Discourses on the Application of Christianity to the Commercial & Ordinary Affairs of Life (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1848 Excerpt: ... DISCOURSE XV. THE IMPOETANCE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT TO SOCIETY. "What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: WhoBe mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know, that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God."--Romans iii. 9--19. There are certain of these charges which can he brought more simply and speedily home in the way of conviction than certain others of them. Those which bring man more directly before the tribunal of God, can be made out more easily than those which bring him before the tribunal of his fellows. It were difficult to prove, that, in reference to man, there are not some of the species who have not something to glory of; but it should not be so difficult to prove, that we have nothing to glory of before God. Now, the conclusion of the Apostle's argument in this passage is, that it is before God that all the world is guilty; and if we, in the first instance, single out those verses which place man before us in his simple relationship to the God who formed him, we ought not to find it a hard mattei to carry the acquiescence...