spiritual life to its final consummation in the realms of everlasting happiness, all the honour and all the glory of our growth in grace be ascribed unto him!

When the Almighty ceased from the work of creation, he pronounced all that he had made to be very good. The new world was as yet free from the inroads of sin, and from the curse of sterility.

Nature then

Wanton'd as in her prime, and play'd at will
Her virgin fancies..

The whole creation smiled upon man, and the golden age of the poets was realized. Blessed with perfect health both mental and corporeal, our heaven-born progenitor was equally unconscious of the stings of guilt and the pangs of disease. His understanding was unclouded with the mists of vice, ignorance, and error;

his will, though absolutely free, was yet en tirely devoted to the service of God; and his affections, warm, vigorous, and undivided, were ardently bent upon the great fountain of his existence. Though vested in an earthly body, his soul was as the soul of an angel, pure, just, and upright. He was uncontaminated with the smallest sin, and free from even the slightest taint of pollution. His passions, perfectly under the guidance of his reason, yielded a ready and cheerful obedience to the dictates of his conscience; an obedience, not constrained and irksome, but full, unreserved, and attended with sensations of unmixed delight. Such was man when he came forth from the hand of his Creator, the image of God stamped upon his soul and influencing all his actions.

This blissful state of innocence was soon forfeited by our first parents. In an evil hour they yielded to the suggestions of the tempter, and violated the express command of God.

Pride, that most deeply rooted bane of our nature, was now, for the first time, infused into the heart of the woman. She vainly desired a greater share of wisdom, than God had been pleased to grant unto her; and, in order to obtain that wisdom, scrupled not to disobey her Maker. The man followed her example, and joined her in a mad rebellion against heaven. Sin entered into the world, and death closely followed its footsteps. The image of God was obliterated, and the image of Satan was erected in its stead.

Mysterious as the doctrine of original depravity may be, no man, unless he be totally unacquainted with the workings of his own heart, can possibly doubt its actual existence. Some persons indeed are so far blinded by the deceitfulness of sin as to deny the doctrine in question; but " I verily believe," to use the words of the excellent Beveridge," that the

want of such a due sense of themselves argues as much original corruption, as murder and whoredom do actual pollution: and I shall ever suspect those to be the most under the power of that corruption, that labour most by arguments to divest it of its power."*

I. Examine first the understanding, and you will find it, at least so far as relates to spiritual things, dark and confused.

The Apostle, describing the state of the world previous to the diffusion of Christian knowledge, asserts, that men had become vain in their imaginations, and that their foolish heart was darkened; that professing themselves to be wise, they became fools; and, though proud of their attainments in a subtle philosophy, that in the sight of God they were without understanding. In a similar manner be elsewhere † Rom. i. 21, 22. 31.

Private Thoughts, Art. iv.

declares, that the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually_discerned.* His knowledge of divine matters, in consequence of his being debased by the fall, is as much inferior to true heavenly wisdom, as the instinct of a brute is to the reason of a human being. On this account, as St. Paul scruples not strongly to express himself, even the wisdom of the Almighty himself, is foolishness to man in a state of nature. Having no faculties capable in themselves of embracing spiritual truths, he is as much unqualified to decide upon them, as a man born blind is to discriminate between the various tints of the rainbow; for, as the one is defective in spiritual, so is the other in corporal, discernment. No treatise on light and colours, however minute and accurate, can give a distinct idea of their nature to

1 Cor. ii. 14