The Gentiles were worshippers of false gods; some of one kind, some of another.  They all, however, agreed in this, that they thought one god as good as another, and no one among them had any anxiety to bring his neighbor over to his religion, which is a plain proof that they had no true religion among them; for whoever is possessed of true religion, is possessed of a great comfort and blessing, which he will therefore be glad to convey to other people also.  It was the custom of some of these Gentiles to worship stocks and stones; others bowed down to living animals, such as bulls, or goats, or lizards; and others paid their stupid adoration to the sun, instead of the Author of it.  Many of them worshipped their deceased fellow-creatures; and the dead men who were thus turned into gods had been, in general, some of the most wicked and abominable of the human race.

Now this ignorance of the true God was followed—­as all ignorance of him is apt to be—­by great wickedness in their practice.  They were “given over” on this account, as St. Paul, the inspired apostle, declares, “to a reprobate mind; to work all uncleanness with greediness.”  They learned to confound good and evil; vices were then commonly practised, such as are not named among Christians.  False principles and false maxims of every kind abounded.  Slavery prevailed, even in the most civilized lands; for almost all servants were slaves in those days.  The earth was filled with violence.  He that had killed the greatest number of his fellow-creatures got usually the greatest praise.  “Wars were carried on with dreadful ferocity, and multitudes were massacred at the public games, in battles fought for the amusement of the people.  Humanity, kindness, and benevolence, were made of no account; and such a thing as a hospital was not known.  Revenge was both practised and recommended; and those excellent Christian graces, humility, universal charity, and forgiveness of injuries, were considered as weaknesses and faults.”

I shudder to think of the dreadful state of mankind in those days.  God grant that the same evils may never return.  They are the natural consequences of being without Christianity in the world; for when Christianity is gone, there is no rule to go by.  Every man may then set up a false goodness of his own.  Morals, of course, grow worse and worse; a fierce and proud spirit comes in the place of Christian meekness and benevolence, and claims the name of virtue; and the Saviour of the world, with all his works of mercy, being forgotten, man becomes cruel, and unjust, and selfish, and implacable, and unmerciful; for all the violent passions of our nature are let loose.

If we inquire also into the character of the Jews who lived before the coming of our Saviour, we shall find them to have been deplorably corrupt, though they expected his coming, and were, in some measure, acquainted with true religion.  The little knowledge which they had seems to have been perverted through the wickedness of their hearts; and the Scriptures assure us, that “both Jews and Gentiles were all under sin.”  Such was the state into which the world was sunk before the time of our Saviour’s appearance in it.