The sense of all which is thus represented in English.

"There are very few who die that go to heaven, or a state of happiness. We are always desiring and pursuing forbidden things. Mankind is bold to rush into forbidden wickedness; nor is any man born without vices: Young men most readily hearken to evil counsels; they are soft as wax to be moulded into vice, but rough and rugged to their best monitors. Good men are very few, scarce as many as the gates of the city Thebes, or the mouths of the Nile. What day is there that does not shew us some new malefactors? Nature recurs to its own wicked manners, is fixed in it, and knows not how to change. How few persons will you find contented with one sort of wickedness ? We are all very forward to learn and imitate whatever is base or wicked. After the golden age, and some few following seasons, all manner of iniquity broke out: Modesty, truth, and faithfulness are quite fled away, in whose place came deceit, mischief, violence and wicked covetousness. Piety lay subdued, and justice left the earth. And through so many ages of men, so many murderous wars, and labours, and toils, in time of peace, there is scarce such a thing as honesty to be found; but through all ages there is an abundant load of crimes: Wickedness runs through the people: Madness rages, fills and overwhelms all things. Right and wrong are all mingled, and iniquity reigns even through the very laws of men." This was the common complaint of the most observing heathens in their age, as it is ours in the present day.

VI. Not only those who are grown up to mature age, but even mankind in its younger years, before it is capable of proper moral actions, discovers the principles of iniquity and the seeds of sin. What young ferments of spite and envy, what native wrath and rage sometimes are found in the little hearts of infants, and sufficiently discovered by their little hands, and their eyes, and their watchful countenances, even before they have learned to speak, or to know good and evil? What additional crimes of lying and deceit, what obstinacy and perverseness proceed to blemish their younger years* ?

Here our discourse is at once confronted by bringing in the words of our Saviour, Mat, xvui. 3. Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Little children say they, are here made the patterns of bumility, meekness, and innocence; and in several other places of scripture, a state of childhood is represented as innocent, meek and humble; and therefore they have no such native vices. I answer this objection by granting, That children appear to be of a much meeker and milder temper than grown persons, because they have much fewer temptations to vices of various kinds than grown persons meet with. Their inward vices are seldom awakened and provoked so much as they are in advancing years. Let it be further observed, that this humility of children which is recommended in this text, is their freedom from that ambition which possessed the disciples, when they sought who should be greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

How little knowledge or thought of God, their Creator and Governor, is found among children even when they begin to distinguish between good and evil, right and wrong? What an utter disregard of him that made them, and of the duties they owe to him? How hard is it to teach them to know their Maker, and to obey him? And no wonder it is so in children, since men and women are just the same. Yet, farther, how little prevailing sense or practice of what is morally right and good is seen among them, when they begin to act agreeably to their own childish and youthful age? How contrary is their conduct to the laws of reason, which are the laws of their Maker? How do the evil passions of nature, and irregular appetites and vices of the will prevail in them, and over them betimes? Even from their first capacity of acting as moral creatures in the world; how are they led away to practise falsehood and injury to their play-fellows, and that sometimes with insolence, cruelty and revenge? How often are they engaged in bold instances of disobedience to parents or teachers, snd in acts of shameful intemperance? They do evil with greediness both to themselves and to their fellow-creatures: Nor do I think there is one youth in the world who has not, on particular occasions, manifested some early inclinations to one vice or another. Would this have been the case, if mankind had been just such creatures as they came from their Maker's hand?

Nor can these vicious propensities be imputed to any ill influences of custom, or education, or example; for many of these things appear in children before they can take any notice of any such examples set before them, or are capable of such imitation. And it might be added, that even in the best of families, where good examples stand round them, where children from their youngest years are instructed in their duty, and encouraged and excited to practise virtue and religion, and persuaded to it by all the motives of authority and love, and led by many examples as well as by precepts, yet their hearts naturally run astray from God. The greatest part of them in their childhood visibly follow the corrupt influences of sense, appetite and passion, and in very early years they manifest the inward evil principles of pride, obstinacy and disobedience: And multitudes, even in such families, grow up to practise many vices, and to

I grant also, that young children in general are really meek and innocent, in comparison with persons grown up, who have increased in pride and malice; and this is enough for such representations in scripture. But after all, I ask, are not these sad descriptions which I have given of the vicious tempers of many children, just and true? Does not daily observation discover them? And if so, whence does this evil temper arise, which at any time discovers itself in any of these little creatures? What is the root that brings forth such early bitter fruit? I say, whence can it proceed, or what is it, but some innate evil disposition that they bring into the world with them? This will appear more evidently in the following pages, wherein other pretended causes are excluded and refuted.

publish the iniquity and shame of their nature, in opposition to all the influences of instruction and advice, example and authority. And if all children were utterly untaught and unrestrained, even in the years of childhood, these iniquities would break out and discover themselves with much more evidence and shame: This appears in particular families, even in such countries and such towns which are civilized by learning and politeness. There are a thousand instances wherein this is evident in fact; that where the education of children is neglected, the whole generation becomes vicious: So among the heathens, there are whole nations wicked, perhaps without an exception.

