NATURE.

SECT. I.

_Inadequate Conceptions of the Corruption of Human Nature._

After considering the defective notions of the importance of
Christianity _in general_, which prevail among the higher orders of the
Christian world, the particular misconceptions which first come under
our notice respect the corruption and weakness of human nature. This is
a topic on which it is possible that many of those, into whose hands the
present work shall fall, may not have bestowed much attention. If the
case be so, it may be requisite to intreat them to lend a patient and a
serious ear. The subject is of the deepest import. We should not go too
far if we were to assert, that it lies at the very root of all true
Religion, and still more, that it is eminently the basis and ground-work
of Christianity.

So far as the writer has had an opportunity of remarking, the generality
of professed Christians among the higher classes, either altogether
overlook or deny, or at least greatly extenuate the corruption and
weakness here in question. They acknowledge indeed that there is, and
ever has been in the world, a great portion of vice and wickedness; that
mankind have been ever prone to sensuality and selfishness, in
disobedience to the more refined and liberal principles of their nature;
that in all ages and countries, in public and in private life,
innumerable instances have been afforded of oppression, of rapacity, of
cruelty, of fraud, of envy, and of malice. They own that it is too often
in vain that you inform the understanding, and convince the judgment.
They admit that you do not thereby reform the hearts of men. Though they
_know_ their duty, they will not practice it; no not even when you have
forced them to acknowledge that the path of virtue is that also of real
interest, and of solid enjoyment.

These facts are certain; they cannot be disputed; and they are at the
same time so obvious, that one would have thought that the celebrated
apophthegm of the Grecian sage, "the majority are wicked," would
scarcely have established his claim to intellectual superiority.

But though these effects of human depravity are every where acknowledged
and lamented, we must not expect to find them traced to their true
origin.

Causa latet, vis est notissima.

Prepare yourself to hear rather of frailty and infirmity, of petty
transgressions, of occasional failings, of sudden surprisals, and of
such other qualifying terms as may serve