corruption of our species. We cannot at present afford so much as one sentence on the other branch of the subject, which is original sin in respect of the guilt of it; and under which we may have to advance a few remarks, for elucidating what has been termed the imputation of Adam's sin to all his posterity. It is evident that the two topics of the existence of original sin and the guilt of it, are distinct from one another; and they lead to distinct practical consequences. The only one we shall urge upon you just now, is, that, however much poetry and philosophy and eloquence may have failed in their attempts to extirpate the moral disorders of our world,—this is the very enterprise which the gospel of Jesus Christ has embarked upon; and on the success of which, in the case of all who truly submit to its lessons, it has adventured the whole credit of its divinity and its truth. We mistake Christianity, if we think that it only provides an expiation, to do away the guilt of our original depravity. depravity. It provides a regenerating influence, to do away its existence. It does something more than demonstrate the evil malady of our nature. It will not be satisfied with any thing short of destroying it. For this purpose it brings a new and a powerful element into living play with the original elements of our constitution; and with these it sustains a combat that may well be denominated a war of extermination. The moralists of our age, whether in lessons from the academic chair, or by the insinuating address of fiction and

poetry while they try to mend and to embellish human life, have never struck one effective blow at that ungodliness of the heart, which is the germ of all the distempers in human society. It is against this that the gospel aims its decisive thrust, as at the very seed and principle of the mischief. It combats the disease in its original elements; and, instead of idly attempting to intercept or turn aside the stream of this sore corruption, it makes head against that fortress where the emanating fountain of the distemper lies. For this purpose, the truths which it reveals, and the weapons which it employs, and the expedients which it puts into operation— nay, the very terms of that vocabulary which it uses, are all most strikingly contrasted both with the conceptions and the phraseology of general literature. There is nothing, there is positively nothing, in that general literature, the profest object of which too is to moralize our species-about the blood of an everlasting covenant; or the path of reconciliation with God, by an offered and appointed mediatorship; or the provision of a sanctifying Spirit, by which there is infused into our nature, a counteracting virtue to all the sinfulness that abounds in it. We have already had proof for the utter impotency of all that has issued from the schools of sentiment and philosophy. Should not this shut us up, at least to the experiment of this very peculiar gospel, which offers to guide the world to a consummation that hitherto has been so very hopeless? Let each, at all events, try it for himself. Let

each here present, whose conscience has responded to the charge of ungodliness, feel himself drawn to an expedient, by which this most obstinate of all tendencies may at length be overcome. And for

your encouragement at the outset, let us announce to you, that this said gospel justifies the ungodly. Even now acceptance is offered to you. Even now reconciliation may be entered on, and that without waiting till the heart has given up its practical and deep-rooted atheism. The first act to which you are called, is an act of agreement with the God whom you have so totally renounced, in the habit and history of your past life. The blood of Christ, if you will only take heart and believe in it, washes away the guilt of all this sinfulness; and the promise that He gives to those who trust in Him is, that He will turn away ungodliness from Jacobsealing those who believe with the Holy Spirit; and thus causing them to love and honour and serve the God, from whom they were aforetime so widely and so wretchedly alienated.

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LECTURE XXIV.

ROMANS V, 12—21.

"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead; much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift; for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) Therefore, as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners; so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered, that the offence might abound: but where sin abounded, grace much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord."

did

In our last discourse, we attempted to show in how far the doctrine of the Bible, respecting the existence of a corrupt tendency in our race, met and was at one with human observation. This is clearly

a question that may be brought to such a tribunal. Whether a sinful disposition exists and is universal among men, is matter of experience as well as of divine revelation. That this corruption exists in the world, is matter of experience. But how it entered into the world is altogether a matter of testimony. It is an historical fact, which must be exhibited to us in a credible record, ere we can come to the knowledge or the belief of it. We cannot confront it with any thing that now passes before our eyes-it being a solitary event of great antiquity, and which has no proper evidence to rest upon save the informations of history.

"By one man," says our text, "sin entered into the world." He came out pure and righteous from the hand of God; but Adam, after he had yielded to the temptation of the garden, was a changed man, from Adam in his days of innocence in Paradise. He gathered a different hue in consequence; and that hue was permanent; and while we are told that God made man at first after His own image, we are further told that the very first person who was born into the world, came to it in the image of his parent-not in the original, but in the transformed image, that is, with the whole of that tendency to sin, which, on the first act of sin, was formed in the character of Adam, and was transmitted through him to all his posterity.

This is the simple statement; and we are not able to give the explanation. The first tree of a