in favour of the scripture account: for the heart is certainly polluted, and the greatest men among the ancient philosophers and the modern unbelievers have been able to offer nothing satisfactory, neither to themselves nor others, concerning the manner of its pollution. But the scripture accounts for it thus in a plain intelligible way.

God created all things at first in a perfect state. When he had finished his works, he took a survey of them, and pronounced them all to be very good. There was no pain in the natural, and no evil in the spiritual world. Man as innocent. His heart was right with God. The thoughts of it were clean and pure altogether. He knew no guilt; he had no fear; and therefore he was happy.

The creature, who first introduced evil into the works of God, was the devil: for thus says our blessed Saviour, "The devil was a murderer from the begin“ning, and a liar, and the father of it," John viii. 44. In the beginning he murdered our first parents, by seducing them into that sin, which subjected their bodies to death, and both their bodies and souls to eternal condemnation. And he was the father of lies as well as of murder: for all was truth and innocence, until he offered the first lying suggestion to the heart, and basely insinuated, that God had maliciously forbidden our first parents the use of the tree of knowledge. To this insinuation they hearkened, they suffered it to make an impression upon their hearts, and disbelieving what their gracious Creator and heavenly Father had revealed to them, they built their faith on the words of the lying spirit, and acted accordingly. Thus he deceived them, and in them all their posterity: for St. John, speaking of the great dragon, says, "This is that "old serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceiv"eth the whole world." Rev. xii. 9.

The consequence of our first parents being deceived by his lying insinuations was the loss of their innocence and happiness. With their innocence they lost the

grace and presence of God: "For he is of purer eyes "than to behold the least iniquity," and after his divine grace and presence were withdrawn, the heart was left to itself, and to its own natural workings, which under the tempter's management could produce nothing but murders, adulteries, thefts, &c. which are the corrupt fruits of a corrupt heart. And into whatever heart the divine grace is not returned, the same corruptions still remain, and we see the effects of them still breaking out in the same abominable vices: for the heart of the natural man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked so wicked, that sin is engraven upon it with a character, which no human art or power can erase. "The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and "with the point of a diamond; it is graven upon the "table of their heart." Jer. xvii. 1. And what hand can come at these impressions, which are cut so deep as to be incorporated into the very substance of the heart? What power can reach and deface them, but his alone, whose prerogative it is to search the heart and the

reins ?

This is the scripture account. And as it is most plain and rational, to which what can unbelievers object? They have nothing to substitute instead of this; and they can urge nothing against it, except they enquire, Why God should suffer man to fall, if he foresaw that it would be attended with such dreadful consequences. But this is only asking, Why he made man a free agent? For if he was free, he must have a capacity to make a wrong, as well as a right use of his free will, and therefore he could not be placed in a state falling from which was impossible. That the first man was created with free will we have a most melancholy demonstration, the effects of which are still seen and felt all over the world, and that he had every assistance which could enable him to make a right use of his free will, the scripture gives us a full account: but he abused it. Upon which the assistance before given, was withdrawn, and after this assistance was taken out of

the heart, there was nothing left in it but its own fleshly desires and inclinations, and when these were spirited up by the lying suggestion of the infernal tempter, what could come out of such an heart, but murder, adultery, fornication, robbery, with all the other polluted works of the flesh and the devil.

