their extreme distance from the source of the evil, seem incapable of such a participation. This transmission

seems to us not only impossible but unjust. For what can be more repugnant to the rules of our despicable justice, than to condemn eternally an infant, yet irresponsible, for an offence, in which he appears to have had so little share, that it was committed six thousand years before he came into existence. Certainly nothing wounds us more cruelly than this doctrine. And yet without this mystery, to us of all others the most incomprehensible, we are utterly incomprehensible to ourselves. The complicated knot of our condition, has its mysterious folds in this abyss; so that man is more incomprehensible without this mystery, than is this mystery itself to man.

The notion of original sin, is foolishness to men. But then we should not condemn the want of reasonableness in this doctrine, for in fact it is not assumed to be within the province of reason. At the same time, this very foolishness is wiser than all the wisdom of men: (The foolishness of God, is wiser than men, 1 Cor. i. 25.) For without this, what explanation can we give of man! His whole condition hangs upon this one imperceptible point. Yet how could he have discovered this by his reason; seeing it is a matter above his reason; and that reason, far from discovering the fact, revolts from it, when it is revealed.

5. These two states of original innocence and subsequent corruption, being once presented to our view, it is impossible not to recognise them, and admit their truth. Let us trace our own emotions, and observe ourselves ; and let us see whether we do not detect within, the living characters of both these different natures. Could such contrarieties exist in the subject of one simple nature?

This two-fold tendency of man is so visible, that some have conceived him to possess two souls: one soul appearing to them incapable of such great and sudden changes, from an immeasurable presumption, to the most debasing and abject depravity.

Thus we see that the several contrarieties which seem most calculated to alienate men from the knowledge of any religion whatever, are the very things which should most effectually avail to guide them to the true.

For my own part, I avow, that as soon as the Christian religion discloses this one principle,-that human nature is depraved and fallen from God, my eyes open at once to discover the characters of this truth, inscribed on every thing around me. All nature, both within and without us, most manifestly declares the withdrawing of God.

Without this divine communication, what could men do, but either feed their pride on the inward impression yet remaining of their former greatness; or abjectly sink under the consciousness of their present infirmity? For as they do not discern all the truth, they can never attain to perfect virtue. Some regarding their nature as hitherto uncorrupted; others, as irrecoverably lost; they could not escape one of the two great sources of all vice,

either pride or recklessness. They must either abandon themselves to vice, through negligence; or emerge from it by the strength of their pride. If they were alive to the excellency of man, they would be ignorant of his corruption: and though, by this means, they would avoid the guilt of reckless indifference, they would split upon the rock of pride; and if they recognise the weakness of human nature, they would be strangers to its digity and thus they would shun the dangers of a proud

presumption, only to plunge themselves into the vortex of despair.

From this very source sprung all the various sects of the Stoics and Epicureans; of the Dogmatists, and the Academics, &c. The Christian religion only has been able thoroughly to cure these opposite vices; not by using the wisdom of this world to make one expel the other; but by expelling them both, through the means of the simple truth of the gospel. For while it exalts its votaries to be partakers of the divine nature, it teaches that even in this exalted state, they carry with them the source of all corruption, which renders them, during their whole life, liable to error and misery, to death and sin. At the same, it assures the most impious, that even they might yet experience the grace of the Redeemer. Thus administring salutary dread to those whom it justifies, and needful encouragement to those whom it condemns; it so wisely tempers hope and fear, by means of this two-fold capability of sin and of grace, which is common to all mankind, that it humbles man far below what unassisted reason could do, without driving him to despair; and it exalts man far beyond the loftiest height of natural pride, without making him presumptuous. And hereby it is shewn of the Christian religion, that inasmuch as it only is free from defect or error, to it alone belongs the task of instructing and correcting mankind,

6. We have no conception of the glorious state of Adam, nor of the nature of his sin, nor of the transmission of it to ourselves. These things occurred under circumstances widely different from our own; and they exceed the present limits of our comprehension. The comprehension of them would be of no avail for our deli

verance from evil. All that we need to know is, that through Adam we are become miserable, corrupt, and alienated from God; but that by Jesus Christ, we are redeemed. And of this, even in this world, we have ample proof.

7. Christianity has its wonders. It requires man to acknowledge himself vile and abominable; it requires him also to emulate the likeness of his Maker. Unless these things had been accurately balanced, such an exaltation would have rendered him extravagantly vain; such a debasement, lamentably abject.

Misery leads to despair; aggrandisement to presump

tion.

8. The mystery of the incarnation, shews to man the depth of his degradation, in the greatness of the necessary remedy.

9. The Christian religion does not recognise in us such a state of abasement, as renders us incapable of good; nor such a purity as is perfectly safe from evil. No doctrine is so well adapted to human nature, as this which declares man's capability of receiving and of forfeiting grace; because of the danger to which, on either hand, he is ever exposed, of despair and of presumption.

10. Philosophers have never furnished men with sentiments suited to these two features of their condition. They either infused notions of unalloyed greatness, which is certainly not man's real state; or they encouraged the idea of man's total depravity, which is equally an error. We want an actual abasement of soul, not by the

indulgence of our own base nature; but by a real penitence: not that we may abide there, but that we may attain thereby to exaltation. We want the stirrings of greatness; not those which originates in human merit; but those which spring from grace, and follow humiliation.

11. No man is really happy, rational, virtuous, amiable, but the true Christian. How free from pride is his consciousness of union with the Deity! How free from meanness, the humility which levels him with the worms of the earth!

Who, then, can withhold from this celestial light, his confidence and veneration? For is it not clearer than the day, that we discover in ourselves the indelible traces of our excellence? And is it not equally clear, that we experience every moment the sad realities of our deplorable condition. And does not, then, this internal chaos, this moral confusion, proclaim with a voice mighty and irresistible, the truth of those two states, to which revelation bears testimony?

12. That which hinders men from believing that they may be united to God, is the conviction of their depraved state. But if they are sincere in this conviction, let them follow out the fact to its bearings as I have; and let them acknowledge that the effect of this degradation is, to render us incapable of judging rightly, whether God can make us fit to enjoy him or not. For I would like to know where this avowedly weak and degraded creature acquired the power of guaging the Divine compassions, and limiting them according to his own fancy. Man knows so little of what God is, that he does not