high road to all that enlargement of sacred and spiritual delight, which in every other way is totally inaccessible. And we are not afraid of spoiling you into indolence by all this proclamation; or of lulling you into a habit of remissness in the exertions of duty by it; or of gendering a deceitful Antinomianism in your hearts; or of turning any one of you into the disgusting spectacle of one who can talk of peace with God, while purity and principle and real piety are utter strangers to his unregenerated bosom. It is this freeness, and this alone in fact, which will make new creatures of you; which will usher the love of God into your hearts; which will bring down the Holy Ghost upon you from heaven; which will inspire a taste for spiritual delight that you never before felt; and furnish motive and impulse and affection for bearing you onward in the way of active and persevering duty, on the career of moral and spiritual excellence.

385

LECTURE XXIII.

ROMANS V, 12—21.

"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. But not as the offence, so also 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, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift; for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. 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, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) Therefore, as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners; so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered, that the offence might abound: but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord."

ERE we proceed to the detailed explanation of these verses, it may be right to premise a few general remarks, on the way in which sin found entrance into our world; on the precise doctrinal amount

of our informations from Scripture relative to this subject; and on the degree in which these informations are met by the experience of man, and the natural sense that is in his bosom, respecting guilt or demerit and condemnation.

We do feel this to be an enterprise of some difficulty and magnitude; and we fear, a little too unwieldy, for its being brought to a satisfying termination within the limits of one address. It seems, however, a suitable introduction to the task of expounding the passage that is now before us; and, however formidable the attempt of grappling with a doctrine so mysterious to some and so repulsive to others, as that of original sin-we do think it right, frankly to state to you all that we think, and all that we know about it.

This doctrine, then, may be regarded in two different aspects-first as it respects the disposition to sin, and secondly as it respects the guilt of it. These two particulars, you will observe, are distinct from one another. To say that man has a tendency by nature to run into the commission of sin, is to say one thing-to say that by nature he is in a state of guilt or condemnation, is to say another. The act of sin is distinct from the punishment of sin. The disposition to it is a thing separate and apart from the desert of it. The corruption of human nature, means its tendency to sin. The guilt of them who wear that nature, means their evil desert on account of sin; and for which, when reckoned with, a penal sentence may justly be laid

upon them. The one is a matter of fact which may be affirmed in the word of God; but which may also be verified by the experience of man. The other is a matter of principle, which may also be affirmed in Scripture; but which may also be taken cognizance of, by the moral sense that resides and operates in the human bosom.

Now as to the fact of the sinful disposition in the nature of man, it can only be gathered-either from the sinful doings that appear in the history of man; or from the sinful desires, to the existence of which in his own heart, he has access by the light of consciousness, and in the hearts of others by the light of their testimony. Even though we had outward exhibition alone, we often have enough to infer and ascertain the inward tendency. We do not need to dig into a spring to ascertain the quality of its water, but to examine the quality of the stream which flows from it. We have no access, either by our own consciousness or by their communications, to the hearts of the inferior animals; and yet we can pronounce with the utmost confidence, from their doings and their doings alone, on the characteristic disposition which belongs to each of them. And so we talk of the faithfulness of the dog, and the ferocity of the tiger, and the gentleness of the dove,-ascribing to each a prior tendency of nature, from which there emanates the style of action that stands visibly forth in their outward histories.

Now this may lead us to understand in part,

what is meant by the term original, as applied to the doctrine now under consideration. It is quite a current mode of expression, when one says that there is an original ferocity in the tiger. It means that, as the fountain on the hill-side is formed and filled up, before it sends forth the rills which proceed from it-so a ferocious quality of nature exists in the tiger, before it vents itself forth in deeds of ferocity; and it is a quality not induced upon the animal by education; for, however left to itself, all of them evince it. Neither is it the fruit of any harsh or provoking treatment to which it is exposed; for, under every variety of treatment, or with no treatment at all, still is this the unfailing disposition of each individual belonging to the tribe. As little

can it be ascribed to climate, or to accident, or to any thing posterior to the formation of the animal itself; for, under all these differences, we still behold the forth-putting of that characteristic fierceness that we are now speaking of. It may well be called original; for it would appear, both from the universality of this attribute, and from the unconquerable strength of it, that it belongs essentially to the creature; that from the very way in which it is put together at the first, from the very way in which the elements of its constitution are compounded, this fierce and fiery disposition is made to evolve itself. And just as the structure of the stomach necessarily gives rise to sensations of hunger, and hunger impels to deeds of voraciousness-so in the original frame of the animal, may