is inseparable from his nature. The thing, whatever it is, presents itself to us in different aspects; sometimes as a proneness or propensity, sometimes as that facility of action, founded on association of ideas, which we call habit, sometimes as a mental appetite to which motives are to be addressed, as an invitation to a feast is addressed to a bodily taste. In the last case I know not but the motives are presented to the mind predisposed by habitual affections. One feeling certainly hurries a man into another. Anger or envy will cause him to hate. Offer one who loves gold, a bag of guineas to cross the street, and if no stronger motive urges the other way he will certainly come. A man who loves honour, will be induced to desire, to be grateful, to love, to resent, to be angry, to be sorry, to be glad, according to the relation of events to his ruling passion. A man who loves the world supremely, will flee from a religious meeting to wordly business. Experience shows that the affections and volitions do move in such an order, and hold on in an unbroken course, and we are not conscious of any thing behind them. Pres. Edwards* calls the thing in question a principle. "If grace be—an entirely new kind of principle, then the exercises of it are also entirely a new kind of exercises.— This new spiritual sense, and the new dispositions that attend it, are no new faculties, but are new principles of nature. I use the word principles for want of a word of a more determinate signification. By a principle of nature in this place I mean that foundation which is laid in nature,

*Quoted in a Tract entitled, The Renewal of Sinners the Work of Divine Power; p. 9.

either old or new, for any particular manner or kind of exercise of the faculties of the soul, or a natural habit or foundation for action;-so that to exert the faculties in that kind of exercises may be said to be his nature." This definition exactly accords with the one which I have given, unless it makes nature more decidedly an existence, and as such the foundation of exercises. But when he calls it a habit, and makes it consist in statedly exerting the faculties in a particular way, no one can object. He seems at a loss for a definition, but on the whole accords very well with the one which I have given. That definition is, that nature, in the unregenerate, is an aptitude to every selfish exercise, growing out of the fact that self-love, which is inseparable from their existence, has, from the absence of love to God, become supreme; and in the Christian, that it is an aptitude to every holy feeling, arising from the dominant love of God.

The constitution made with Adam was, that if he continued obedient his posterity should be preserved holy; that if he transgressed they should be abandoned to sin. In consequence of the fall they come into the world without the sanctifying influence of God upon their hearts. The consequence is, that they are left under the dominion of selfishness. How soon they have selfish exercises, I cannot tell. That from the first they prefer pleasure to pain, and therefore have self-love and only self-love, is certain; but whether it is selfishness in exercise, when they have no knowledge to direct their affection to another object, or to institute any comparison, I will not determine. But with that self-love which will develope itself in time,

and without any influence which can ever awaken the love of God in their hearts, they have a preparation within them for every thing wicked. That preparation is what I mean by their corrupt nature. And it stands in the same relation to the moral properties which will mark their lives, that the carnivorous nature of the young lion does to his future habit of eating flesh.

This depravity, in whatever it consists, subjects infants to condemnation. Of this, natural death is declared to be a standing proof. "As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, even so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." In the same chapter the whole race are, over and over again, said to be condemned for Adam's sin, even as believers are justified for Christ's righteousness. By this I understand that the public act of Adam, which indicated what their hearts would be as fully as it showed his own, was made the ground of their public condemnation. But this public condemnation would not have been pronounced upon them had they not deserved eternal death for their own wicked hearts. One thing is certain. If they are saved by grace, they might have gone to hell by justice. They cannot go to heaven by both. If I lay a purse of gold on your table, it cannot be both a present and the payment of a debt. One idea excludes the other. But all who are saved are To this we must adhere or

saved by grace and by Christ. renounce the Bible. Had no Saviour been provided, (and surely God was not bound by justice to provide a Saviour,) the whole race would have been lost. Nor is it the provi

*Rom. 5. 12.

sion of a Saviour that has brought the race into being in an infant state. The creation of male and female in Eden, shows that it was the purpose of God, at the time the covenant was made with Adam, to bring them into the world just as he now does, whether Adam stood or fell, and whether a Saviour was provided or not. Justice therefore approved of the actual destruction of a whole race that were to be born infants. They meet a condemnation at the threshold of their existence. Their just doom in the cradle is, that first or last they shall sink to perdition. And this doom would have been just had no Saviour been provided. Had no Saviour been provided then, what privilege would it have been for them to live to years of discretion rather than sink to hell from the cradle? It would only have been the privilege of growing up under judicial blindness, to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath. If you deny the justice of bringing them into the world in such a state, why, I ask, is it more unjust in God to withhold his influence the first moment of one's existence, than after one has loved him with all the heart up to the moment of the withdrawment? From the angels who fell and from Adam, he withdrew his influence for no previous fault, but after they had loved him with all the heart up to that moment. That influence he owes to no creature, except where he has promised it, as in the case of the Church and the elect angels; and rational creatures are complete moral agents without it, or sinners could not be punished. And if God can justly leave infants unsanctified and sinful, why may he not justly treat them as sinners. Why do you bring them to Christ in baptism, if they have no need of

cleansing and of a Saviour, and therefore of mercy? It is not infant angels that are to be brought to the baptismal font. A large part of the race die in infancy and go to heaven or hell. If to the latter, (which for certain reasons I hope is not the case,) then they justly perish; if to the former, then they are saved by grace and by Christ, and therefore might justly have been consigned to death.

Now whether they are condemned for a corrupt nature or for sinful exercises, I will not decide. Nor will I attempt to weigh the difference between condemning them for a nature sure to rebel, and condemning them for bad exercises when they have no knowledge of God or of duty. But sure I am that they are not without a moral character till they are old enough to understand God's law. Sure I am that they do not pass in one moment, (for one sin deserves eternal death,) from the neutral state of the lower animals to a desert of everlasting burnings.

If infants cannot be sinners, neither can they be sanctified. What then have become of the unnumbered millions who have died in infancy? Who can believe that the infant Jesus differed in nothing from the infant Judas? But the thing is settled beyond dispute. To Jeremiah it was said, "Before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee."* And lest this should be accounted a mere consecration to the prophetic office, I will bring another. To the father of John the Baptist it was said, "He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb." And if you say, this was miraculous, still it shows that the thing was possible. And if it is possible for