Wesley Corpus

is no salvation without regeneration? and no regeneration, but what makes man ‘a new creature?’ O no! If ye did, ye could not live in your sins, live out of Christ, and yet hope for mercy. “Fifthly. Man is naturally high-minded. Lowliness is not a flower which grows in the field of nature. It is natural to man to think highly of himself and what is his own. ‘Vain man would be wise;” so he accounts himself, and so he would be accounted by others. His way is right, because it is ‘his own;’ ‘for every way of man is right in his own eyes. He is ‘alive without the law;’ and therefore his hope is strong, and his confidence firm. It is another tower of Babel; the word batters it, yet it stands. One while breaches are made in it, but they are quickly repaired. At another time, it is all made to shake; but it is still kept up; till God's Spirit raise an heartquake within the man, which tumbles it down, and leaves not one stone upon another. “Thus much of the corruption of the understanding. Call the understanding, “Ichabod; for the glory is departed from it.” Consider this, ye that are yet in the state of nature, and groan ye out your case before the Lord, that the Sun of Righteous ness may arise upon you, before ye be shut up in everlasting darkness. What avails your worldly wisdom? What do all your attainments in religion avail, while your understanding lies wrapped up in darkness and confusion, utterly void of the light of life? “2. Nor is the will less corrupted than the understanding. It was at first faithful, and ruled with God; but now it is turned traitor against God, and rules with and for the devil. To open this plague of the heart, let the following thingsbe considered:- “First. There is in the unrenewed will an utter inability for what is truly good in the sight of God. Indeed a natural man has a power to choose and do what is materially good; but though he can will what is good and right, he can do nothing aright and well. “Without me,’ that is, separate from me, ‘ye can do nothing; nothing truly and spiritually good.