be considered as hostile to the purity and perfections of God; and in truth, when we have said this we have said all, though a most tremendous all it is for those engaged in it: for first it implies the utmost impurity of the creature, and next it brings down the most certain and most terrible vengeance of the Almighty. 1st. Is the impurity of the creature little thought of? Wherefore? Is it because it is really small? or is it because it is slightly mentioned in the Word of God? On the contrary, the Word of God is plain and positive as to the nature and consequences of sin. We but just quit the account of the world's creation, when our attention is excited to a deed of man for which he is subjected to the dreadful displeasure of God. Death is spoken of as the wages of this transgression, which with sin is entailed as a dreadful curse against all Adam's posterity. We hear around us the faithless cry, Why should all mankind be punished because of one? Alas! have we so little respect to our father Adam, that whilst equally guilty before God, we disown him as our covenant head, and disavow our friendly yet sorrowful relation to him who was the father of all men? Above all, have we so little respect to God himself who declares he will have the sin of Adam punished upon all his posterity? Why do we allow death to be the consequence of our deriving our descent from him? This is inconsistent, if we disallow that sin is ours by being his descendants. Death reigns not in the blood which

TOO

sin has never tainted. Christ our great high priest in his untainted divinity could not, did not die; and it was only imputedly at last, as bearing our sin and its fruits, of which death was one, that his human nature died at all. But I stop here to draw an awful conclusion, oh! that it was duly considered, by all those who CONSIDER THEMSELVES PURE, to be involved in the guilt of Adam's transgression, viz. that if we die not imputedly by Adam's transgression, the imputation of Christ's righteousness can never make us alive; we are strangers to that dispensation of mercy which a God of truth has given, not to those who need no physician, but to those who are sick: and even "Over “them that had not sinned after the similitude of "Adam's transgression," Rom. v. 15. But sin brings down the most certain and most terrible vengeance of the Almighty; the name of God as by himself proclaimed, is " The Lord—that will by "no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity

66

of the fathers upon the children, and upon the "children's children unto the third and to the "fourth generation," Exod. xxxiv. 6 and 7.

And this punishment to the third and fourth generation, is inflicted even for the breach of the ceremonial law. What then must be the case, when the spiritual law of God is broken by man, and all his most holy commandments set at naught. In viewing further this subject, we may observe two things, 1st, What it is to commit sin; and 2dly, What it is

I

to be the servant of sin. Sin is the transgression of the law, hence to commit sin is to transgress the law, but sin is also the denial of the gospel, to which last dispensation may more properly the sin against the Holy Ghost be referred, which according to most commentators, relates to an open and shameful violation of truth, sinning against it as it is unfolded in the gospel, and that more particularly when the mind has seemed to have advanced some way in grace, when the understanding has been considerably enlightened, and an open profession of the gospel has been espoused. But 1st. as to the law. The law of God is comprehended in these two things. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God “with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and "with all thy mind. This is the first and great "commandment. And the second is like unto it, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On "these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets," Matt. xxii. 37 to 40.

Hang all the law, said Christ, meaning every particular contained on the two tables, or Ten Commandments. But this may further be illustrated by a short view of the Ten Commandments themselves.

1st. "I am the Lord thy God which brought "thee up out of the Land of Egypt, from the "house of bondage. Thou shalt have none other "gods before me." If this be considered as spoken literally as first intended, to the chosen nation of

the children of Israel in their national capacity, or be to every chosen person of the true spi

as it may ritual Israel: each of those characters is here called upon to acknowledge the signal deliverance of the Lord of Hosts, and the interposition of his hands, in delivering his chosen people from every enemy, temporal and spiritual, and the declaration, Thou shalt have none other God's but me, is intended to teach them to look to God as their righteousness, strength and salvation, confessing their own inability to turn to God, or deliver themselves from bondage. Nothing does the Lord hate more, and nothing is more like setting up other gods beside him than a self-righteous spirit, glorying in the work of our hands, rather than in the handy works of God.

2nd. Thou shall not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing, that is in Heaven above or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth. Thou shalt not bow to them, nor worship them, for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth neration of them that hate me, and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments. `

ge

As the first commandment is intended to restrain from setting up the idol of self-righteousness in the heart in opposition to the sovereign grace, or to the influences of the Spirit of God; in which it is confined to spiritual action. So this second de

notes the natural action of the mind, and is intended to guard against those idols of the affections, which alas! we are all too prone to set up, by an over fondness for the gifts of God's providence, as riches, friends and the like. But this is, in the language of scripture, to love the creature more than the Creator. If it be a matter of surprise to us why the love of the creature should be more spoken against than even the setting up of self-righteousness, it may not be amiss to consider whether it is really an object of more divine displeasure than the latter; and first we may observe, it is indeed guarded by a penal sanction, even the visiting the sin upon the posterity of the offender: whereas it may be said of selfrighteousness, &c. that it is punished only in the offender himself; as it is the law of grace, that every man shall stand or fall by his own works, that is, that he shall be judged independent of the works of others: but then the latter is most tremendously awful in its consequences, being a sin against the Lord the Saviour in his glorious title. "Lord thy God which brought thee out of Egypt."

"I am the

Sd. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

Oaths in the hands of mortals we observed in the beginning are solemn things: the name of God should be too much revered to be called in as a witness to the quarrels or crimes of wicked and fallible men: the spirituality of this precept includes