which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." The law of love requires nothing separate from love; and, therefore, no religious professions, no religious desires, no religious performances, which are separate from love, do in the least degree fulfil the law. Hence it is the first and immediate duty of sinners to exercise that love, which the law requires. They cannot perform a single duty without the exercise of love. They can neither repent nor believe, nor do any thing acceptable to God, until they renounce their enmity to him, and love him supremely. They must be reconciled to the law, before they can be reconciled to the gospel. They must love the law, before they can love the gospel, and embrace the offers of life; for saving faith worketh by love. Let every sinner, therefore, immediately obey the first and great commandment, and exercise that love, which alone will secure the favor and enjoyment of God. "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him."

SERMON XII.

THE PRIMITIVE RECTITUDE OF ADAM.

ECCLESIASTES Vii, 29.

Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright.

IT is one mark of our universal depravity, that we have been so prone to reproach our common Progenitor. No parent, perhaps, has ever been treated with so little propriety and respect, as Adam. Some of his undutiful children have virtually charged him with all the sin and guilt in the world; while others have even ventured to call in question his moral purity and perfection, before his fall. But Solomon speaks of our first Parent with peculiar veneration; and represents him, in his primitive state, as far superior to any of his degenerate offspring. "Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions." These words naturally lead us to ascertain and support the primitive character of Adam.

Here let us first consider what we are to understand by his being made upright.

The true import of this term appears from the connexion in which it is used. Solomon is not speaking of that noble aspect and erect posture of Adam, by which he excelled the lower species; but of that moral rectitude, or integrity of heart, by which he excelled all his own posterity. For he tells us in the text and context, that after taking a seriousa nd extensive view of mankind in their various situations and pursuits, he drew up this general conclusion in his own mind, that the human race had greatly degenerated from the moral purity and integrity of their first Parent, and employed all their noble powers to find out new and different ways of gratifying their extremely depraved hearts. The inspired Writers commonly use the term upright, to signify that quality of the heart, which forms the highest beauty and perfection of human nature. We read, "The Levites were more upright in heart than the Priests." Solomon, speaking of the integrity of his father David, says, "he walked before God in uprightness of heart." And David commonly makes use of this phrase, when he would express his own integrity, or the integrity of others. "I will praise thee with uprightness of heart. My defence is of God, who saveth the upright in heart. The wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrows upon the string; that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart. Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice ye righteous: and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart. O continue thy loving kindness unto them that know thee; and thy righteousness to the upright in heart. The righteous shall be glad in the Lord, and shall trust in him: and all the upright in heart shall glory. Judgment shall return unto righteousness: and all the upright in heart shall follow it. Light is sown for the righteous; and gladness for the upright in heart. Do good, O Lord, unto those that be good, and to them that are upright in heart." It appears from these passages of Scripture, that uprightness belongs to the heart, and gives a man his moral character. And this leads us to understand the term upright in the text, as denoting moral rectitude, or perfect holiness.

The way is now prepared to show, in the second place, that God did make the first man upright in this sense of the word. We are now come upon disputed ground, which requires us to proceed with great caution and perspicuity. And, therefore, it may be proper to observe,

1. That God might have made Adam upright in heart.

This is denied by many men of great learning and ingenuity. They suppose it was beyond the power of the Deity, to make man morally upright, or create him in righteousness and true holiness. This is the opinion of two very ingenious and respectable authors, who have expressed their minds freely upon the subject. Doctor Taylor confidently asserts, "That it is utterly inconsistent with the nature of virtue, that it should be concreated with any person; because, if so, it must be an act of God's absolute power, without our knowledge or concurrence; and that moral virtue, in its very nature, implieth the choice and consent of the moral agent, without which it cannot be virtue and holiness: that necessary holiness is no holiness. To say that God not only endowed Adam with a ca pacity of being righteous, but moreover that righteousness and true holiness were created with him, or wrought into his nature, at the same time he was made, is to affirm a contradiction, or what is inconsistent with the nature of righteousness." Doctor Chauncey agrees very nearly with Doctor Taylor; for speaking upon this subject, he says, with his usual elegance and accuracy, "That man was made male and female, the most excellent creature in this lower world, possessing the highest and noblest rank: That he was made by an "immediate" exertion of almighty power, and not by God's agency, in concurrence with second causes, operating according to an established course or order; that he was made in the image of God;" mean

ing hereby, not an actual, present, perfect likeness to him, either in knowledge, wisdom, holiness, or happiness, but with IMPLANTED POWERS perfectly adjusted for his gradually attaining to his likeness, in the highest measure proper to a being of his rank in the creation." Though Doctor Chauncey does not expressly deny, as Doctor Taylor does, the possibility of God's making man upright, yet his mode of treating the subject plainly implies it. They both suppose, that virtue or true holiness must be the sole work of man, and of course suppose, that it is impossible, in the nature of things, that it should be the work of God. This is the objection against God's creating Adam in righteousness and true holiness, set in the fairest and strongest light. Let us now consider what there is to invalidate this objection, and to make it appear, that God might have made man upright.

And here I may observe, in the first place, that it is agreeable to the nature of virtue, or true holiness to be created. The volitions or moral exercises of the mind are virtuous or vicious, in their own nature, without the least regard to the cause by which they were produced. This is apparent, upon the principles of those, who deny the possibility of created holiness. Doctor Taylor pleads, that holiness consists in the free, voluntary choice of the agent. This is undoubtedly true, and agreeable to the dictates of common sense. But if this be true, the excellency of virtue or holiness consists in its nature, and not in its cause. For, if there cannot be a volition before the first volition; then the first volition of every created agent, must have a cause altogether involuntary. This must certainly have been the case with respect to Adam. His first volition could not proceed from a previous volition; and therefore his first volition proceeded from some involuntary