or to grace, unless the corruption of human nature be expressed in the strongest terms. Nor can we either deny or wonder, that this notion is favoured by the language of the early reformers; who wrote against the corruptions of a church, in which Pelagian principles were not only tolerated, but received and acted upon; and whose opponents maintained the doctrines of merit and works of supererogation.

Without attempting to define the limit of human corruption, or to point out the extent of natural power, we may safely affirm it to be no just inference, that because salvation is not of works, therefore man "is only given to evil

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thoughts and evil deeds :" or, because he is

very far gone from original righteousness,"

therefore "he is become the image of Satan." Neither does it follow that "any man should boast," even if it be conceded that there is a "better part of human nature." For, after all, "what hast thou, O man, that thou hast not "received?" Suppose it allowed, that man is born with any good principle, any relics of the

ruins of his original righteousness, he is not the author of this principle in himself, any more than of his own being: it came to him, together with " every good and perfect gift, from the "God and Father of lights;" and the real subject of inquiry is, not what man has by nature, but what God has left him, after the fall. This reflection ought to mitigate the jealousy which is often felt, against leaving any crevice for human pride. Adam in Paradise was perfect; but he owed that perfection to his Creator and the only doubt is, whether after he had sinned, God entirely deprived him of his own image," and of all the graces and excellencies with which he had been endowed; or whether he left some memorial of his high original still remaining, some traces still undefaced of the glory in which he had been created, and from which he had fallen by transgression; whether any seed of virtue yet existed alive within him, after the soil had become unkindly, and the climate unfavourable to its vegetation..

There is no doubt indeed, which is the weaker side of the human heart: it is too much

L

inclined to trust to itself, and too proud of its own powers, and requires to be continually reminded of what Scripture and experience equally prove-its natural enmity against spiritual things. But the justest argument may lose its force, when it is carried too far, urged without discretion. Mankind, after the fall, were still the work of God, and the object of their Redeemer's love.

or

It appears upon the whole, that three rules ought to be observed, in order to treat this subject with practical advantage: first, that we should so preach the corruption of human nature, as to show our absolute dependence upon the atonement of Christ for salvation, and upon the Holy Spirit for sanctification: secondly, that we so preach it, as to vindicate the ways of God to man, by proving that he offers a remedy co-extensive with the evil: thirdly, that we so preach it, as to make the hearer understand, that sin, however congenial to the depraved mind, is alike inconsistent with the original innocency of the human race,

and with their final destination; inasmuch as

they have been " bought with a price," and become the "sons of God, and joint heirs with "Christ," and are expected to "be holy, even "as He who hath called them is holy."

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CHAPTER IV.

ON GRACE.

THE doctrines of grace and justification by faith spring immediately from the fact of the corruption of human nature, established, as we have seen, by St. Paul.

Had man continued firm in that innocency and uprightness which he received from the hands of his Creator, his righteousness, though as much the divine work as it is now, would not have been an acquired endowment, but born with him like the strength of his limbs or the faculty of reason. The influence of the Spirit would not have met with a sensible opposition in the natural desires; would not have been obtained by prayer as an adscititious gift, but employed in thanksgiving as a native faculty. "Then there would have been no desertion on God's part, because no apostacy on man's; no clouds in his mind, no tempest in