move him by his affection for others. | state a principle wise and wonderful There are few feelings stronger than in its bearings. Unless it can be those of the parent for his children; argued that nothing but setting up in and it argues an extraordinary moral temples and in groves the images of derangement when the father is care- Baal, and Shemish, and Ashtoth, can less and indifferent to the well-being move the jealousy of the Almighty, of his offspring; and the Supreme it cannot be argued that there are legislator has taken advantage, so to no other cases in which the anspeak, of these sentiments, and ar- nouncement of our text becomes aprayed them on the side of righteous- plicable. ness. He attacks men through the medium of domestic charities, and calls on them to prove themselves not unnatural parents; by striving to lead a life of holiness and piety. If they care not for themselves-if they care not for their children-if they are indifferent to the ruin which sin must procure for their own portion, can they consent to the sending down to those whom they best love, an heritage of woe or of shame. Yet this is precisely what they have a right to expect, if they go on in a career of transgression. “I the Lord thy GOD am a jealous GOD, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." There are few passages of Scripture respecting which men's opinions are more divided, than they are on that which we thus bring to your notice. There is something apparently unjust, and something also in a degree contrary to matter of fact, in the alleged visitation on the children of the father's iniquity, that many would confine the threatening to the Jewish dispensation, or annex the penalty to the one sin of idolatry. We are free to own, that we cannot subscribe to opinions such as these. It is certain, indeed, that the words occur in the second commandment, and that they thus stand associated with the flagrant iniquity of worshipping graven images; but it is just as certain that they give a dignity of character to the Deity, and Besides and this ought to suffice for the settlement of the point-the second commandment is not the only portion of Scripture in which the description occurs. When Moses stood the second time on Sinai, “ the Lord descended in a cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed - the name of the Lord." Now it is not supposable that such a proclamation could be either local or temporary. What belonged to the name of the Lord must always belong to it; for to suppose the name changing with the change of dispensation, would be certainly to suppose God himself mus table; and yet you will find that the name thus solemnly proclaimed in cluded the characteristic now under debate. "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.? If you think yourselves warranted in abstracting any portion of the command, you would be warranted, as far as we can judge, in obliterating the whole. There is nothing which can limit the time, or the place, to one characteristic rather than another. Unless, therefore, we can say, that the description, "keeping mercy for thousands," extends not over the whole existence of humanity from general one between the present generation and the following, or that between the members of the church and their successors, the same principle must be considered as coming into play, so that the punishment of the sin may descend on those who have had no part whatsoever in the commission of that sin. the days of Adam to the judgment, between rulers and subjects, or that we cannot say that the description, "of visiting the father's iniquity on the children," must be confined to the Jewish dispensation, At all events it is certain, that GOD no where repels the declaration before us, nowhere asserts that he intends no longer to visit the sins of the parents on the children; and we seem bound, therefore, to the belief, that in whatever degree, and in whatever sense, the words held good in earlier times, in that same degree, and in that same sense, must they be considered to hold good in our own. Now we have thus endeavoured to clear away, of what we think erroneous ideas with regard to the applicability of the passage, so that we might have before us a field of unobstructed inquiry. We shall assume, that the announced visitation, of the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, is unrestricted and general, so that it constitutes a feature in the fixed economy of the Almighty. We may state, however, that when we speak of the fathers and the children, we are not to confine our ideas to that single relationship which these terms would ordinarily define. It is clear that the alleged principle in the dealings of GOD must be supposed to take a far wider range. The principle is, that one set of men should be made to suffer for the sins of another set of men; and we shall do an evident violence to the spirit, and we máy almost say, to the letter of the precept, if we suppose that the transmission of iniquity was only then to take possession when the parties were associated by the close ties of blood. Of course, the case of the father and the child is one of those cases in which the principle is applicable; but whatever the connexion which binds together two sets of men, whether it be that which subsists Now there are two ideas, as we have already hinted, excited by the assertion that this principle enters into the dealings of the Almighty. In the first place, you will ask, WHETHER IT BE MATTER OF FACT, THAT GOD VISITS ON THE CHILDREN THE INIQUITIES OF THE FATHERS? We shall then, if once certified of the matter of fact, be disposed to question THE JUSTNESS OF THE PROCEEDING. It shall be the object of this discourse to meet these ideas on simple and scriptural