of money, he deceives his parents, or cheats his companions to obtain it. His understanding is darkened in the things of God: his affections are alienated from the life of God: his will is opposed to the will of God: his heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked within it resembles "a cage of unclean birds," and "out of it proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornication, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness all these evil things come from within, and defile the man.” Wherever he moves, he carries with him the taint of impurity: wherever he rests he communicates an influence of corruption; like those noxious insects which infest the atmosphere of tropical climates, infecting where they fly, and poisoning where they repose. Is this too strong? no, my dear brethren, it is too true. The unerring word of truth attests it but too plainly.

Forasmuch, however, as some of you reject this truth as a private unauthorised interpretation of scripture; and, forasmuch as human authority has great weight with most of you, I proceed to adduce the plain testimony of the Church of England upon the subject before us. "Adam having but one commandment at God's hand, did notwithstanding, most unmindfully, or rather most wilfully break it, in forgetting

the straight charge of his Maker, and giving ear to the crafty suggestion of that wicked serpent the devil. Whereby it came to pass, that as before he was blessed, so now he was accursed; as before he was loved, so now he was abhorred; as before he was most beautiful and precious, so now he was most vile and wretched in the sight of his Lord and Maker: Instead of the image of God, he was now become the image of the devil; instead of the citizen of heaven, he was become the bond-slave of hell, having in himself no one part of his former purity and cleanness, but being altogether spotted and defiled; insomuch that now he seemed to be nothing else but a lump of sin, and therefore by the just judgment of God was condemned to everlasting death. This so great and miserable a plague, if it had only rested on Adam, who first offended, it had been so much the easier, and might the better have been borne. But it fell not only on him, but also on his posterity and children for ever; so that the whole brood of Adam's flesh should sustain the self-same fall and punishment, which their forefather, by his offence, most justly had deserved."* But some man will say, why, if this be true of me, do I not feel it? why am I not

* Hom. of the Nativity.

G

conscious of this grievous state of wickedness? My friend, I will also ask you one thing, which if you will tell me, then will I also tell you why you do not feel your own wickedness. The corpse mouldering in yonder grave, why does it not feel the cold worms which crawl and feed upon it? why! because it is dead, it has no feeling, it is mere earth. And why do you not feel your spiritual wickedness? because you are spiritually dead, you have no spiritual feeling, you are of the earth, earthy.*

Observe, I say spiritual wickedness; for your immoral conduct you do feel, you have some moral life; but your spiritual transgressions against the Father of spirits you do not feel, for you have no spiritual life. tural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are

"The na

"It is not without great cause, that the scripture of God doth so many times call all men here in this world by this word, earth, O thou earth, earth, earth, with Jeremiah, hear the word of the Lord.

"This our right name, calling, and title, earth, earth, earth, pronounced by the prophet, sheweth what we be indeed, by whatever other style, title, or dignity men do call us. Thus he plainly named us, who knoweth best both what we be, and what we ought of right to be called."Hom. of the Misery of Man.

spiritually discerned,"* and he is not possessed of spiritual discernment.

Since the fall of man there has been but one true religion in the world, and there never will be any other. The religion of Abel and Enoch and Abraham, of Daniel, Isaiah and Ezekiel, of Paul and Peter and John (though differing in outward circumstances) was fundamentally the same. They worshipped the same God: they were pardoned through the same sacrifice : they were baptized by the same spirit: they enjoyed the same peace; they were received. into the same glory. And if we would be received into that glory whereunto they have been received, our religion must be the same as theirs. Now the grand principle of this common religion, the turning-point on which all hinges in the case of every individual of the offspring of Adam, is this, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God; for the kingdom of God is righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, and without holiness no man shall see the Lord. His animal nature may indeed be alive to all the influences of the visible world around him, and all the exercises of affection within him, his intellectual nature may be alive to all the fascinations of increasing knowledge in science, history, literature, and

* 1 Cor. ii. 14.

even in the theories of revealed religion: he may be an admirable member of society in any station; he may be an experienced and judicious farmer, a sober industrious labourer, á useful conscientious servant, a kind considerate master, an honest tradesman, an accomplished scholar, an affectionate and faithful friend. These things a man may be, by nature and education, and yet still be without God in the world, having nothing in him whereby he can rise to hold communion with God; and until the Author and Giver of life, to whom alone it appertaineth to kill and to make alive, until the eternal God breathes upon that man's soul a quickening influence from above, he is dead: a fair carcase, indeed, he may be, bone united to his bone, sinews, and flesh, and skin, a most deceitful resemblance of life: but there is no breath in it, Christ, who is our life, is not in him, and he is dead.

"How helpless guilty nature lies,

Unconscious of its load;

The heart unchanged can never rise,
To happiness and God."

Our Lord himself pointedly directs our attention to this in his celebrated dialogue with Nicodemus the pharisee, recorded in the third chapter of St. John. To enter into the true spirit of this dialogue, it is necessary to consider its connexion with the concluding verses of the preced