The evidence of guilt is overwhelming. The amount of transgression is immense. This conclusion is inevitable, if the existence and authority of the law be admitted, and made the test of man's conduct. And it is our reasonable and imperious duty to ascertain our own concern in this case.

What then is our duty? The circumstances of this case manifestly require, that we confess and lament the evil, and humble ourselves before the throne of God: But, this will be in vain, unless we reform and do what we can to arrest the abounding iniquity. We must "bring forth fruits meet for repentance." 1. We ought, explicitly, to disclaim the act of our government. The state of this matter leaves none neutral. It is ours, so long as we acquiesce in it. If we have conscience on this subject, and we ought to feel our moral responsibility, we should acquit ourselves of all participation in it; and by deeds which could not be mistaken, and by words which must be heard, bear testimony against a measure which sets us at open and declared war with heaven. The remedy, under God, is in the hands of our legislative and executive officers, and they should be compelled to know and respect our wishes in this matter; and if they will obstinately disregard the authority of God, they have no just claim to our confidence and our support. As citizens of a Christian nation our voice should be heard, and our influence should be felt, when the sacred institutions of our religion are wantonly profaned and dishonored. 2. In our several places and relations, in society, we ought to employ our influence in favor of a speedy and effectual reformation. Each man has some power of operation, in this case; and has with it a corresponding resposibility. God requires every man to do his duty; and if this were done, the abounding of this iniquity would be effectually controlled, and the wrath and impending judgments of God would be averted; and, by his favor, our liberty, peace, and prosperity would be perpetuated. There are reasons most constraining in favor of this moral reformation.

1. The authority and glory of God demand it. We have already ascertained that the Sabbath is a divine institution, and of perpetual obligation. The neglect or profanation of it is rebellion against God: That day in its religious observance is God's appointed means of preserving and diffusing true religion in the world, and thus of promoting his glory. Obedience to his law, and concern for his glory, indispensably require its sacred observance.

2. A wise and benevolent concern for the welfare of our fellow-men demands it. The Sabbath was eminently "made for man." Without its light and holy influence he cannot be happy here or hereafter. His individual

and social happiness depend on his religious character. Without the Sabbath and its institutions he will be ignorant and unholy, and consequently degraded and miserable. If we desire him to possess wisdom and holiness, present peace and everlasting felicity, we must endeavor to sustain the authority, and promote the observance of the means which God has ordained, and renders effectual to those ends.

3. The love of our country demands it.

The word of God, and the history of his moral government_show, that the profanation of the Sabbath has brought, and will bring down the judgments of God on nations which thus transgress—that ignorance, crime, and misery, are the inevitable consequences of irreligion and impiety-and that these will always prevail, where the Sabbath and its holy and benign influences are rejected. If, therefore, we would employ the most and only efficient means of preventing the prevalence of sin which is the ruin of any people; and, if we would avert the overwhelming judgments of God, we must observe and endeavor to promote the observance of the Sabbath of the Lord our God.

4. Finally: The welfare of our own souls demands it.

We have done wrong, and exerted influence in leading others wrong. We ought to amend our own ways, and endeavor to reclaim them. If faithful to the divine government we must do both: we must obey its authority, and endeavor to have it respected and obeyed.

THE IMPUTATION OF ADAM'S SIN AND THE PENALTY, PROVED, AND VINDICATED.

ROM. 5:12.-Therefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.

In treating this subject I shall take occasion to shew,

1. THAT ALL MANKIND ARE, BY ADAM'S SIN BECOME GUILTY, DEPRAVED

CREATURES.

II. SHEW WHAT THAT PUNISHMENT OR DEATH IS, TO WHICH ADAM'S SIN

EXPOSETH US.

III. VINDICATE THE JUSTICE OF GOD THEREIN, OR SHEW THE REASONABLENESS OF OUR BEING PUNISHED FOR ADAM'S SIN.

I. I AM TO SHEW THAT ALL MANKIND ARE, BY ADAM'S SIN, BECOME GUILTY,

DEPRAVED CREATURES.

