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thus the supreme Governor of the world restrains men's corrup tions, and maintains some degree of order among his rebellious subjects.

But yet, all these restraints notwithstanding, there is, and always has been, abundance of wickedness committed in this apostate world. They have murdered God's servants, the prophets, whom the Lord has sent unto them, rising early and sending; and they have killed his Son, and his apostles, and shed the blood of thousands and millions of his saints. So great has been their aversion to God! and so great their cruelty! And by the many wars there have been among the nations, from the beginning, the whole earth has been filled with blood. And by cheating, and lying, and backbiting, and contention, &c. hateful and hating one another, innumerable injuries have been done to, and unspeakable miseries brought upon, one another. And as soon as ever mankind have their restraints taken off at death, without having any sin infused into their nature, they will appear to be what they are--they will feel and act like very devils.

But, in the mean while, by means of these restraints, many deceive themselves; for our corruptions being thus capable of being restrained, and, as it were, stunned, and our lives of being pretty well regulated, to appearance, while our nature remains the same, and we feeling ourselves able to do considerable towards this-hence many are deceived, and take this to be real religion, and think they did, and that others may convert themselves, with but comparatively little assistance from God's spirit: And truly so they might, if this was true religion, and conversion consisted in thus reforming our lives, and restraining our corruptions: But, in conversion, our very nature must be changed, (II Cor. v. 17.)-the native bent of our hearts must be turned, (Ezek. xxxvi. 26.); and from this we are naturally wholly averse: And hence arises the absolute necessity of a supernatural, irresistible grace, in order to our conversion ;-of which more afterwards. But to return,

From what has been said, we see that we are natively disposed to love ourselves supremely....to live to ourselves ultimate

ly, and delight in that which is not God, wholly; and that this disposition, by which we are, naturally, entirely governed, in all things, and under all circumstances, is in direct contrariety to the holy law of God, and is exceedingly sinful, and is the root of all sin....of all our evil carriage towards God and man, in heart and life: So that, as to have a disposition to love God with all our hearts, and our neighbor as ourselves, is a radical conformity to the whole law-so this contrary disposition is a radical contrariety to the whole law: Well, therefore, may the holy scriptures speak of sinners as being dead in sin, and at enmity against God, and, by nature, children of wrath, and represent them so frequently as being enemies to God, (Eph. ii. 1, 3-Rom. viii. 7, and v. 10-II. Cor. v. 18-20.) since, by comparing ourselves with the holy law of God, we are found to be, in fact, natively so, in the temper of our minds: And it will be forever in vain for mankind to plead not guilty, since the law of God is what it is, and we are what we are; for, by the law, by which is the knowledge of sin, we evidently stand condemned.

Here it may be objected, "That we are, natively, no other"wise than God makes us; and if, therefore, we are natively "sinful, God made us so; and, by consequence, is the author "of sin." But this objection has been already obviated; for, as has been observed, God only creates the naked essence of our souls....our natural faculties....a power to think, and will, and to love, and hate; and this evil bent of our hearts is not of his making, but is the spontaneous propensity of our own wills; for we, being born devoid of the divine image, ignorant of God, and insensible of his glory, do, of our own accord, turn to ourselves, and the things of time and sense, and to any thing that suits a graceless heart, and there all our affections centre; from whence we natively become averse to God, and to all that which is spiritually good, and inclined to all sin: So that the positive corruption of our nature is not any thing created by God, but arises merely from a privative cause.

Here it will be objected again, "That it is not consistent with "the divine perfections to bring mankind into the world under