statements. We shall endeavour, therefore, to show you, in the first place, that God does visit on the children the iniquities of the fathers; and in the second place, that in so doing, he is thoroughly just. With regard, first of all, TO THE MATTER OF FACT; the evidence is so broad and conclusive, that without a singular carelessness, it cannot be overlooked. Are we not ourselves, yea, every one amongst us, living witnesses of the truth, that the offences of our forefather may be visited on the children. We do not say that the transmission of Adam's sin to posterity, answers, in every respect, to the case supposed in our text. We know that Adam stood in a special relationship to his descendants; and that appointed, as he was, to be the representative of humanity, all men are considered as bound up in his person; that he could not act for himself, without acting at the same time for unnumbered millions; and we should not be borne out if we that long before there could have been any actual commission of sin, the penalty of death is continually put in force; so that the infant, who so far as its doings are concerned,> can have deserved no wrath at the hands of the Creator, pines away, i withered by disease, and goes down to an early tomb which nothing but the forefather's sin can have hollowed. It is thus a truth too well known, to require to be further opened up, that the transgression of Adam is visited on the whole human race; and that there hath never been a man, yea, that up to the consummation of all things, there never shall live a man, dissociated from the sense of his evil doings, or occupying that ventured to assert that any other man can occupy a position similar to that in which the first man was placed, so that, by and through the links of association, guiltiness can be sent down to a far off generation. ༩ ང་ལཱ་་རླུང Now our argument has, in strict truth, nothing to do with the fibres, so to speak, along which the transgression of the forefather travelled on to posterity. We are not contending and investigating what must be the precise connexion between parties, in order to the bringing round the result, that the sin of one is visited on the other. Our simple business is with the ascertaining the instances of such a visitation; and we do all which can be required, under our first head of discourse, if we show you," by strong and undeniable ex-position in which he would have stood, amples, that God's government of his creation involves the principle which is broadly asserted in the words of our text. And with nothing but this as our object, we may uphold the case of Adam, and his posterity, as a clear case in point. The sin of one man brought death into the world, and caused that, throughout the vast spreading of the family, wretchedness, both moral and physical, should hold a kind of undisputed supremacy. It is quite true, that so soon as any one of us hath overpassed the boundaries of infancy, and reached the point at which he becomes responsible, he transgresses for himself the law of Jehovah, and thus would come under · condemnation, if there rested on him no penalty derived from a disobe dient ancestor. But, then, it is just as true, that this proneness to transgression, which makes irresistible the commission of actual and original guilt, is itself part of the consequence of Adam's offence, and may, there fore, be reckoned as entering into the visitations of which we are in 'quest. And it must be further remembered, had Adam kept the feeling of innocence in which he was created ; and certainly, whatever the mystery which you may think encompasses this portion of the dealings of the Almighty, you must allow it to be a proof of that matter of fact, which we have undertaken to establish. We send you to look out on the face of this earth traversed by misery, and trodden by death; and we bid you examine those moral disabilities under which all men labour, and which incapacitate them, just as though a canker worm had gnawed at the root of their strength, for serving that God, whom if they serve not, they perish. We bid you listen to that deep and bitter damentation, which is heard from every quarter of the sore afflicted family; to behold how with an uncontrolled empire death tyrannizes over every age, and every rank of humanity; and to mark how, in all the sections and departments of society, there are the traces of a blight, which has spoiled the might, and dimmed the lustre, and marred the beauty; and when you have com pleted the melancholy survey, and striven to reckon up the woes, then we send you to examine the why, and the wherefore, of this torn and disorganized condition; knowing that if you would trace out the cause, by the assistance of Scripture, you must perceive, that we are bound to a dark inheritance, only because we are the seed of the apostate, and thus the whole history of our race is one overwhelming proof that God visits on the children the iniquities of the fathers. But we will adduce other instances, which, if less general, are not less decisive. You will remember that when David sinned by numbering the people, the monarch himself was not stricken for the offence. A pestilence was sent, "so that there died from Dan even to Beersheba seventy thousand men;" and so evident was it, that the sin of one was visited on others, that the king cried out, in the the bitterness of his soul, "I have sinned; but these sheep, what have they done?" A still stronger instance is to be found in the history of the Gibeonites, Joshua had made a league with the Gibeonites, covenanting that they should not be destroyed with the rest of the inhabitants of Ammon. In contravention of this league, Saul sought to extirpate the Gibeonites. This sin of Saul was not at once noticed