290 RUIN AND RECOVERY, &c. fresh disobedience; and thence arise the iniquities and themiseries of the inhabitants of this world, even from their youngest years, to death and the grave. X. To make it yet further appear, that mankind from their infancy and early years are under tokens of the displeasure of God on the account of sin, let it be considered here, that the first man who sinned might bejustly deprived of some of his former blessings by God himself, as a direct punishment of his own sin, as well as by natural consequence he lost others of them : This is evident from what is said before. Now except the merecon- sciousness of sin, the shame and pain of self-reflection, or anguish ofconscience, which is the natural effect ofpersonal guilt, and belongs only to the personal transgressor, what is there of all the blessings which the firist map is supposed to lose either by natural consequence, or to be deprived of as' forfeited to his Maker's ,justice, which his children do not also lose ? They seem plainly to be deprived of them by reason othrs sin oftheir parent, because they are blessingswhich they would have been possessed of, if their parer'', had stood innocent. Let us enquire into particulars : Are tl 3 weakened in their understanding as well as he ? Hath not their appetite and passion too often a superior and prevailing power over their reason as well as his ? Are not their thoughtsand inclinations early immoral, carnal and sensual and averse from God and things spiritual ? Are not their wills perverse and corrupt ? Are not the evil principles of pride, malice, revenge, envy, working in them by nature ? Are they not subject to powerfadtemptations on all sides, which are gene- rally too strong for them ? Are they not liable to diseases, to injuries from other creatures, to wounds, pains and poverty, to hunger, thirst, andnakedness, to miseries of every kind, and to death itself, as well as their first parent ? If therefore all the natural evils, which fall upon, or are inflicted on the first sinner, on account of his moral evil, fall also on his posterity, always excepting anguish of conscience and self-reflection, is it not evi- dent that they are joined with him in his fall, and that they are fallen from their Maker's image and favour together with him ? For we can never suppose they all would have been naturally, or from their nativity, so vicious, and subject to so many miseries, and so destitute of blessings, had they been propagated by a parent who had continued in the perfect favour and image of his Maker. XI. Nor is it strange to suppose, nor is it hard toconceive, that this universal taint or infection, this general degeneracy and desolationof human nature, both with regard to sin and misery, should beconveyed according to an original, wise and holy con- stitutionofGod by the means of natural generation from one man to all his posterity ; for we see the very same thing actually done
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