separation opened an easy road of access for the evil spirit to influence the human mind toward exterior objects, and rendered them the subjects of temptation. By giving way to carnal inclinations, man became carnally-minded, and "to be carnally-minded is death."*

7. When the Sovereign Legislator first added a positive law to Adam, he pre-denounced immediate death upon him, in case of his transgression. "In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die."t This seems to imply a much deeper and more important meaning than what relates to the body; a meaning more immediately affecting to the rational soul; the privation of a life which before transgression it happily enjoyed, and which, by disobedience, it must certainly lose. What then is the proper life of the soul, and what is the death of that which must for ever exist? Merely to be, can not be the life intended. It must be, to live in that life which immutably exists only in the divine nature, and which is not to be enjoyed but by partaking of the divine nature, the spirit of Him, who is the life, and our life; that life the evangelist declares to be the true light of men.‡

This supernatural, spiritual, heavenly power and virtue of the great illuminator, and quickener, is the true life of the immortal spirit of man; and the total want, or deprivation thereof, is its death. Turning from this to embrace temptation, our first parents did surely, in the day of transgression, deviate from, and die in spirit to that divine life by which they had been quickened. For, it is the spirit that quickeneth, or giveth life ;|| and when life departs, death ensues of course. As the body dies when deprived of its animal life ; so the soul is left in a state of spiritual death, when that which is its proper life departs from it; saving this difference, that the deceased body remains wholly insensible; but the soul, in the full state of its death, still exists under the unavoidable sense of its guilt and misery. Thus, according to Wisdom, man found death in the error of his life.§ "For God made not death, neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living." But "through envy of the Devil came death into the world.”

*Rom. viii. 6. † Gen. ii. 17. 2 Pet. i. 4; John xiv. 6; John i. 4. | John vi. 63; 2 Cor, iii, 6. § Wisdom i, 12, 13.

Col. iii. 4;

¶ Ibid ii, 24.

CHAPTER II.

1. The Fall of Adam and Eve affected all their Progeny, not with Guilt, but with Infirmity.-2. How this accrues.-3. The State of Infants.-4. The common Ascendance of the Sensitive Powers over the Rational.-5. How the Creature is said (Rom. viii.) to be subjected to vanity by its Creator. 6. When arrived to Years of Understanding, we add Sin to Infirmity.

66

1. Ir appears from Holy Writ, that, previous to our own actual offences, we are all naturally affected by the transgression of our primogenitors. By one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."* This is not to be understood of the death of the body only; for all come into the world in the image of the earthly, or, void of the quickening and sensible influence of divine life. But this disadvantage, through the Supreme Goodness, is amply provided for, and there appears no necessity to conclude, that we all come into the world justly obnoxious to divine vengeance, for an offence committed by our primogenitors, before we came into the world. With what propriety can an infant, incapable of committing any crime, be treated as an offender? The Scripture positively assures us, God's ways are equal-that the soul that sinneth IT shall die,t and not the son for the fault of the father -that whatever Adam's posterity lost through him, that and more they gain in Christ; and undoubtedly, his mercy and goodness, and the extent of his propitiation, are as applicable to infants, who have not personally offended, as to adults who have.

2. The immortal reasonable soul of man, in every individual, appears to be the immediate production of its Creator; for the prophet Zechariah, speaking of the great acts of God in creation, asserts, that "he formeth the spirit of man within him."|| And in Eccles. xii. 7, we read upon the death of the body, "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." The soul, therefore, receiving its existence immediately from the perfection of unchangeable purity, can have no original impurity or intemperature in its nature; but being immediately and intimately connected with a sensitive body, and of itself, unable constantly to withstand the eagerness of the animal passions after gratifications of a carnal nature, is liable to be so * Rom. v. 12. † Ezek. xviii. Rom. v. 15-20, || Zech. xii, 1.

influenced by them, as to partake with them in their sensual indulgences. In this state the descendants of Adam come into the world, unendued with that divine life which Adam fell from. And who can say, this might not be admitted in mercy to all the future generations of mankind? 1st. That each succeeding individual might be prevented from incurring the guilt of repeating the sin of our prime ancestors, and falling from the same degree of innocence, purity, and divine enjoyment. 2d. That, by feeling the infirmity of our own nature, and the want of divine assistance, we might become the more sensible of our danger, and necessary dependance on our Creator, and thence be continually excited to seek after, and cleave to him, in watchfulness, circumspection, and prayer, in order to obtain a state of restoration. 3d. That having in part attained such a state, our prudence might be useful toward our preservation and growth therein; since we should certainly be more assiduously concerned, to secure to ourselves a good condition, obtained through pains and difficulty, than one we might have been originally placed in without any care or trouble to ourselves.

