reckoning on account of his own separate and personal depravity-a depravity which had its rise in the offence that was then and there committed ; and a depravity which would lead in every one instance to the same offence in the same circumstances of temptation. According to this explanation, every man still reapeth not what another soweth, but what he soweth himself. Every man eateth the fruit of his own doings. Every man

beareth the burden of his own tainted and accursed nature. Every man suffereth for his own guilt and not for Adam's guilt; and if he is said to suffer for Adam's guilt, the meaning is, that, from Adam he inherits a corruption which lands him in a guilt equal to that of Adam.

It were correct enough to say, that the sin of Cataline, that great conspirator against the state, is imputable to an equally great conspirator of the present day-not that he is at all responsible for what Cataline did, but responsible for his own sin that was the same with that of Cataline. And it would strengthen the resemblance, if it was the recorded example of Cataline which filled him with a kindred disposition, and hurried him on to a kindred enterprise. Then as Adam was the efficient cause of our corruption, so Cataline was of his; but each suffers for the guilt of his own sin nevertheless a guilt the same with us as that of Adam's,, and the same with him as that of Cataline's.

Our Saviour cursed a fig tree because of its barrenness. Conceive a fig tree to be cursed be

cause of the bitterness of its fruit. It is for its own bitter fruit, and not for the bitter fruit of its first ancestor, that it is laid under the doom which has been pronounced upon it. But still its first ancestor may have been a tree of sweetly-flavoured fruit at its first formation; and a pestilential gust may have passed over and tainted it; and it may, by the laws of physiological succession have sent, down its deteriorated nature among all its posterity; and it may be true of each individual descendant, that, while it is for its own qualities it is so loathed and so condemned, still was it from its great originating parent that it inherited, the taint by which it has been vitiated, and the sentence by which it has been accursed.

Many, we are aware, carry the doctrine of imputation farther than this; and make each of us. liable to answer at the bar of God's judicature for Adam's individual transgression. We shall only say of this view at present, that, whether it be scriptural or not, we are very sure that we cannot follow it by any sense of morality or rightfulness that is in our own heart. Still, even on this highest imagination of the doctrine, we hold the way of God to man, in all the bearings of this much agitated subject, to be capable of a most full and triumphant vindication; and with our attempt to evince this, we trust we shall be able in one address more, to finish all that is general and preliminary to the passage that is now before us. When we next resume this topic, we shall endeavour to

silence the rising murmurs, which we doubt not have been already felt in many a heart, on the hearing of the representation that we have now given to prove that there is not an individual amongst us, who has a right to complain of the hardness or severity of God's dealing with us—to come forth with that gospel, in the utterance of which God may be said to wipe His hands of the blood of all who come within reach of the hearing of it—and to neutralize all your complaints about the curse and the corruption that have been entailed upon us, by lifting the welcome invitation. to every man, of a righteousness overpassing all that we have lost, and of a grace that will restore us to a higher state of innocence and glory than that from which we are now the sentenced and the exiled wanderers.

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LECTURE XXV.

ROMANS V, 12—21.

"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. But, not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead; much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift; for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) Therefore, as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners; so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered, that the offence might abound: but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord."

We have now disserted at very great length on the tenet of original sin, both as it includes the two great articles of original depravity and original guilt-understanding by the one, that every indi

vidual of the human race brings a corrupt nature into the world with him, by which he is so inclined to what is sinful, that in fact all men are sinners: and understanding by the other, that he is justly responsible for sin thus emanated by his evil nature-even though that nature came down by inheritance from his first parents, who, without being corrupt originally, corrupted themselves and sent down their acquired propensities to evil among all their descendants. We are aware that the doctrine of a guilt transmitted by Adam, is commonly carried farther than this-affirming, not merely that all men are to blame for the sins they personally do, under the instigations of an evil nature transmitted by Adam; but that they are also to blame for the proper and individual act of transgression done by Adam himself in the garden of Eden. We have not denied that this may be the doctrine of Scripture. We have only said that our own moral sense is altogether unable to apprehend it; and that while we can perceive how man is justly culpable, for every iniquitous deed of his history, caused by the iniquitous tendency of his heart, however that tendency may have been derived -Yet, we cannot perceive, how it is that he is justly culpable, for an iniquitous deed done, not by himself, but by another who lived nearly six thousand years ago. This, however, may be the real truth of the case-whether we are able or not to comprehend it. The Bible tells us of many things, of which, without its informations, we should have