and desolation over it, has followed from that one act of will on the part of our first mother, when she ate the forbidden fruit.

By it she armed conscience, and enlisted all the constitutional and characteristic principles of her nature, in a warfare against herself, as well as in rebellion against God. Conscience, which before had been a minister of bliss, became a demon of torment. The constitutional principles, or the susceptibilities of her nature, remained the same; but their action was totally deranged, and she became totally depraved. The proper balance, if we may so speak, which was to regulate all the motions of the moral man, was lost, and every thing was thrown into wild and frightful disorder. An hurried action instantly took place, and the rebellion, commenced in one deliberate act of will, has been driven forward with resistless celerity, into frantic excitement and resentments even against God Himself.

Such was the process of depraved developments in the first man. "The woman which Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." said guilty and impenitent Adam, charging God Himself with being the author of his misery and his crime, and hundreds and thousands of his rebellious offspring malignantly renew and reiterate the charge. The very principles of Adam's nature, the susceptibilities and instincts of the moral being whose excitement and actings had before been blissful as they were directed to legitimate objects, immediately, on his sin, lent their powerfulinfluence to perpetuate those acts of will, which would detain, and sink him, still deeper, and deeper, in wretchedness and rebellion. By the one act of disobedience," he had changed all his moral re1. Gen. iii, 12.

2. The Apostle, in the 5th chapter of his epistle to the Romans, is very careful to designate the first sin of our progenitors. IIe calls it ro rupa

lations, and all his hopes of bliss in communion and intercourse with God, and contributed to corrupt the character of his whole progeny.

The very objects that had contributed to his high and ennobling enjoyment, proved productive of the keenest anguish. The gentle step of God, once so beloved, now breaks upon his ears as rattling peals of thundering vengeance. The bright smiles of universal nature, that had once beamed bliss into his soul, are now like the piercing frowns of some wrathful executioners of the Almighty menace. The very light of Heaven was too intensely glorious for our guilty parents to bear, and as they parted with their hopes and desire of bliss in fellowship with God, and obedience to Him, the very same instincts. and constitutional susceptibilities which had inclined to these things, now urged them to attempt an absolute separation of themselves from Him, as the only conceivable method of escape from deserved damnation. The instinct of our nature, which makes us shrink from pain, and every passion of the heart that ordinarily incites to action, were all brought into full and effectual play to beleaguer the will of man, and prevent forever his return to God. And had it not been that God, in mercy, intended to recover the rebel to Himself, and reveal what he never possibly

πολλές

Fea—the offence the stumbling block over which we fall-proprie: lapsus offensio, cum ad rem, invia jacentem, pedem, impingentes prolabimur. Schleusneri. Lex. ed. ver. sigte To του ενός παραπτώματι σ avbaver-for if by the offence of the one man the multitude died, Romans v, 15. See also verses 17, 18, and 29, dia rus wapanons wou eros avbjæñou αμαρτωλοί κατεστάθησαν οι πολλοί, &c. κατεστάθησαν—from a verb which $gufies to stand or put in a place-to appoint or establish in an office as an overseer of servants, Luke xii, 42-to lead into, or conduct, Acts xvii, 15, to render or effect, 2 Pet. 1, 8. The Apostle describes the process by which men become sinners. It is dia by means of the wafanons The offence of Adam, is the instrumental cause of their sin, not the very thing which constituted their sin. It leads to or operates to secure sun in the mitude and render them sinners.

could of himself have discovered, that there is forgiveness through the blood of Jesus, poor wretched fallen man, had bound himself, eternally, with the chains of his own forging, and rendered it forever impossible for him to repent. Hell had quickly opened its flood-gates of wrath, and pouring in its deluge of woe, claimed and secured our whole guilty race, as another family of devils, fraught with envenomed malice, to oppose the government of God.

