at the same time he creates our natural depravity. By natural depravity, I mean a nature to relish sin. Whosoever has this nature, may be called a sinner, though in one sense he is not, before actual transgression of the law, which is sin. The nature to relish sin was the punishment inflicted on Adam for his disobedience, and as a part of that punishment, it descends to his posterity, and we all partake of it. I cannot say, that this nature is any more sin, than the future punishments of the impenitent will be sin. It is however spiritual death, which disqualifies us for righteousness, and true holiness, or in other words, makes us unclean, and unfit for the kingdom of God. In the scripture, it is generally called șin ; still I apprehend, by this manner of speaking, we are to understand nothing more than a nature to relish sin. He who possesses this nature ranks among sinners; and although he may not know good from evil, he is unclean, and must be born again, before he can enter Heaven.

*I think nobody can call in question God's right to inflict on Adam a punishment that should affect his posterity. All we can say about it is, that infinite wisdɔm and goodness re quired that this punishment should be inflicted. If these at tributes of the Most High had required, that the posterity of Adam should be vipers in consequence of his disobedience, what right would they have to complain?" Shall the thing formed say to him who formed it, why hast thou made me

2. I am not certain, that in giving an account of the divine image in which man was created, I have taken in all that belongs to it. I have omit

thus?" There are vipers, and they have as good right to com. plain, that they are not made as we are, as we have to com. plain, that we are not made in the image in which Adam was created.

2. If any body says we are made in this image, but loose it by actual transgression, as Adam did; let such person in- · form us, how many infants there were in Sodom at the time of its destruction. If there were more than ten, the overplus were not righteous; for God promised to save the city if ten righteous persons could be found in it. In almost every small village there are more than ten infants. In Nineveh, when it was threatened, there were more than sixscore thousand persons in it, that could not distinguish between their right hand and their left hand; and it is reasonable, to sup. pose, there were some thousand persons of the same description in Sodom when it was destroyed; but they were not righteous. The word righteous, as used by, Abraham, when pleading for the Sodomites, and as it is generally used in Scrip. ture, signifies a purity of nature, which we have not naturally, but it is cummunicated to our minds by the power of the Ho. ly Ghost. I would not say that any one is to be punished for his natural depravity; for this, itself, is the effect of a punishment, it makes us unclean, and unfit for Heaven. We are to be punished for our actual transgressions. If the soul be called out of time into eternity, before it is guilty of ac tual transgressions, God is able to purify it, and fit it for Heav en, It is not for us to say, what becomes of such soul.

ted reason, and conscience, the faithful monitors within us; if these belong to the image, then it is not wholly effaced.

The Rev. James Saurin, in his sermon on the advantages of Revelation, says, " The disciple of natural religion can obtain only an imperfect knowledge of the obligations and duties of man. Natural religion may indeed conduct him to a certain point, and tell him that he ought to love his benefactor, and various similar maxims. But is natural religion, think you, sufficient to account for that contrariety, of which every man is conscious, that opposition between inclination and obligation? A very solid arugment, I grant, in favor of moral rectiude, ariseth from observing, that to whatever degree a man may carry his sin, whatever efforts he may make to eradicate those seeds of virtue from his heart which nature hath sown there, he cannot forbear venerating virtue and recoiling at vice. This is certainly a proof that the

Author of our being meant to forbid vice, and to enjoin virtue. But is there no room for complaint? Is there nothing specious in the following objections? As, in spite of all my endeavours to destroy virtuous dispositions, I cannot help respecting virtue, you infer, that the Author of my being intended I should be virtuous: So, as in spite of all my endeavours to eradicate vice, I cannot help loving

vice, have I not reason for inferring, in my turn, that the Author of my being designed I should be vicious; or, at least, that he cannot justly impute guilt to me for performing those actions, which proceed from some principles that were born with, me? Is there no show of reason in this famous sophism? Reconcile the God of nature with the God of religion. Explain how the God of religion can forbid what the God of nature inspires; and how he who follows those dictates, which the God of nature inspires, can be punished for so doing by the God of religion.

The gospel unfolds this mystery. It attributes this seed of corruption to the depravity of nature. It attributeth the respect we feel for virture to the remains of the image of God in which we were formed, and which can never be entirely effaced. Because we were born in sin, the gospel concludes that we ought to apply all our attentive endeavours to eradicate the seeds of corruption. And because the image of the Creator is partly erased from our hearts, the gospel concludes, that we ought to give ourselves wholly to the retracing of it, and so to answer the excellence of our extraction." (2 Vol. Sermons 367, 8.)

Natural depravity is so great; I do not say it is total, or not total; but it is so great, that no soul can enter Heaven unless it be born again.

It affects the mind in the choice of spiritual objects But then the mind is free in all its volitions; that is, they are not physically necessary, however strong be the inclination of the mind to sin. It has been shown, that the bias, or inclination of the mind, arises from choice in the understanding: choice creates a moral necessity; but this is never so great as to deprive the mind of liberty in willing.

III. Foreknowledge" Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. Neither is there any creature, that is not manifest in his sight; but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. The eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good. The Lord searchests all hearts; and understandest all the imaginations of the thoughts."

This is scripture, therefore, God must foreknow all the volitions of the mind, that wills with liberty. This foreknowledge makes such volitions certain in the Divine Mind; but it does not make them necessary as effects. In short, there is no efficiency in foreknowledge to produce them, and if the mind wills with liberty they cannot be effects. Hence we see how liberty is consistent with foreknowledge.

I think the reasoning of President Dwight on this subject is unanswerable: He says that "All those, who make the objection that foreknowledge affects Qur liberty, agree as well as others, that it is possi