necessary imperfection inseparable from a creature) the living transcript of him that formed him.

This phrase, the image of God, is to be understood chiefly in a spiritual, and entirely in a figurative sense. It does not refer to the beauty, and to the erect stature of the body; but to the holy and sublime qualifications of the soul. The grand outlines therefore, of that divine resemblance, in which Adam was constructed, were holiness, knowledge, dominion, happiness, and immortality.

But man, being thus made in honour, abode not ' as he was made. For reasons, best known to that unerring providence which ordains and directs every event, it was the divine pleasure to permit an apostate spirit (whose creation and fall were prior to the formation of man) to present the poisonous cup of temptation; whereof our first parents tasted, and in tasting, fell.

Whether any of the dismal effects which instantly ensued, were partly owing to some physical quality in the fruit itself; or whether all the effects which followed, were simply annexed to that act of disobedience, by the immediate will and power of God; were an enquiry, more curious, perhaps, than important.

So also is another question: which relates to the particular kind of fruit, borne by the forbidden tree. Whether it was a pomegranate, or a cluster of grapes; an apple, or a citron; scripture has not revealed, nor are we concerned to know.

This only we are sure of, from scripture, reason, observation, and our own experience; that mankind, from that day forward, universally lost the perfection of God's image, that a puds, and Sparwars Ty Osy, or divine nature, and likeness to God, as Plato calls it: and sunk into, what the same philosopher styles, To asov, a state ungodlike, and undivine. Our purity vanished. Our knowledge suffered an almost total eclipse. Our dominion was

abridged into very narrow bounds: for no sooner did man revolt from his obedience to God, than a vast part of the animal creation revolted from its obedience to man. Our happiness was exchanged for a complication of infirmities and miseries. And our immortality was cut short by one half: a moiety of us (i. e. the body) being sentenced to return for a time to the dust from whence it sprang. The immortality of the soul seems to be the only feature of the divine likeness, which the fall has left entire.

From hence, even from Adam's transgression, proceeds that alağa, or disorder and irregularity, both of being and events, diffused through the whole world. Hence it is, that the earth brings forth weeds, and poisonous vegetables. That the seasons are variable. That the air is fraught with diseases. And that the very food we eat, administers to our future dissolution, even at the time of its contributing to our present sustenance.

Hence also proceed the pains, and the eventual death of inferior animals. All sublunary nature partakes of that curse, which was inflicted for the sin of man. Whether these ranks of innocent beings, which are involved in the consequences of human guilt, shall, at the times of the restitution of all things (a), be restored to a life of happiness and immortality (which they seem to have enjoyed in paradise before the fall, and of which they became deprived by a transgression not their own); rests with the wisdom and goodness of that God, whose mercy is over all his works. It is my own private opinion (and as such only I advance it), that scripture seems, in more places than one, to warrant the supposition. Particularly, Rom. viii. 19, 20, 21. which I would thus render, and thus punctuate: the earnestly wishful expectancy of the creation, i. e. of the brute creation; that implicit thirst after hap

(a) Acts iii. 21.

piness, wrought and kneaded into the very being of every creature endued with sensitive life; virtually waits with vehement desire for that appointed glorious manifestation of the sons of God, which is to take place in the millenniary state: for the creation, the lower animal creation, was subjected to (a) uneasiness, not willing it, or through any voluntary transgression, committed by themselves; but by reason, or on account of (b) him who subjected them to pain and death, in hope, and with a view, that this very creation shall likewise be emancipated from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of God. What a field of pleasing and exalted speculation does this open to the benevolent and philosophic mind!

But I return to what more immediately concerns ourselves.

When Adam fell, he fell not only as a private individual, but also as a public person; just as the second Adam, Jesus Christ the righteous, did afterward, in the fulness of time, obey and die, as the covenant surety and representative of all his elect people.

