man and the inspiration of the Almighty giv eth them understanding." You are raised far above the rank of irrational creatures, in point of capacity. For you have judgment to know, and bodily strength to perform every thing required of you. You are therefore under the greatest obligations to be perfect: and no possible reason can be assigned for the least moral defect, or deviation from the divine law. "For the law is holy,and the commandment holy, just and good." But,

2. Please to remember, with the deepest humility of soul, that you are sinners. You were made to love God with all your hearts; but instead of loving him supremely, you love yourselves supremely. For selfish gratification is your only employment. You eat and drink, lie down and rise up, and labour and do every thing else to promote your own separate and forbidden interest. For you are lovers of pleasure, more than lovers of God. You are the subjects of the carnal mind, which is enmity against God in every point of view. And hence God disapproves all your moral actions now, and will

disapprove and totally reject them in the judgment of the great day. "For shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" But,

3. Lest you should be left to follow the multitude and excuse yourselves in consequence of the connexion between the sin of Adam and his posterity, please to remember that your wicked nature is your own in the most personal sense. For, though we are sinners in Adam; though there is an established connexion between the sin of Adam and the sin of his posterity; though all the children of men are by nature totally depraved in consequence of Adam's sin; yet sin is a personal quality. And, as your hearts and souls are your own, and not the hearts and souls of other men; as your thoughts and vo litions are your own, and not the thoughts and volitions of others: so your sin and evil nature is your own, and not the sin and evil nature of another. As the branch is like the tree, so your nature is like the nature of Adam, because you are his posterity: but yet it is personally your own, and not another man's. According

ly, the bible does not furnish an instance of a

good man's confessing the sin of Adam. But, the bible is full of evidence that good men con- ! fessed their own personal wickedness. David in his penitential confession evidently refers to the established connexion between the sin of Adam and his posterity. For, he says, with. the note of attention "Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive: me." But he does not confess the sin of Adam, any more than the sin of Seth: nor will any other man who is the subject of a proper share of conviction. For sin is a personal quality and cannot be transferred from one to another, any more than the heart or soul of one man can be transferred to another. These things I observe, to dispel that darkness which broods upon the minds of those who love to confess Adam's sin because they do not love to confess their own and to convince you that without speedy repentance, you must be condemned and destroyed for your own, and not for the sin of another. For the time is short: and the Great Judge of both the quick and the dead, will not

say to those on his left hand depart ye cursed: For I was hungry and Adam gave me no meat; I was thirsty and Adam gave me no drink : but he will say depart: for I was hungry and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink. Without a Saviour therefore, you must stand nakedly exposed to all the vengeance of the divine law, which requires perfect obedience, upon the penalty of endless damnation.

4. It is therefore worthy of your grateful notice and of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life." And Christ himself says, "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Are not these things, O sinners, worthy of your most grateful notice? For when it is infinitely just and righteous for God to divest you of every enjoyment and to let you fall beneath the weight of his inflexible justice, into the dreadful furnace of his eternal wrath; when

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all the angels of heaven would celebrate his praise for spending his infinite vengeance upon your miserable souls, he is pleased to open the bosom of his boundless love, and to send' his only Son to make you the heirs of eternal life. This is the love of God. This is infinite love. And nothing less than the vast differ ence between heaven and hell, the eternal happiness of Saints, and the eternal misery of sin. ners can display the glory of it to advantage. Could we look with these mortal eyes beyond the grave, and estimate the endless joy of saints, and the endless anguish of sinners, we should possess more adequate views of the love of God to this perishing world. For his love is proportionate to the intolerable destruction from which christians are redeemed, and to the unfading, glory with which they are crowned. Let then O sinners, the boundless love of God induce you to give him your hearts without the least delay. But,

5. Let also the matchless love of Christ impress your minds, and melt down your hard, adamant-hearts into a state of unfeigned sorrow