most pathetic ftrains must be employed, if they accord with the awful words, By man came death, in Adam all die. Nor can even the highest efforts of the heavenly harpers, more than anfwer, to the joy, the triumph and the praife, which the other part of my text would excite in our hearts, if we are interested in it, provided we were capable of comprehending the full force and meaning of the expreffions, By man came aljs the refurrection, In Chrift fhall all be made alive.

By one man came death. By one man fin entered into the world, and death by fin*. Sin opened the door to death. The creation, at the beginning, was full of order and beauty. God faw every thing that he bad made, and behold all was very good †. Adam, happy in the image and favour of his Maker, breathed the air of immortality in paradife. While moral evil was unknown, natural evils, fuch as ficknefs, pain and death, had no place. How different has the ftate of things been fince! Would you account for the change? Charge it upon man. He finned against his Creator, Lawgiver and Benefactor, and thus, by him, came death. The

* Rom. v. 12.

† Gen. i. 31.

fact is fure, and therefore, our reasonings upon it, in order to account for it, farther than we are enlightened and taught by fcripture, are unneceffary and vain. God is infinitely wife, and therefore this change was foreseen by him. He doubtlefs could have prevented it, for to Omnipotence every thing that does not imply a contradiction, is poffible, is easy. But he permitted it, and therefore it must have been agreeable to his wisdom, holiness and goodness, to permit it. He can overrule it to the purposes of his own glory, and to ends worthy of himself, and he has affured us, that he will do fo. Thus far I can go, nor do I wish to go farther. An endeavour to vindicate the ways of God to man, to fallen man, upon the grounds of what he proudly calls his reason, would be an impracticable, and, in my view, a presumptuous attempt. In proportion as his grace enlightens our minds, convinces us of our ignorance, and humbles our pride, we fhall be fatisfied, that in whatever he appoints or permits, he acts in a manner becoming his own perfections. be fatisfied in any other way. feel, that evil is in the world.

Nor can we

We fee, we Death reigns.

It has pleafed God to afford us a revelation, to visit us with the light of his gofpel. If, instead of reasoning, we believe and obey, a way is fet before us, by which we may finally overcome every evil, and obtain a happiness and honour, fuperior to what belonged to man, in his original ftate. They who refufe this gofpel, must be left to their cavils and perplexities, until the day, in which, the great Judge and Governor of all, shall arife to plead his own caufe, and to vindicate his proceedings, from their arrogant exceptions. Then every mouth will be stopped*. Let us look to the heavens, which are higher than we; and attend to what we may learn from fure principles, that the earth, with all its inhabitants, is but as duft upon the balance, if compared with the immensity of God's creation. Unlefs we could know the whole, and the relation, which this very fmall part, bears to the reft of his government, we must be utterly incompetent to judge, how it becomes the great God to act. We are infected with the fin, and we are fubject to the death, with all its concomitant evils, which came into the world by the * Job xxxv. 5.

first man. But we are likewife invited to a participation of all the bleffings, which the fecond Man has procured, by his atonement for fin, and by his victory over death. For as by man came death, fo by man came also the refurrection from the dead.

Let us take a furvey, firft of the malady, and then of the remedy.

I., The malady, the effect and wages of fin, is death. Many ideas are included in this word, taken in the fcriptural fense.

1. The fentence annexed to the tranfgreffion of that commandment, which was given as an especial test of Adam's obedience, and which affects all his pofterity, is thus expreffed, In the day that thou eatest-thou fhalt furely die*. But man was not, ordinarily, to die by a stroke of apoplexy, or by a flash of lightning. The fentence includes all the natural evils, all the variety of woe, which fin has brought into the world. The rebellious tempers and appetites which fo often cut short the life of man, together with the fufferings and troubles which, fooner or later, bring him down with forrow to the grave, being the confequences of fin, may * Gen. ii. 17.

be

be properly confidered, as belonging to that death, in which they terminate. Even the earth and the elements partook in the effects of man's difobedience. Thorns and thiftles * were not the produce of the ground, till after he had finned. Nor can I fuppose that hurricanes, floods and earthquakes, were known in a state of innocence. But had the whole earth been a paradife, man, having finned, must have been miserable. It is not in fituation to make that heart happy, which is the feat of inordinate paffions, rage, envy, malice, luft and avarice. And were the earth a paradife now, it would be stained with blood, and filled with violence, cruelty and mifery, while it is inhabited by finners. Many persons at prefent, who dwell in stately houses, and have every thing around them that is fuited to gratify and please their fenfes, know by painful experience, how little hap-* piness these external advantages afford, while their minds are tortured with disappointments and anxiety. Thus the outward afflictions, which, every where, furround and affail the finner, and the malignant paffions, which, like vultures, continually gnaw his

* Gen. iii. 18.

heart,