tended with guilt, it makes the finner guilty, it obliges him to undergo the penalty which God hath annexed to his law; it carries ever along with it a title to the curfe of God. When the w of God is confidered as that which reprefents his holiness and fpotlefs purity, whereby it becomes the measure and standard of all beauty, glory and purity to us; then fin, as it ftands oppofed to it in this refpect, is lockt upon as a ftain, a blot, a defilement: but as the law of God carries on it the impreffion of his royal authority, the breach of it binds over to just punishment for the reparation of the honour of that contemned authority.

Thus we fee what it is that all men are charged with. God here lays home to them a breach of the law, reprefents them as condemned and guilty, deformed and defiled creatures. All men have finned, every one has broken the holy, just, good, and fpiritual law of the great Sovereign of the world; all are guilty of a contempt of his authority, all are defiled with that abominable thing which his foul hates. Left any one should take occafion to clear himself and fay, O I am not the perfon Ipoken of, I never contemned God, I never defiled myfelf, and fo I am not guilty of that which is charged upon mankind. Left any fhould fay, I am clean, God has put a bar upon this door, by extending the charge to all without exception. And fo I come, in the

Fourth place, to enquire into the import of this univerfal particle All in my text; and it imports

1. That perfons of all ages are involved in the fame common mifery. Young and old have finned. The fuckling upon the breaft, as well as the '

old

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old man that is ftooping into the grave. None needs envy another. The old man needs not envy the innocency of the infant of days, for the youngest carries as much fin into the world, as renders it ugly, deformed and guilty. Indeed there are who have not finned at the rate that others have done. Children have not finned after the fimilitude of Adam's tranfgreffion, Rom. v. 14. their age would not allow them; but fin enough they have derived to them from Adam to damn, to defile them.

2. Perfons of all profeffions, Jew and Gentile, whatever their religious profeffion be. This evil is not confined to thofe of one religion, but is extended to all: the apoftle fums up all mankind, as to religion, under two heads, Jew and Gentile; and, at large, in the foregoing part of this epiftle, proves them both to be finners.

3. All ranks of perfons, high and low, rich and poor. This is not an evil of which the prince can free himself more than the peafant. These who may be fhining in gliftering apparel are upon this account vile and filthy as the toad they cannot endure to look upon: thefe who may condemn or abfolve others, may themselves be under a fentence of condemnation; nay, it really is fo with all who are not faved from their fins. Even thefe very men who have fometimes forgot themfelves fo far as to advance themselves above the laws, are yet not only fubject to God's law, but lying under an obligation to pu nishment on account of their breaches of this holy, juft and good law.

4. Perfons in all generations are guilty. It was not only fome poor wretches in the old world which God fwept off the face of the earth by a

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flood,

flood, that have finned, but perfons of all ages, ranks and qualities in all generations. There is not one exception among all the natural defcendants of Adam, man nor woman, great nor finall, rich nor poor, king nor beggar; all have finned from the greatest to the leaft. None can juftly upbraid another with what he has done in this matter, fince all are in the provocation: All have finned and come fhort of the glory of God.

And this leads us to that which we did in the next place propose to discourse of to you, viz. Fifthly, The import of this coming short of the glory of God; and this takes in or implies,

1. That man has fallen fhort of that glory which he had by the conformity of his nature to God. Man is faid, I Cor. xi. 7. to be the image and glory of God; and indeed fo was he in his firft and beft eftate. O what of God was there in innocent Adam! A mind full of light; how wonderfully did it reprefent that God who is light, and in whom there is no darkness at all! A pure foul, the exact tranfcript of the divine purity! The reft of the creatures had in them fome darker representations of the glory of God's wisdom and power, but only man of all the creatures in the lower world was capable to reprefent the holiness, righteoufnefs and purity, and other rational perfections of the ever bleffed deity; and upon this account man was the glory of God. God as it were gloried in him as the mafter-piece of the vifible creation, in whom alone more of God was to be feen than in all the reft befide. This man has now loft; he has fallen fhort of the beauty and glory which made him the glory of God.

2. Man has loft the glory he had as he was the deputy of the great God in this lower world. He

was

was made lord of God's hand-works upon earth; and all the creatures in it paid their homage to him, when they came and received their names from him in paradife: but now the crown is fallen from his head, he has come fhort of this glory; the creatures refufe fubjection to him.

3. Man is come fhort of the glory he had in the enjoyment of God in paradife. It was man's glory, honour and happiness to be allowed a more than ordinary familiarity with God. God and A. dam converfed together in paradife. He was allowed the company of God; that made his state happy indeed. What could man want while the all-fufficient God kept up fo close, fo bleffed and comfortable a familiarity with him, and daily loaded him with his favours! But this he has come fhort of.

4. Man has come fhort of that glory he had the profpect of God fet him fairly on the way, and did furnifh him fufficiently for a journey to e ternal, unchangeable, never-fading glory; but this he has come short of; and this indeed follows natively upon the former. This is indeed much, but we conceive this is not all that the expreffion bas in it; nay, certainly there is more in it: this falling fhort, though it only seems to point at the negative, yet certainly it takes in the pofitive; and we therefore fay, that this expreffion, in the 5. Place,implies not only man's lofs of his original beauty and glory in a conformity to the image of God, but that he has fallen in the mire, and is defiled by fin. He who fome time a day was the image and glory of God is now more filthy than the ground he treads on, than the mire of the ftreet, than the lothfom toad.

6. Not only has he loft the dominion, he had,

but he is become a flave, a flave to fin. He who fome time a day, looked like a god in the world, is now debafed down to hell. He to whom the creatures once vailed as to their fovereign, now daily ftands in danger of his life by them, and lies open to the infults of the meaneft of them.

7. Not only has he loft the fweet and foul-ravishing communion he had with God, but now he is (as it were) fcarce capable to look toward him; the fight of God which once was his life is now to him as death.

8. Not only has man forfeited his title to future happiness, but which is worfe, he is by fin entitled to future, eternal, inconceivable mifery and wo, A dreadful coming fhort this is indeed. From how high a hope into what an inconceiv able abyfs of mifery and wo, is poor man fallen by fin! The crown is fallen from his head. He

was a little hence all beauty, glory, excellency and comeliness but now, alas, we may grone out an Ichabod over him! where is the glory? We come now, in the

Sixth place, to enquire into the fource and fpring of all this mifery and wo. How and whence is it that all are involved in the guilt of fin; and this fad and afflicting calamity flows,

1. From the guilt of Adam's firft fin. Adam by the holy, wife, juft and good appointment of God ftood in the room of all his pofterity. Had he ftood, in him we all had ftood, and retained the innocency and integrity of our natures, the favour, love and kidnefs of heaven; but he falling into fin, in him we all finned; and by the difobedience of this one man, we all were made finners, as the apoftle doth at large difcourfe, Rom. v. from the 12 ver. and downwards. This,