SERMON XI.*

Preached at St. Werburgh's Church, for the Parochial School of St. Audeon, 27th June, 1818.

ROMANS, V. (part of the 12th Verse.)

By one man sin entered into the world.

IT is a gloomy thought, that we were once better than we are many a generous spirit has had life embittered by such a recollection; and a similar feeling is naturally excited when we consider that we are degraded beings in the scale of creation, and that we have lost the attitude which we were intended to maintain among the works of God.

It is indeed easily said, with a sigh, that we are all fallen beings, and it is easily forgotten again. But when this humiliating truth has once taken possession of the mind; when it ceases to be a mere verbal admission, and becomes a living and habitual principle, it is surprising what a powerful ascendency, and what a purifying influence it exercises over the heart and the

*This was one of the author's earliest Sermons : it has been transcribed for the press from several detached fragments of paper, and it is supposed that parts of it have been lost, which accounts for some apparent incoherency in the plan. However, imperfect as it is, it may not appear unworthy of a place in this Collection, as a specimen of the author's first addresses from the pulpit.-EDITOR.

faculties; how it quenches the fiery and restless spirit within us; how it subdues much of what is bold and daring in the disposition; how it hangs like a dead weight upon many a haughty and aspiring thought; how it crushes many a proud and ambitious purpose in the dust!-and it is well that it should be so. It is no great proof of courage to carry a higher spirit in the sight of God while we are moving through life, than we expect to sustain when we are stretched faint and powerless upon our death-beds; or to tread with a firmer step and a loftier port upon the face of the earth, than when we are advancing to the throne of God at the day of judg

ment.

But if a sense of our degeneracy represses all the proud and rebellious principles of our nature, it is calculated to draw forth in a peculiar manner all that is humble, and kind, and amiable, and affectionate ;-it teaches us to look upon others with a pity inspired by our own experience;-it calls upon us loudly to make common cause against the misfortunes of our common situation; for it is a grand principle insinuated into our nature by the Deity, that we are more intimately linked together by a sense of common danger than by a state of common security. Humility is the true source of Christian benevolence; humility, that reads its own lot in that of a fellow-creature,-that reminds us "that all have sinned," and that therefore we are all strangers and pilgrims on the earth. It does not, like the benevolence of the world, seat you upon an eminence, from which, like some superior being, you may fling a scanty and occasional pittance to the wretches whom you see struggling beneath; but it places you with them, side by side, toiling onward the same way, only better furnished for the journey, and called on by the voice of God and all the charities of the human heart to reach forth your hand to your weaker and more helpless fellow-travellers.

The fall of man, and the consequent deterioration of our nature, has been ridiculed by many of the enemies

of Christianity as fabulous and unphilosophical; but it should be recollected, that we cannot indulge a single hope of ever rising to a higher state of being, without admitting an equal probability, in the nature of things, that we have fallen from it: we must give up our hopes of a more spiritualised and glorious existence, and condemn the human race to utter annihilation, upon the same principle on which we deny the possibility of our corruption and degeneracy and if we attentively observe the features of the nature to which we belong, we shall perceive a struggle between different principles, and a discordance of feeling in the same person at different periods, that we often unconsciously regard as the conflict of two contending natures.

We have, indeed, but a slight account of the state from which we fell: perhaps it would have been useless to have described it more circumstantially—we might not be capable of understanding it. The prophet seems to have exhausted description when he tells us, that we were "made in the image of God;" so that, if we wish to ascertain what we were, it would seem we must look to the Deity himself. This would be a bold task, even though we undertook it for the purpose of humbling ourselves to the dust. But there is one circumstance related which helps us to understand in what consists our humiliation -when Adam had sinned, he shrunk from the voice of God. The presence of that gracious Being, who was identified with every blessing that he enjoyed, was before gratefully and gladly encountered: the thought of God was above him, and enveloped him, and he could throw his heart open, fearlessly, before him, and shew him his own image. But now, how many of the thoughts of our heart would be put to flight by one glance of God into our souls! how many of our pleasures would vanish before the idea of his presence! We know too well what an enemy to many of our favourite pursuits is the God "who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity;" and when we hear his voice, we attempt to shut ourselves from his

view by excluding him from our thoughts, as if, under the shelter of such a subterfuge as this, we could elude either his scrutiny or his vengeance; and if nothing occurred to seize our attention by surprise, or force our minds upon the consideration, perhaps the first thing that would awaken us to a just sense of our situation would be the sound of the last trumpet !

But sometimes we have strange misgivings. In the depth of the night, when we are left to darkness, to silence, and ourselves, the utter stillness, and the blank void that surround us sometimes bring a powerful sense of God's presence along with them,-and the more we attempt to escape it, the more palpably it seems to gather around us in the obscurity. Some way or other, man can never be totally alone; the very absence of every other being, and of every other object of sense or thought, appears almost necessarily and irresistibly to suggest the presence of God. Then, when we seem to feel ourselves, as it were, under the immediate pressure of the Almighty, the thought will occur, "Was he not equally present this day and every moment of my life and yet how little have I been influenced in my heart, conversation, and conduct, by the sense that his eye was everlastingly open upon me, as it is at this instant!"

In the fire and vigour of active life, man devotes all his energies, faculties, and exertions to the attainment of some favourite object, and pursues it, as if it were immortality itself, with a fond and desperate idolatry. The fatal remark, that all he seeks is "vanity," intrudes into his conversation, or suggests itself in his schemes. He gives it the usual tribute that is paid to most moral truths-a sign of acknowledgment, then hurries on, snatching his joys, and struggling through his difficulties, until a blow is struck! His hope, upon which he built his happiness, is shivered; he stands aghast, like one startled from a dream, and the common and monotonous truth, that all he seeks is "vani ty," comes upon him, like something strange and orac

ular, with a painful and bewildering novelty, arising from the consciousness that it had long been sounding in his mind and echoing in his fancy, but had never before reverberated to his heart. Then, at length, when he has no other object to which he can turn either for pursuit or relief, for activity or repose, he thinks of turning himself to his God; and the thought will occur, 'If I had served my God as I have pursued this earthly object, he would not have deserted me :' the thought will occur, 'If God had offered me immortal happiness, such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, merely if it were then the first object of my desires, to me it had been lost! My affections never ascended into heaven, they went wandering to and fro upon the earth, seeking rest and finding none.' We then learn the nature of sin,-we learn that we have forsaken God, and that we have not only lost immortality, but even a relish for its enjoyments.

The very pleasures we are capable of enjoying exhibit something ruinous in their nature. In the course of our lives we find that evil is not only perpetually interchanging with good, but that it is actually necessary to its very existence. If we attentively observe our pleasures, we shall find that many of them partake of its nature; and if it is often an interruption to our enjoyments, it is still oftener, perhaps always, either their chief cause, or one of their necessary ingredients. Our passion for variety is an evident proof of this: we are so far from having a lively idea of smooth and uninterrupted happiness, that the most luxuriant description soon becomes languid and uninteresting; while the mournful, the terrible, the abrupt, possess a strange and mysterious attraction, which seldom loses its influence over our minds. Our greatest pleasures are often only escapes from pain;-often grow in proportion to it, are often heightened by contrast; and many can reflect with pleasure upon the bitterest grief, in recollecting the sweetness of the consolation by which it was