life. The Lord grant that as in Adam you all died, in Christ you may all be made alive; alive to all the privileges of grace and glory.

This doctrine may also be improved for the humiliation and gratitude of the righteous; of those who are begotten again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Hail, ye children of the kingdom, hail ye are highly favored of the Lord. Reflect on your former condition, without God, without Christ, and without hope in the world; fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind: Look back occasionally to that rock from whence you were hewn, to that pit of perdition from whence you were delivered; and let each reflection on your past character and condition excite you to adore the freedom and sovereignty of divine grace; let it awaken more ardent emotions of love to that Jesus who was delivered for your offences, and died that you might live.. Improve more and more the Lamb of God for taking away your sin; his sacrifice for expiating its guilt, his grace for subduing its power and washing away its pollution.Your daily imperfections loudly demand the daily application of his blood for preserving peace in your own consciences and with the living God; the daily risings and prevalence of corruption require the daily improvement of his covenant fulness, for perfecting your sanctification; and remem ber for your consolation, that both your

pardon and purification are equally secured by the sufferings of his cross. "Ye are

complete in him who is the head of all principality and power. He gave himself for you to redeem you from all iniquity and to purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works." Rejoice evermore in the all-sufficiency of the Redeemer's satisfaction; contemplate this as a complete and everlasting discharge from condemnation. "He hath finished transgression; made an end of sin, made reconciliation for iniquity, and brought in everlasting righteousness.The moment of your union to his Person you become perfect as to your justification; complete as the righteousness of a God can render you; and shortly, through the influ ences of his spirit, you shall become equally perfect as to sanctification; conformed in the highest possible degree to the likeness of your Lord, and introduced to his most intimate fellowship. There you shall eternally admire the mystery, and experience the consolation of the truth, that "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: That as sin reigned unto death grace also reigned through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord,"Amen.

SERMON III.

All become guilty by the transgression of Adam as their federal head.

ROMANS, v. 12.

"By one man sin entered into the world."

WHEN all the branches of a tree are evidently languishing; when the leaves wither, and the fruit drops off before its season, we naturally conjecture that the trunk itself must be disordered, or that some capital defect must exist in the roots from which it sprung: When all the streams which issue from a particular fountain become impure; when the color of their waters is changed, and their influence is offensive and noxious, we immediately conclude that the source from which they flow must be disordered: When the various parts of an arch or building are decaying; when they are separating from each other and tottering to fall, we naturally conclude that the foundation is deranged and insecure: Thus when we behold the unnumbered millions of the human family; men of all ages, of all countries, in every variety of condition plunged alike in pollution, hateful and hating one another, we are obliged to suspect that some fatal accident has happened our

common father; that the head itself must be disordered when the deadly contagion strikes through all the members of the body. The more enlightened among the heathen entertained these conjectures, and the more candid openly expressed them; from the disorders of mankind in general, from the avarice of one, the intemperance of a second, the unrestrained ambition of a third, the imperfections of all, they concluded that human nature was universally depraved; that it had degenerated from its original purity and glory, but when or how the fatal change was effected; at what period the accursed leaven pervaded the whole lump, or by what peculiar arrangement of Jehovah the son apparently inherited the corruptions of his father, were questions which reason of itself could never have solved; altho' they were convinced of the fact, the cause they were unable to explore. To afford this discovery is peculiar to the gospel of the Son of God. With this celestial light, the bible in our hand, we behold not only the stream of human corruption, but the very source from which it flows. In Adam, is the declaration of this inspired, unerring oracle, In Adam all die By one man sin entered into the world.

Your attention was lately directed to the universal apostacy and corruption of We endeavored to support the general charge, and to prove from the plain, re

man.

peated declarations of scripture; from the conduct of man in all ages and all circumstances; from their complicated miseries both temporal and spiritual, that all flesh have really corrupted their way, and come short of the divine glory that sin, this bold usurper, this foe of God and man, has obtained an unlimited reign in our world; that his dominion is co-extensive with mankind, and reaches particularly to every son and daughter of Adam. "They are all gone aside; they are all together become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

It is designed at present, with a humble reliance on the same Spirit for direction, to shew,

1. The manner of its entrance-By one man sin entered: And

2. The peculiar relation of that one man to all other men, as a sufficient reason why his transgression was charged to them.

Our first inquiry is into the manner by which transgression obtained its entrance, by

one man.

As it is undeniably evident that sin has entered our world; that it has reigned to the condemnation and ruin of all, it is equally evident that its entrance was by the failure of one. This fundamental article of our religion is no less than seven times repeated in the chapter in which our text is contained. We are taught in the 12th verse, that by one man sin entered into the world, and the