philosopher, and the common opinion of the most intelligent ohservers of mankind. The poets were generally loose enough themselves, but they were wise enough to observe the universal wickedness of mankind and agree entirely in this obvious and general truth. Virgil tells us, that few are virtuous enough to escape the punishments of the other world: He brings in a ghost telling his son,

"Pauci læta arva tenemus."

And in this life the character of human nature among the poets is this:

"Nitimur in vetitum semper, cupimusque negata.”
Gens humana ruit per vetitum netas,

Audax ominia perpeti.

-HOR.

And that vice is early and universal he says,

"Nam vitiis nemo sine nascitur."

And when this author speaks of young men in general, he gives them this character:

"Cereus in vitum flecti, monitoribus asper."

Seneca says just the same,

"Pejora juvenes facile præcepta audiunt."

And Juvenal abounds in this account of human nature;

“Rari quippe boni: Numero vix sunt totidem que

Thebarum portæ, vel divitis ostia Nili.

Quæ tam festa dies ut cesset prodere furem ?

-Ad mores natura recurrit

Damnatos, fixa & mutari nescia.

Quisnam hominum est quem tu contentum videris uno

Flagitio?- --Dociles imitandis

They own indeed there was once a golden age, or a state of innocence at first. Their reason told them, that the great God must and did make man upright and good; but they imagined that mankind did degenerate by degrees in successive ages, and at last grew universally wicked. This is asserted not only by satyrical writers, but by those of a gentler disposition and a softer pen. Ovid and Manilius were not satyrists, yet they speak the very same language:

"Protinus erupit venæ pejoris in ævum

Omne nefas: Fugere pudor, verumque fidesque.
In quorum subiere locum fraudesque dolique
Insidiæque, & vis, & amor sceleratus habendi ·
Victa jacet pietas, terras Astræa reliquit."-Or.

Perque tot atates hominum, tot tempora & annos,
Tot bella, & varios etiam sub pace labores,
Cum fortuna fidem quærat, vix invenit usquam.
At quanta est scelerum moles per sæcula cuncta?
In populo scelus est: Et abundant cuncta furore,
Et fas atque nefas mistum, legesque per ipsas
Seyit nequities.".- -MANIL.

The sense of all which is thus represented in English.

"There are very few who die that go to heaven, or a state of happiness. We are always desiring and pursuing forbidden things. Mankind is bold to rush into forbidden wickedness; nor is any man born without vices: Young men most readily hearken to evil counsels; they are soft as wax to be moulded into vice, but rough and rugged to their best monitors. Good men are very few, scarce as many as the gates of the city Thebes, or the mouths of the Nile. What day is there that does not shew us some new malefactors? Nature recurs to its own wicked manners, is fixed in it, and knows not how to change. How few persons will you find contented with one sort of wickedness? We are all very forward to learn and imitate whatever is base or wicked. After the golden age, and some few following seasons, all manner of iniquity broke out: Modesty, truth, and faithfulness are quite fled away, in whose place came deceit, mischief, violence and wicked covetousness. Piety lay subdued, and justice left the earth. And through so many ages of men, so many murderous wars, and labours, and toils, in time of peace, there is scarce such a thing as honesty to be found; but through all ages there is an abundant load of crimes: Wickedness runs through the people: Madness rages, fills and overwhelms all things. Right and wrong are all mingled, and iniquity reigns even through the very laws of men." This was the common complaint of the most observing heathens in their age, as it is ours in the present day.

VI. Not only those who are grown up to mature age, but even mankind in its younger years, before it is capable of proper moral actions, discovers the principles of iniquity and the seeds of sin. What young ferments of spite and envy, what native wrath and rage sometimes are found in the little hearts of infants, and sufficiently discovered by their little hands, and their eyes, and their watchful countenances, even before they have learned to speak, or to know good and evil? What additional crimes of lying and deceit, what obstinacy and perverseness proceed to blemish their younger years* ?

Here our discourse is at once confronted by bringing in the words of our Saviour, Mat. xvii. 3. Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Little children say they, are here made the patterns of humility, meekness, and innocence; and in several other places of scripture, a state of childhood is represented as innocent, meek and humble; and therefore they have no such native vices. I answer this objection by granting, That children appear to be of a much meeker and milder temper than grown persous, because they have much fewer temptatious to vices of various kinds than grown persons meet with. Their inward vices are seldom awakened and provoked so much as they are in advancing years. Let it be further observed, that this humility of children which is recommended in this text, is their freedom from that amoition which possessed the disciples, when they sought who should be greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

How little knowledge or thought of God, their Creator and Governor, is found among children even when they begin to distinguish between good and evil, right and wrong? What an utter disregard of him that made them, and of the duties they owe to him? How hard is it to teach them to know their Maker, and to obey him? And no wonder it is so in children, since men and women are just the same. Yet, farther, how little prevailing sense or practice of what is morally right and good is seen among them, when they begin to act agreeably to their own childish and youthful age? How contrary is their conduct to the laws of reason, which are the laws of their Maker? How do the evil passions of nature, and irregular appetites and vices of the will prevail in them, and over them betimes? Even from their first capacity of acting as moral creatures in the world; how are they led away to practise falsehood and injury to their play-fellows, and that sometimes with insolence, cruelty and revenge? How often are they engaged in bold instances of disobedience to parents or teachers, snd in acts of shameful intemperance? They do evil with greediness both to themselves and to their fellow-creatures: Nor do I think there is one youth in the world who has not, on particular occasions, manifested some early inclinations to one vice or another. Would this have been the case, if mankind had been just such creatures as they came from their Maker's hand?

