Page images
PDF
EPUB

and the consequence has been, that the generality of Christians have been the most wicked, lewd, bloody, and treacherous of all mankind.”

Thus, a view of the several successive periods of the past duration of the world, from the beginning to this day, shews, that wickedness has ever been exceeding prevalent, and has had vastly the superiority in the world. And Dr. Taylor himself in effect owns that it has been so ever since Adam first turned into the way of transgression, p. 168. " It is certain (says he) the moral circumstances of mankind, since the time Adam first turned into the way of transgression, have been very different from a state of innocence. So far as we can judge from history, or what we know at present, the greatest part of mankind have been, and still are very corrupt, though not equally so in every age and place." And lower in the same page, he speaks of Adam's posterity, as having sunk themselves into the most lamentable degrees of ignorance, superstition, idolatry, injustice, debauchery, &c.

If

These things clearly determine the point, concerning the tendency of man's nature to wickedness, if we may be allowed to proceed according to such rules and methods of reasoning, as are universally made use of, and never denied, or doubted to be good and sure, in experimental philosophy ;* or may reason from experience and facts, in that manner which common sense leads all mankind to in other cases. experience and trial will evince any thing at all concerning the natural disposition of the hearts of mankind, one would think the experience of so many ages, as have elapsed since the beginning of the world, and the trial as it were made by hundreds of different nations together, for so long a time, should be sufficient to convince all, that wickedness is agreeable to the nature of mankind in its present state.

Dr. Turnbull, though so great an enemy to the doctrine of the Depraviity of Nature, yet greatly insists upon it, that the experimental method of reasoning ought to be gone into in moral matters, and things pertaining to the human nature, and should chiefly be relied upon, in moral, as well as natural philosophy. See Introd. to Mor. Phil.

Here, to strengthen the argument, if there were any need of it, I might observe some further evidences than those which have been already mentioned, not only of the extent and generality of the prevalence of wickedness in the world, but of the height to which it has risen, and the degree in which it has reigned. Among innumerable things which shew this, I shall now only observe this, viz. the degree in which mankind have from age to age been hurtful one to another. Many kinds of brute animals are esteemed very noxious and destructive, many of them very fierce, voracious, and many very poisonous, and the destroying of them has al ways been looked upon as a public benefit; but have not mankind been a thousand times as hurtful and destructive as any one of them, yea, as all the noxious beasts, birds, fishes, and reptiles in the earth, air, and water, put together, at least of all kinds of animals that are visible? And no creature can be found any where so destructive of its own kind as mankind are. All others for the most part are harmless and peaceable, with regard to their own species. Where one wolf is destroyed by another wolf, one viper by another, probably a thousand of mankind are destroyed by those of their own spe cies. Well, therefore, might our blessed Lord say, when send ing forth his disciples into the world, Matth. x. 16, 17, Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves ;....BUT BEWARE OF MEN. As much as to say, I send you forth as sheep among wolves. But why do I say, wolves? I send you forth into the wide world of men, that are far more hurtful and pernicious, and that you had much more need to beware of, than wolves.

It would be strange indeed, that this should be the state of the world of mankind, the chief of the lower creation, distinguished above all by reason, to that end that they might be capable of religion, which summarily consists in love, if men, as they come into the world, are in their nature innocent and harmless, undepraved, and perfectly free from all evil propen. sities.

SECTION VIII.

The native Depravity of Mankind appears, in that there has been so little good effect of so manifold and great means used to promote Virtue in the World.

THE evidence of the native corruption of mankind, appears much more glaring, when it is considered that the world has been so generally, so constantly, and so exceedingly corrupt, notwithstanding the various, great and continual means, that have been used to restrain men from sin, and promote virtue and true religion among them.