"such sad and unhappy circumstances."-But who art thou, O man, that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say unto him that formed it, Why hast thou formed me thus? It is blasphemous to say, that it is not consistent with the divine perfections to do what God, IN FACT, does. It is a plain matter of fact, that we are born into the world devoid of the divine image, ignorant of God, insensible of his infinite glory: And it is a plain matter of fact, that, in consequence hereof, we are natively disposed to love ourselves supremely, live to ourselves ultimately, and delight in that which is not God, wholly: And it is plain, to a demonstration, that this temper is in direct contrariety to God's holy law....is exceedingly sinful, and is the root of all wickedness.-Now, to say it is not consistent with the divine perfections that mankind should be brought into the world, as, IN FACT, they are, is wickedly to fly in the face of our almighty Creator, and expressly charge him with unrighteousness; which, surely, does not become us. If we cannot see into this dispensation of divine providence, yet we ought to remember, that God is holy in all his ways, and righteous in all his works, and that the judge of all the earth always does right. I do not mean that things are therefore right, merely because God does them; for if they were not right to be done, antecedently to his doing of them, he would not, he could not do them: But I mean, that when it is a plain matter of fact that God does such a thing, we may thence conclude that it is most certainly right for him to do so, although we cannot understand how it is. We ought to remember that he is infinite in his understanding, and, at one comprehensive view, beholds all things, and so cannot but know what is right, and what is wrong, in all cases; and his judgment is unbiassed....the rectitude of his nature is perfect he cannot, therefore, but do right always, and, in all instances, govern the world in righteousness. But our minds are narrow and contracted--we are but of yesterday, and know nothing; and besides, our judgments are biassed through our mean thoughts of God, and high thoughts of ourselves; and hence we may be easily mistaken: Especially, in this case, our minds

are sadly biassed, and it is almost impossible for us to consider the matter with a spirit of disinterested impartiality: And these considerations ought to check our rising thoughts, and make us lie down in the dust before the great, and righteous, and good Governor of the world, with humble silence, even although we cannot understand his ways: And I believe that a humble disposition of heart would lay an effectual foundation for us to come to be satisfied in this matter-it being our mean thoughts of God, and high thoughts of ourselves, which blinds our minds that we cannot see, and disposes us to quarrel with our Creator, and find fault with the Ruler and disposer of the world. It is true, that the holy scriptures consider mankind as being what they are, and say but little about the way in which they came to be in such a condition: And there is good reason for it; for it is of infinitely greater importance that we should know what a condition we are in, than how we came into it: And it is a foolish thing for us, and contrary to common sense, to lay the blame any where but upon ourselves, since we are voluntarily such as we are, and really love to be what we are-do not sincerely desire to be otherwise, but are utterly averse from it.But yet the holy scriptures say so much about the way of our coming into our present condition, as might fully satisfy our minds, were not our judgments biassed; for from them we learn, that man was made upright....was created in God's image, and, by rebelling against his Maker, brought a curse upon himself and all his race....Gen. i. 27-Eccle. vii. 29-Rom. v. 12-19. There we read, that by one man, sin entered into the worldthat by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners-that by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation. Adam was created in the image of God-it was connatural to him to love God with all his heart, and this would have been our case, had he not rebelled against God; but now we are born devoid of the divine image-have no heart for Godare transgressors from the womb....by nature children of wrath.

And if any should enquire, "But can it be right that Ad"am's sin should have any influence upon us?"

I answer-It is a plain case that it actually has, and we may depend upon it that the Judge of all the earth always does right. And besides, why might not God make Adam our public head and representative, to act in our room, as he has since, for our recovery, made his own Son our public head and representative? ....Rom. v. 12-21. He had as much right, power, and author. ity for one as for the other and was not Adam as likely to remain obedient as any of us should have been, and, in some respects, more likely? His natural powers were ripe; he stood not only for himself, but for all his race;—a whole world lay at stake: And if he had kept the covenant of his God, and secured happiness to all his race, should we not forever have blessed God for so good a constitution? Never once should we have questioned God's right and authority to make him our public head and representative, or have thought that it did not become his wisdom and goodness to trust our all in his hands, And if we should thus have approved this constitution, had Adam never sinned, why might we not as justly approve it now, if we would be but disinterestedly impartial? It is the same, in itself, now, that it would have been then....every way as holy, just, and good." Oh, but for God to damn a whole world for one sin!" But stay-does not this arise from mean thoughts of God, and high thoughts of yourself? O, think who the Lord is! and what it is for a worm to rise in rebellion against him! and how he treated whole thousands of glorious angels for their first sin! and then, think how God drowned the old world....burnt Sodom....and of the dreadful things he intends to do to the impenitent at the day of judgment ! and learn, and believe, that sin is an infinitely greater evil than we naturally imagine,

But I must return to my subject, for it is not my present busi ness so much to show how we came into this condition, as plainly to point out what that condition is, which we are actually in. As to this, the whole scriptures are very plain; but especially the law, by which is the knowledge of sin, clearly discovers what our case is, and, beyond-dispute, proves that all are under sin.

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