I add, in the 5th place, God almighty hath declared himself to be a God of boundlefs Grace, as well as inflexible juftice had it not been fo, the devil would have had both you and me, and all Adam's race, had not this been true; fcribe and pharifee, priest and levite, Mofes and Aaron, Samuel and David, and all the prophets and apostles, had all defcended into the burning lake of tormenting defpair, never, never more to return from thence. But to our comfort, and his eternal glory, he himself hath declared, I am gracious; and to encourage the Ifraelites to a fiducial dependency upon him, he proclaims himself, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, long-fuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth. Here is a fountain not to be exhaufted! a fountain from which all, all favours flow! 'Tis no new thing, nor occafioned by any fecondary causes whatsoever; no, not even by the obedience and death of CHRIST. All that ever our IMMANUEL did or fuffered, makes no addition to grace: CHRIST did not die to make the FATHER gracious, but to fhew to all the world that he was fo. For God fo loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whofoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlafting life.

In fhort, God hath declared himfelf to be merciful-kind-long-fuffering-pitiful-flow to anger-compaffionate and of great goodness. Thus he is a Being moft amiable and engaging; and I ever defire, in this light to fet him forth for, whether we difcern it, or not; the God of heaven is a being, which in himself far excels

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all that we can think. Thefe declarations hatlı God made of himself, and to believe them, is to believe in God according to our text. writer of this epiftle, feems in another place, to fum up the whole in few words, He that cometh unto God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently feek him, Heb. xi. 6.

II. This God who is truth itself and cannot lie, hath made a declaration, not only of himself unto men; but also what man is in, and of himself. This account is fo melancholy, that there are but few, very few in the world, who credit what the Creator hath faid respecting his creature Man! We are ever prone to think well of ourselves. But will the God of truth lie? What can he gain by representing his own creature in a plight more ignoble than he really is? Is God like fome knavish physician, who tells the parent that the child is in the very jaws of death, in order to excufe his exorbitant bill when the cure is effected? No, no my friends! God fpeaks truth, and therefore for a few minutes, let us attend to the voice of the LORD concerning ourselves.

And firft, We are informed in what ftate man was when created, that he was made in the image of God his Creator. Whatever more may be included in that image, fure I am, that holinefs and purity in perfection are set forth by that phrafe. Agreeable to Ecclef. vii. 29. every bodily fenfe, and every power of his foul were all united in holy harmony and fweet fubjection to his God. He was filled with love, loyalty

loyalty and gratitude to, and exalted thoughts of his glorious creator. Mourn mourn my

foul when the present is compared with the past state! How long thofe golden moments * lafted, I have not met with any who could precisely tell; whether a year, a month, a week, or as fome have thought, not one day; be this as it may, alafs alafs ! it is too awfully evident, that no mortal, except the first pair ever saw that blissful period. For,

2d, 'Tis made known in the facred volume of truth, that man is a fallen creature, fallen into the very depths of fhame and disgrace! "Adam, where art thou?" is an interrogation keenly pointed at all ranks, from the monarch on his throne to the beggar on the dunghill. What is faid of the Affyrian's great metropolis, Babylon is fallen! is fallen! Ifa. xxi. may with equal justice, and greater lamentation be applied to man; for he is fallen! he is fallen! he is fallen! Look within, all is dire diforder and dreadful confufion! Look around us, and we are ftruck with the horrid fcene; men acting a part more vile than devils! Examine the brute creation, and even there you behold a ftorm of irregular paffions, perpetually maintaining a destructive conflict. If we turn our eyes to vegetation, there we fee almoft every hedge and every plat

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* It is very remarkable, that most of the heathen nations believe, that a very confiderable alteration has taken place in the lower world; that neither men nor things are in that state in which they were at firft; and though they are ignorant of the true caufe, yet they have fuch exalted thoughts of the time before this change took place, that they call it "The golden age.”.

of ground ftand thick with proofs, that the fin of man hath brought the curfe of God upon the whole creation. Who but the man whofe heart is harder than Adamant, can read the iii. of Gen. Pfa. xiv. Ifa. i. Luke xv. Rom. iii. the ii. of Eph. with this Chap. from which the text is taken, who but the man whofe heart is dead can read them, without astonishment and grief of heart? Nor is this all, for

3d, As a natural confequence of the foregoing, man is a guilty criminal before his God, and obnoxious to all the fufferings which much injured Deity inflicts; not only on the account of perfonal tranfgreffion, but as he is a child of fallen Adam. This is abfolutely denied by many, but if it be a part of what unerring truth declares, it is neceffary to be believed. If you turn to that well known paffage in Rom. chap. v. ver. 15. to 18. you read as follows, But not as the offence, fo alfo 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 bath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that finned fo is the gift; for the Judgment was by one to condemnation; but the free gift is of many offences unto juftification. 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 fhall reign in life by one, JESUS CHRIST. The defign of the apostle in these verses, is to fet forth the imputation of CHRIST's righteousness to his feed, but to make his way clear, he all along contrafts the difobedience of the first Adam

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with the obedience of the fecond, and pofitively afferts, that by one offence guilt and condemnation came upon all who had defcended, or should defcend from the loins of their first parent; plainly fhewing, that as Levi paid tithes in his father Abraham's loins, fo we finned in Adam, being at that time in the loins of him who was appointed of God to be the public head and reprefentative of all mankind.

This is the very reafon he affigns for the death of infants, in ver. 14. Sin entered the world, death followed clofe at the Monfter's heels, and gained victory over all; for in him all have finned therefore death reigns over them that never finned after the fimilitude of Adam's tranfgreffion.

Have you never seen the almost new-born infant groaning under affliction? Have none of you who are prefent, followed your tender offspring to the grave, before they could diftinguish good and evil, right or wrong? Let these moving scenes confirm the awful truth, that the whole pofterity of our firft parents come into the world under the fentence of a broken law *. How

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* I know that this doctrine of Adam's fin being imputed unto his feed, is warmly oppofed by the Arians, Socinians, and Arminians; the reafon is too obvious, (viz.) left they fhould be under a difagreeable neceffity of admitting the imputation of CHRIST's righteoufnefs to his people; for they wifely judge, that thefe two ftand or fall together nevertheless, when all their fophiftical arguments are spent, thefe doctrines will abide and therefore whilft we adore God, as a God of equity in imputing fin, let us admire and thank him, for the riches of his grace in imputing righteousness unto fuch as in themselves are void of all worth!

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