VII. To give yet a fuller confirmation of this truth, that mankind have a sinful and corrupt nature in them, let it be observed, that where persons have not only been educated from their youngest years in all the practices of piety, virtue and goodness, as far as parents could influence them, but wherc young persons themselves have taken something of a religious turn betimes, and have sought after true wisdom and piety, what wretched and perpetual hindrances do they find within themselves? What inward oppositions are working in the heart, and too often interrupt this holy course of life? What vanity of mind, what sinful appetites, what sensuality and forgetfulness of God, what evil affections, what vicious thoughts and wishes, and tendencies of heart rise up in contradiction to their honest and professed purposes of virtue and holiness, and lead them astray too often from their duty both to God and man? Even some of the best of men, who have observed their own hearts, are forced to cry out, Oh, wretched creature that I am! What vicious principles do I find in my members warring against reason and the law of my mind, and bringing me too often into captivity to sin? Whether St. Paul complained thus concerning himself or no in his letter to the Romans, chapter vii. verses 23, 24. or whether he spoke it in the name of mere pretenders to religion, yet as there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and never sins; so I am persuaded, there is not a man who cannot in some measure take up this complaint, that he is sometimes led astray by sense, appetite or passion, in greater or lesser instances, against the better dictates of his mind and conscience: There is not a man who may not mourn over himself in this language, O wretched creature indeed! Who shall deliver me from this native disorder, this inward plague, these evil propensities of my nature? There is none perfectly righteous; no not one.

I may sum up the argument contained in the three last considerations in this manner, viz. If great multitudes of mankind are grossly sinful, and if every individual, without exception,

is actually a sinner against the law of his Creator; if sinful propensities and inclinations appear even in youngest years, and every child becomes an actual sinner almost so soon as it is capable of moral or immoral actions; we have just reason to conclude, there is some original and universal degeneracy spread over the whole race of men from their birth: For it is not to be supposed that the wisdom, equity and goodness of God would ever have produced such a world, wherein every single creature coming out of their Maker's hands in the original state of innocence and full power to obey, should be thus defiled by their own wilful and chosen disobedience.

It has been said indeed, in opposition to this argument, that if the first man, even Adam, did fall into sin, though he was made innocent and perfect, then among a million of creatures, every one might sin, though he was made as innocent and as perfect as Adam, and that this is a better account of so universal an apostacy. To which I answer, There is indeed a bare possibility of this event: But the improbability that every creature should fall into sin, is in the proportion of a million to one. And I prove it thus: If a million of creatures were made but in an equal probability to stand or fall; and if all the numbers from one to one million inclusively, were set in a rank, it is plain that it is a million to one that just any single proposed and determined number of all this multitude should fall by sin: Now the total sum is one of these numbers, that is, the last of them, and consequently, in this way of calculation, it is a million to one against the supposition, that the whole number of men should fall. And yet further, if they were all made in a far greater probability of standing than falling, which the justice and goodness of God seem to require, then it is much more than a million to one, that all should sin against their Creator without exception. See therefore the weakness of this objection; though I have read several triumphs, in a few pages, supported only by this argument, which has the proportion of more than a whole million to one against it. And yet this argument will grow still ten thousand times stronger, if we suppose ten thousand millions to have lived since the creation.

It has been said again, if the nature of our first parents was not originally corrupt, who committed the first sin, and occasioned the suffering, neither is my nature originally corrupt, who am no ways concerned in the commission of that sin, but only am thereby subjected to suffering. I answer, But if the sin of our first parent laid him under guilt, tainted and defiled his own nature, both soul and body, and I am derived from him as my spring and head, I may be thus defiled also, receiving a taint both in soul and body, from the first criminal, as I have shewn afterwards.

VIII. It may be further argued, that man is a creature fallen from his original state, because he is so far enfeebled or corrupted, that he has not a ready and practical power* to perform the law of his Maker, which yet continues to be written in his heart by nature. Does not this law of reason, and nature, and conscience, require us to love God with all our heart and soul, to deal with our neighbour as we think it proper he should deal with us, and to govern our own appetites and passions by rules of reason? Does it not require also, that these things must be done in perfection, and without defect, whether they regard God, our neighbour, or ourselves? Doth it not demand that we should adore and honour, fear and trust in the great God that made us, and obey all that we know to be his will in a perfect manner? Does it not prescribe constant justice, truth and goodness toward our neighbour, without one evil thought, one covetous wish, one envious, or malicious act of the will, or the tongue, or the hand, towards him. Does it not demand that our self-government, or our temperance should not indulge one irregular passion, or appetite? And does it not require, that every one of these lower powers should be perfectly subject to reason and conscience? Now is there any man on earth can say, that he has a ready and practical power to perform all these laws which his Maker has written in his heart without any sinful irregularity in thought, word or deed?

Perhaps you will insist on it still, that man has still within him those faculties of understanding, and will, and affection, which have a natural power to perform these duties; and perhaps you will prove it too, because whensoever, according to

* Observe, I do not assert here, that man has not a remote, speculative and natural power to obey the law of God, but it is abundantly evident be has not an immediate, proximate and moral or practical power to do it, since not one of all mankind have ever done it. And let it be observed, that it is the want of this moral disposition, this practical power of perfect obedience to the law of God, which I call insufficience, ability and impotence, as is shewn at large under question XIII. and scripture uses the same language.

And here I desire it may be observed also, that this distinction of sufficient power into natural and moral will solve the objections derived from a pretence, that "God would never continue mankind under such a law which they have not present sufficient power to obey." This is certain matter of fact that there is a law written in the heart or conscience of man; Rom. ii. 15. which requires greater perfection of obedience than man has a practical or moral power to fulfil though he may have natural powers equal to the command.

I add yet further, that though many men, by the usual aids of divine grace may obey this law of God, so far as it is necessary, according to the new covebant, and may obtain the favour of God, yet they cannot fulfil it, so far as to obtain justification or acceptance according to this law, which requires perfect obedience, and curses every one that fails in it; Rom. ii. 9. and chapter iii. 19, 20. Gal. iii. 10. And this hope of divine aid, and divine acceptance is richly. sufficient to encourage our utmost diligence in all the duties of obedience, and secure men from despair, and from the neglect of religion and virtue. Thus it appears, that this impotence of men to fulfil the law perfectly, is no discourage meat from the utmost diligence in religion.