Strength and Obstinacy of. out Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. Col. 2:13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened. 1 Jn. 3:14 We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. [See 495.] 157. Strength and obstinacy of human depravity. Ex. 32:9 And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Dt. 9:6, 13. Pr. 5:22 His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. 27: 22 Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him. 29:1 He that, being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. Ec. 9:3 This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead. Is. 48:4 Because I knew that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass. Jer. 2:22 Though thow wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God. 3:5 Behold, thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldest. 13:23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil. 17:1 The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is graven upon the table of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars. 9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? Mat. 7.7 Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? 23:33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Enmity against God-Disobedience. Jn. 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. Ac. 7:51 Ye stiff-necked, and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Rom. 1:28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient: 29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 Without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 32 Who, knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death; not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. [See Custom, 128.] FORMS OF DEPRAVITY. 158. Enmity against God. Job 21: 14 Depart from us; for we desire not the knowedge of thy ways. Ps. 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. 36:1 The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes. Is. 30:11 Cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us. Jn. 7:7 The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil. 15:24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen, and hated both me and my Father. 25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause. Rom. 1:30 Haters of God. 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 159. Disobedience to God. Ex. 5:2 And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go, Forgetfulness of God. Dt. 31:27 I know thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck: behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the Lord; and how much more after my death. Neh. 9:26 Nevertheless, they were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy law behind their backs, and slew thy prophets which testified against them to turn them to thee, and they wrought great provocations. Job 21:15 What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? Ps. 2:3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. 81: 11 But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me. 12 So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lust: and they walked in their own counsels. Pr. 1:24 Because I have called and ye refused, I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; 25 But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof. Is. 1:2 I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. 30:8 Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever: 9 That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD. 65:2 I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts; 3 A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face. Jer. 5:23 This people hath a revolting and a rebellious heart; they are revolted and gone. Ezk. 2:7 And thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear: for they are most rebellious. 8 But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee; Be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house. Zec. 7:11 But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear. 12 Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the LORD of hosts hath sent in his Spirit by the former prophets. 160. Forgetfulness of God. Dt. 32: 18 of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee. 19 And when the Lord saw it he abhorred them. Works of Darkness. Jud. 3:7 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and forgat the LORD their God, and served Baalim, and the groves. 8 Therefore the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel. 1 S. 12:9 And when they forgat the Lord their God, he sold them into the hand of Sisera. Ps. 9:17 The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. 10:4 The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts. 50:21 These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. 22 Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest 1 tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver. 106:21 They forgat God their savior, which had done great things in Egypt; 22 Wondrous works in the land of Ham, and terrible things by the Red sea. 23 Therefore he said that he would destroy them, had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach, to turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them. Jer. 2:32 Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number. 3:21 A voice was heard upon the high places, weeping and supplications of the children of Israel: for they have perverted their way, and they have forgotten the LORD their God. Ezk. 22:12 Thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbors by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord God. 161. Works of darkness. Job 24:14 The murderer rising with the light killeth the poor and needy, and in the night is as a thief. 15 The eye also of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight, saying, No eye shall see me and disguiseth his face. 16 In the dark they dig through houses, which they had marked for themselves in the day-time: they know not the light. 17 For the morning is to them even as the shadow of death: if one know them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of death. Pr. 7:6 For at the window of my house I looked through my casement, 7 And beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding, 8 Passing through the street near her corner; and he went Sensuality. the way to her house, 9 In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night. Is. 29:15 Wo unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us? Ezk. 8:12 Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth. 13 He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. 14 Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD's house which was toward the north; and behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. 15 Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these. Ep. 5:11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. 12 For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. 162. Sensuality. Lev. 18:24 Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: 25 And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. 26 Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you: 27 (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled ;) 28 That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you. Ep. 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. Tit. 3:3 For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. 1 Pet. 4:3 For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in la#civiousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and |