Collected Works of John Wesley, Volume VI

Contents:
Author: John Wesley

I.

1. I am, First, by opening the words of the text, to show what men were before the flood. And we may fully depend on the account here given: For God saw it, and he cannot be deceived. He "saw that the wickedness of man was great:" — Not of this or that man; not of a few men only; not barely of the greater part, but of man in general; of men universally. The word includes the whole human race, every partaker of human nature. And it is not easy for us to compute their numbers, to tell how many thousands and millions they were. The earth then retained much of its primeval beauty and original fruitfulness. The face of the globe was not rent and torn as it is now; and spring and summer went hand in hand. It is therefore probable, it afforded sustenance for far more inhabitants than it is now capable of sustaining; and these must be immensely multiplied, while men begat sons and daughters for seven or eight hundred years together. Yet, among all this inconceivable number, only "Noah found favor with God." He alone (perhaps including part of his household) was an exception from the universal wickedness, which, by the just judgment of God, in a short time after brought on universal destruction. All the rest were partakers in the same guilt, as they were in the same punishment.

2. "God saw all the imaginations of the thoughts of his heart;" — of his soul, his inward man, the spirit within him, the principle of all his inward and outward motions. He "saw all the imaginations:" — It is not possible to find a word of a more extensive signification. It includes whatever is formed, made, fabricated within; all that is or passes in the soul; every inclination, affection, passion, appetite; every temper, design, thought. It must of consequence include every word and action, as naturally flowing from these fountains, and being either good or evil according to the fountain from which they severally flow.

3. Now God saw that all this, the whole thereof, was evil; — contrary to moral rectitude; contrary to the nature of God, which necessarily includes all good; contrary to the divine will, the eternal standard of good and evil; contrary to the pure, holy image of God, wherein man was originally created, and wherein he stood when God, surveying the works of his hands, saw them all to be very good; contrary to justice, mercy, and truth, and to the essential relations which each man bore to his Creator and his fellow-creatures.

4. But was there not good mingled with the evil? Was there not light intermixed with the darkness? No; none at all: "God saw that the whole imagination of the heart of man was only evil." It cannot indeed be denied, but many of them, perhaps all, had good motions put into their hearts; for the Spirit of God did then also "strive with man," if haply he might repent, more especially during that gracious reprieve, the hundred and twenty years, while the ark was preparing. But still "in his flesh dwelt no good thing;" all his nature was purely evil: It was wholly consistent with itself, and unmixed with anything of an opposite nature.

5. However, it may still be matter of inquiry, "Was there no intermission of this evil? Were there no lucid intervals, wherein something good might be found in the heart of man?" We are not here to consider, what the grace of God might occasionally work in his soul; and, abstracted from this, we have no reason to believes there was any intermission of that evil. For God, who "saw the whole imagination of the thoughts of his heart to be only evil," saw likewise, that it was always the same, that it "was only evil continually;" every year, every day, every hour, every moment. He never deviated into good.

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Chicago: John Wesley, "I.," Collected Works of John Wesley, Volume VI, ed. Thomas Jackson in Collected Works of John Wesley, Volume VI (London: Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, 1872), Original Sources, accessed March 28, 2024, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=LJ77RXCDRLQ1FZD.

MLA: Wesley, John. "I." Collected Works of John Wesley, Volume VI, edited by Thomas Jackson, in Collected Works of John Wesley, Volume VI, London, Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, 1872, Original Sources. 28 Mar. 2024. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=LJ77RXCDRLQ1FZD.

Harvard: Wesley, J, 'I.' in Collected Works of John Wesley, Volume VI, ed. . cited in 1872, Collected Works of John Wesley, Volume VI, Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, London. Original Sources, retrieved 28 March 2024, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=LJ77RXCDRLQ1FZD.