Dr. Taylor supposes all that sorrow and death, which came on mankind, in consequence of Adam's sin, was brought on them by God, in great favor to them; as a benevolent Father, exercising an wholesome discipline towards his children, to restrain them from sin, by increasing the vanity of alt earthly things, to abate their force to tempt and delude; to induce them to be moderate in gratifying the appetites of the body; to mortify pride and ambition; and that men might always have before their eyes a striking demonstration, that sin is infinitely hateful to God, by a sight of that, than which nothing is more proper to give them the utmost abhorrence of iniquity, and to fix in their minds a sense of the dreadful consequences of sin, &c. &c. And in general, that they do not come as punishments, but purely as means to keep men from vice, and to make them better. If it be so, surely they are great means indeed. Here is a mighty alteration: Mankind, once so easy and happy, healthful, vigorous and beautiful, rich in all the pleasant and abundant blessings of Paradise, now turned out, destitute, weak, and decaying, into a wide, barren world, yielding briars and thorns, instead of the delightful growth and sweet fruit of the garden of Eden, to wear out life in sorrow and toil, on the

ground cursed for his sake; and at last, either through long languishment and lingering decay, or severe pain and acute disease, to expire and turn to putrefaction and dust. If these are only used as medicines, to prevent and to cure the diseases of the mind, they are sharp medicines indeed, especially death; which, to use Hezekiah's representation, is, as it were, breaking all his bones : And one would think, should be very effectual, if the subject had no depravity, no evil and contrary bias, to resist and hinder a proper effect; especially in the old world, when the thing which was the first occasion of this terrible alteration, this severity of means, was fresh in memory, Adam continuing alive near two thirds of the time that passed before the flood; so that a very great part of those that were alive till the flood, might have opportunity of seeing and conversing with him, and hearing from his mouth, not only an account of his fall, and the introduction of the awful consequences of it, but also of his first finding himself in existence in the new created world, and of the creation of Eve, and the things which passed between him and his Creator in Paradise.

But what was the success of these great means, to restrain men from sin, and to induce them to virtue? Did they prove sufficient? Instead of this, the world soon grew exceeding corrupt, till it came to that, to use our author's own words, that mankind were universally debauched into lust, sensuality, rapine, and injustice.

Then God used further means: He sent Noah, a preacher of righteousness, to warn the world of the universal destruction which would come upon them by a flood of waters, if they went on in sin. Which warning he delivered with these circumstances, tending to strike their minds, and command their attention; that he immediately went about building that vast structure of the ark, in which he must employ a great number of hands, and probably spent all he had in the world, to save himself and his family. And under these uncommon means God waited upon them one hundred and twenty years; but all to no effect. The whole world, for ought appears, continued obstinate, and absolutely incorrigi

ble; so that nothing remained to be done with them, but utterly to destroy the inhabitants of the earth, and to begin a new world from that single family who had distinguished themselves by their virtue, that from them might be propaga ted a new and purer race. Accordingly this was done; and the inhabitants of this new world, of Noah's posterity, had these new and extraordinary means to restrain sin, and excite to virtue, in addition to the toil, sorrow, and common mortality, which the world had been subjected to before, in consequence of Adam's sin, viz. that God had newly testified his dreadful displeasure for sin, in destroying the many millions of mankind, all at one blow, old and young, men, women and children, without pity on any for all the dismal shrieks and cries which the world was filled with; when they themselves, the remaining family, were so wonderfully distinguished by God's preserving goodness, that they might be a holy seed, being delivered from the corrupting examples of the old world, and being all the offspring of a living parent, whose pious instructions and counsels they had, to enforce these things upon them, to prevent sin, and engage them to their duty. And these inhabitants of the new earth, must for a long time, have before their eyes many evident, and as it were, fresh and striking effects and signs of that universal destruction, to be a continual, affecting admonition to them. And besides all this, God now shortened the life of man, to about one half of what it used to be. The shortening man's life, Dr. Taylor says, page 68, "was, that the wild range of ambition and lust might be brought into narrower bounds, and have less opportunity of doing mischief; and that death, being still nearer to our view, might be a more powerful motive to regard less the things of a transitory world, and to attend more to the rules of truth and wisdom.”

And now let us observe the consequence. These new and extraordinary means, in addition to the former, were so far from proving sufficient, that the new world degenerated, and became corrupt by such swift degrees, that, as Dr. Taylor observes, mankind in general were sunk into idolatry in about VOL. VI. 2 B

« PreviousContinue »