1.HOW widely different is this from the fair pictures of human nature, which men have drawn in all ages! The writings of many of the antients abound with gay descriptions of the dignity of man: whom some of them paint as having all virtue and happiness in his composition, or at least, entirely in his power, without being beholden to any other being: yea, as self-sufficient, able to live on his own stock, and little inferior to God himself.
2. Nor have Heathens alone, men who were guided in their researches by little more than the dim light of reason, but many likewise of them that bear the name of Christ, and to whom are intrusted the oracles of God, spoke as magnificently concerning the nature of man, as if it were all innocence and perfection. Accounts of this kind have particularly abounded in the present century: and perhaps in no part of the world more, than in our own country. Here not a few persons of strong understanding, as well as extensive learning, have employed their utmost abilities to shew, what they termed, “The fair side of human nature.” And it must be acknowledged, that if their accounts of him be just, man is still but a little lower than the angels, or (as the words may be more literally rendered) a little less than God.
3. Is it any wonder, that these accounts are very readily received by the generality of men? For who is not easily persuaded to think favourably of himself? Accordingly writers of this kind are almost universally read, admired, applauded. And innumerable are the converts they have made, not only in the gay, but the learned world. So that it is now quite unfashionable to talk otherwise, to say any thing to the disparagement of human nature: which is generally allowed, notwithstanding a few infirmities, to be very innocent and wise and virtuous.
4. But in the mean-time, what must we do with our bibles; for they will never agree with this. These accounts, however pleasing to flesh and blood, are utterly irreconcileable with the scriptural. The scripture avers, that by one man’s disobedience, all men were constituted sinners: that in Adam all died, spiritually died, lost the life and the image of God: that fallen, sinful Adam then begat a son in his own likeness: nor was it possible he should beget him in any other: for who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? That consequently we as well as other men were by nature, dead in trespasses and sins, without hope, without God in the world, and therefore children of wrath: that every man may say, I was shapen in wickedness, and in sin did my mother conceive me: that there is no difference, in that all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God: of that glorious image of God, wherein man was originally created. And hence, when the Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, he saw they were all gone out of the way, they were all together become abominable, there was none righteous, no not one, none that truly sought after God: just agreeable this, to what is declared by the Holy Ghost, in the words above recited, God saw when he looked down from heaven before, that the wickedness of man was great in the earth: so great, that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
This is God’s account of man: from which I shall take occasion, first, To shew what men were before the flood; secondly, To enquire, Whether they are not the same now? And, thirdly, To add some inferences.
I. 1. I am, first, By opening the words of the text, to shew, what men were before the flood. And we may fully depend on the account here given. For God saw it, and he cannot be deceived. He saw that the wickedness of man was great. Not of this or that man; not of a few men only: not barely of the greater part, but of man in general, of men universally. The word includes the whole human race, every partaker of human nature. And it is not easy for us to compute their numbers, to tell how many thousands and millions they were. The earth then retained much of its primeval beauty and original fruitfulness. The face of the globe was not rent and torn, as it is now: and spring and summer went hand in hand. ’Tis therefore probable, it afforded sustenance for far more inhabitants, than it is now capable of sustaining; and these must be immensely multiplied, while men begat sons and daughters for seven or eight hundred years together. Yet among all this inconceivable number, only Noah found favour with God. He alone (perhaps including part of his houshold) was an exception from the universal wickedness, which by the just judgment of God, in a short time after brought on universal destruction. All the rest were partakers in the same guilt, as they were in the same punishment.
2. God saw all the imaginations of the thoughts of his heart—Of his soul, his inward man, the spirit within him, the principle of all his inward and outward motions. He saw all the imaginations. It is not possible to find a word of a more extensive signification. It includes whatever is formed, made, fabricated within; all that is, or passes in the soul: every inclination, affection, passion, appetite; every temper, design, thought. It must of consequence include every word and action, as naturally flowing from these fountains: and being either good or evil, according to the fountain from which they severally flow.
3. Now God saw that all this, the whole thereof was evil, contrary to moral rectitude; contrary to the nature of God, which necessarily includes all good; contrary to the divine will, the eternal standard of good and evil: contrary to the pure, holy image of God, wherein man was originally created, and wherein he stood when God surveying the works of his hands, saw them all to be very good: contrary to justice, mercy and truth, and to the essential relations which each man bore to his Creator and his fellow creatures.
4. But was there not good mingled with the evil? Was there not light intermixt with the darkness? No, none at all: God saw that the whole imagination of the heart of man was only evil. It cannot indeed be denied, but many of them, perhaps all, had good motions put into their hearts. For the Spirit of God did then also strive with man, if haply he might repent: more especially during that gracious reprieve, the hundred and twenty years, while the ark was preparing. But still in his flesh dwelt no good thing: all his nature was purely evil. It was wholly consistent with itself, and unmixt with any thing of an opposite nature.
5. However it may still be matter of enquiry, “Was there no intermission of this evil? Were there no lucid intervals, wherein something good might be found in the heart of man?” We are not here to consider, what the grace of God might occasionally work in his soul. And abstracted from this, we have no reason to believe, there was any intermission of that evil. For God who saw the whole imagination of the thoughts of his heart to be only evil, saw likewise, that it was always the same, that it was only evil continually: every year, every day, every hour, every moment. He never deviated into good.