3. Whatever were the peculiarities attending the fall of the first man and woman, or those consequent upon it, this is certain, that their progeny do not come into the world in that same state of brightness themselves were constituted in after their creation. It can not escape the notice of those who have had the care of infants, that the earliest exertions observable in them, evidently arise from the powers of animal desire, and animal passion; how prone these are to increase in them and to predominate as they grow up, and the solicitude it requires to keep children out of unruliness and intemperature, as they advance to youth's estate; how much too potent their inordinate propensities are for the government of the rational faculty; what pains are necessary to regulate, and often but to palliate them, by a virtuous education, and improving converse; and the impossibility they should ever be radically subdued and ruled, without the application of a superior principle.

4. In the present state of our nature, the sensitive powers take the lead of the rational in the first stage of life, as the soul brings only a capacity, without any real knowledge, or potency, into the world with it. It acquires its knowledge by degrees, enlarging also in capacity to receive it gradually. Every one knows, it is not capable at five or ten years of age, to comprehend the same ideas in the same extent, as in

riper and more advanced years. It first becomes impressedwith the images of external things, presented through the corporeal organs, and afterward with those mental ideas inculcated by its primary instructers, whether true or false. Hence the bias of education becomes strong, either to right or wrong, according as the instructions received are agreeable to either, and the passions being enlisted in their service, occasionally exercise their warmth in favor of the prevalent idea, or impression, however wrong it may be; unless the mind, through divine illumination, discover its error, and submit to its rectification.

5. Previous to the reception of knowledge, the soul is joined to the body, by the power of its Creator, who, in consequence of the fall, saw fit it should be so. "For," saith

the apostle," the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope; because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of God."*

The rational soul is here intended by the creature, and properly denominates the man. Herein the true distinction lies, betwixt the human species and creatures of inferior kinds. This descends not with the body, from parents to children; the soul being an indivisible immaterial substance, can not be generated. The soul of the child never was in the parent, and therefore could never sin in him, nor derive guilt from his transgression. Neither can guilt accrue to it, merely from its being joined to a body descended from him, because that junction is the act of the Creator.

To account a child guilty, or obnoxious to punishment, merely for an offence committed by its parents, before it could have any consciousness of being, is inconsistent both with justice and mercy; therefore no infant can be born with guilt upon its head.

6. Besides our natural alienation from, and ignorance of the internal life of God,t in our fallen state, it must be acknowledged, that all who have arrived to such a degree of maturity as to be capable of receiving a right understanding, and of distinguishing the inward monitions of truth in their conscience, have also increased and strengthened the bonds of corruption upon themselves, in different degrees, by a repeated, and too frequently an habitual indulgence of the carnal part, against the sense of duty received, and are more deeply

* Rom. viii. 20, 21. † Eph. iv. 18,

entered into the dark region of the shadow of death, through their own trespasses and sins. Thus "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."+

CHAPTER III.

1. The State of Man in the fallen Nature, and the Necessity of his Renova tion.-2. His Inability to accomplish it for himself, and the Necessity of Divine Assistance thereunto.-3. What Moral Evil is-that it both may and must be removed from Man in order to his Felicity.-4. Without this, Man is not fully acquitted by the one Offering of our Savior at Jerusalem. -5. The spirit of God is absolutely necessary to effect this great work.6. What perfect Redemption from Sin consists in-the term World (John iii. 16) is not to be confined to the Elect-Christ tasteth Death for all Men without Exception.

1. WHATEVER we may have derived from our parents, we certainly accumulate to ourselves additional corruption. "All flesh hath corrupted his way upon the earth." Every adult person, in his common natural state, must, upon serious introversion, find in himself a proneness to the gratification of self, and the sensual part, an eager inclination at times to forbidden pleasure, an aversion to piety, and holy walking, a consciousness of guilt, and a fearful apprehension of the approach of death. Men generally confess they have erred and strayed, like lost sheep, from the salutary paths of virtue and duty, and that such is their frailty, it is an easy thing for them to fall in with temptation; but hard, if not impossible, effectually to resist it. Nay, even the high rewards promised to virtue and a good life, and the sore punishments annexed to vice and folly, are altogether insufficient to retain them in the practice of the former, or to enable them to conquer the force of their inclination to the latter. This demonstrates the corruption of their nature; and, as "out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh ;"|| so from what lodges or presides within, the exterior practice arises. The corruption in the heart corrupts the actions, manners, and language. Hence all the irregularities in conduct, all the profane and untrue speeches, all the common complimental falsehoods, to gratify the pride and folly of vain minds.

As the origin of evil in man, came by transferring his attention and desire from his Creator to the creature, dividing • Eph. ii. 1. † Rom. iii. 23. Gen. vi. 2. Matt. xii. 34.