Wesley Corpus

How easily men are led into sin persuaded to evil, though not to good. Those whom the word cannot draw to holiness, Satan leads to wickedness at his pleasure. To learn doing ill is always easy to the unrenewed man; but to learn to do good is as difficult as for ‘the Ethiopian to change his skin.” Were the will evenly poised between good and evil, one might be embraced with as much ease as the other. But experience testifies it is not; yea, the experience of all ages. How often did the Israelites forsake the almighty God, and dote upon the idols of the nations! But did ever one of those nations forsake their idols, and grow fond of the God of Israel? No, no. Though man is naturally given to change, it is but from evil to evil; not from evil to good. Surely then the will of man stands not in equal balance, but has a cast on the wrong side. “3. Consider how men go on still in the way of sin, till they meet with a stop from another hand than their own. “I hid me, and he went on frowardly in the way of his own heart. If God withdraws his restraining hand, man is in no doubt which way to choose; for the way of sin is ‘the way of his heart; his heart maturally lies that way. As long as God suffereth them, all nations “walk in their own way.’ The natural man is so fixed in evil, that there needs no more to show he is off of God’s way, than to say, He is upon ‘his own.” “Fourthly. There is a natural contrariety, a directopposition, in the will of man to God himself. “The carnal mind is enmity against God; it is not subject to the law of God, neither can be.’ “I have a charge against every unregenenerate man and woman, to be proved by the testimony of Scripture, and their own conscience; namely, that, whether they have the form of religion or no, they are heart-enemies to God; to the Son of God, to the Spirit of God, and to the law of God. Hear this, all ye careless souls, that live at ease in your natural state | “1. Ye are ‘enemies to God in your mind.’ Ye are not as yet reconciled to him.