This depravity is universal.  Among the natural children of Adam, there is no exemption from the original taint.  “The whole world lieth in wickedness.”  “We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness is as filthy rags.”  The corruption may vary in the degrees of development, in different persons; but the elements are in all, and their nature is everywhere the same; the same in the blooming youth, and the withered sire; in the haughty prince, and the humble peasant; in the strongest giant, and the feeblest invalid.  The enemy has “come in like a flood.”  The deluge of sin has swept the world.  From the highest to the lowest, there is no health or moral soundness.  From the crown of the head to the soles of the feet, there is nothing but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores.  The laws, and their violation, and the punishments everywhere invented for the suppression of vice, prove the universality of the evil.  The bloody sacrifices, and various purifications, of the pagans, show the handwriting of remorse upon their consciences; proclaim their sense of guilt, and their dread of punishment.  None of them are free from the fear which hath torment, whatever their efforts to overcome it, and however great their boldness in the service of sin and Satan.  “Menel Tekel!” is written on every human heart.  “Wanting! wanting!” is inscribed on heathen fanes and altars; on the laws, customs, and institutions of every nation; and on the universal consciousness of mankind.

This inward corruption manifests itself in outward actions.  “The tree is known by its fruit.”  As the smoke and sparks of the chimney show that there is fire within; so all the “filthy conversation” of men, and all “the unfruitful works of darkness” in which they delight, evidently indicate the pollution of the source whence they proceed.  “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.”  The sinner’s speech betrayeth him.  “Evil speaking” proceeds from malice and envy.  “Foolish talking and jesting” are evidence of impure and trifling thoughts.  The mouth full of cursing and bitterness, the throat an open sepulcher, the poison of asps under the tongue, the feet swift to shed blood, destruction and misery in their paths, and the way of peace unknown to them, are the clearest and amplest demonstration that men “have gone out of the way,” “have together become unprofitable.”  We see the bitter fruit of the same corruption in robbery, adultery, gluttony, drunkenness, extortion, intolerance, persecution, apostasy, and every evil work—­in all false religions; the Jew, obstinately adhering to the carnal ceremonies of an abrogated law; the Mohammedan, honoring an impostor, and receiving a lie for a revelation from God; the papist, worshiping images and relics, praying to departed saints, seeking absolution from sinful men, and trusting in the most absurd mummeries for salvation; the pagan, attributing divinity to the works of his own hands, adoring idols of wood and stone, sacrificing to malignant demons, casting his children into the fire or the flood as an offering to imaginary deities, and changing the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the beast and the worm.