We do not know how much devil there is inside any one of us; if we are not renewed and changed by grace, we are heirs of wrath even as others. The description, which is given in the Romans, that second chapter, that awful chapter, is a truthful picture of every child of Adam. He may look respectable; he may seem to be a lamb, and to be so quiet that a weaned child might play on the cockatrice’s den; but he is a deadly cockatrice for all that. The snake may sleep, and you may play with it, but let it wake, and you will see that it is a deadly thing. Sin may lie dormant in the soul, but there may come a time when it will wake up; and there may come a time in England when those good people who hang on to the skirts of Christ, and attend our places of worship, may actually develop into persecutors.
From a sermon entitled "Nazareth; Or, Jesus Rejected By His Friends," delivered June 2, 1867. Image by Indy Kethdy under Creative Commons License.
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