The first Adam acted in our names, and stood in our stead, and represented our persons in the covenant of works. And, since his posterity would have partaken of all the benefits, resulting from his continuance in the state of integrity; I see not the injustice, of their bearing a part in the calamities consequent on his apostacy. We cannot but observe, in the common and daily course of things, that (a) So the word malas, here used by the apostle, may fairly, and without any straining, be rendered.-Ponitur paramos, substantivè, " pro x, molestia. Pro, vastator, vastitas, vastatio. Malaions pro n, Erumna." Minterti Lexic. in voc.

(b) By him who subjected the brutal world to miseries, unprocured by any sin of their own, may be understood, Adam himself; or rather, the Most High God, whose will it was, that the welfare not only of mankind, but also of every thing that lives, should be suspended on Adam's obedience.

children very frequently inherit the diseases, the defects, the poverty, and the loses of their parents. And if this be not unjust in the dispensations of providence (for, if it were unjust, God would certainly order matters otherwise); why should it be deemed inequitable, that moral as well as natural evil, that the cause as well as the effects, should be transmitted by a sad, but uninterrupted succession from father to son.

Many of the truths revealed in scripture, require some intenseness of thought, some labour of investigation, to apprehend them clearly, and to understand them rightly. But the natural depravation of mankind is a fact, which we have proofs of, every hour, and which stares us in the face, let us look which way we will.

Indeed, we need not look around us, for demonstration that our whole species has lost the image of God. If the holy Spirit have at all enlightened us into a view of our real state, we need but look within ourselves, for abundant proof, that our nature must have been morally poisoned in its source; that our first parent sinned; and that we, with the rest of his sons, are sharers in his fall. So that, as good bishop Beveridge observes (in his commentary on the ninth of our church articles), "Though there be no such words as original sin, to be found in scripture; yet, we have all too sad experience, that there is such a thing as original sin to be found in our hearts."

Heathens themselves have felt, and acknowledged that they were depraved beings: and depraved, not by imitation only, but by nature; or (as the church of England well expresses it) by "birth-sin."' Hence that celebrated saying, so usual among the Greek philosophers, Συμφύτον ανθρωποις τὸ ἁμαρτάνειν, 1. e. moral evil is implanted in men, from the first moment of their existence. Plato goes still farther, in his treatise "De Legibus:" and directly affirms, that

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man, if not well and carefully cultivated, is Zwov αγριώτατον όποσα φυει γη, the wildest and most savage of all animals. Aristotle asserts the same truth, and almost in the same words with Plato. The very poets asserted the doctrine of human corruption. So Propertius Unicuique dedit vitium natura creato ; i. e. "Nature has infused vice into every created being." And Horace observes, that youth is cereus in vitium flecti; or, "admits the impressions of evil, with all the ease and readiness of yielding wax."-And why? Let the same poet inform us. Nemo vitiis sine nascitur: "The seeds of vice are innate in every man.'

Whence proceed errors in judgment, and immoralities in practice? Evil tempers, evil desires, and evil words? Why is the real gospel preached by so few ministers, and opposed by so many people? Wherefore is it, that the virtues have so generally took their flight? that

-Fugere pudor, verumque, fidesque;

In quorum subiere locum fraudesque, dolique, Insidiæque, et vis, et amor sceleratus habendi? Original sin answers all these questions in a moment. Adam's offence was the peccatum peccans (as I think St. Austin nervously calls it), the sin that still goes on sinning in all mankind: or, to use the just and emphatic words of Calvin (Institut. 1. iv. c. 15.) Hæc perversitas nunquam in nobis cessat, sed novos assiduè fructus parit; non secus atque incensa fornax flammam et scintillas perpetuo efflat, aut scaturigo aquam sine fine egerit: "The corruption of our nature is always operative, and constantly teeming with unholy fruits: like a heated furnace which is perpetually blazing out; or like an inexhaustible spring of water, which is for ever bubbling up and sending forth its rills."

So terrible a calamity as the universal infection of our whole species, is and must have been the