Twenty sermons preached at Oxford before His Majesty, and elsewhere

We have Gods own word for it. It's men, generally all men, Gen. 6.5. God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every thought and imagination of his heart was only evil continually. Every word is as it were a thunder bolt: and was it not time, when it was thus with them for God to bring a flood? The thoughts are the original, from which the words and actions do usually proceed. Now all their thoughts were evil: What was there no kind of goodness in their thoughts? No, they were only evil continually: and that was the reason the flood came. Well, but though it were so before the flood, yet I hope they were better after the flood. No, God said again after the flood, cap. 8. The thoughts of the hearts of men are evil, &c. Like will to like. Men are of one kind, till they receive grace from Christ. We are all one nature, and naturally all the thoughts and imaginations of our hearts are only evil continually.

See it in the understanding, 1 Cor. 3.14. The natural man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, for they are foolishness unto him, &c.

Look upon his will, Rom. 8. It is not subject to the will of God, neither indeed can it be. Our Saviour, Mat. 15.8. doth anatomize the heart of such a man. Those things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile the man, for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, &c. these are they which defile the man, because they come from his heart from within. If a man go by a house, and seeing great flakes of fire come out of the chimney, though he see not the fire within, yet he cannot know but there is fire within, because he seeth the flakes without. I am not able to see the heart of any man, and to declare to you what I have seen with mine eyes; but yet if I see such to come forth, as murder, thefts, blasphemies, lying, and the like. I may say there is hell-fire in the heart; thy heart is a little hell within thee, these manifestations from without make it appear to be so. The words of this man are rotten words and stinking words, and his heart is much more. So, this is the point, we are utterly indisposed, aliens to all good, and bent to all evil. I am carnal (saith the Apostle) we are sold under sin, slaves unto it; sin is our Lord, and we its slaves. We have generally forfeited our happy estate, and are servants to Satan, whom we obey. Therefore this is a thing not easily to be passed over; this our condition, of which if we were once truly persuaded, we would never give our selves any rest, till we were got out of it.