much we need to watch and to pray that we enter not into temptation. We must be always vigilant, always on the alert. They who navigate in a vessel liable to a thousand accidents, a sea in which there are shoals and currents innumerable, if they would keep their course or reach their port in safety, must watch over every part of their ship, carefully repair the smallest damages, and often throw out their line and take their observations. So it should be with the christian in the dangerous voyage of life. He must never relax his watchfulness, however fair may seem the skies, and prosperous the gales; and in the storms of temptation, the anchor of his soul must be the hope of the gospel of Christ, sure and steadfast.

27

SERMON XVIII.

ORIGINAL SIN.

ECCLESIASTES, VII. 29.

Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inven

tions.

THERE are two important sentiments contained in this passage of scripture. The first is, that man, as he proceeds from the hand of his Maker, is what he ought to be. He is formed with all the capacities and endowments, animal, moral, and intellectual, which fit him for the circumstances in

which he is placed. He is not indeed, an angel, and of course has not the powers of an angel. But he has all that such a being as a man should possess, in order to do the duties of a man. He is placed for wise, but inscrutable purposes, in a scene of trial, discipline, probation. It is intended that he should form and exercise a character in this world, which will fit him for a higher sphere. In order to this, it is necessary that he should be both

liable to sin, and capable of virtue; and be furnished at the same time with motives to the one, and surrounded with temptations to the other. When therefore it is said that God makes man upright, or more literally and properly, makes him. right, it is not meant that he makes him originally perfect in wisdom or virtue; but simply that he makes him right or perfect as a man; he adapts his nature to his condition; he makes him exactly as a being placed in a state of trial ought to be made. He is formed liable to sin, because otherwise there could be no exercise or trial of virtue. He is made also capable of good; for otherwise, to command him to be virtuous would only be the most cruel mockery.

The second great sentiment of the text is, that as our Creator has formed us right, it is our own neglect or abuse of the nature He has given us, which is the cause of our sins. For that long and dark tissue of crimes, which the melancholy page of history records against our species, in ages that are past; for all those enormities, which we now shudder to behold acted before us on the theatre of the world; for those many frailties and sins with which our own hearts daily reproach us; we have no one to accuse but ourselves. The throne of God is spotless, though we were covered with pollution. We ought to We ought to carry this sentiment with us into all our speculations on the state and prospects of human nature. Whatever else may be false,

we are sure that this is true, that the Judge of all the earth must do right. It is better to presume any degree of error in the opinions of any description of men, than by supposing the original constitution of our nature sinful and corrupt, to make the Author of that nature responsible for human guilt. Let us believe any thing sooner than this. “Yea,” saith the Apostle, "let God be just, and every man a liar."

I have recently endeavoured to show, by an examination of the general facts and laws of our constitution, that the actual state of human nature corresponds to this representation. Every thing about us, as it proceeds from the hand of God, is good; and it is our neglect and our abuse of it alone, which makes it bad. Our appetites are good. To satisfy our hunger or slake our thirst, is innocent and useful. This is the end for which our appetites are given; and for this alone, the Author of our nature is responsible. But if, passing the limits of the real wants of nature, we become gluttonous or intemperate, we know, we feel, that this is our fault alone. Our desires too are good. The ends for which they are implanted by Heaven are all good. To desire knowledge, esteem, power, superiority, society, or personal well-being, is innocent and useful. But if we cherish and foment our desires till they become passions; if we seek the good ends to which they prompt us, by unjust and unholy means, and in this way become vain,

proud, arrogant, envious, treacherous, unjust, and selfish for this neglect and abuse of our nature, we alone are answerable. In the same way it may be shown, that every part of our original constitution is useful and indispensable, and that it is fitted and designed by our Maker for good; and that consequently for all the perversions of the good purposes for which our capacities or affections. were given us, we, we only are to answer. Man is the author of his own sins, the cause of his own woes, the architect of his own ruin. O sinner, thou destroyest thyself.

In the partial view already taken of this subject, the time did not permit an exhibition of scripture testimonies. I wish to supply this defect in the present discourse. In doing this, I shall simply examine those passages, which some have thought to speak a different language. If these should seem not to justify the conclusions which have been drawn from them, the question, I suppose all will admit, is decided.

The Mosaic account of the Fall of our first parents, claims our first and chief attention. We all believe that "God created man in his own image; in the image of God created He him." The question is, whether, from any cause, God has been less beneficent to our nature than to that of our primitive father; and now creates that in sin, which he originally formed in innocency.

In the first chapter of Genesis, the design of the