Wesley Corpus

And what are the natural man’s civil actions, such as buying, selling, working, but fruit to himself? Yea, self is the highest end of unregenerate men, even in their religious actions. They perform duties for a name; for some worldly interest; or, at best, in order to escape from hell. They seek not God at all, but for their own interest. So that God is only the means, and self their end. “Thus have I given a rude draught of man’s will in his natural state, drawn from Scripture and our own experience. Now, since all must be wrong where the understanding and will are so corrupt, I shall briefly despatch what remains. “3. The affections are corrupted; wholly disordered and dis tempered. They are like an unruly horse, that either will not receive, or violently runs away with, the rider. Man's heart is naturally a mother of abominations: “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness.’ The natural man’s affections are wholly misplaced; he is a spiritual monster. His heart is, where his feet should be, fixed on earth: His heels are lifted up against heaven, which his heart should be set on: His face is toward hell, his back toward heaven. He loves what he should hate, and hates what he should love; joys in what he ought to mourn for, and mourns for what he should rejoice in; glories in his shame, and is ashamed of his glory; abhors what he should desire, and desires what he should abhor. If his affections are set on lawful objects, they are either exces sive or defective. These objects have either too little of them, or too much. But spiritual things have always too little. “Here is “a threefold cord’ against Heaven, not easily broken,--a blind mind, a perverse will, disordered affections. The mind, swelled with pride, says, The man should not stoop; the will, opposite to the will of God, says, He will not; and the corrupt affections, rising against the Lord, in defence of the corrupt will, say, He shall not. And thus we stand out against God, till we are created anew in Christ Jesus. “4. The conscience is corrupt and defiled. It cannot do its work, but according to the light it hath to work by.