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they watched at the gate of the earthly paradise, to prevent our entrance, now they bend from the golden walls of the heavenly city, to invite you to a participation in joys, of which they alone, of all created beings, know the fullness, the intenseness, and the perpetuity.

MAN ORIGINALLY INNOCENT.

PERFECT holiness, Adam doubtless possessed immediately after he was created, and while he continued in the garden of innocence. He knew most intimately the divine law; what he admired he chose, and evinced his choice by the most spotless and ardent obedience. No wrong bias, no corrupt principle disturbed for a moment the harmony of his mind. His affections and passions all pure and spiritual, were ceaseless ministers to the Lord. LovE stood before his altar, and offering her grateful incense, kept up the hallowed flame. FEAR, with angel-reverence, bowed down before the sanctuary, where, as yet, no interposing veil had hid the presence of divinity. HOPE lifted up her hands and eyes to heaven, and showed by the intenseness of her countenance, where and what she expected to be. Joy told her raptures in glad hosannas of praise, and sought on earth to join in those songs which seraphs sing in the celestial mansions. Whilst MEMORY unfolded the records of eternal love, and with ecstasy reviewed the glorious past. And CONSCIENCE, yet unsullied, stood by, witnessed the sacred service, and gave her approbation as the voice of GOD.-Such was man in the day when God created him. Knowledge and holi

ness-the image of God,—all that is great, and all that is excellent, conspired to adorn and sublimate his soul.

DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE.

If it is good reasoning to conclude, that a tree which, under all circumstances, and every variety of management, does nevertheless invariably continue to bring forth bad fruit, is itself essentially corrupt and bad, surely it is no less consistent with reason to infer, judging from the general quality of his actions, that "man is of his own nature inclined to evil"-that he is indeed "the degenerate plant of a strange vine;"—moreover, that it requires nothing less than the entire renovation of his nature, to enable him to bring forth fruit pleasing and acceptable to God. If, then, this representation of the real condition of man is true and that it is true in its principal features, the voice of revelation, and the evidence of facts, incontrovertibly testify-it can answer no beneficial purpose, to quarrel and object against it rather, is it not our wisdom, frankly and without debate, to admit, in all its force, and to the fullest extent, the humiliating account, in order that we may be thereby led cordially to embrace that wonderful scheme of redemption which is freely proposed to our acceptance, submitting ourselves wholly to that all-sufficient Saviour, "who waiteth to be gracious."

"What better can we do

-than prostrate fall

Before him reverent, and there confess

Humbly our faults, and pardon beg with tears?"

MALIGNITY OF SIN.

WERE any one to ask me, what is the worthiest object of our most ardent pursuit, and what we should give the greatest possible diligence to obtain, I should answer, holiness, because it comprehends all that is great and good-its end is everlasting life. Were any one again to ask me, what should be our utmost dread, and what we should give the utmost diligence to avoid, I should answer, sin, because it comprehends all that is base and wretched, and necessarily excludes us from everlasting life. To the same degree that holiness is beneficial and lovely, sin is pernicious and detestable. It is of essential malignity and ill desert, and will, sooner or later, be seen by all to be the greatest evil with which our nature can be afflicted. Other evils, such as discase and poverty, losses and calumny, affect only what is external and foreign to us, but they need not disturb our minds, nor can they do the least injury to what is truly ourselves; but sin pierces, and wounds, and ravages ourselves. It hurts, not so much the body, the reputation, or fortune, as the man; it plants anguish, desolation, and ruin, in the soul itself. Other evils may, in the end, prove useful to us, but this is eternally and unchangeably evil; the bane of every heart into which it enters, and the destruction of all those who are not rescued from its power, and delivered from its punishment.

HATEFUL NATURE OF SIN.

FROM the scheme of man's redemption we learn that sin must be something far more hateful in its nature, something of a deeper malignity, than is generally understood. It could be no inconsiderable evil that could require such a remedy as the humiliation of the second person in the Godhead. It is not to be supposed, that any light cause would move the merciful Father of the universe to expose even an innocent man to unmerited sufferings. What must be the enormity of that guilt, which God's mercy could not pardon till the only begotten Son of God had undergone its punishment? How great must be the load of crime, which could find no adequate atonement till the Son of God descended from the bosom of the Father, clothed himself with flesh, and being found in fashion as a man, submitted to a life of hardship and contempt, to a death of ignominy and pain?

From this scheme we learn further, that the good or ill conduct of man is a thing of far more importance and concern in the moral system than is generally imagined. Man's deviation from his duty was a disorder, it seems, in the moral system of the universe, for which nothing less than divine wisdom could devise a remedy, the remedy devised nothing less than divine wisdom and power could apply. Man's disobedience was in the moral world what it would be in the natural, if a planet were to wander from its orbit, or the constellations to start from their appointed seats. It was an evil for which the regular constitution of the world had no cure, which nothing but the immediate interposition of Providence could repair.

FORGIVENESS OF SIN.

THE forgiveness that is with God is such as becomes him-such as is suitable to his greatness, goodness, and other excellencies of his nature-such as, that therein he will be known to be God. What he says concerning some of the works of his providence, "be still, and know that I am God," may be much more said concerning this great effect of his grace, still your souls, and know that he is God. It is not like that narrow, difficult, halving, and manacled forgiveness that is found amongst men, when any such thing is found amongst them; but it is full, free, boundless, bottomless, absolute-such as becomes his nature and excellencies. It is, in a word, forgiveness that is with God, and by the exercise whereof he will be known so to be. If there be any pardon with God, it is such as becomes him to give; when he pardons, he will abundantly pardon.-Go with your half-forgiveness, limited, conditional pardons, with reserves and limitations, unto the sons of men; it may be it may become them-it is like themselves;-that of God is absolute and perfect, before which our sins are as a cloud before the east wind and the rising sun. Hence he is said to do this work with his whole heart and his whole soul, freely, bountifully, largely, to indulge and forgive unto us our sins, and to cast them unto the bottom of the sea-unto a bottomless ocean, an emblem of infinite mercy.

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