[Footnote 3:  Infidelity is constantly changing its ground.  In the 18th century, the skeptic very generally took the position of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and maintained that the light of reason is very clear, and is adequate to all the religious needs of the soul.  In the 19th century, he is now passing to the other extreme, and contending that man is kindred to the ape, and within the sphere of paganism does not possess sufficient moral intelligence to constitute him responsible.  Like Luther’s drunken beggar on horseback, the opponent of Revelation sways from the position that man is a god, to the position that he is a chimpanzee.]

[Footnote 4:  DANTE:  Inferno, vii. 100-130.]

SIN IN THE HEART THE SOURCE OF ERROR IN THE HEAD

ROMANS i. 28.—­“As they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind.”

In the opening of the most logical and systematic treatise in the New Testament, the Epistle to the Romans, the apostle Paul enters upon a line of argument to demonstrate the ill-desert of every human creature without exception.  In order to this, he shows that no excuse can be urged upon the ground of moral ignorance.  He explicitly teaches that the pagan knows that there is one Supreme God (Rom. i. 20); that He is a spirit (Rom. i. 23); that He is holy and sin-hating (Rom. i. 18); that He is worthy to be worshipped (Rom. i. 21, 25); and that men ought to be thankful for His benefits (Rom. i. 21).  He affirms that the heathen knows that an idol is a lie (Rom. i. 25); that licentiousness is a sin (Rom. i. 26, 32); that envy, malice, and deceit are wicked (Rom. i. 29, 32); and that those who practise such sins deserve eternal punishment (Rom. i. 32).

In these teachings and assertions, the apostle has attributed no small amount and degree of moral knowledge to man as man,—­to man outside of Revelation, as well as under its shining light.  The question very naturally arises:  How comes it to pass that this knowledge which Divine inspiration postulates, and affirms to be innate and constitutional to the human mind, should become so vitiated?  The majority of mankind are idolaters and polytheists, and have been for thousands of years.  Can it be that the truth that there is only one God is native to the human spirit, and that the pagan “knows” this God?  The majority of men are earthly and sensual, and have been for thousands of years.  Can it be that there is a moral law written upon their hearts forbidding such carnality, and enjoining purity and holiness?