Original Sin

The heart of man, says God by the prophet, is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked: who can know it? -- In me, said the apostle, that is, in my flesh, abstracted from supernatural grace, dwelleth no good thing.--And, says a greater than both, From within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man (Mark vii). Is it possible that any who calls himself a Christian can, after considering the above declaration of Christ, dare to term the human mind a sheet of white paper? No - it is naturally a sheet of paper blotted and blurred throughout. So blotted and defiled all over, that nothing but the inestimable blood of God, and the invincible Spirit of grace, can make it clean and white.

Neither the temptations of Satan by which we are exercised, nor the bad examples of others which we are so prone to imitate, are the causes of this spiritual and moral leprosy. They are but the occasions of stirring up and of calling forth the latent corruptions within. If (as David speaks) our inward parts were not very wickedness,, if we were not shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin, if enmity to God and holiness was not moulded into our very frame and texture; temptation and bad example would bid fair to excite out abhorrence, instead of engaging our compliance, conciliating our imitation, and operating with such general success. The truth is, we all have an inherent bias to bad, which readily falls in with the instigations that present themselves from without. Similis similent sibi quaerit. Inward and exterior evil catch at each other by a sort of sympathy, resulting from a sameness of affection, nature and relationship. It is the degenerate tinder in the heart which takes fire from the sparks of temptation. Hold a match to snow, and no inflammation will ensue. But apply the match to gunpowder, and the whole train is in a blaze.

How must such a heart appear if exposed to the intuitive view of an observing angel! And, above all, how black must it appear in the eyes of immense and uncreated purity, of the God who is glorious in holiness, and compared with whom the very heavens are not clean! Judge of the infinite malignity of sin by the price which was paid to redeem us from it, and by the power which is exerted in converting us from the dominion of it. For the former, no less than the incarnation and death of God's own Soil could avail. For the latter, no less agency than that of God's own Spirit can suffice.