were no longer continually with the sons of men, but who now left this earth under a curse, which he had formerly blessed. Even the image of God was defaced in manthat image which was the distinguishing glory and the supreme felicity of his nature; and he became the opposite of all that he originally was. Dark and enfeebled in his understanding in the things of God,-cold and lifeless in his affections, corrupt and disorderly in his passions and appetites,perverse and rebellious in his conduct; in a word, his whole moral frame was unhinged, disjointed, and broken. The proof of this soon became palpable and undeniable. It was seen in his ignorance, when he absurdly attempted to hide himself from the eye of omniscience among the trees of the garden :—in his aversion to God, otherwise he would never have fled from his Maker, but rather have hasted, on the wings of desire, to the place of the divine manifestation :-in the disorderly passions which became predominant in his breast ;-pride, for he refused to acknowledge his guilt;-ingratitude, for he obliquely upbraided his Creator with his gift, as though it had been a curse rather than a blessing,-" the woman whom thou gavest me;"-want of natural affection, for he endeavoured to exonerate himself from blame by impeaching the wife of his bosom. The female criminal acts the same unhumbled part; she neither takes shame to herself, nor gives glory to God, nor offers up a single petition for pardon. These disastrous results furnish us with the best key to open the meaning of the prohibitory sanction. They prove beyond any argument, that spiritual death, and all its consequences, were comprehended in the extent of the threatening. How is the gold become dim? how is the most fine gold changed? Who, beholding the fearful change, can reflect on man's original beauty of holiness, and withhold the tear of sorrow? How art thou fallen, son of the morning? When Judah's sons, escaped from the scene of their captivity, returned to Sion to

build again the temple of the Lord, the new foundation could only be laid by removing the splendid ruins of the desolated sanctuary; then came the remembrance of the former glories fresh upon their minds, and they wept aloud. And have not we cause for sorrow when we review the spiritual temple of the Most High laid desolate, and swept with the besom of destruction? The transgression of our first parent did not end with himself,-it was not merely personal; he communicated his changed and darkened nature to his descendants, who, no longer entering the world with the clear impress of the divine image, were born after the wretched likeness of their fallen progenitor. Therefore, when this fatal catastrophe had taken place, the sacred historian varies his style, and with a remarkable peculiarity, as well as propriety of speech, says, "Adam begat a son in his own [not in the divine] likeness." The history of mankind, from the fall to the present time, has been in consequence, but the expansion and unfolding of the evil heart of unbelief-the principle of defection and rebellion in man. The transgression of our first parent has descended like an heir-loom to his posterity, entailing misery and corruption from one generation to another. The proofs in support of this statement are cogent and irrefragable. The scripture testimonies are almost innumerable; they form their evidence from every quarter; and constitute, not two or three, but a whole cloud of witnesses. From the moment this event happened, we perceive the posterity of Adam treated as sinners; they are placed on the remedial plan, and taught to expect salvation entirely from the interposition of unmerited favour. In every sacrificial institution,-in every scriptural definition of the nature of man, but especially, in the ignominious sufferings of the Son of God, we are represented as guilty, and viewed as worthy of death. The testimonies of scripture on this subject cannot be too attentively considered. Let the mind rest on such

passages as the following, and ponder over the awful apostacy of our nature, so deep, and so much beyond the power of the creature to surmount. "The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. Every one of them is gone back, they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.' "All flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth." "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" "How can he be clean that is born of a "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." "The carnal mind is enmity against God."

woman?"

Now we know that whatsoever things the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God." It is a solemn and affecting consideration, but one which must be thoroughly and distinctly stated, that whatever variety there may be in the human character,-whatever modification may perchance have been produced by science, by literature, by education, by example, or any mode of testimony or interest whatsoever, yet this one fact remains invariably and unalterably the same, that man is every where a sinner. Yes, whether he dwell in the east, or the west, in the north, or the south, at the tropics, or the poles: whether he revel amidst scenes of luxury and refinenent, or occupy the abodes of gross ignorance and barbarism: in every period of his history, in every variety of his condition, in every place of his dwelling, he bears the same stamp of moral degradation; he exhibits all the tokens of a fallen nature,-unbelief, ambition, sensuality, and ingratitude, with all their vile progeny of crimes; and exhibits them as having the uncontrolled empire of his heart.

All the circumstances of man's condition correspond with his moral debasement, and shew how greatly he has fallen

from his original state. We see the ground cursed for his sake, and bringing forth thorns and briers instead of the living fruits of paradise. We see man destined to labour for his bread, and to eat that bread in the sweat of his brow. Instead of standing at the head of this lower world as its heavenly appointed sovereign, he is become a drudge, a poor dependent creature; and in the evils which betide and in those which threaten him daily, he is reduced far below the condition of the brutes. We see him enter the world the subject of weakness, helplessness, pain, disease, and death. The first cry he utters is that of suffering. In making the journey of life he is liable through all its stages to disappointment, vicissitude, bereavement, vexation, and sorrow. All nature seems combined to effect his destruction; and innumerable evils, like inexorable foes, are perpetually tracking his steps through every course of life; while death, always watching for his prey, descends when he is least aware, and seizes and bears away his victim. He then resigns his body to the earth from which it was taken, when it is devoured by worms, dissolved by corruption, and changed into its original dust. Such is the condition, and such the final destiny of man. In no situation of life may we promise ourselves exemption or security. The vale of life is indeed crowded with travellers, but none may make the journey of life exempt from disquietude or pain, or avoid that death which is exacted from all the sons and

daughters of Adam as the proper penalty of sin. "Rich and poor shall go down to the grave, and worms alike shall cover them." "It is appointed unto all men once to die, Though the ages at which the allotment is suffered may vary, and the method also may be greatly diversified, yet amid the variety of modes and seasons, the path is one and the same. All these are but so many avenues leading down to the grave.

Who can contemplate these sad consequences of the original apostacy, and not exclaim, what a dreadful thing is sin?

and never should the evils which pervade our world be viewed by us but in connection with sin, the fatal source from which the whole proceeds. Sin, the invariable antecedent; misery, the invariable consequence! Sin, the cause; misery, the effect the demerit of the one producing the desolation of the other. Child of mortality and of suffering! forget it not; approve it, and apply it. Ponder the solemn thought, that one sin hath introduced all the evils by which mankind is afflicted. Sin hath spread darkness, desolation, and misery, around our path! Sin gave existence to pain, and sickness, and death! Sin inflicts every pang! Sin nerves every deaththroe! Sin weaves every shroud! Sin forms every coffin ! Sin digs every grave! Sin writes every epitaph! Sin sculptures every monument! Sin feeds every sorrow! Yes, every tear which anguish has wrung from the eye, every sigh that has heaved the labouring bosom, every cry of lamentation, every pain which has invaded the peace of man, every bereavement which has snapped asunder the ties of nature and of friendship, and contracted the circle of his earthly joys, every disease which has consumed his strength, every storm which has beat down his possessions,—is the dire result of sin. The waste and havoc of centuries gone by, and the desolation of centuries yet to come, all reverberate in one awful sentence,

“These are the fruits, the consequences of sin." Yet these are but its first fruits, the beginning of sorrows; the bitter consequences are not limited by the boundaries of mortality,—they extend to the eternal world; and if you would see sin in all the enormity of its character, and in all the tremendousness of its results, go in imagination to the brink of that fearful pit which the word of revelation hath disclosed to your view, where

The hopeless soul,

Bound to the bottom of the flaming pool,