phrase, all but coincident with that we are now discussing, and in the very sense we have attributed to it, for he says that "Christ was made sin for us," which confessedly signifies, and can only signify, that he suffered the punishment denounced against sin, or underwent death for us.

Next we must state, (and we need do little more than state,) those two verses of the 7th chapter to the Romans, in which the apostle describing, not indeed his own feelings, but those of an unconverted Jew, whose character he was personating, makes use of the following expressions: "I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.""I delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." Now none of these assertions create any necessity for supposing the nature of man to be utterly perverted, inasmuch as they are all perfectly true on the principles of that mitigated degree of moral disorganization, which we maintain to have been actually occasioned by the Fall, whereby every child of Adam experiences a propensity to sin, in consequence of the undue ascendancy which his sensual appetites, (that is, in the apostle's language, his flesh, and the law of his members,) have gained over his intellectual and moral sentiments. Observe, moreover, that man is here said to have a principle within him counteracting that of carnal appetite; the person here described is said even to " delight in the law of God after the inward man," that is, not only to perceive by his reason the suitableness of that law to his nature, and his obligation to observe it, but also to feel a love of moral rectitude, which, independently of the motions of sense, inclined him to follow its dictates.

Of the other apostolical epistles only two passages occur worthy of our present notice.

* II Cor. 5, xxi.

The argument deduced from that text to the Corinthians,* "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God," may be easily answered. The word, which we here translate "natural," is in the original not queixes but ʊxixò5; not the natural, but the animal man; and it is undeniably true that the animal man, the man who lives the animal life, who makes sense and appetite the law of his actions, “receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.”

Lastly, in the second chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul thus addresses the converts of that Church: And

you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and "sins, wherein in time past ye walked according to the course "of this world, according to the prince of the power of the "air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobe"dience. Among whom also we all had our conversation in

times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of "the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children "of wrath, even as others." The strength of this passage in favour of our opponents, is supposed to consist in the final paragraph. To omit the arguments, on which it has been contended that the words "by nature" here signify the same thing as really, truly, properly the children of wrath, it may be sufficient to observe that, allowing all men to be called, and in the literal meaning of the words, by nature children of wrath, (as they fairly may be called in one sense), yet nothing could be hence inferred as to the extent of original corruption, because any, the least and lowest, propensities to sin, as they are necessarily opposite, so must they be displeasing, to the nature and attributes of an all-pure God. However, in the present instance, the apostle has given an additional, a different, and a better reason, why the Ephesian Gentiles, and the Jews, whom he joins with them, had been, previously to their conversion, children of wrath; and the reason is because they had been the children of disobedience—because they had

* I Cor. 2. xir.

walked in trespasses and sins-because they had had their conversation in the lusts of the flesh-because they had (not only felt, but) fulfilled the desires of the flesh and of the mind.

And, as in the passages we have now been quoting St. Paul does not confirm the doctrine of man's total depravity by nature, so in others he palpably and positively denies it, and that too in the very epistle thought most of all to favour it; so far from agreeing with the modern advocates of that doctrine, who assert that man has no natural perception of true religion, and much less the capacity of performing its duties, St. Paul declares, even of the Gentiles, that "that which may be known of God, God hath shewed it unto them ; that the invisible things of him were clearly seen among them, even his eternal power and Godhead;" that, "having "not the written law, they are a law unto themselves, shewing

the work of the law written in their hearts ;" and hence it was, as the apostle proceeds to testify, that by a just and holy God they were deemed "without excuse;" not because they did not know him, and could not know him, but because that "when they knew God, they glorified him not as God;" and hence it was that he gave them over to a reprobate mind," not because they were unable to serve and please him, but because they did not like to retain God in their knowledge," as the supreme Object of their affections, the sovereign Arbiter and Guide of all their thoughts and actions.

"

We have now completed the review, which we proposed to take, of the Scriptural evidences, which are commonly supposed to sanction the opinion, that the moral nature of every man, as he receives it from the hands of his Creator, is nothing else than one complete mass of corruption, endued with no other propensities whatever than such as are "carthly, sensual, devilish;" we have knowingly and wilfully omitted not a single passage, on which, as we believe, the advocates of that doctrine would chuse to rest their defence of it; and

Rom. i. 19, 20, 21, 28; and ii. 14, 15.

the result of that examination has been-that not one of those passages directly and distinctly asserts the doctrine in question -that all of them may be understood in a different sense, and that by far the greater part of them must be so understood. Our remarks on these texts have necessarily been very limited, but we hope enough has been said to shew on what very insufficient grounds men have undertaken to "charge God foolishly," by maintaining and propagating tenets, which make him to be in fact the true and proper author of sin.

Your attention has already been directed to some of the practical consequences of this doctrine, but there is one of very mischievous tendency, which still remains to be distinctly noticed; the belief of it diverts the thoughts from the consideration of actual sin, and leads to an erroneous estimate of its malignity and enormity. While the mind is absorbed in the fruitless contemplation of certain indefinite and mystical theories concerning original and imputed sin, that which alone, in strictness of language, can bear the denomination of sin at all, namely, personal and voluntary wickedness, is apt to be overlooked and forgot ten; and if it should be sometimes recollected, how faintly will it strike the feelings of a man who believes a doctrine which divests him of his free-agency, (as far as his moral condition is concerned), and therein of his responsibility likewise. It is only to one who has correct notions of his moral nature, and the extent of its powers, that sin, his own proper sin, can ever appear “exceeding sinful;" and yet that is the kind of sin, to which alone our Saviour directed the serious and solemn attention of his followers, and by which we shall be condemned, if we are condemned, at the judgment-seat of God; for, though Adam's transgression of his Maker's will has subjected us to temporal death, it is only our own violation of God's holy precepts that can sink our souls into the horrors of eternat death.*

The soul that sinneth, it shall die: the son shall not bear the "iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity

In conclusion therefore let us endeavour, on the principles of reason and of Scripture, to imprint upon our minds a deep and solid sense of the heinousness of actual sin, an employment highly salutary at all times, and particularly proper at this season, when we commemorate the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world."

And first, let us contemplate the enormity of sin, considered as an act of disobedience and ingratitude towards God.The criminality of disobedience and ingratitude is always in exact proportion to the degree of obedience due from the offending party, and the nature and extent of the obligations conferred on him by his benefactor. And which of the sons of men can apply this equitable maxim as a measure of his own transgressions against God, without feeling his countenance fall with shame and grief, his conscience shudder with terrific apprehension, and his whole heart and soul within him become “even like melting wax." Man, originally a clod of earth, moulded by the Almighty Artificer into a form and substance, whose properties and wonders are past finding out;-waked into being out of the sleep of chaos, by an infusion into his nostrils of the breath of life, and placed in a station of proud pre-eminence over all the other works of God;-bearing on his brow the stamp of divinity, and possessing in his internal cons stitution a particle of its essence, a rational mind, an immortal soul, capable of feeling and of enjoying existence, of pondering on the past, of perceiving the present, of anticipating the future, of discerning the harmonies, and tasting the sweets of virtue, and of knowing, adoring, and loving God;-man, a being invested with the most ample means of virtuous happiness here, by the very use and enjoyment of which he was designed, in the gracious purpose of his Maker, to prepare himself for a state of endless happiness hereafter;-man, a creature thus

"of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, "and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.". Ezek. xviii. 20.