The Wicked Heart Set to do Evil. "Because sentence against an
evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the
sons of men is fully set in them to do evil."-Eccl. viii.11.
THIS text manifestly assumes that the present is not a state of
rewards and punishments, in which men are treated according to
their character and conduct. This fact is not indeed affirmed,
but it is assumed, as it is also everywhere throughout the
Bible. Everybody knows that ours is not a state of present
rewards and punishments; the experience and observation of every
man testifies to this fact with convincing power, Hence it is
entirely proper that the Bible should assume it as a known
truth. Every man who reads his Bible must see that many things
in it are assumed to be true, and that these are precisely those
things which every man knows to be true, and which none could
know more certainly if God had affirmed them on every page of
the Bible. In the case of this truth, every man knows that he is
not himself punished as he