sarily derive from him his own moral nature, which is corrupt; for "who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" How does this help the matter? Surely it is as correct to constitute one man the representative of all, as, without doing this, to entail on them all the consequences of sin. Besides, who but God constituted this natural connexion between the first man and his posterity? And is he not responsible for its necessary results? Could he not have terminated the race with the first man of it? This theory makes our ruin the consequence of the misfortune of our being descended from Adam; which misfortune our Maker could have easily prevented. This is getting out of one difficulty, by getting into a greater.

If we have not a sinful nature, we might as well have one, as have a nature which begins to sin as soon as it begins to act..

MAN.

The history of the human species is characterized by every thing that is magnificently great and momentously interesting. In particular, every thing relating to his redemption is in the highest style of God. Man has been loved of God in a manner and to an extent which no other creatures have; with a love not only superior to every other, but perfectly singular in its

kind. There was never before any such thing as God loving sinners, God dying for his enemies, and saving the guilty through the sacrifice of himself. There has never transpired in any world, among any creatures, half so strange, stupendous, and universally interesting event, as the death on Calvary; no such deep, dreadful crime has been committed by any being, as the killing of the Prince of life by man. And yet out of that very deed, has come salvation to the very race of beings that so wickedly did it.

Never put a heavy man to raise a sinking cause.

The wicked of earth, have at last, in one thing, outdone their elder brethren of the darker world. The devil has an utter enmity to religion, but man, worse herein than he, has a sovereign contempt for it. The devil hates godliness, but it is not in him to laugh at it. His remembrance of heaven has not so faded away. It is left unto men alone, to make game of prayer, and to mock praise, and to have a laugh out of the character of him who fears God.

There is no man, who is really worthless and despicable; the most dull, the most degraded, the most depraved of mankind, retains that about him, which must lift him above contempt. Take the man, who, if possible, unites the mental imbecility of the idiot, with the moral depravity of the most accomplished villain, yet admit him to be accountable, and the particulars in which this man differs from others, considerable as they are in themselves, are as nothing to those in which he agrees with others, who are not the children of God. He still holds all the great things

in common with the more intelligent and the less depraved. The poorest slave, the meanest beggar, the foulest wretch, is a man; and to be a man, is infinitely more than to be a great man or a wise man. God is his maker. His nature was taken into union with the divine nature. An immortal spirit resides in him. The inspiration of the Almighty gave If he is a fallen creature, so are you. Christ died for him as much as for you. To him, as to you, a crown of everlasting life is offered as earnestly and as freely, and no more, without price. Why then dost thou set at nought thy brother?

him breath.

We know of nothing more opposite to the spirit of the divine law, or more offensive to the Most High, than haughty and contemptuous treatment of our fellow men.

THE SOUL.

Ah, it is enough to break the heart, to see for how mean and miserable a consideration, men barter away their eternal all-for what a worthless vanity they sacrifice their heaven-at what a paltry price they sell the hope of the soul. Souls are cheap, for the market is glutted. Let intemperance, debauchery, vanity, worldliness, and ambition, say what they give for souls, and men will be amazed at how cheap a rate all is parted with.

You have often heard discourses on the worth of the soul. They are generally unsatisfactory. The text which they are usually founded upon, is better than many sermons: "What is a man profited," &c.

There are some hopefully good people, that are in the habit of speaking lightly, and with apparent recklessness, of this person as living, and of that person as having died without religion. This I believe, but I cannot laugh over it; and God forgive me, if I have ever spoken lightly of it. It is so awful a thing to live without religion, and so inexpressibly dreadful to die without it, that it strikes me we had better be entirely silent about the dead, and speak softly of the living. Oh, do you reflect upon the consequences of living and dying without religion? Who that considers the worth of the soul, who that thinks of its sublime intelligence, and its great and growing capacities for pleasure and pain, and its eternity, can contemplate even the probability of its loss, without the solemnity of the grave upon his spirit?

HUMAN ACCOUNTABILITY.

If men neither make nor maintain themselves, on what principle can they claim to be their own. You call that your own, which you have taken from the desert and since nourished. You call that yours, of

which you have only altered the form. If that is thine, whose art thou, that art in matter, and form, and mind, Jehovah's?

Whether God regard his own honor or our happiness, he cannot demand less of us, than that whatever we do, we do all to his glory.

No ingenuous spirit would wish to be released from so sweet an obligation as results from that glorious fact, "Ye are bought with a price."

That man who supposes that he is not under obligations to do any thing for which he cannot show an express command in so many words in the Bible, nor to abstain from any thing but what is literally and specifically forbidden in the book of the law of the Lord, has adopted a rule of conduct as false in principle as it will be fatal in effect.

When God asks the question, "What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?" he gives them the privilege of answering it, if they can, in any way to diminish obligation.

Disinclination to duty is no excuse for its neglect. The deeper the disinclination the greater the guilt. If the disinclination be invincible, it, so far from severing obligation, makes its subject most guilty of all; else perfection in wickedness at last binds a man in innocency.

Methinks the greatest guilt a man can contract, is in bringing guilt on another; and the greatest injury we can do to another, is to persuade him to injure himself. Did you never hear it said, in reference to something manifestly wrong, or of questionable propriety, "Why,