Nor can these vicious propensities be imputed to any ill influences of custom, or education, or example; for many of these things appear in children before they can take any notice of any such examples set before them, or are capable of such imitation. And it might be added, that even in the best of families, where good examples stand round them, where children from their youngest years are instructed in their duty, and encouraged and excited to practise virtue and religion, and persuaded to it by all the motives of authority and love, and led by many examples as well as by precepts, yet their hearts naturally run · astray from God. The greatest part of them in their childhood visibly follow the corrupt influences of sense, appetite and passion, and in very early years they manifest the inward evil principles of pride, obstinacy and disobedience: And multitudes, even in such families, grow up to practise many vices, and to

I grant also, that young children in general are really meek and innocent, in comparison with persons grown up, who have increased in pride and malice; and this is enough for such representations in scripture. But after all, I ask, are not these sad descriptions which I have given of the vicious tempers of many children, just and true? Does not daily observation discover them? And if so, whence does this evil temper arise, which at any time discovers itself in any of these little creatures? What is the root that brings forth such early bitter fruit? I say, whence can it proceed, or what is it, but some innate evil disposition that they bring into the world with them? This will appear more evidently in the following pages, wherein other pretended causes are excluded and refuted.

publish the iniquity and shame of their nature, in opposition to all the influences of instruction and advice, example and authority. And if all children were utterly untaught and unrestrained, even in the years of childhood, these iniquities would break out and discover themselves with much more evidence and shame: This appears in particular families, even in such countries and such towns which are civilized by learning and politeness. There are a thousand instances wherein this is evident in fact; that where the education of children is neglected, the whole generation becomes vicious: So among the heathens, there are whole nations wicked, perhaps without an exception.

VII. To give yet a fuller confirmation of this truth, that mankind have a sinful and corrupt nature in them, let it be observed, that where persons have not only been educated from their youngest years in all the practices of piety, virtue and goodness, as far as parents could influence them, but wherc young persons themselves have taken something of a religious turn betimes, and have sought after true wisdom and piety, what wretched and perpetual hindrances do they find within themselves? What inward oppositions are working in the heart, and too often interrupt this holy course of life? What vanity of mind, what sinful appetites, what sensuality and forgetfulness of God, what evil affections, what vicious thoughts and wishes, and tendencies of heart rise up in contradiction to their honest and professed purposes of virtue and holiness, and lead them astray too often from their duty both to God and man? Even some of the best of men, who have observed their own hearts, are forced to cry out, Oh, wretched creature that I am! What vicious principles do I find in my members warring against reason and the law of my mind, and bringing me too often into captivity to sin? Whether St. Paul complained thus concerning himself or no in his letter to the Romans, chapter vii. verses 23, 24. or whether he spoke it in the name of mere pretenders to religion, yet as there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and never sins; so I am persuaded, there is not a man who cannot in some measure take up this complaint, that he is sometimes led astray by sense, appetite or passion, in greater or lesser instances, against the better dictates of his mind and conscience: There is not a man who may not mourn over himself in this language, O wretched creature indeed! Who shall deliver me from this native disorder, this inward plague, these evil propensities of my nature? There is none perfectly righteous; no

not one.

I may sum up the argument contained in the three last considerations in this manner, viz. If great multitudes of mankind are grossly sinful, and if every individual, without exception,

is actually a sinner against the law of his Creator; if sinful propensities and inclinations appear even in youngest years, and every child becomes an actual sinner almost so soon as it is capable of moral or immoral actions; we have just reason to conclude, there is some original and universal degeneracy spread over the whole race of men from their birth: For it is not to be supposed that the wisdom, equity and goodness of God would ever have produced such a world, wherein every single creature coming out of their Maker's hands in the original state of innocence and full power to obey, should be thus defiled by their own wilful and chosen disobedience.

It has been said indeed, in opposition to this argument, that if the first man, even Adam, did fall into sin, though he was made innocent and perfect, then among a million of creatures, every one might sin, though he was made as innocent and as perfect as Adam, and that this is a better account of so universal an apostacy. To which I answer, There is indeed a bare possibility of this event: But the improbability that every creature should fall into sin, is in the proportion of a million to one. And I prove it thus: If a million of creatures were made but in an equal probability to stand or fall; and if all the numbers from one to one million inclusively, were set in a rank, it is plain that it is a million to one that just any single proposed and determined number of all this multitude should fall by sin: Now the total sum is one of these numbers, that is, the last of them, and consequently, in this way of calculation, it is a million to one against the supposition, that the whole number of men should fall. And yet further, if they were all made in a far greater probability of standing than falling, which the justice and goodness of God seem to require, then it is much more than a million to one, that all should sin against their Creator without exception. See therefore the weakness of this objection; though I have read several triumphs, in a few pages, supported only by this argument, which has the proportion of more than a whole million to. one against it. And yet this argument will grow still ten thousand times stronger, if we suppose ten thousand millions to have lived since the creation.

It has been said again, if the nature of our first parents was not originally corrupt, who committed the first sin, and occasioned the suffering, neither is my nature originally corrupt, who am no ways concerned in the commission of that sin, but only am thereby subjected to suffering. I auswer, But if the sin of our first parent laid him under guilt, tainted and defiled his own nature, both soul and body, and I am derived from him as my spring and head, I may be thus defiled also, receiving a taint both in soul and body, from the first criminal, as I have shewn afterwards.