chose this to prove him, and to try his obedience. He might have tried it by any other command: but this was enough. Man was found wanting. He disobeyed God, and lost His favour. In the chapter before us, the apostle says, "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men." And again in our text, St. Paul declares, "By one man's disobedience many were made sinners."

Adam was the head, as it were, of our family. Adam sinned, and so lost the favour of God; and we his children, all of us, inherit his sinful and corrupt nature. Every one of us was born into this world a sinner, a child of wrath. Every heart is by nature a corrupt, evil heart. And unless it is changed by grace, it will feel no love for God, and it will take

no delight in his ways. Sin, like some dreadful disease, runs through the whole family of mankind. Go where you will, from one end of the earth to the other, you will everywhere find it; all are infected by it. "Behold (says David) I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." Psalm 51. 5.

Only look at a little child, and you will at once see that man's nature is sinful. Do we not observe in the youngest infant violence of temper, bursts of passion, fretfulness, jealousy, and self-will? As he grows older, how hard it is to teach him what is right, how easily he is led wrong! Sin comes naturally to him. There is no difficulty in making him learn to swear, to lie, or to disobey. But try and teach him to know God, to love his Saviour, to do His will, and

D

to walk in the ways of holiness, and you will soon see that this is a hard matter; nay, actually impossible, unless God touches the heart, and changes it by his grace.

Thus, then, "by one man's disobedience many were made sinners." By that one act of rebellion, Adam brought ruin upon the whole world. It is well always to bear this in mind. Look upon this world as a fallen, decaying, world; a "world lying in wickedness." Look also at man in his true character, not naturally an upright being, but a sinner before God, -a sinner so lost and ruined, that nothing less than the blood of God's own Son could save him.

Yes, it is most clear from God's word, what is the view He takes of man's condition. We read in Psalm 14, "God looked down from heaven

upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand, and seek after God." And what is the judgment He forms of them? They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one."

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And our own experience tells us just the same thing. Men are ready enough to acknowledge it in a general way. Why, you have every one of you acknowledged it within the last hour, in this very house. You have solemnly owned before God, "We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have left undone what we ought to have done, and done what we ought not; and there is no health in us." Men are ready enough, I say, to own this in a general way. How often we hear such acknowledgments as this, "We

all have sinned"-" To be sure there's

none of us without sin."

But this is

not enough. We must

bring the

matter home to each man's conscience.

We say to you individually, "Have you sinned?" And then immediately you begin to shelter yourself; to wrap yourself round with some false covering-" I am no worse than my neighbours;" "I am not an open sinner, as some are." Thus your own heart deceives you.

You own that all have sinned, and yet you deny that you

have sinned.

We

Ah, brethren, is it not so? ministers find it the hardest of all things to convince men of their guilt. We go to one man, who is living a careless ungodly life. We try to shew him that he is wrong. He cannot see it. His eyes are blinded. Or, if he does see it, he perhaps feels no grief,