of that which was a mere appearance destitute of reality. Here let us conclude. The wickedness of the human mind, and the temerity of the impious who "seek out many inventions," and are ever fertile in new contrivances to attack religion and the scriptures, have obliged us, though with reluctance, to approach these abysses. Happy, if wisely alarmed at their presumption, and more and more established in the faith, we reject all their vain subtilties, and silence our own doubts, to adhere stedfastly to the truths of revelation! Yes, believers, let us learn more and more to vindicate the divine character. Could darkness proceed from the sun, and death from life? Let us learn to accuse ourselves, to lay our hand on our mouth, to suppress the suggestions of our evil heart, and to oppose an early resistance to those dangerous errors which might induce the smallest doubt of these incontestable truths;--that God created us innocent, and that we are sinners only through our own fault. Insurrections of the human heart, keep silence. Vain are all your attempts to exculpate yourselves, to transfer to another that evil offspring, sin; that child which dishonours you. You may expose it at the door and in the public road, as a spurious and illegitimate infant whom you mean to disown; you may say, It is not ours: but all will be in vain; man will ever be known as its unhappy father. Adam was its first parent; and we are all after him the authors, the parents, the causes, each of his own sins. The sin of Adam is ours by imputation, by propagation, by imitation; and beside our original corruption, we daily commit, after the example of Adam's transgressión, a thousand new sins which can only be imputed to ourselves. We have ruined ourselves, we have ourselves sought out many vain thoughts. In vain should we say, Let the infant be divided, give one part to me and the other to Satan it must in justice remain wholly with us. We commit evil freely; the Devil can impose no constraint on our will; his suggestions and temptations cannot overcome us, unless we consent and yield to them through our own fault. Time forbids me to shew you how we all deceive ourselves after the example of our first father, and to exemplify in his descendants the truth advanced by the preacher, that men have themselves "sought "out many inventions," many thoughts which are the common and ordinary causes of all their falls. The detail would be useful and satisfactory, if we had leisure to pursue it, to follow sinners in their different courses, and to exhibit every individual fertile in illusions to seduce and decoy himself into evil, active in the pursuit of imaginary good, promising himself a thousand pleasures in sin, and dextrous in extenuating and excusing the crimes he has committed. Deceitful artifices of a corrupt heart, opposed to our primitive rectitude! Devious paths, which at length infallibly conduct to eternal damnation! Let us depart, let us depart once for all, my brethren, from this road of perdition, let us forsake sin and every thing that leads to it. Without attempting to exculpate cither our first parents or ourselves, without execrating him from whom we derived our being, and exasperating ourselves against Adam, let us deplore our calamity and endeavour to repair it. Let us humble ourselves by reflecting on our fall, and supplicate grace to restore us. Let us be thoroughly convinced, that though we were capable of destroying ourselves, we are not capable of effecting our salvation. Ah, if in the state of innocence we were not able to stand, how should we be able to raise ourselves up, now when we are broken to pieces by our fall? Samson, after having betrayed himself to Delilah, vainly presumed that he could still escape from the hands of the Philistines, and that he had strength enough to break their chains. On awaking from his sleep he said, "I will go out as at other times "before, and shake myself. And he wist not that "the Lord was departed from him."* In vain the advocates of free will, in vain the generality of mankind, imagine themselves still possessed of strength enough to cast off the yoke and break the chains of sin, as they would have been able to do in the state of integrity, if they had not been betrayed by themselves. Poor Samson! thou art no longer the same man; thy locks are shorn, thy vigour is lost, the Lord is departed from thee; thou art enslaved, and thou canst not break thy fetters, till God restores thee and makes thee a new man! We must therefore renounce ourselves, and make application to divine grace. Without it we are like a vessel in a tempest, without a pilot, anchor, or sail; we are perishing. Lord save us; carry us * Judg. xvi. 20. in thy arms, let thy strength be made perfect in our weakness. Let us be established and confirmed by the power of thy good Spirit. Our natural state alarms us; but let the grace of God in Christ remove our fears. Blessed be the mercy which has descended to visit us in the region of the shadow of death. Blessed be the saving grace which has appeared in the midst of our darkness. How acceptable and welcome must it be to us, if we feel our misery! If we know the offence of Adam which has reigned unto death, how sweet and precious must we esteem the gift of Jesus Christ unto life! What good tidings are those of redemption! With repentance and faith let us embrace our Saviour, who came to deliver us from sin and death, to destroy the works of the Devil, and crush the head of the serpent. Under the banners of Jesus Christ let us fight against that enemy. He conquered our first father; but we in our turn shall conquer him, under the guidance and by the grace of Christ. Let us resist his temptations, and repel his attacks, without listening to him for a moment. Let us profit by the error of our first parents. Let us seek no vain discourses or desires. Let us make it our inviolable law, to obey God in all things without reserve. Adam fell by unbelief; let us stand by faith. Adam sinned from a vain desire of knowledge; let us be confirmed by the regular and certain knowledge of the truth which God has revealed. Adam was ruined by his fall; let us go to him who saves us, to Jesus our Redeemer; let us cast ourselves into his arms. He will give us blood to expiate our L |