the impatience of modern auditories, that I could not have time to do more than merely open to you the casket, and give you a superficial view of its con- tents : but feeling how incompetent I am to unfold all the hidden mysteries of the Gospel, I must entreat you to make up for my deficiencies by your candour ; and to be contented with treasuring up for your benefit what you do hear, when you cannot be grati- fied with all that you would wish to hear.
There are three points to which I will call your attention ; and which may give you some little idea, that the subject, however unworthily handled by me, is at least deserving of the deepest investigation. The points I refer to are at all events such as the most enlightened heathens had no idea of; namely, The real state of man — The eternal counsels of God concerning him — and the stupendous effects jjroduced by those counsels. Let these things be for a while considered by us.
The real state of man was altogether unknown to the heathen world. That he was a weak, guilty, and polluted creature, they knew ; but how weak, how guilty, how polluted, they had no conception ; much less did they know how he was brought into such a state. It is from the inspired volume alone that we learn the perfection of his original nature, and the loss of that perfection through the fall of his first parents. From thence alone do we learn that obvious truth, that we " cannot bring a clean thing out of an unclean." Behold then, at the very onset, what a stupendous mystery is here ! that we died in Adam ! that " those who have never sinned after the simili- tude of his transgression," are yet partakers both of his guilt and corruption ! that we are " born in iniquity, and conceived in sin," and are " by nature children of wrath !"
To this I beg your particular attention, because it is the very foundation of all spiritual knowledge ; it is the very threshold, by stumbling at which, mul- titudes are kept from ever entering into the deep recesses of the Gospel. You cannot but know, that