Upon this state of the case it appears, that man lost by the fall the two chief blessings of his spiritual life, namely, the image of God, and the Spirit of God. Sin blotted out the image of God, in which man was at first created, and the scripture expressly declares, that we were afterwards born in the image of our father Adam with all his worldly desires, and corrupt inclinations, Gen. v. 3. And these the sacred writers generally term The flesh, signifying by this word all the carnal appetites which govern man since the fall, and of which the apostle declares, “That they who are in the "flesh cannot please God," Rom. viii. 8. Because while they are governed by the flesh, and not by the Spirit, they continue in the image of the earthly Adam, and in the likeness of his fallen nature; by which they are also alienated from the Spirit of God. The divine and holy Spirit left the polluted temple of the heart after sin had profaned it. He is of purer eyes than to behold the least iniquity, and therefore he could not dwell in an impure heart; and upon his retiring, it became alienated from the life of God, being now a perfect stranger to all the graces of that spiritual life, which innocent man had always, and liberally enjoyed. And after the divine image was thus extinguished, and the divine Spirit was gone, which the scripture expressly declares were the two fatal effects of the fall, then the heart of man was under the dominion of its own fleshly desires, and was ready to commit any of the abominable deeds of the flesh, whenever opportunity should offer, and inclination invite, and the devil strongly solicit to the commission of them.

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Now every man who comes into the world is by nature in this state, and he will continue in it, until he

finds the misery of it: until the sense of his distress force him to cry out, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? This conviction of our misery is the first step towards a deliverance from it. So soon as we find ourselves sick, we are half cured: for if we can but bring ourselves to go with humility and prayer to the almighty physician, he has promised to give us freely every thing proper for our relief. He is both able and willing to cleanse the fountain of the heart from all its corruptions, which is the

Third and last enquiry I was to make for though man be miserable in himself, yet God hath not left him without remedy. The great design of Christianity is to restore man to the state from whence he fell, and by the same steps,, through which he fell. Sin put an entire stop to the divine grace and influence, which are as necessary to the soul as breath is to the body, and when they were withdrawn, the sinner then lost the image of God, and the Spirit of God: through the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ the divine grace and influence are offered to us again, and whoever seeks them. by humility and prayer, until he receive them, is then made a partaker of the Spirit of God, who first makes the heart faithful and penitent, and afterwards justifies it by the blood of Christ, and sanctifies it by forming in it all the sweet and holy tempers of the blessed Jesus, in which the image of God now consists. And when the heart is thus created anew and regenerated, then is that great change perfected, of which the apostle speaks, 1 Cor. xv. "As we have born the image of the "first Adam, who is of the earth, in like manner shall "we bear the image of the second Adam, who is the "Lord from heaven." And whoever is renewed after the image of this second Adam, he has a clean and a pure heart, and a sweet fountain might as soon send forth poisonous water, as this sanctified heart can produce murder, adultery, fornication, or any of the filthy works of the flesh.

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This is the scripture account of the means of cleansing the heart. The great purifier is Jesus Christ, whose blood has infinite merit to wash away the pollutions of the whole world. The holy Spirit is the gracious agent, who purifies the heart with this all-meritorous blood. It is his office to take out by the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus all the guilt of our corrupt nature, and "to "create in us a new heart and a right spirit," the new heart bears the image of our merciful Saviour, and the right spirit is no longer alienated from the life of God, but lives in holy communion and fellowship with the holy Spirit. And thus the sinner becomes a new man and a new creature. His soul is endued with a new set of faculties and tempers entirely Christian, and his heart which was formerly the habitation of the foulest vices, of murder, adultery, fornication, &c. is now consecrated, and made an holy temple for the living God.

This is the only method, which the scripture has taught us, of cleansing the heart from those worldly and carnal tempers with which it is by nature infected.. If you refuse to believe the scripture, try any other method; but be assured you must come to this at last. Experience will bring you to it. You will find, God grant you may find it in time, that nothing is able to purify the heart, but the blood of the Lamb of God, and that nothing is able to apply it to the heart, but the eternal Spirit. You will be the more fully convinced of this the more you try other things: see first how far the boasted religion of nature, and its moral rectitude, and the fitness of things, and such like metaphysical non-entities, can reform the heart-make your experiments upon the liberal arts and sciences -go through them one after another-study books and men-try every thing that wit can invent or money purchase, and withhold nothing from your soul of all its desires and then sit down, and carefully and impartially examine your own heart, and judge, how far all these worldly pursuits and attainments have reformed it. And what is the issue? Are you really