which they thus inculcate. That such is the real design of all these men I am convinced by this remarkable fact; viz. that, when driven from one error, they always take refuge in another; and never come a whit nearer, however often confuted, to the reception of the truth. The sum of the argument, then, is this: God has given to mankind a law, for the government of their moral conduct, which is not only reasonable and just in itself, but dictated by infinite benevolence on his part, and supremely profitable to them: a law demanding of them, that they love him with all the heart, and that they love each other as themselves. This character, which is no other than the Image of his moral perfection, is the supreme excellence, and the only moral excellence, of Intelligent beings. In itself it is high and indispensable enjoyment to every such being; and in its efficacy it is the only voluntary cause of all other enjoyments: a cause, existing originally and supremely in Him, and by derivation existing extensively in them.

This Law, therefore, is a perfect law; and worthy of JEнOVAH. Were men virtuously disposed; were they not depraved were they not sinful; their obedience to its commands would be immediate, universal, and absolute. Instead of this, wherever it has been proposed to them, they have chosen to disobey it, notwithstanding the glorious and eternal reward, promised to their obedience, and the awful penalty, threatened to disobedience. What stronger proof of their depravity can be demanded

There is, however, one proof still more affecting. In the miserable situation, into which men brought themselves by their Apostasy, God regarded them with infinite compassion, and undertook to rescue them from their sin and misery. For this end he sent his own beloved Son into the world, to live here a humble, painful, and persecuted life, and to die an accursed and excruciating death, to make in the human soul an end of sin, to finish transgression, to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness. In consequence of his atonement, God has offered, anew, to receive the fallen race of Adam into his favour, on the conditions of Faith and Repentance in the Redeemer: conditions in themselves indispensable to their return to God, and to obedience; indispensable to their own VOL. I.

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comfort, honour, and virtue; and beyond expression easy, reasonable, and desirable. As he foresaw that they would still resist this boundless love, and would fail of it through their corruption, ignorance, error, and prejudice; he published his Gospel to enlighten them, and sent his Spirit to sanctify them, that by all means they might be saved. Still, in a multitude of instances almost literally endless, a multitude so great as to prove this to be the common character of all the children of Adam, they have rejected these most merciful proffers of boundless good, crucified his son afresh, cast contempt on his cross, accounted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and done despite to the Spirit of Grace.

And now, my friends and brethren, judge, I pray you, between God and his vineyard. What could have been done to his vineyard, that he has not done in it! Wherefore, when he looked, that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth poisonous berries*? Wherefore brought it forth the grapes of Sodom, and the clusters of Gomorrah? Every tree is known by its fruit. This vine is plainly, therefore, of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah. Its grapes are grapes of gall; its clusters are bitter. Its wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of Asps.

Were man virtuously disposed, it is incredible, nay, it is plainly impossible, that he should not yield himself to this Law, as soon as it is proposed to him. As obedience to this Law is the only excellence of conduct; so a virtuous state of mind, a virtuous disposition, a virtuous character, by all of which phrases we intend that unknown cause, heretofore specified, which gives birth to virtuous rather than to vicious conduct, would so soon as this Law was proposed to it, render, in a sense instinctively, an immediate, cheerful, and universal obedience.

Were such a mind, also, to apostatize, and yet to retain a disposition in a preponderating degree virtuous; were it afterwards to be informed of a method, by which it might return to obedience, and the favour of God; it would be plainly impossible, that such a mind should not receive this information, and embrace this method of returning, with readiness, and even with

* Lowth. + Deut. xxxii. 32.

rapture. If, at the same time, the terms of its reinstatement in obedience, and in the divine favour, were in themselves eminently easy and reasonable, and in their efficacy productive of its highest future amiableness, dignity, and enjoyment; if they were such, as rendered it peculiarly lovely in the sight of God, and prepared it to be peculiarly useful to its fellow-creatures; such a mind would beyond a doubt, seize the terms themselves with delight, and the divine object, which they secured, with extasy.

The rejection of the word of God, of the Law and the Gospel alike, is, therefore, entirely inexplicable, unless we acknowledge, that the disposition, by which it is rejected, is a disposition directly opposed to that of a virtuous mind; wholly unlike that with which Adam was created; and the genuine moral likeness of Adam after his Apostasy.

SERMON XXXI.

DEPRAVITY OF MAN.

ITS DEGREE.

ECCLESIASTES viii. 11.

Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.

In the two last discourses, I proposed for consideration the following doctrine; That in consequence of the Apostasy of Adam all men have sinned; and endeavoured to prove the Universality of sin in the former of these discourses;

1st. From Revelation: and,

2dly. From Facts:

And in the latter from the great fact, that mankind have rejected the Word of the Lord.

It is now my design to examine, in several particulars, the Degree, in which the sinfulness of man exists. On this subject I ob

serve,

1st. That the human character is not depraved to the full extent of the human powers.

It has been said, neither unfrequently, nor by men void of understanding, that man is as depraved a being, as his faculties will permit him to be; but it has been said without consideration, and without truth. Neither the Scriptures, nor Experience, warrant this assertion. Wicked men and seducers, it is declared, will was