Wesley Corpus

O, “by Seth's posterity intermarrying with th Cainites.” But how came all the Cainites to corrupt them selves; and all the Sethites to follow, not reform, them? the balance was even, if nature leaned neither way, the ought to have been as many good as bad still; and the Seth ites ought to have reformed as many of the children of Cai, as the Cainites corrupted of the children of Seth. How came i then, that “only Noah was a just man?” And does one goo man, amidst a world of the ungodly, prove that the “natu, of mankind in general is not corrupted;” or, rather, strongl prove that it is? It does not prove that Noah himself was no naturally inclined to evil; but it does, that the world was. “But if the corruption of nature was the reason why the ol world was destroyed, it is a reason for the destruction of th world at any time.” (Page 123.) This alone was never sup posed to be the reason; but their actual wickedness added thereto. You add: “It may be urged, that God said, ‘I will not again curse the ground for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. (Gen. viii. 21.) But the Hebrew particles: sometimes signifies although.” That does not prove that it signifies so here. But what, if it does? What, if the text be rendered, Though “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth ?” Even thus rendered, it implies as strongly as it did before, that “man’s heart” is naturally inclined to evil. The Hebrew word, translated youth, (Page 124) is always applied to childhood or tender age; (Isaiah vii. 16;) ny: signi fies a little child: And none of the texts you have cited prove the contrary. Heman, the author of the eighty-eighth Psalm, was doubtless “afflicted from his youth,” or childhood. The Babylonians (mentioned Isaiah xlvii. 12) may well be supposed to have been trained up in the way of their fathers, from their earliest childhood: And the plain meaning of Jeremiah, (iii. 24, 25,) “Shame hath devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth: We lie down in our shame; for we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers from our youth,” is,--Ever since we began to think or act, we have gone astray from God. 10.