lower grade, than those which pertain to man as a moral being. The keen and far-reaching eye of reason, looking into a boundless kingdom of moral interests and relations; the conscience, administering its joyous approval or its deathless pangs of remorse; the affections, feasting upon the objects of their delight, or sighing in want; the will, sweetly allegiant to God and the laws of the universe, or in hopeless rebellion against them; and all these immortal-must ultimately administer to the soul a measure of bliss or of wo, which language is too feeble to express. The figures which the Scriptures employ upon this subject, are the boldest and most startling in nature; and yet they remind us that they fall far beneath the reality.*

The second fact to which we allude, is the progressive nature of the soul. It grows in the present world, and for any thing that appears, it will continue to grow forever. Every one of its faculties increases in strength and compass, by use; and unless interfered with by bodily disease or infirmity, this process goes on to the end of life. The legitimate inference is, that when no longer subject to interruptions from physical causes, it will steadily grow forever. If there is any point of doubt here, it must have respect only to the wicked. Sin tends to blight the soul and impede its progress, giving us some reason to apprehend that lost spirits will not hereafter advance in strength and capacity, as will the spirits of heaven. However this may be, there can be no doubt respecting the righteous. The very

* 1 Cor. ii. 9.

nature of mind, which is to grow by use; the effect of virtue, which is health and vigor; the meat and drink of the soul in heaven, ever healthful and exhaustlessmake it evident, that the righteous will forever flourish, like the palm-tree, and grow like a cedar of Lebanon.

Shoot your eye down the long track of ages, and you behold that soul which is now tabernacled in this mortal body, that "image of God" within you-if renewed and sanctified, comprehending within itself more knowledge, more capacity for enjoyment, and more actual felicity, than the aggregate of all these ever yet possessed by the human race. Let the ever expanding circles of eternity move round and round again and again, and you reach the point, at which the attainments of that soul leave those which Gabriel has now made, in almost sightless distance. This is what the apostle means, by a "far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."* It is glory added to glory -exceeding, and yet exceeding, forever—as the fruit of these comparatively light afflictions endured for Christ's sake. It is an immortal soul, Godlike in its nature and Godlike in its character, clothed upon with a spiritualized and immortal body, forever speeding its way, on the wings of eternity, towards the infinite perfections of God himself. Associated with all the holy of the universe, it moves with them harmoniously and sweetly on, accomplishing the great end of its creation-glorifying God and enjoying him forever.

*2 Cor. iv. 17.

And now, see what you lose, if you lose your soul! And oh, see the infinite evil of sin, as it tends to the destruction of such an infinite amount of good ;see the unspeakable folly of neglecting the great salvation by Christ, as it leaves that soul, with all its boundless and immortal powers, to perish forever! Was ever a question more solemn and weighty, did ever one involve a greater and more awful truth, than that proposed by Jesus Christ, What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? and what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

CHAPTER V.

DEPRAVITY.

THE subject now before us, is one of the most deep and melancholy interest that ever engaged the human mind. Our preceding subjects have been preparatory to what pertains to the more distinctive and peculiar themes of the gospel-the fall and recovery of man. We have seen what man is as created by God ;—we are now to see what he is as a sinner, and what the gospel would make him by grace. As the doctrine of human depravity is the one with which the entire evangelical system stands or falls, I must bespeak for it your most candid attention.

The sin of our progenitors is not the first recorded case of transgression. Far back in the eternal ageswe know not how far-some of the higher orders of intelligence fell from their allegiance to God. He immediately checked the spread of the rebellion in that world, by casting his dark frown upon the rebels, and exiling them from the glory of his presence. "The angels who kept not their first state, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness."* Yet their

* Jude 6.

malicious agency, although entirely excluded from heaven, found its way to our earth. It sought out the innocent pair, as if envious of their happy condition in the bowers of Eden, seduced them from their allegiance to God, and consequently involved their entire race in sin. This is what is commonly called the fall of man. Satan was the tempter, and man, the responsible agent, yielded to the temptation, when he ought to have obeyed God. Both were guilty, and both

were divinely rebuked.

A tide of moral evil was thus put in motion, which has swept as a flood over the whole earth, filling the world with rebellion against God—with idolatry, and every species of crime-converting a paradise of joy into a vale of tears—and planting the sting of death in every human bosom.

It would be foreign to my purpose, to enter into any explanation here of the nature of the connection between the sin of Adam and that of his posterity. Various theories of explanation have been framed. We have now to do only with the scriptural fact, that a connection of some kind does exist, such as involves the race of man in the disastrous consequences of the fall. "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."*

By the depravity of mankind, resulting from the fall, is meant a disposition to sin. In its largest sense, it denotes this disposition both dormant and active. The

* Romans v. 12.