If there was nothing but the light of nature, and the common observation of mankind to decide the matter, this melancholy truth would appear too evident for any judicious, unprejudiced person to deny it. The early propensity to sin that is observable in children, evinces the corruption of their natures. But the oracles of truth, which God has given us as the rule of our faith and practice, every where considers and treats us as apostate, guilty creatures. The offers of mercy, the promises of pardon, the necessity of regeneration, of taking away the heart of stone, &c., loudly proclaim that we are polluted creatures, exposed to punishment. But I know of no place in the sacred writings that declares it more expressly than our text and context. The apostle's main design in introducing these words, is to prove the doctrine of justification by grace through the merits of Christ, or rather to remove the prejudices of the Jews against it, by shewing its responsibleness. "If (says he, verse 17,) by one man's offence, death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Verse 18: Therefore as by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation: even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." As if he had said, It is granted by all that by the imputation of Adam's sin we are all become guilty before God: can it therefore be thought strange that we should be justified in his sight through the imputation of Christ's righteousness? If God may justly impute the sin of our first parents to us, surely we may more easily suppose, from

*When this sermon was furnished for publication, the author-"the apostle of the West"-was a living minister.

the riches of his grace, that he will impute the merits of Christ's death to believers. If the imputing of Adam's sin be just, certainly the imputation of Christ's righteousness cannot be unjust: " for if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many." This being plain by the scope of the apostle's argument, it appears that the words of our text contain a truth or doctrine that was not only received, but also well known and familiar to the people to whom Paul wrote; otherwise it could not be fair arguing. For whatever is brought in as a medium to prove another thing by, is always supposed to be more known, or more generally received than that which it is brought to prove. Therefore it follows that the doctrine of original sin, was well known and generally received by them to whom the apostle wrote. But this well known medium, by which the apostle proves the great doctrine of justification by grace is more particularly stated in the words of our text. The force of the apostle's reasoning runs thus, as if he had said, it is manifest that we are all guilty, or that all have sinned, for death hath passed upon all men, and death was introduced by the sin of one man, viz: Adam. Or, as it is elsewhere expressed, Death is the wages of sin, He goes on to show, verses 13, 14, that it is beyond all dispute, from the death and miseries brought upon all mankind, that we are become guilty through Adam's sin. For until the law, or before the law, sin was in the world; that is, before the law was given to Israel by Moses: But sin, says the apostle, is not imputed, therefore it was for the breach of some law, but it could not be for the breach of the law of Moses, for sin was imputed and punished before the law of Moses existed. Therefore this imputation and punishment must be for the breach of some other law, seeing death, which is the punishment of sin, reigned from Adam to Moses; that is, before the law was given by Moses, sin was punished, therefore it must be for the breach of some other law. He likewise shows that this punishment was for the breach of some law, which all mankind were chargeable with the breach of, whether they had actually in their persons broke it, or not. For, says he, death which is the punishment of sin reigned over, or was inflicted upon them who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression; that is, over infants who died before they had committed actual sin. This must be the meaning of the words: it will not make sense to understand, as some do, that the apostle, by the similitude here mentioned, means that some died whose sins were not similar to Adam's, because they had not, in person, broke a positive command in eating the forbidden fruit; for none had sinned in that manner. But the particle (even) distinguished those who had sinned after the similitude of Adanı's transgression, from those who had not. Death reigned, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression; which supposeth that some, even from Adam to Moses, had sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression: therefore it is manifest that the apostle concludes the matter thus; as if he had said, Death is a punishment inflicted for sin, or only on sinners: but we know that many die, or are punished by death, who never committed any actual, or personal sin; therefore it is certain that Adam's sin is imputed to all his posterity. It is beyond dispute that Adam is the one man mentioned in our text, by whom sin is said to have entered into the world, and passed upon all merr: for, says the same apostle, 1 Cor. 15:22, "as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Nor can the argument for the universal guilt of mankind, be weakened by supposing that the all who in the last mentioned text are said to be made alive, must be restricted, seeing all mankind shall not be made alive, or saved by Christ, and that consequently the all who in our text are said to have sinned, may likewise be restricted, to signify only some part of mankind. But if it be just with God to impute Adam's sin to any one of Adam's posterity, he may, with equal justice, impute it to every one of them. Moreover, the term all must be taken in its universal extent in both these places: for it is evident that the apostle is comparing Adam with Christ, and running the parallel between them, as they were public representatives of their posterity.

