SERMON II.

ROMANS xi. 26.

-There fhall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and fhall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.

F we attend to our beft reflections and

IF

purest sentiments, we shall readily perceive that the mind of man is much delighted with order and beauty, and greatly diffatisfied with irregularity and confufion. The truth of which observation is no less manifeft in the difpofition of things according to their moral character, than in the conftitution of them in the natural system. Every rational and thinking person must look with pleasure and admiration on the beauty of Holiness, and with equal difguft and averfion on the deformity of Sin.

Now

Now as these oppofite qualities appear either amiable or odious to our own nature, to our own unprejudiced and dispaffionate minds, we may reasonably conclude they will appear in like manner to the most perfect understanding of the Author of our nature, to that all-wife Being, who hath formed the constitution of us and of all things. God muft delight in the contemplation of virtue, or in seeing his rational creatures perform the ends and purposes for which he defigned them; and He must be of purer eyes than to behold evil, or with any degree of complacence to look upon iniquity.

And yet we find the disposition of man far departed from moral rectitude, and quite unlike what it must have originally been, when it proceeded from the hand of its wife Masterbuilder and gracious Architect; our underftandings oftentimes betrayed by prejudice, and our wills misled by caprice and humour; reafon too frequently fubjected to paffion, and the rule of right compelled to yield to the

a Hab. i. 13.

impulfe

impulfe of appetite or inclination. Nor can we be otherwise therefore, whilst in this state of deformity, than objects of displeasure to Him, who hath declared his wrath by various notices against all ungodliness and unrighteouf ness of men.

That in this deplorable condition of our being our own arm could not fave us, or that the best powers of the human mind by their unaffifted exertions could avail but little in discovering a deliverance from Sin, hath been evinced in my last Discourse. From whence alfo was manifefted the neceffity of fome fuperior Aid, fome fupernatural Deliverer, to rescue us from that guilt and pollution, which have proved fo general and dreadful to mankind.

Indeed all ages have perceived and bewailed this degeneracy; and as all have needed, fo all have in confequence been folicitous for a remedy. From God alone our relief must proceed and from his bounty we may con

b Rom. i. 18.

clude,

clude, and have seen some general intimations, that none of the generations of men were left without a fuitable recourse to that relief, which his wisdom would defign, and his goodness provide, for the diftreffes of his creatures.

To the earlier ages this remedy was difcovered imperfectly and gradually. But yet no fooner had our first parents revolted and apoftatized from God, than fome dawnings appeared of a reconciliation. When the curfe was pronounced, on the original feducer, the cause and the fource of all our woe, it was at the fame time intimated, that the Seed of the woman should bruise the Serpent's head. Implacable enmity was to fubfift between them, between Satan and the human race; but one born of the woman at length should conquer; or however affailed in the attempt, fhould completely triumph, and bring falvation to the whole of Adam's pofterity. The promise was now general, when no distinctions could have occurred, when none of his defcendants were born, and the tradition would

c Gen. iii. 15.

doubtless

doubtless be handed down to all fucceeding generations. So that as foon as in Adam all died, intimation was given of a covenant, that in the Seed of the Woman all fhould be made alive.

Nor let it be conceived, however favourable to the deceit of a vain philofophy, that the curfe then expreffed in fuch full and folemn language was meant to be confined to the mere animal only, to the averfion which is commonly observed between man and the ferpent race. Even in that concife history fuch circumftances are related, as cannot be understood in a literal fenfe, and a comparison of the paffage with other portions of Scripture must compel us in many parts of it to adopt the figurative or myftical. For we read that the Serpent beguiled Eve through his Jubtilty; and that the Woman being deceived

d 1 Cor. xv. 22.

e Gen. iii. 13. 2 Cor. xi. 3. It is probably for this reafon, that our Saviour fays of the Devil, he was a murderer from the beginning, and a liar, and the father of it. John viii. 44. St. John obferves likewife, that the Devil finneth from the beginning; and immediately fubjoins, as if he had an eye to the first feduction, and the promife in confequence of it: For this