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groundless claim as this? Know then, that we have no claim on God; and, when he shall exclude us from the inheritance of his saints," he will be justified" in the judgment that he shall denounce against us. Indeed, in assigning us this portion, he will only give effect to our own wishes, and answer us in the desire of our own hearts: we said to him, "Depart from us; we desire not the knowledge of thee ;" and he will say to us, "Depart from me; depart accursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels "."]

The whole creation will unite in vindicating these judgments as just and good—

[Doubtless, if it were possible, sinners would urge at the bar of judgment the objections which here they presume to bring against the justice of their God. But sin will then appear in all its deformity: it will then be seen what a God we sinned against, and what mercies we despised. Even in this world, when once persons are brought to view themselves aright, they justify God in all that he sees fit to inflict upon them h. Aaroni, Elik, Hezekiah', David m, all confessed, that God had a right to deal with them in the way that he had done. Much more in the day of judgment, when every thing will be seen in its true light, will the whole universe approve the sentence which God shall pass on the world of the ungodly: they will make the very punishment of the wicked a subject of their songs; "saying, Allelujah! salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God: for true and righteous are his judgments "." Indeed the miserable objects themselves, though they cannot join in the song, will be unable to condemn the sentence. The man who was excluded from the marriage-feast for not having on a wedding garment, might have urged, that he was brought in before he had time to procure one: but his plea would have been false and unavailing ; and therefore" he was speechless ";" a striking monument of conscious guilt, and an awful specimen of a condemned soul P.] In this acknowledgment then of David we may SEE, 1. The grand constituents of repentance

[Many may be sorry that they have subjected themselves to punishment, just as a criminal may that he has forfeited his life to the laws of his country: but no man can truly repent, till he sees, that his whole life has been one continued state of

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h It is worthy of observation, that God's goodness to David is mentioned as the greatest aggravation of his offence. 2 Sam. xii. 7—9. k 1 Sam. iii. 18. 1 Isai. xxxix. 8. n Rev. xv. 3. and xix. 1, 2.

i Lev. x. 3.

m Ps. xxxix. 9.

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rebellion against God; and that "everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord" is his just desert. Till a man has that view of himself, he will never be thoroughly broken and contrite; he will never lothe and abhor himself for his iniquities; he will never have that " repentance which is unto life, that repentance which is not to be repented of." We entreat you all then to judge of your repentance by these marks. Do not be satisfied with being humbled on account of sin; but inquire particularly, whether you are more humbled from a view of it as against man, or a view of it as against God. These ought to bear no proportion in your estimate of your own character. Your own nothingness and vileness can only be estimated aright when viewed in contrast with the majesty you have offended, and the mercy you have despised and till you see that everlasting misery in hell is your deserved portion, you can never lie so low as you ought to lie.]

2. The true preparative for pardon

[Something we must bring with us to the Saviour: but what is that which we ought to bring? Must we get a certain portion of good works wherewith to purchase his salvation? No: this is a price which he will utterly despise. That which we are to bring is precisely what a patient brings to a physician, a sense of his extreme need of the physician's aid. Christ came to save sinners: we then must feel ourselves sinners. He came to seek and save that which was lost: we then must feel ourselves lost. A just sense of our guilt and misery is all that he requires: if we come wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked, he will give us that gold that has been tried in the fire, the raiment that shall cover our nakedness, and the eye-salve that shall restore our eyes to sight. If we come to him full, we shall be sent empty away: but if we come hungry and empty, we shall be filled out of his inexhaustible fulness," we shall be filled with all the fulness of our God."]

3. The best preservative from sin—

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[When Joseph was tempted by Potiphar's wife, he answered her," How shall I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" Thus we would recommend all, when tempted to commit iniquity, to consider, first, what God will think of it; and next, what they themselves will think of it in the last day? Now it may appear light and venial, especially if it be not such a heinous sin as adultery or murder: but when it comes to be seen in its true light, as against an infinitely good and gracious God; and when the judgments which he has denounced against it come to be felt; what shall we think of it q Gen. xxxix. 9.

then? Oh! ask yourselves, What will be my view of this matter in the last day?' Then even the sins that now seem of no account, will appear most heinous, and the price paid for a momentary indulgence, most prodigal. The selling of a birthright for a mess of pottage is but a very faint emblem of the folly of those, who for the whole world are induced to barter the salvation of their souls. View things in any measure now, as you will view them at the last day; and you will rather die a thousand deaths than sin against your God.]

DLXXXVII.

ORIGINAL SIN.