It shows that all Adam's natural seed without exception whom be represented, became guilty through his sin. So likewise all Christ's spiritual seed whom he represented, are, without exception, justified by his righteousness. Adam is said to be the figure of him that was to come, verse 14. But I cannot see how, or in what sense, Adam can be said to be a type or figure of Christ, or what likeness there is between them, except in their conveying their different effects to their respective seeds, whom they publicly represented, and were to stand or fall with them. Hence it is evident that all Adam's seed, that is, all that descended from him by ordinary generation, sinned-in him, or by his fall became guilty, obnoxious creatures. Which brings me,

II. TO SHEW WHAT THAT PUNISHMENT OR DEATH IS, TO WHICH ADAM'S SIN EXPOSETH US.

By that death, which the apostle in our text says passed upon all men, we are to understand all that misery to which Adam himself was exposed by his sin, all that misery which was contained in the penalty of the covenant of works. It is evident that not only natural, but also spiritual and eternal death is included in that threatening Gen. 2:17. In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. It is manifest from the apostle's reasoning that death is not to be confined to bodily pains, or the separation of the soul from the body, which is what we call natural. Sad experience early taught Adam that by his fall he lost the image of God that was stamped upon his soul, and so lost that intimate friendship and communion which he enjoyed while he continued in a state of innocence. He was immediately struck with horror of conscience at the approach of God, he felt himself in a state of alienation from God; whereas before he enjoyed the most friendly and familiar intercourse with him. God was the object of his supreme delight; he could go to him with an holy boldness and humble confidence, as his God, his Father, and his friend. But as soon as he had tasted of the fatal tree, he hid himself from the presence of the Lord, his heart was at once alienated from him. Hence he, with his progeny, became perverse and rebellious, altogether disordered, and filled with vicious principles, and insatiable appetites, which, by sad experience, we may know, arrests us, as it were, by some invisible hand, or as an irresistible torrent, carries us away from God and divine things, to the service of satan and our own lusts. And as the death of the body by no means infers the extinction of the soul, and the scriptures assure us that the soul survives the body, or shall have a future existence; and that by its defilement, it is not only become incapable of delighting in and enjoying God, but by the institution of heaven no unclean thing shall enter there. And as the scriptures of truth know or teach no medium between heaven and hell, eternal life and eternal death, therefore it is evident from these considerations that there is more than a natural death included in the penalty annexed to the law. Moreover, death is here considered as all that evil or misery which was threatened in the first covenant, and consequently there was no other punishment justly due to Adam for his sin than the death here intended. It was to save us from this death that Christ laid down his life-that death from which Christ redeemed his people, is the death to which all mankind are by nature exposed. Whatever Christ procured for believers was forfeited in Adam. The apostle tells us, in the 18th verse of this chapter, that by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation; and by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men to justification of life. Experience teaches us that Christ did not, by his death, purchase natural life for his seed, or an exemption from natural death. He restored them, by the merits of his death, to spiritual life, by which their affections are placed upon God and divine things, so that they love and delight in him, and are thereby fitted for the enjoyment of him. And having a well-grounded hope of being delivered from death at the last day, and of dwelling for ever with the Lord, this takes away the sting of natural death. It is evident that the life which was purchased by Christ for his spiritual seed, is opposed to that death to which all Adam's posterity were exposed by his sin. Therefore it follows, that if Adam's seed were not