being always prayerful; living without God in
the world, instead of loving him with all his mind,
and soul, and strength. There may be men, there
may be communities, and even generations, who
have sunk below the ordinary level of depravity;
but all have come so far short of the glory of God,
as to be reckoned dead in sin. Some traces of
social virtue may still be perceptible among us;
but to look for a due sense of religious obligation,
or for the sympathies of the heavenly state in an
unrenewed heart, is to seek the living among the
dead. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable
iniquity, they are altogether become filthy.
and in regard to that respect for the ties of social
life, so often vaunted in some quarters, how much
more manifest is the breach than the perform-
ance? It was the impression of such things that
led the humane, the devout, the high-born soul of
Cowper to exclaim,

O for a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,
Where rumour of oppression and deceit,

Of unsuccessful or successful war,

Might never reach me more. My ear is pained,

My soul is sick, with every day's report

Of wrong and outrage, with which earth is filled.
There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart,

It does not feel for man; the natural bond
Of brotherhood is severed as the flax,

That falls asunder at the touch of fire.

Yes,

II. If such be the moral state of mankind, it is natural to ask WHENCE IT HAS ORIGINATED? The evil we have been reviewing, is one affecting the

men of all countries, and of all ages. Not a solitary exception has been found. Various schemes have been wrought out, and adopted, to account for this fact, without admitting that explanation of it which has generally been regarded as the doctrine of scripture. But in attempting to escape from one difficulty, which the All-wise has allowed to beset them, men have plunged into many and greater of their own creating.

Thus some have endeavoured to account for this state of things, by tracing it to evil instruction and bad examples. But it is natural to ask, whence came this abundance of pernicious teachers-this force of pernicious example? This is evidently a part of the effect, a main difficulty of the case itself, and nothing approaching toward a solution of our question. Beside which, the world has never been wholly without good instructors, nor without examples of the best kind; and still the age has never been, in which its people have not chosen darkness rather than light. Some, indeed, appear as partial exceptions, preferring the unseen and eternal to the seen and temporal. But these, with one consent acknowledge, that they were made to differ thus by supernatural means-by the grace of God.

One writer assures us, that the depraved state of mankind is to be ascribed to the circumstance that their animal propensities reach maturity sooner than the powers of the mind; and that having once gained an ascendancy, the force of habit enables

C

them to retain it. Another contends, that it is not this connexion between the soul and body that will explain the difficulty; and insists that the sinful condition of human nature is the manifest consequence of the relation subsisting between man and this world-a region where every thing conspires to demoralize him. Such is the general nature of the theories which are sometimes avowed on this subject, on the plea that the doctrine of original sin, which regards the fallen state of the human race as the result of Adam's transgression, is too hard to be received. But surely there is the same difficulty in supposing that man is ruined by the union between his body and his soul, or between his nature and this world, that is said to attend the doctrine of the fall of the human family in its first parents. If it be said that we were no parties to the sin of Adam, and ought not therefore to bear its consequences; it is equally certain that we were no parties to the union that subsists between the two parts of our nature, or between our nature and the present world. The objection, therefore, which lies against the doctrine of original sin, lies with at least equal weight against these schemes devised to preclude it.

Sometimes we are told, that the freedom of the will, which is necessary to a state of accountableness, is the point which, properly understood, must remove much of the perplexity occasioned by the present condition of the world. Among the numberless inventions which have been employed for

the

purpose of putting aside an unwelcome truth this is perhaps the weakest. If men were perfectly free to choose between religion and irreligion, whence is it that, left to themselves, they never make the better choice? Does not this uniform preference of the evil, shew that there is in human nature a deep and powerful tendency toward what is evil? We ever judge of an inclination from its effects. We conclude that the habitual drunkard is influenced by a strong propensity toward drunkenness. The stone launched into the air, descends to the earth. The stream bursting from the mountain's brow, seeks its passage toward the vale beneath. This is their tendency-their nature. And when the human will is found every where deciding in favour of worldliness, in some one or other of its forms, to the exclusion of religion, is it not plain that its boasted freedom is an idle fiction ?-that there is a fatal bias in every man which enslaves it, that men are sold under sin?

Let it be remembered, also, that the means employed from the beginning, for the purpose of enlightening and saving men, have been of wonderful extent, variety, and fitness. Every thing adapted to reach the hopes and fears of men, their understanding and their heart, has been put into requisition to this end. Prophets have spoken with a voice from heaven. Miracles have attested the inspiration, and the importance of their theme. All the varieties of outward estate, and of intellectual or moral culture, on the part of the nations and the

tribes of men, have been consulted.

But notwithstanding this abundance and amplitude so observable in the means of goodness, the history of the world is just that wretched picture which we have now to look back upon.

And how solemn the chastisements which have come upon us!-War, pestilence, famine, death,and the ten thousand forms of suffering that lead to death. It must be presumed, that in the divine government, the punishment is never allowed to exceed the offence; and that the means are always adjusted to the end. It behoves us, therefore, to mark the causes which serve to render life a sickly dream, and death so bitter a reality; and to judge from these, though only the beginning of sorrows, as to the evil of that sin which brings them upon us, the inveteracy of that disease which they are sent to expel.

But if the universality of suffering and death be admitted as proving a universal sinfulness, the suffering and death of infants must teach us that there is a kind of relation between them and the first transgressor, exposing us to some of the worst consequences of sin from the very commencement of our being. It is sometimes said, that infants become the victims of disease and death, simply as a punishment to their parents, But supposing no moral connexion to subsist between Adam and the infant portion of the human family, this is in fact to say that God sometimes afflicts, and actually destroys the innocent, as the only means of