Ps. li. 5. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

ONE of the most essential marks of real penitence is, a disposition to see our sins as God sees them: not extenuating their guilt by vain and frivolous excuses, but marking every circumstance that tends to aggravate their enormity. During their impenitence, our first parents cast the blame of their transgression upon others; the man on his wife; and the woman on the serpent that had beguiled her: but, when true repentance was given them, they no doubt beheld their conduct in a very different view, and took to themselves all the shame which it so justly merited. The sin of David in the matter of Uriah was great, beyond all the powers of language to express. Yet there were points of view in which none but a real penitent would notice it, and in which its enormity was aggravated a hundred-fold. This is the light in which the Royal Penitent speaks of it, in the psalm before us. Having spoken of it as an offence, not merely against man, but primarily, and almost solely, against Jehovah himself, he proceeds to notice it, not as an insulated act or course of action, but as the proper fruit of his inherent, his natural, corruption. We are not to suppose, that he intended by this to cast any reflection on his mother, of whom he elsewhere speaks in most respectful terms; nor are we to imagine, that he adduces the nature which he had derived from her, as an excuse

for the wickedness he had committed: his intention is, to humble himself before God and man as a creature altogether corrupt, and to represent his wickedness as no other than a sample of that iniquity of which his heart was full, a stream issuing from an overflowing fountain. This, we doubt not, is the genuine import of the words which we have now proposed to consider; "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin hath my mother conceived me." In prosecuting this important subject, we shall endeavour to establish,

I. The truth asserted

The doctrine of Original Sin is here distinctly affirmed. It is indeed by many denied, under the idea that it would be inconsistent with the goodness and mercy of God to send into the world immortal beings in any other state than one of perfect purity. But it is in vain for us to teach God what he ought to do the question for us to consider is, What hath God done? and what account has he himself given us of our state? And here, if the Scriptures be true, there is no room for doubt: we are the corrupt offspring of degenerate parents; from whom we derive a polluted nature, which alone, since their fall, they could possibly transmit. This we shall proceed to prove,

1. From concurring testimonies

[Moses, in his account of the first man that was born into the world, expressly notices, that Adam begat him not in the likeness of God, in which he himself had been originally created, but "in his own likeness," as a fallen and corrupt creature": and how different the one from the other, may be conjectured from the conduct of this first-born, who imbrued his hands in his brother's blood. In his account too, as well of the postdiluvian, as of the ante-diluvian world, he tells us, that "every imagination of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually." Job, not only affirms the same awful truth, but shews us that it is impossible in the nature of things to be otherwise since from a thing that is radically and essentially unclean, nothing but what is unclean can proceed. The

a Gen. v. 3.

b Gen. vi. 5. and viii. 21.

e Job xiv. 4. and xv. 14-16. and xxv. 4.

testimony of Isaiah and Jeremiah is altogether to the same effect; as is that also of Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes. And, in the New Testament, our Lord himself teaches us to regard the heart as the proper womb, where every species of iniquity is generated, and from whence it proceeds: and St. Paul declares of himself, as well as all the rest of the human race, that they" are by nature children of wrath." But how can we be in such a state by nature, if we are not corrupt? Can God regard as objects of his wrath creatures that possess his perfect image? No: it is as fallen in Adam that he views us, and as inheriting a depraved nature that he abhors us1.]

2. From collateral evidence

[Whence was it that God appointed the painful and bloody rite of circumcision to be administered to infants of eight days old, but to shew that they brought into the world with them a corrupt nature, which it was the bounden duty of all who were in covenant with him to mortify and subdue? Whilst, on the one hand, it sealed to them the blessings of the covenant, it intimated to them, on the other hand, that they needed to have "their hearts circumcised, to love the Lord their God."

Again, how comes it that every child, from the first moment that he begins to act at all, manifests corrupt tempers and dispositions? If only some, and those the children of wicked men, evinced such depravity, we might be led to account for it in some other way: but when, with the exception of one or two who were sanctified from the womb, this has been the state of every child that has been born into the world, we are constrained to acknowledge, that our very nature is corrupt, and that, as David tells us, 66 we are estranged from the womb, and go astray as soon as we are born."

Further, How can we account for the sufferings and death of infants, but on the supposition, that they are partakers of Adam's guilt and corruption? Sufferings and death are the penalty of sin and we cannot conceive that God would inflict that penalty on millions of infants, if they were not in some way or other obnoxious to his wrath. St. Paul notices this, as an irrefragable proof that all Adam's posterity fell in him, and through him are partakers of guilt and misery k.

Once more; Whence is it that all need a Saviour? If children are not, in the eye of God, transgressors of his law, they cannot need to be redeemed from its curse. But Christ

is as much the Saviour of infants as of adults. We find no

d Isai. vi. 5. Jer. xvii. 9.

f Mark vii. 21.

e Chap. ix. 3.
8 Eph. ii. 3.

h The subject does not lead us to notice Adam as a federal head ; and therefore we confine ourselves to what lies immediately before us k Rom. v. 12, 14.

i Ps. lviii. 3.

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