By these powerful figures the prophet sets forth the moral corruption and its impending calamities of the people to whom he ministered. [Note that in vers. 7, 8, the prophet speaks as if the future were already present; so clear and vivid is his view of it.] +I. A whole nation may become morally corrupt.+ Vice may defile and degrade all classes of society. +II. The natural tendency of national corruption is not to abate, but to spread and increase.+ Vices are "_putrefying_ sores." As in the body physical a disease or wound in one member may poison the whole body, so in the body politic the vice of any one class tends to spread through all society.--These two considerations should lead us--1. _To pray constantly and earnestly for our country._ "Christian England" left to itself, and unrestrained by Divine grace and mercy, would soon become as Sodom and Gomorrah. 2. _Not to be selfishly indifferent to the sins of the classes of society to which we do not happen to belong._ This were as foolish as it would be for a man to give no heed to the fact that his neighbour's house was on fire, in forgetfulness or the other fact that fire spreads; or as if in the body the head were indifferent to the fact that the foot had received a poisoned wound. 3. _To put forth earnest efforts for the repression of public vices._ Mere passive reprobation of them will be of no avail. Nor can we reasonably hope that time will abate and lessen them. No; these "sores" are _"putrefying;"_ and if the body politic is ever to be restored to moral health, they must be "closed, bound up, and mollified with ointment." In some cases this "ointment" must be moral suasion, in other cases legal coercion. This principle is already recognised in regard to cockfighting, the sale of indecent books and pictures, &c. +III. In a modified sense, the declarations of our text are true of every human being.+ The doctrine of "total depravity" has been preached in such a manner as to discredit it, and statements have been made in exposition of it which would imply that every child comes into the world as wicked as Nero left it (not only depraved in every faculty, but in every faculty totally depraved!) This representation of the doctrine is contrary both to Scripture (2 Tim. iii. 13; 1 Pet. iv. 4, &c.) and to fact. But our rejection of this exaggerated form of it must not lead us to reject the doctrine itself. Our whole personality has been "depraved"--debased and deteriorated--by sin; the whole man--his affections, passions, understanding, reason, imagination, and will--has been impaired by the "fall;" just as by certain diseases _all_ the functions of the body are disordered.[1] The natural tendency of this inborn corruption is not to lessen with increasing years, but to intensify; as a matter of fact, _aged_ sinners are always the vilest and most malignant. These facts--1. _Disclose man's need of a redemptive power external to himself._ Our moral corruption is not like one of those