opposition to moral. It comes to man as early and as certainly as his powers of moral agency come, and is developed in constant conjunction with those powers. If I inherit my moral constitution, therefore, by descent, I inherit my moral character by descent also; for both, according to the established order of things, are the unfailing consequence of my being born a man, and not an ape. But when I say I am born a man, I do not mean simply that I am born with the powers of a moral agent, for no specific kind of moral action could be inferred from this fact alone-it might be holy, it might be sinful; but I mean that I am born with all the propensities, powers and susceptibilities of my nature, in those circumstances, and with those objects, which have an influence in the development of my powers. In such a birth may be found the proper source of my physical and moral acts, the one as much as the other; and here lies the proximate cause of that readiness and eagerness to sin which man has uniformly displayed through a thousand generations. Do any still doubt of this? Let me ask them why they trace the habitudes and acts of animals to their constitution, and their constitution to their birth? and why they do the same thing with respect to the mere physical propensities and actions of men? Here they do not deny that nature does something, nor that she supplies an all-controlling cause in the gift of existence, and in the character and circumstances of that existence. Why should they hesitate when they come to moral action, which as certainly flows from powers which are the gift of nature, and from circumstances which nature has ordered and provided? If they doubt moral causation, let them say so, and we shall know where they are. But if they admit it, why not admit a cause which is evidently at hand, and which exhibits itself in the same manner, and with the same certainty, as causes which are concerned in mere physical action? No man

hesitates to say that it is natural for a father to love a son, and for a son to love a father; but why does he say this? Because this love is common to the species, and is to be expected wherever these relations exist. The stated and uniform fact is regarded as settling the question that the affection is natural. Can any good reason be offered, why the same uniformity of fact, in relation to moral action, should not determine this also to be naturul? But if natural, nature has a hand in it, and it must be traced to our birth. To this conclusion I think we shall most certainly be brought, if we impartially consider the facts in the case, unless tome testimony from the Bible can be found to counteract it. What, then, is the voice of the Scriptures?

Before making our appeal to particular passages, let me state in general terms what I consider the Bible account to be.

This book teaches that man, in his primitive state, was made upright, or in the moral image of God-not merely innocent, and capable of acquiring a moral character of some kind, but with such powers and susceptibilities, and with such tendencies of nature arising from these powers and the objects which surrounded him, as to make it morally certain that he would do right rather than wrong, unless assailed by some temptation of peculiar force, which should disturb the natural and regular development of his powers. His first moral acts, therefore, were right and well-pleasing to God. But temptation came, and he fell; he ate of the tree whereof God commanded him not to eat. This first offence was followed by a state of unmingled depravity, because it brought him under the curse of that law which threatens death to the transgressor, death in all its forms, death as opposed to life, the life which he actually enjoyed while obedient, and which he had the prospect of enjoying in a state of communion with his Maker forever. This death

involved the loss of all good, and the endurance of all evil, and consequently subjected him at once to the loss of the Divine image, and a state of moral depravity-to all the miseries of this life, the extinction of animal existence, and endless sufferings in a future state. Such were the consequences of the first offence to Adam, as we judge, from the very nature of the case, and from the development of the curse in relation to his posterity, as well as from the provisions made in the plan of redemption for the removal of that curse. The Bible nowhere expressly says that Adam became totally depraved upon his first offence, but it declares this to be the state of his posterity, which is a good reason for believing that it was so with him, especially if it be true that like begets like, and if the new birth was necessary to Adam, as it is to all other men, a fact, perhaps, which none will either deny or doubt. Now, if we mistake not, the Bible asserts that a state of entire depravity came upon all men through Adam; that his transgression was the occasion of their transgression, his death of their death-spiritual death first-death temporal and eternal afterwards. Nor is this all. It clearly intimates that these consequences, and especially a state of moral depravity, comes upon the posterity of Adam, through the medium of their birth-they, as his descendants, inheriting the same moral dispositions which took possession of his heart immediately upon his fall. That a great change took place in his moral nature, when he fell under the curse, is past all doubt. Antecedent to this, he delighted in the character and government of God; his obedience was natural, sweet and refreshing; he had no greater freedom, no greater joy, than to do the will of his Creator. But when he had once ventured on disobedience, all within was changed; he became alienated from the Author of his being, he dreaded his presence, and hated his commands. Passion and appetite took the ascendancy

of reason, and supreme self-love became the masterspring of his soul. By the righteous appointment of God, the very same characteristics were transmitted to his posterity, and by the same law that their physical existence and attributes were transmitted-the law of propagation.

Now for the proof of this. The fact is not questioned, that as Adam was, after his fall, so are his posterity, in point of moral character. But do they become such by natural descent? Our appeal is to the sacred page. But as the examination of this subject will occupy too much time to be included in the present lecture, we shall pause here, and renew the inquiry in a subsequent discussion.

LECTURE XI.

ON NATIVE DEPRAVITY.

IN a former Lecture we endeavored to establish the following principles:

First. That man, as a physical being, derives his existence and his qualities from his birth; in other words, that he is what he is in consequence of the law of propagation or natural descent. We confined the remark to what man is naturally, in distinction from what he is artificially, or by means of education, and what he may be by accident. We limited the remark also to what is common to the class or species to which he belongs, and to those peculiar properties and qualities which any one generation may inherit from their immediate progenitors.

Second. That man, as a moral being, derives his existence no less from his birth, including what is essential to his moral agency, together with those objects and circumstances which naturally attend him, and which call his powers into action. For what constitutes him a moral being but a moral constitution? and what is this constitution but a capacity for moral acts, taken in connection with the appropriate circumstances of his existence? All these belong as much to the pura naturalia as his bones and muscles, or any other physical qualities