Seducers & corrupters

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"They have corrupted themselves. . . .they are a perverse and crooked generation." Deuteronomy 32:5

The Scripture does not spare the creature, or human pride, or self-righteousness—but boldly declares the corruption of man, and thus lays the axe to the very root of the tree. This doctrine—of human corruption—of the total fall of man—of the innate wickedness and perverseness of his heart—will always be acceptable to the child of God, because he has in his conscience an inward witness to its truth.

He knows that he has corrupted himself—he feels that not only unclean thoughts lodge within him—but that he has given way to and indulged in them. Ever since he had light to see, life to feel, and a conscience to bear witness, he knows that in many flagrant instances he has corrupted himself.

We speak of seducers and corrupter with just abhorrence—but a man's worst corrupter is his own heart! There is no greater source of inward condemnation and guilt, than when a man is obliged to confess he has corrupted himself—made his own heart worse than it really is, by pandering to its lusts and heaping fuel upon its smouldering flame!