of natural boldness, or of a suitable temptation and fair opportunity to sin. Nor are there few who pass for temperate, merely because the diabolical pride lurking in the heart scorns to stoop so low as to indulge their beastly appetites: while others have the undeserved reputation of good-natured, because they find more delight in quietly gratifying their sheepish indolence or brutal desires, than in yielding to the uneasy, boisterous tempers, which they have in common with devils.
As to the virtues by which some of the unconverted distinguish themselves from others, they either spring from God’s preventing grace, or are only vices in disguise. The love of praise, the desire of honour, and the thirst of gold, excite thousands to laudable designs and useful actions. Wicked men, set on work by these powerful springs, do lying wonders in the moral world, as the magicians did in the land of Egypt.
They counterfeit Divine grace, and for a time seem even to outdo believers themselves. Hence it is that we frequently see the indolent industrious; the coward brave; the covetous charitable; the Pharisee religious; the Magdalene modest; and the dastardly slave of his lusts a bold assertor of public liberty. But the Searcher of hearts is not deceived by fair appearances: he judges of their actions according to the motives whence they spring and the ends for which they are performed. “You are,” says he to all these seemingly virtuous sinners, “like whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outwardly; but within are full of dead men’s bones and of all uncleanness.”
Were I to describe the saints of the world by a comparison, I would say that some of them resemble persons who artfully conceal their ulcers under the most agreeable appearance of cleanliness and health. Many that admire their faces and looks, little suspect what a putrid, virulent fluid runs out of their secret sores. Others of them whose hypocrisy is not of so gross a kind, are like persons infected with a mortal disease, who, though the mass of their blood is tainted, and some noble part attacked, still walk about, do business, and look as fresh coloured as if they were the picture of health. Ye sons of Esculapius, who, without feeling their pulse and carefully weighing every symptom, pronounce them very well upon their look alone, do ye not blunder in physic, just as my objectors do in divinity? IV. But still they urge, “that it is wrong to father our sinfulness upon a pretended natural depravity, when it may be entirely owing to the force of ill example, the influence of a bad education, or the strong ferments of youthful blood.”
All these, I reply, like rich soil and rank manure, cause original corruption to shoot the higher, but do not form its pernicious seeds. That these seeds lurk within the heart, before they are forced up by the heat of temptation, appears indubitable, if we consider,
(1.) That all children, on particular occasions, manifest some early inclination to those sins which the feebleness of their bodily organs, and the want of proper ferments in their blood, do not permit them to commit.
(2.) That infants betray envy, ill humour, impatience, selfishness, and obstinacy, even before they can take particular notice of ill examples, and understand bad counsels: and,
(3.) That though uncleanliness, fornication, and adultery, on account of the shame and danger attending them, are committed with so much secrecy, that the examples of them are seldom, if ever, given in public; they are, nevertheless, some of the crimes which are most universally or eagerly committed.
Beside, if we were not more inclined to vice than virtue, good examples would be as common, and have as much force as bad ones. Therefore, the generality of bad examples cannot arise but from the general sinfulness of man; and to account for this general sinfulness by the generality of bad examples, is begging the question, and not proving the point. Add to this, that as weeds, since the curse, grow even in fields sown with the best wheat; so vice, since the fall, grows in the midst of the best examples, and the most excellent education: witness the barbarous crimes committed by pious Jacob’s children, and penitent Adam’s eldest son.