Isaiah 57:3-9

What a change is here! Oh! the awfulness of an unawakened, unregenerated nature! What a sad thought is it, that from generation to generation, the deadly seeds of sin thus bring forth, and blossom, and spread their baleful fruit! Look into the world, as it is in the present day, and compare what is here said, with what every serious beholder is compelled to be a witness to, among the great mass of men. Was there ever a period in the annals of mankind; when the sons of the sorceress, the despisers of God and of his Christ, came forward with a more impudent and uncovered face? And, as might well be expected, when the fountain of true religion is corrupted, the streams would break out in adultery and whoredom: was there ever a generation more marked than the present for general profligacy of life and manners? Blessed be God! the promise still continues fulfilled: and must and ever will be fulfilled; Jesus hath a seed that serve him, who are accounted to the Lord for a generation, Psalms 22:30. But while these are the salt of the earth, to preserve it from universal putrefaction; the whole world, as the Apostle said in his days, and it may be said with equal truth in ours, the whole world lieth in wickedness, 1 John 5:19. Reader! amidst the multitudes who flock to the standard of Satan, now erected, are you of the happy distinguished few, whom Jesus hath gathered and brought into his own fold? Read attentively that alarming scripture, Revelation 12:12. Read also that scripture, and consider how blessed it is to know that we have a personal interest in it, Colossians 1:12.