Page:The works of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., late fellow of Lincoln-College, Oxford (IA worksofrevjohnwe3wesl).pdf/279

 then begat a son in his own likeness: nor was it possible he should beget him in any other: for who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? That consequently we as well as other men ''were by nature, dead in trespasses and sins, without hope, without God in the world'', and therefore children of wrath: that every man may say, ''I was shapen in wickedness, and in sin did my mother conceive me: that there is no difference, in that all have sinned, and come short of the glory of'' God: of that glorious image of God, wherein man was originally created. And hence, when the Lord ''looked down from heaven upon the children of men, he saw they were all gone out of the way, they were all together become abominable, there was none righteous, no not one'', none that truly sought after God: just agreeable this, to what is declared by the Holy Ghost, in the words above recited, God saw when he looked down from heaven before, that the wickedness of man was great in the earth: so great, that ''every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually''.

This is God's account of man: from which I shall take occasion, first, To shew what men were before the flood; secondly, To enquire, Whether they are not the same now? And, thirdly, To add some inferences.

I. 1. I am, first, By opening the words of the text, to shew, what men were before the flood.