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and of course sinful so far as their feelings and actions partake of a moral nature. It certainly is not meant that they are necessarily inclined to evil, without power to resist. They possess ample power, and in all their wickedness are perfectly free.

This is the precise shape of the doctrine to be supported. The principal arguments on which it rests will be detailed in this and the three following Lectures.

Argument I. By the first creation or birth mankind are united to the first Adam, and inherit the character which he possessed immediately after the fall, until by a second creation or birth they are united to the Second Adam, and become partakers of His holiness.-It is necessary to view this argument by parts.

I. Depravity is derived from Adam.
This is proved,

(1.) From the universal depravity of man. "God looked upon the earth, and behold it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted his way." "The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there stand and seek God.

were any that did underThey are all gone aside ;

filthy; there is none that

they are together become doth good, no not one." "We have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin; as it is written, There is none righteous, no not one there is none that understandeth; there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way; they are together become unprofit

able; there is none that doth good, no not one. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified." "The Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe." "If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.--If we say that we have not sinned we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us." God "now commandeth all men every where to repent."*

So deeply is sin rooted in the human heart, that the continued struggles of the best men, with all the means and aids derived from heaven, have never prevailed in a single instance to eradicate it entirely. "Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?" "There is not a just man upon earth that doth good and sinneth not." "In many things we offend all." "For there is no man that sinneth not."+

Now here is a wonder to be accounted for ;-sin tainting every individual of Adam's race, in every age, country, and condition, and surviving in every heart all exertions to destroy it. One would think this might prove, if any thing could prove, that sin belongs to the nature of man, as much as reason or speech, (though in a sense altogether compatible with blame,) and must be derived, like other universal attributes of our nature, from the original

* Gen. vi. 12. Ps. xiv. 2, 3. and cxxx. 3. Acts xvii. 30. 9-12, 20. Gal. iii. 22. 1 John i. 8, 10.

† 1 Kin. viii. 46. Prov. xx. 9. Eccl. vii. 20. James iii. 2.

Rom. iii.

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parent,-propagated like reason and speech, (neither of which is exercised at first,)-propagated like many other propensities, mental as well as bodily, which certainly are inherited from parents, -propagated like the noxious nature of other animals. If the phenomenon is not accounted for in this easy and natural way, so analogous to that great law by which all animals propagate their kinds, and their dispositions, it must remain to the end of the world an unsolvible mystery. I prove the derivation of sin from Adam,

(2.) From the fact that mankind are born depraved.

Whether the depravity of infants consists in exercises or disposition, or whether from the first, or at what age, they begin actually to sin, I shall by no means allow myself to inquire. Without denying what others may choose to assert on these points, all that I can feel authorized to say is, that, as the young lion is born, not an elephant, but with a carnivorous nature, though he does not at first feed on flesh; and as the serpent is not a dove, but possesses a poisonous nature, while yet in the egg; and both will certainly act out their peculiar nature when they arrive at maturity; so infants are born with a nature, which, not by necessity, but by the free consent of the heart, will in all cases actually sin as soon as they are able. Without denying that more is true, I mean to assert no more when I speak of the depravity of infants, and when I call them sinners. Least of all do I undertake

to decide on their condition in a future world. In the hands of divine mercy I leave them, and bow in submissive silence. That infants in this sense

are depraved, I argue,

[1.] From the fact already established, that in all ages and nations, without a single exception, they do sin when they arrive at years of discretion. This furnishes the same evidence that they are born with a bent to evil, that is furnished by the universal propensity of lions to feed on flesh, that they are born with a carnivorous nature. I argue this,

[2.] From the sufferings and death of infants. If it be said that the sufferings and death of brutes furnish the same evidence of their depravity, I admit that the groans of the irrational creation, as well as the briers and thistles of the ground, prove that the nature of all things is marred by the fall of man. But for this, no animals would have been carnivorous, none poisonous, none resentful.* The fall of man, though it could not infect brutes with moral depravity, has occasioned a real depravation of their nature. No animals are found, if possessed of sufficient vigour, which are not capable of bitter animosity. I am willing to regard the sufferings of the irrational tribes as a publick token of the depravation of their nature; and must by analogy regard the sufferings and death of infants as a token of the depravity of a nature created for moral action.

* Isai. xi. 6-9. and lxv. 25.

In regard to mankind, it is a fundamental maxim of divine government that "the curse causeless shall not come." "Whoever perished being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?"* I forbear to insist on the several recorded instances of the destruction of infants expressly in token of God's displeasure against sin, as at the time of the flood, the burning of Sodom, (which ten righteous persons would have saved,†) the plagues of Egypt, the destruction of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, of Achan, of the nations of Canaan, of Jerusalem, of Babylon ; as also the express command, in several instances, to destroy infants with their parents as a punishment for sin. I forbear to insist on these; for in that memorable passage in the 5th of Romans, the apostle appears to have settled the point that death comes upon the whole human race, (not as it does on beasts,) in consequence of their sin, of nature or practice. "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." His argument rests on the prin ciple that among the human race, (not among brutes,) the empire of sin and that of death are coextensive. If in subsequent verses he makes the visible ground of the death of infants to be the

*Job iv. 7. Prov. xxvi. 2. † Gen. xviii. 32. + Exod. xii. 29. Numb. xvi. 27-33. Deut. ii. 34. and iii. 6. and vii. 2. and xxxii. 25. Josh. vii. 24, 25. Isai. xiii. 18. Jer. ix. 21. and xliv. 7. Lam. ii. 11, 19, 20. and iv. 4, 10. Num. xxxi. 17. 1 Sam. xv. 3.

Ezek. ix. 6.

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