and independent of their own depravity. Adam himself did not deserve condemnation for his outward act independently of the heart from which it proceeded. And had his posterity themselves eaten of the forbidden fruit, they would not have deserved condemnation for that act independently of their depraved hearts,-for example, had they done it in a paroxysm of madness.

3. We may now answer the question which is sometimes proposed, whether there is infinite guilt attached to Adam's sin imputed. I say, yes, in the same sense in which there is any guilt attached to Adam's sin imputed. The question amounts to this are infants condemned to eternal death, as well as to temporal death, for Adam's sin? This question has been already answered in the affirmative. But if the question be, Is there infinite guilt attached to Adam's sin imputed, independently of the depravity of his posterity; I say, No: for Adam's sin is not imputed, in any sense or degree, independently of their depravity; any more than any other external act is imputed where it is known to be no expression of the heart. You might as well inquire whether killing a man has infinite guilt attached to it independently of the temper which it expressed.

4. If the foregoing representation is true, it will completely vindicate the character of God in condemning a world of infants for the sin of their federal head. For I think it will follow from this representation, that mankind are treated no more severely than they might justly have been treated if

Adam had not been their federal head.

There are two things which befall them in consequence of their connexion with Adam. First, in consequence of the constituted union of character between them and him, they are born depraved; secondly, Adam's act which fixed and discovered the depravity of their hearts, is put in the room of an outward act of their own, and is made the public ground of their condemnation, as being the index of their wicked hearts. Now I think that they might have been born depraved, and might have been condemned as soon as born, had there been no federal head.

First, without a federal head, I see not why they might not justly have been left to sink into depravity as early as they now do. Why would not this have been as just as the leaving of the holy angels to fall, or the leaving of the holy Adam to fall? Abandonment to sin immediately after birth or conception, certainly appears no harder than abandonment to sin immediately after a course of holy dispositions and actions. That holiness which reigned in the angels and in the soul of Adam the moment before the first sin entered, did not merit such a desertion. They were not deserted therefore by way of punishment, but by a sovereign act of God. And the abandonment of infants to the first evil bias is not the consequence of their condemnation, but antecedent to it, and therefore cannot be viewed in the light of a punishment. And whatever is not a punishment, might justly have been brought upon them had there been no previous sin in the universe. The union of their

character with that of Adam was no token of God's displeasure; for that union was constituted before Adam sinned. The fall of infants therefore, equally with that of the angels and of Adam, must be resolved into the sovereign constitution of God. Though wisdom has seen fit to make the depravity of infants the consequence of their connexion with a federal head, yet for aught that appears, justice might have suffered it without any such connexion.

Secondly, if infants might have been justly born depraved without a federal head, certainly they might have been justly condemned for their depravity without a federal head. As it now is, they are not condemned for the sin of Adam without being personally deserving of condemnation on their own account in the sight of God. And had God been pleased to act before creatures without evidence of his justice, he might have grounded their public condemnation on the mere depravity of their hearts. It cannot be pretended that the Searcher of hearts. is obliged in justice to ground the condemnation of sinners on visible conduct. All the end that seems to be proposed in bringing in the outward conduct of Adam as the ground of publicly condemning his infant race, is that their condemnation may rest on visible conduct. But it is not a necessary act of justice, it is a mere act of goodness and of condescension to the weakness of creatures, to rest their condemnation on visible conduct. The bringing in of Adam's act as the public ground of condemning depraved infants, (who are themselves worthy of condemnation in the sight of God,) is, therefore, notwith

standing all the cry that has been raised against it, a mere act of goodness and of condescension to the weakness of creatures,-intended also, as I suppose, to open and illustrate that federal course which was to be pursued in the case of "the last Adam." It is only condemning sinful creatures on a public and visible ground, who were entitled to condemnation for the hidden depravity of their hearts.

I think it appears therefore that mankind are treated no worse than they might justly have been treated if Adam had not been their federal head. And I am persuaded that not only justice but goodness appears in that constitution which God made for the human race. And when we consider it as a glorious preparation for the work and exhibition of "the last Adam," we have reason to conclude that heaven will forever ring with acknowledgments of that federal system for our world, whose foundation was laid in Eden, and whose top reaches to Mount Calvary and to the heights of the Lamb enthroned.

SERMON IV.

THE ABOMINABLE NATURE OF SIN.

JER. XLIV. 4.

Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, saying, O do not this abominable thing that I hate.

It is impossible for any man to form an exaggerated opinion of his own guilt. This is evident from a single consideration. Every sin deserves eternal death, according to the plain decision of the divine law. But no finite mind can comprehend, much less overrate, that guilt which deserves everlasting burnings. We may confine our views too much to sin, and exclude a sense of mercy, and thus sink into gloom. This is a fault. But no man can possibly overrate his guilt. Here he may give full latitude to his convictions and still fall infinitely short of the mark. To these reflections I am led by that pathetic burst of entreaty and indignation which appears in the text. God had long labored with the Jewish nation, and they had turned a deaf ear to