"Job xxxi. 33: If I covered my transgression as Adam, by hiding my inquity in my bosom.'

"Job xv. 14: What is man, that he should be clean? and he that is born of a woman, that he should be righteous? Why not clean? Did God make woman or man unclean at the beginning? If he did, the expostulation would have been more apposite, and much stronger, had the true cause been assigned, and Job had said,How canst thou expect cleanness in man, whom thou createdst unclean?' But, as the case now stands, the expostulation has a plain reference to the introduction of vanity and corruption by the sin of the woman, and is an evidence that this ancient writer was sensible of the evil consequences of the fall upon the whole race of man. 'Eden' and garden of the Lord' are also frequently referred to in the Prophets. We have the tree of life' mentioned several times in the Proverbs and in the Revelation. God,' says Solomon, 'made man upright.' The enemies of Christ and his Church are spoken of, both in the Old and New Testaments, under the names of the serpent,' and 'the dragon; and the habit of the serpent to lick the dust is also referred to by Isaiah.

"If the history of the fall, as recorded by Moses, were an allegory, or any thing but a literal history, several of the above allusions would have no meaning; but the matter is put beyond all possible doubt in the New Testament, unless the same culpable liberties be taken with the interpretation of the words of our Lord and of St. Paul as with those of the Jewish lawgiver. Our Lord says, Matt. xix. 4, 5, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning, made them male and female; and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh ?' This is an argument on the subject of divorces, and its foundation rests upon two of the facts recorded by Moses. 1. That God made at first but two human beings, from whom all the

rest have sprung. 2. That the intimacy and indissolubility of the marriage relation rests upon the formation of the woman from the man; for our Lord quotes the words in Genesis, where the obligation of man to cleave to his wife is immediately connected with that circumstance. 'And Adam said, This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.' This is sufficiently in proof that both our Lord and the Pharisees considered this early part of the history of Moses as a narrative; for otherwise, it would neither have been a reason, on his part, for the doctrine which he was inculcating, nor have had any force of conviction as to them. 'In Adam,' says the Apostle Paul, all die ;' 'by one man sin entered into the world.' 'But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.' In the last passage, the instrument of the temptation is said to be a serpent, and Eve is represented as being first seduced, according to the account in Genesis. This St. Paul repeats, in 1 Tim. ii. 13, 14. 'Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, (first, or immediately,) but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.' And offers this as the reason of his injunction, Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.' When, therefore, it is considered that these passages are introced not for rhetorical illustration, or in the way of classical quotation, but are made the basis of grave reasonings, which embody some of the most important doctrines of the Christian revelation; and of important social duties and points of Christian order and deco-. rum; it would be to charge the writers of the New Testament with the grossest absurdity, with even culpable and unworthy trifling, to suppose them to argue from the history of the fall as a narrative, when they

knew it to be an allegory; and if we are, therefore, compelled to allow that it was understood as a real history by our Lord and his inspired Apostles, those speculations of modern critics, which convert it into a parable, stand branded with their true character of infidel and semi-infidel termerity."-Watson.

Having thus established the fall of the first man, we now propose proving that all men are born into the world with a corrupt or depraved nature.

I. "We argue the general corruption of human nature from the fall and corruption of the first man, from whom all men have received their existence by way of natural descent.

"We have shown, in the preceding chapter, that the first man was created in righteousness and true holiness, that he bore the impress of the hand that made him, and shone in the likeness of his divine Author. Now as righteousness and true holiness constituted the moral character or nature of man, as he came from the hand of his Creator, it must follow that this divine image was designed for his descendants, and would have been communicated to them, had he not sinned and lost it himself, while all men were yet in his loins. If, then, the image of God, wherein the first man was created, was designed to have been transmitted to his offspring, it must appear reasonable that nothing short of a full possession of this image can answer the claims of the law of our creation; for it would be absurd to say that God created man in a higher state of moral perfection than is necessary to answer the claims, and secure the glory of the moral government which he exercises over. the human family; or that he bestowed on man a degree of moral holiness, which he did not secure from desecration by the direct interposition of moral obligation, or which might be lost or squandered on the part of man, without incurring moral guilt. It is clear, from this, that any state of human nature which comes short of that moral perfection, or that divine image

which God bestowed, when he created man, must be regarded as a lapsed state, coming short of that righteousness which the perfect law of our Creator requires, and consequently, a sinful state, for all unrighteousness is sin.' If, then, a want of the image of God, which consists in righteousness and true holiness, constitutes a fallen and sinful state, it only remains to show farther, that man does not by nature now possess this divine image. Now, when Adam sinned, he must have lost the image of his Maker; for it would be absurd to suppose that the image of God, consisting in righteousness and true holiness, could be possessed by man, and he be a sinner at the same time, guilty before God, and a subject of divine punishment. As well might it be said, that God could consistently condemn and pour a divine curse upon his own image! As well might it be said that sin and holiness once formed a harmonious alliance! That Adam was righteous and truly holy, and unrighteous, polluted, and guilty, at the same time. It is certain, then, that Adam could not have retained the image of his Maker after he sinned, and being destitute of it himself, he could not communicate it to his offspring for no being can communicate to another that which he does not himself possess.” —Lee.

II. We argue the hereditary depravity of human nature from the following facts, for which it is impossible to assign any cause, upon the hypothesis of man's natural innocence:

1. "That in all ages great, and even general wickedness has prevailed among those large masses of men which are called nations.

"So far as it relates to the immediate descendants of Adam before the flood; to all the nations of the highest antiquity; to the Jews throughout every period of their history, down to their final dispersion; and to the empires and other states whose history is involved in theirs; we have the historical evidence of Scripture,

knew it to be an allegory; and if we are, therefore, compelled to allow that it was understood as a real history by our Lord and his inspired Apostles, those speculations of modern critics, which convert it into a parable, stand branded with their true character of infidel and semi-infidel termerity."—Watson.

Having thus established the fall of the first man, we now propose proving that all men are born into the world with a corrupt or depraved nature.

I. "We argue the general corruption of human nature from the fall and corruption of the first man, from whom all men have received their existence by way of natural descent.

"We have shown, in the preceding chapter, that the first man was created in righteousness and true holiness, that he bore the impress of the hand that made him, and shone in the likeness of his divine Author. Now as righteousness and true holiness constituted the moral character or nature of man, as he came from the hand of his Creator, it must follow that this divine image was designed for his descendants, and would have been communicated to them, had he not sinned and lost it himself, while all men were yet in his loins. If, then, the image of God, wherein the first man was created, was designed to have been transmitted to, his offspring, it must appear reasonable that nothing short of a full possession of this image can answer the claims of the law of our creation; for it would be absurd to say that God created man in a higher state of moral perfection: than is necessary to answer the claims, and secure the glory of the moral government which he exercises over. the human family; or that he bestowed on man a degree of moral holiness, which he did not secure from desecration by the direct interposition of moral obligation, or which might be lost, or squandered on the part of man, without incurring moral guilt. It is clear, from this, that any state of human nature which comes short of that moral perfection, or that divine image