All this perhaps is seen, and acknowledged to be true, in reference to the first parents of our race; but, it is asked, how is that disordered exercise of man's moral powers, which ensued in them immediately upon rebellion, and by which the passions and appetites, the constitutional susceptibilities and principles of his nature, triumphed over his interest and happiness, rendered certain in his posterity? In reply, we remark, that the idea of physical defect, does not at all comport with that of moral depravity. The want of an hand or an arm, an eye or a limb, is not ordinarily taken into the account, when we estimate a man's moral character. But, suppose that a person was born into this world, with such a deformed and ill-shapen body, as to be illy adapted to the purposes of ordinary life-destitute of the power of locomotion, and not capable of being guided and governed by the will, we should never think of attributing to him that depravity, which we would to one who had the requisite corporcal powers, for manifesting his intentions, and acting out all the rebellious purposes of his heart. Should he, however, possess the faculty of speech, and give vent to blasphemous thoughts and execrations, and thus manifest alienation of mind from God, and malignity of heart towards Him, we should attribute to him an increased degree of depravity, in proportion to the corporeal disadvantages and disabilities, under which he labored. But should he be devoid of mental endowments-in

capable of reason, and incapable of speech; or, should he be possessed of the power of speech, yet altogether idiotical, incapable of judgment and memory, even acts, which, in another, would be accounted proofs of depravity, and which, in themselves, are immoral, would not be supposed to indicate the same in him. And the reason is, because, practically, we do not predicate depravity of the corporeal, or even mental constitution of man; but of the actual exercise of those powers, which are implied or requisite in the willing to do, and doing, what the law of God prohibits, or refusing what it requires. It is, therefore, of essential importance, in our investigations on this subject, that we form correct notions of what it is, which constitutes man the proper subject of moral government-we mean, which brings him actually under the government of law.

Mankind universally make a distinction, between mere natural discipline or government, and that which is by law or the declared will of a sovereign, who has a right to command. The maniac is governed as the brutes. The infant and child, by the mere exercise of power. And, in human governments, where the enactments are designed for the good of society, and which, it must therefore be presumed, are so complicated, as not to be early or easily understood, there is an age, which the individual must have attained, before he is considered as personally responsible in all his acts, or capable of acting for himself. There is evidently this general assumption, on the part of mankind, that there must be such a development of the corporeal and mental capacities, which qualify for acting, as to presuppose a knowledge of law, before the individual can strictly and properly be said, to be under the actual goverment of law, so far as his personal acts are concerned.

The natural, providential government of God, is, undoubtedly, different, from that which, as a moral governor, He maintains over intelligent and voluntary beings. The

latter is the government of law, or declared will. The former, of mere power and care. The latter, in this world, is peculiar to man. The former, man enjoys in common with the whole brute and animal creation. It would seem, therefore, that the question is rather out of place, to ask, whether, and how INFANTS sin, in whom there has not yet been a sufficient development of the intellectual and physical powers, to qualify them for the knowledge of law, and the actions contemplated by the law. Are we under the necessity of supposing, that there is any thing wrought into their intellectual or corporeal constitution, which is, in itself, sinful? Does the word of God really teach us, that the mere organization of the infant body and mind, or that its substance and constitutional properties, are sinful? We apprehend not; for then, unquestionably, it must mean something else to be sinful, than actually to violate the will of a moral governor; and if so, we cannot see, but that we might predicate sin of the brute creation, with as much propriety as of infants. If the sin of Adam deranged the whole constitution of God, that was his sin; but certainly, in no sense, can it be said to be the personal sin of those, who are unfurnished with the capacities requisite for moral action.

The idea of MORAL UNITY, or of representation, or of acting by another, which has been resorted to as a philosophical theory, to solve difficulties on this subject, is based on the assumption, that every individual descendant of Adam, is personally under the actual government of law, from the very first moment of its existence; yea, and before it had existence-at least, in the eye of God! The question, which to us seems most, and indeed only appropriate here, is, whether Adam's sin has not so perverted the constitution of God, and produced such a change, in the whole process of the development of the powers and capacities of his offspring, as to render it morally certain, that they shall