by GoD; but in the days of David, there was a famine; and GOD, on being inquired of, declared, that it was a judgment on account of Saul's sin against the Gibeonites. And what was the vengeance then taken for the sin? Seven of the sons of Saul were delivered to the Gibeonites," and bung up unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul, and then was GOD entreated for the land." Who will say, in this instance, GOD visited not on the children the iniquities of the fathers. In like manner David had fallen into the heinous sin of adultery and murder; on confessing his iniquity he was pardoned, but was not the sin punished? Hear how the prophet Nathan spoke to the king! "Because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die." Surely, this, again, was the iniquity of the father visited upon the child. We have an instance next in the posterity of Ham; and we wish it to be observed, that such an instance has nothing to do with the peculiarity of the Jewish dispensation, but is an exhibition of the general principle of the dealings of the Almighty. Animated by the spirit of prophecy, Noah, following the dispersion of mankind, pronounced on Ham a curse, and on Shem and Japheth a blessing. Ham, the father of Canaan, had sinned; while Shem and Japheth. acted righteously. The curse of Ham was, that he should be "a servant of servants;" while it entered into the blessing of Shem and Japheth that they should have lordship over their brother Ham. Now it was in the posterity of these fathers of the buman tribes, that the curse and the blessing took effect; in other words, the sin of the father was visited on the children. Who knows not, that after the covenant, the land peopled by the descendants of Ham, has, from the earliest times, been oppressed and enslaved by Asia and Europe, overspread by the descendants of Shem and Japheth! A dark curse bas undeniably rested on Africa; and of all the black passages in the history of the world, the blackest, and, that which most corresponds to it-the sternest lines in the book of God's retributive appointments, we behold in the page, in which are registered the wrongs of the Negro, and which tells how the weeping families of the land have been relentlessly broken up and | and however corrected by a national scattered, that the covetousness of legislature, stirs up the fuel for namore civilized nations might be un- tional conflagration, and the elements impaired. It is no excuse to say, of national ruin. that it is an apology for the crime of the oppressor that prophecy has outlived the event; but, at all events, prophecy enables us to ascertain, that the slavery which has descended on Africa is the result of the working of that principle, which GOD, in our text, announces in his dealings. When you read the story of the Negro, and the history of the wrongs done to Africa, and you feel the burning glow of indignation as you hear of the slave-ship nearing the coast, and of the ruffianly descent on defenceless multitudes, and of the hurrying away of thousands to be scourged and toiled on some far off coast of cruelty and cupidity, you will at least gather a lesson as to the fixedness of the Almighty's appointments, and remembering, that these oppressed, deeply wronged men are the descendants of one whose impiety drew down a curse, you will confess it to be matter of fact, that GOD still visits on the children the iniquities of the fathers. Yea, and although this country has abjured and renounced the infamous traffic in the flesh and the sinews of men, it is impossible not to feel, that the principle of our text may yet have to be acted out on ourselves; and in some oncoming day of national retribution, there shall rise up against England, every wrong which our fathers inflicted on Africa, and then shall the tears, and the untold agonies of the hundreds and the thousands, whom British violence tore from their homes, and whom British injustice consigned to the whip and the fetter, be visited on the posterity of the oppressor, making good a truth, which politicians overlook, that a national sin, however unpunished at the time, Now our instances are not exhausted. We bid you next look at the Jews, strewed over the globe like the fragments of some mighty shipwreck. What had this people done, that, through long centuries, the weakest should have been strong enough to trample on them, the meanest lofty enough to despise? Why should the countrymen of Isaiah, that most magnificent of poets, have been scorned, as though genius could find no home in their spirits? Why should the countrymen of the Maccabees, those prodigies of valour, have been oppressed by every child, as though their arms were incapable of being strung by bravery? You can give no explanation of the history of the Jews since the destruction of Jerusalem, if you keep out of sight the fact, that they are under the ban of God's displeasure for the iniquity of their forefathers. We allow, indeed, that the Jews as a body have continued infidel and impenitent; and it is because of their protracted rejection of Christ, that they remain outcasts from GOD'S favour; but, then, we are bound also, to the belief, that this protracted rejection is just the consequence of their being given up to judicial infatuation; and that their being given up to this infatuation, is but a part of the sentence under which they are bowed down, and cannot, therefore, be received in explanation of their condition; and we find this explanation in the simple fact, that the Jews are the seed of a rebellious and profligate ancestry. When we hear the murderers of Jesus uttering that fearful invocation-" His blood be on us, and on our children"-we feel that they did but prophecy the destinies of their posterity; and now, in the |