Wesley Corpus

Hence the perpetual practices of fraud and villany in the commerce of mankind, the innumerable instances of oppression and cruelty which run through the world; the pride and violence of the great; the wrath, ambition, and tyranny of princes, and the endless iniquities and mischiefs that arise from malice, envy, and revenge, in lower people. If we add to these the impure scenes of lust and intemperance, which defy the day and pollute the darkness; with the monstrous barbarities which are con tinually committed by the heathen savages in Africa and America, (some of whom kill and roast their fellow-creatures, and eat up men as they eat bread,) and by the Christian savages in the Inquisition established in Asia, as well as in many parts of Europe; can we still imagine that mankind abide in that state, wherein they came from the hands of their Maker?” (Page 35.) “That far the greatest number of men are evil, was the known sentiment of the wiser Heathens.” (Page 37.) “They saw and bewailed the undeniable fact, though they knew not how to account for it. Ot TAetoves cascot, “Most men are wicked,’ was a common observation among thcm. Even the poets could not but see this obvious truth. So Virgil brings in Anchises, telling his son, “Few are happy in the other world:’-- Pauci laeta arva tenemus. And in this life, Horace remarks of men in general,-- Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata. “We are always desiring and pursuing forbidden things.’ Nay, he says,-- Witiis memo sine nascitur. “No man is born without vices; and gives this character of young men in general,-- Cereus in vitium flecti, monitoribus asper. Seneca says just the same,-- Pejora juvenes facile precepta audiunt. ‘Young men readily hearken to evil counsels: They are soft as wax to be moulded into vice, but rough and rugged to their best monitors.’” (Page 38.) “Juvenal abounds with the same accounts of human nature: Quas tam festa dies, ut cesset proderefuren f Ad mores natura recurrit Damnatos, fixa et mutari nescia. Quisnam hominum est, quem tu contentum videris uno Flagitiof Dociles imitandis Turpibus et pravis omnes sumus." “6. And not only they of riper age, but even those of ten der years, discover the principles of iniquity and seeds of sin.