Wesley Corpus

23, show that we come into the world with sinful propensities? (This is all that is pertinent in the objection awkwardly proposed, page 199.) But instead of keeping to this, you spend above twenty pages in proving that this chapter does not describe a regenerate person It may, or it may not; but this does not touch the question : Do not men come into the world with sinful propensities P We have, undoubtedly, an additional proof that they do, in the words of Jeremiah: “‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?’ (xvii. 9.)” (Page 224.) On this you descant: (One instance of a thousand of your artful manner of declaiming, in order to forestal the reader's judgment, and “deceive the hearts of the simple:”) “Christians, too generally neglecting the study of the Scrip ture, content themselves with a few scraps, which, though wrong understood, they make the test of truth, in contradic tion to the whole tenor of Revelation. Thus this text has been misapplied to prove that every man’s heart is so despe rately wicked, that no man can know how wicked his heart is.” O what Tru6avoMoyla, “persuasiveness of speech !” After read ing this, I was much inclined to believe, without going a step further, that this text had been “generally misunder stood.” I thought, Probably it has been misapplied, and does not assert that every man’s “heart is desperately wicked.” But no sooner did I read over the very verses you cite, than the clear light appeared again. “‘Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.” (Verse 5.)” (Page 225.) That man, whom we are not to trust in, means man in general, cannot be denied. After repeating the intermediate verses, you yourself add, “He subjoins a reason, which demonstrates the error of trust ing in man: ‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?’ (Verse 9.) This text, therefore, does not mean, Who can know his own heart, but another's?” Whether it means one or both, it positively asserts, that “the heart” of man, of men in general, of every man, is “desperately wicked.” Therefore, as to the main point contained therein, “Christians do not understand it wrong; ” (page 224;) neither misapply it at all.