253 RUIN AND RECOVERY, &C. heart, how ready and propense they are to sin and folly in greater or lesser instances, how soon appetite and passion start up in opposition to reason and conscience, how often they prevail over their better sentiments, how frequently the perfect demands of the law.of God are broken by them, how thoughtless and for- getful they are of their divine Maker and Governor, how cold and languishing their affections to what is religious and holy, how littlelove they have to truth, how little delight in virtueby na- ture, how averse to commune with God, while theyare fond and violent in the pursuit of trifles and follies; couldany of them think that they are such innocent and holy creatures as God at first had created us, and that they have been such from their childhood or their entranceinto the life and state of man ? Surely a little more frequent and accurate observation of their own heart would lead them into a better acquaintancewith themselves, and convince them feelingly that there was some early degeneracy from the first rectitude of human nature. IX. Another proof of the degeneracyand fall of mankind is this, that they have not only lost their innocence and the image of their Maker, and their original sufficiency of power to fulfil the demands of his law, but they also lie evidently under his actual displeasure, which could not be their primaeval state. As we have taken a short view of the sins of men, let us alsobriefly survey the miseries of mankind, and see whether they look like a race of beings such as their Creator made them, or are par- takers of his original favour. Think of the thousands of rational creatures descending hourly to deathand thegrave. Among thesea few are destroyed by some sudden stroke; but far the greater part go thither by painful and slow approaches ?? Death and the grave, a sore pu- nishment! A dark and shameful prison! Which would never have been made for a race of intellectualcreatures, persisting in the beauty and honour of their innocence and virtue, and abiding in the original favour of him, that gave them life and being. " Death is the wages of sin ;" Rom. vi. 23. and from this pu- nishment of sin there is none of the race of men can plead freedom, or claim a discharge. If mankind had stood in their original sinless state, can we ever suppose that any of them should have been made sacrifices to death ? Much less that every one of them should be bound to certain destruction ? And espe- cially that half their race should have been doomed to die before seven years old, that is, before they reach a tenth-part of the present age of man, or have done any thing in life worth living for? Did God make rational creatures to destroy them by tnil- liona ? Were men at first made for death ? Methinks every hil- lock of mortality in achurch-yard, and every grave-stone there, assures us that mankind have lost their innocence. But let us,
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