you ought to blame or condemn yourself alone for any wicked Lufts, which prevail in your Heart, any evil Habits you have contracted, any finful Actions you commit, you lay the whole upon Adam. Adam, you fay, is the Caufe of the Corruption of your Nature, and the Corruption of your Nature is the Caufe of all your actual Tranfgreffions in Thought, Word, and Deed. The World is very corrupt, and you are more or lefs ftained with the Pollution. True: But you refer it to a wrong Cause, and fuch a Caufe as maketh it ceafe to be Corruption, or really charges God with it. And what good End do you promote by this? Humiliation and Repentance *? No. Chearful Obedience? No. The Love of God? No. No, but you embarrass, perplex and hinder all these Virtues, and all other religious Duties.

*We are told that ferious Thoughts on the Points relating to Original Sin, are neceffary to cur being truly humble and poor in Spirit. But our Lord has taught us Humility and Poverty of Spirit upon the best and trueft Principles, without taking any the leaft Notice of Original Sin, Mat. v. 3.-xi. 29.-xviii. 4. Nor do the Apoftles when inculcating Humility ever fay a Word about natural Corruption, or Original Sin. Hence I conclude, that the Humility, or Humiliation or Poverty of Spirit refulting from ferious Thoughts upon Original Sin, is of the falfe and fuperftitious Kind. Humility has no neceffary Connection with any Sin. For our Lord, who knew no Sin, was the moft perfect Example of Humility.

WHAT

WHAT can be more destructive of Virtue than to have a Notion that you muft, in fome Degree or other, be neceffarily vicious; And hath not the common Doctrine of Original Sin a manifeft Tendency to propagate

fuch a Notion? And is it not to be feared fo many Children of good Parents have degenerated, because in the Forms of religious Inftruction they have imbibed ill Principles, and fuch as really are contrary to Holiness? For to represent Sin as natural, as altogether unavoidable, is to embolden in Sin, and to give not only an Excuse, but a Reason for finning.

IF we believe we are in Nature worfe than the BRUTES, and this Doctrine reprefents us as fuch, what Wonder if we act worse than BRUTES? The generality of Chriftians have embraced this Perfuafion. And what Wonder if the Generality of Christians have been the most wicked, lewd, bloody, and treacherous of all Mankind? Certainly nothing generous, great, good, pure, can spring from Principles, to fay the leaft, fo low and groveling.

IT is Matter of great Admiration, that the Chriftian Religion, which is calculated and intended to raise our Hearts above the Riches and Splendour of the World, and to teach us Self-denial, Humility, Love, Goodness, Innocence, &c. fhould be perverted to the vile S 2 Purposes

Purposes of temporal Wealth, Power, Pride, Malice, and Cruelty. And to me 'tis no less furprizing, that whereas the Chriftian Religion is wonderfully adapted to infpire the most pleafing and joyful Sentiments of the Divine Goodness and Love; the Gospel hath been fo far turned the wrong Way, that Christians have loft even a Sense of the Beneficence of God in giving them a rational Nature; and are fo far from rendering the Praise of this his first and original Liberality, that it is the common Perfuafion of every Christian, that he ought, all the Days of his Life, to look upon his Nature with Abhorrence; and, inftead of being thankful, to be humbled for it. Which is to abhor and be humbled for the Munificence of his Maker. For certainly the Nature of every Man that comes into the World, and as he comes into the World, can be no other than the WORK and GIFT of GOD. This, I confefs, feems to me a Master-piece of the old Serpent's Subtilty, who hath been for a long time let loose to deceive the Nations. Rev. xx. 3.

MUST it not greatly fink the Credibility of the Gospel, to suppose it teacheth the common Doctrine of Original Sin? For if it is eafily feen to be an Abfurdity, who can believe that to be a Revelation from God which is chargeable with it? And I make no Doubt this, with other pretended Principles of the

like Nature, have filled our Land with Infidels. Such Doctrines fet Religion in direct Oppofition to Reafon and common Senfe, and fo render our rational Powers quite uselefs to us, and confequently Religion too. For a Religion which we cannot understand, or which is not the Object of a rational Belief, is no Religion for reasonable Beings.

Is not this Doctrine hurtful to the Power of Godliness, not only as it filleth Mens Heads with frightful Chimeras, and loads their Confciences with the heaviest Fetters of Error, but also as it diverts their Thoughts from the heavenly and fubftantial Truths of Religion as it throws the Method and Means of our Salvation into Perplexity and Confufion, and renders all religious Principles uncertain? We are made Sinners we know not how, and therefore must be forry for, and repent of, we know not what. We are made Sinners in an arbitrary Way, and we are made Saints in an arbitrary Way. But what is arbitrary can be brought under no Rules.

WHICH Notions are most likely to operate best upon Parents Minds, and moft proper to be inftilled into a Child? That it is born a Child of Wrath, that it cometh into the World under God's Curfe, that its Being, as foon as given, is in the worst and most de

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plorable State of Corruption? Or, that it is born under the Smiles of Heaven, endowed with noble Capacities, and formed in Love, for the Glory of God and its own Happiness, if his Goodness is not defpifed and neglected?

MUST it not. leffen the due Love of Parents to Children, to believe they are the vilest and moft wretched Creatures in the World, the Objects of God's Wrath and Curfe? And what Encouragement have they to bring them up in the Nurture and Admonition of the Lord, if they think they are under the certain Curfe of God to eternal Damnation, and but under a very uncertain Hope of his Bleffing and Favour?

YOUNG People are exhorted to remember their Creator: But how can they remember him without the utmoft Horror, who, it is fuppofed, hath given them Life under fuch deplorable Circumstances?

To difpofe Youth to Converfion, is it not Motive enough, that, although they are not already in a State of Perdition, yet they will be fo, they will deftroy themfelves, if they do not put on the Habits of Holiness?

LASTLY, confider feriously, are those that look into the Scriptures, and compare the

Doctrines