ne can be a stranger, who has ever contemplated
the operations of his own mind with serious attention. To the influence
of this species of corruption it has been in a great degree owing, that
Christianity itself has been too often disgraced. It has been turned
into an engine of cruelty, and amidst the bitterness of persecution,
every trace has disappeared of the mild and beneficent spirit of the
religion of Jesus. In what degree must the taint have worked itself into
the frame, and have corrupted the habit, when the most wholesome
nutriment can be thus converted into the deadliest poison! Wishing
always to argue from such premises as are not only really sound, but
from such as cannot even be questioned by those to whom this work is
addressed, little was said in representing the deplorable state of the
Heathen world, respecting their defective and unworthy conceptions in
what regards the Supreme Being, who even then however "left not himself
without witness, but gave them rain and fruitful seasons, filling their
hearts with food and gladness." But surely to any who call themselves
Christians, it may be justly urged as an astonishing instance of human
depravity, that we ourselves, who enjoy the full light of revelation; to
whom God has vouchsafed such clear discoveries of what it concerns us to
know of his being and attributes; who profess to believe "that in him we
live, and move, and have our being;" that to him we owe all the comforts
we here enjoy, and the offer of eternal Glory purchased for us by the
atoning blood of his own Son; ("thanks be to God for his unspeakable
gift,") that we, thus loaded with mercies, should every one of us be
continually chargeable with forgetting his authority, and being
ungrateful for his benefits; with slighting his gracious proposals, or
receiving them at best but heartlessly and coldly.

But to put the question concerning the natural depravity of man to the
severest test: take the best of the human species, the watchful diligent
self-denying Christian, and let _him_ decide the controversy; and that,
not by inferences drawn from the practices of a thoughtless and
dissolute world, but by an appeal to his personal experience. Go with
him into his closet, ask him _his_ opinion of the corruption of the
heart, and he will tell you that he is deeply sensible of its power, for
that he has learned it from much self-observation and long acquaintance
with the workings of his own mind. He will tel