001 JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN CHURCHES. obvious, and common state of all mankind, till they are changed and renewed, andbecome religious and holy. Scripture is full ofsuch descriptions of mankind; but if we had no scripture to support this charge, our daily experience and observation gives a deplorable evidence to the truth of the greatest part of it. It is granted indeed, that some, by reason of their particu- lar complexionhave a few more natural virtues, and moral de- cencies, than others ; and some by the advantage of education, and especially where divine revelation is known, are restrained thereby from those degrees of excess in some vices, which would otherwise prevail over them : But in the main, it is certain, that we are born of sinful parents, and partake of the irregular ap- petites and evil passions that are in them, and that none can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ; Jób xiv. 4. that we are con- ceived in sin, and shapen in iniquity ; Ps. li. 7. that what is born of the flesh isflesh, or sinful nature, and prone to evil; John iii. 6. that every imagination of the thought of the heart of man, that is, by nature as now corrupted, is only evil, and that conti- nually, and even from his childhood, or youth. The nature of moan was pure and holy in its original, as it came from the hand of God ; but as it now comes into the world, it bath the princi- ples and seeds of all iniquity within it : And these, which I have described, are the general characters of all mankind in greater or less degrees till they are changed, converted, and born again, dr born of the Holy Spirit ; John iii. ß, 7. Instead of enlarg- ing on the other proofs of this proposition, I shall refer only to Rom. iii. 9-19. Where all mankind, as things now stand, both Jews and Gentiles, without the recovering grace of God, are represented by the apostle in a state of sin and death ; all are sinners, there is none that doeth good, no not one: The way of peace have they not known, every mouth is stopped, and the Whole world guilty before God'. 11. From the beginning of the world throughout all ages, therehave been some persons of this fallen race of man, who have been recovered by divine grace, converted to God, trans- latedout of darkness into light, raised, from a death in sin to a lifeof holiness, and are become children of the light, and heirs of life : Whose soul and spirit have been awakened to repen- tance and serious religion ; whose hearts are circumcised to love God, who do really renounce and cut off, subdue and mortify the lusts of the flesh, and of themind, and resist the temptations of the evil one ; who are born of God, are adopted by him, be- come his people, his children, and have his image renewed in them ; who are his saints, his holy ones, and are partakers of >x That this character and sentence h absolutely universal and without excep- tion, see further proved at the end of this discourse, just before thé recapiu tuletien.
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