different stages. And an extreme case, an instance in which the disorder had long been permitted to make its ravages unrestrained, would, in all probability, strike the mind as the most alarming manifestation of it.

:

v...Therefore, in order to represent the nature of moral disorder, and the extent to which it may advance in a similar manner, we select for observation, as many and as various instances as possible of the disease in its different degrees. And we contemplate it in its most alarming point of view, in an extreme case.

VI...Consequently, while we wish to attract the attention of man towards the observation of that moral corruption with which man is born into this world, and which he may, with the assistance of his Maker, remediate, or, contrary to his Maker's will, cherish, as he himself thinks fit; while we are desirous of exhibiting to the minds of men an instance of the possible ascendency which this disease may attain, we ask of man only to allow his reflection to dwell on the history of some one who has permitted his corrupt inclinations to lead him always whither they listed, and who has suffered the depravity with which he was born

to grow with his growth, and strengthen with his strength.

VII...Individuals are to be met with in the world in whom there is an absence of all moral perceptions! Who will assert that virtue and vice are words to which no definitive meaning can possibly be attached: Who will deny the existence of the human will, and, perhaps, maintain that they are by no means satisfied with the proofs which the world brings forward, of the existence of God!

Now, although no man can be said to be in a state of mind thoroughly sound, sin being always, to a certain extent, present with us in this world, and our perceptions being always, therefore, liable to being falsified: yet the unsoundness of our minds has its degrees; and as long as our judgments are not erroneous in excess, and while we retain power of controlling our actions, in the common language of the world, we are termed sane. When, however, our minds, either partially or generally, are in a diseased state, exceeding this so called normal condition, and when there is "an aberration of any sensation or intellectual power from this state without the * See Appendix F.

capacity of distinguishing the diseased state," this has received the common name of "insanity."

But as the total loss of one physical faculty does not necessarily prevent the exercise of other faculties which we possess; and, as the deaf may see, the blind hear, and the lame converse; so mental insanity may be partial: and it does not follow, but that he who denies the existence of free will in man, or who doubts the being of his Maker, may be able to transact, with acuteness and propriety, the common business of life; nay, we may say, that where the moral perceptions are to such excess morbid, as that we may term them dead, or obliterated in the same individual we may contemplate, with melancholy admiration, the hero, the statesman, or the poet! "And surely, if there be in human things, an affecting representation, of a mind lost to every function of a healthy understanding, incapable of rising from effects to causes, or of tracing the relations of things,—a mind deserted by its rightful guardian, and left the unprotected victim of every wild delusion that flutters by, -it is to be found in him, who, possessed of the senses of a living man, can stand before the fair face of creation, and say in his heart

there is no God."

But to such an one we

are able to refer, for knowledge of the possible extent to which the moral depravity of man, when neglected and indulged, will proceed. So strong is the consequent delusion, so great is the darkness.† "The light of the body is the eye if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

66

VIII..." By one man," we read, "sin entered into the world, and death by sin." The bare fact, of sin, sorrow, and death, being thus introduced, is all we are acquainted with. There were 66 angels who kept not their first estate :"§ man kept not his: but transgressed, and fell. So far we know ;-" The secret things belong unto the Lord our God."||

To those who would ask,-Are there any confirmations in nature of the simple, brief, and to us, possibly, strange account of the fall of man, as delivered by Moses? we

* Abercrombie.

† See 2 Thess. ii. 11, 12. Matt. vi. 22, 23.

Rom.

V.

12.

Jude 6.
D

| Deut. xxix. 29.

answer—all nature and all history unite to confirm that account; nor can the existence of evil receive the shadow of any explanation, without reference being made to the origin of it as recorded in the book of Genesis.

If you would "answer the fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit :"* Ask him to give account, as it is incumbent upon him to do, otherwise than as in the sacred volume is given, of the origin of sin and sorrow. Demand of him the reason, why it is, that the good which man would, man does not while the evil which man would not, that he does. Ask him, whence came the law, the existence of which even he will not deny, which makes, when he would do good, evil to be present with him. And desire him to tell who can deliver him from the body of this death.

Ask him to give account of the mysterious enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman.‡

Ask him, why "man alone, of all animals, is necessitated to labour for subsistence; while they are maintained by the spontaneous bounty of nature, graze the uncultivated field, drink

* Prov. xxvi. 5. See Appendix.

See Rom. vii. 15.

See Gen. iii. 14, 15.