a love for the evil. In consequence of this, all the generations of men before Christ were disposed to pursue sin, and did pursue it. The world was full of violence. Guilt, as is always the case, was the concomitant, so that every individual became hardened with the guilt of his own sins. The law of sin, which was natural to man, discovered itself in innumerable ways; it produced all the crimes which were committed against God and man. The world in general, and all the individuals composing it, were deeply involved. The evil inflicted by the fiery serpents on the Israelites was but a faint emblem of the evil of sin. In order to the restoration of man to holiness and the favor of God, powerful means were necessary; those of a different description could never accomplish the end. This is evident from experience. Innumerable laws have been framed to stop the current of human depravity, but it bursts over all barriers, and carries every thing before it. Human inducements have been held up to men to keep them from committing crimes, but they also prove ineffectual. Innumerable ways have been devised to remove human guilt, but alas! how unavailing have they been! All the superstitious rites which men have observed, in different ages and countries, are designed to propitiate the favor of the Deity. But these are all without effect. The all-important question still returns, "How can man be just with God?" Now the exhibition of Christ is the only remedy which has been found of sufficient efficacy to remove the love and guilt of sin. In order, therefore, to make men holy, and deliver them from death, Christ must be crucified. As this was an important object with God, his death became necessary. The death of Christ removes the love of sin, by procuring the Holy Spirit, by whose influences men are made new creatures. Without such influence, men would forever remain at variance with God and holiness, and of course

under the dominion of sin. But by these influences an immense multitude of the human family have been effectually cured of the evil of sin, made completely holy, and so prepared in this respect for the enjoyment and business of heaven. By the agency of the Holy Spirit, men are made to believe in Christ, and so to become heirs of eternal life. Nor is the death of Christ less effectual in removing the guilt of sin than its dominion. Indeed, in this respect it has a more direct influence. In the Scriptures, all other means are represented as being unable to wash away sin; but this is represented as effectual. The blood of Christ cleanseth from it, is the repeated doctrine of revelation. This effect is produced by believing on Christ; the moment faith is exercised in his atonement, sin is taken away. There may not be at the time an exact view or feeling of it, but the effect is nevertheless produced. No sinner is ever savingly benefited by the sacrifice of Christ without faith in him, but every one who does believe will be saved. This is the only way in which the sinner can be delivered from death, and received to heaven. This last reason why it was necessary that Christ should be crucified, will be rendered more clear, by adverting again to the brazen serpent. When an Israelite had received a wound from one of the fiery serpents, he could not expect healing without a view of the brazen serpent, and his looking at that implied an acquiescence in the appointed method of cure, and faith in it; so the sinner's looking to Christ implies the same. When the wounded Israelite looked at the serpent on the pole, he immediately lived, that is, he felt his disorder abate, and assurance of a cure. So when a sinner looks to Christ, however deep his stains of sin may be, he will find relief. If the serpent had not been erected for the people to look at, all bitten must have died; so had not Christ been slain for the sins of men, all the human race must have perished. We see,

therefore, the propriety of the text: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life."

14.-DEATH CONQUERED BY MESSIAH.

J. LELAND.

It was necessary for Christ to conquer death. Persecutions, captivity, and anarchy, are called death, as well as the dissolution of the body, the apostacy of the soul, and the punishment of both soul and body in hell. These deaths all entered among men at the door of sin. But that all these deaths were contained in the first threatening of God to man :-"In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,' " is more doubtful. It is pretty evident that the depravity of the soul took place before the test of Adam's obedience was broken; for, if his mind had not first been corrupted, he would not have rebelled. Lust did first conceive, before it brought forth the action of sin. If, therefore, the internal depravity precede the transgression of eating of the prohibited tree, death could not be the penal consequence thereof.

And further, it is difficult to distinguish between moral depravity (often called spiritual death) and sin itself. Now with what propriety could God have said unto Adam, "In the day thou sinnest, thou shalt surely die." Nor is this all. "To be carnally-minded is death." "The carnal mind is enmity against God." Here the inspired description of spiritual death is, to be under the government of a carnal, envious, irreconcilable mind. If spiritual death, therefore, was included in the threatened penalty, God must have said, "In the day thou eatest thereof, I will make thee a carnal, irreconcilable enemy to myself." Sup

posing a father should lay his injunction on his child, not to leave the place where he was and go to a certain tree; to make this injunction effectual, he should, moreover, threaten him with stripes if he disobeyed. The child, however, violates the prohibition of the father, and runs to the interdicted tree; on his way a poisonous adder leaps at him, and injects a deadly poison into his flesh and blood. In this supposed instance, it could not be said that the deadly poison was any part of the father's threatening, nor could the calamity of the child exempt him from the threatened stripes. From these remarks, it is safest to conclude, that, although the world is in a deplorable state of depravity, yet moral depravity, which is called spiritual death, was no part of the threatening of God to Adam.

There is a doleful state of existence, frequently spoken of in the Scriptures, as hell, hell-fire, everlasting fire, eternal fire, everlasting punishment, everlasting destruction, and the second death; as also other names descriptive of this awful state. In common conversation it is most frequently called eternal death, and this death is supposed by many to be included in the threatening of God to man, which we are treating of. But if moral death is excluded, eternal death cannot be included; for moral death is such an essential part of eternal death, that the last cannot exist where the first is absent. Furthermore, the death which was threatened, was to take place on the day of transgression; whereas Adam and Eve did not experience eternal death on the day in which they fell; if they had experienced it, their bodies must have been immortalized, and their souls been in a state and condition that they could not have propagated their species.

But natural or corporeal death was included in the threatening. Whether there was a poisonous quality in the fruit which grew on the forbidden tree, which

made Adam and Eve mortal, from which death immediately began to prey on them by disease; or whether disease was the penalty inflicted on them for transgression, are questions attended with some doubt. If the fruit was poisonous in its nature, and tended to mortality and death, then the prohibition of God was only cautionary, to preserve the new made pair from poisoning themselves to death; and if this was the case, then, if there had been no prohibition, and they had eaten of it by mere accident, it would have had the same effect. But if all this was true, which to me is highly probable, still the prohibition was made the test of Adam's obedience. So the rainbow, though depending on a natural cause, was made the token of a covenant made with Noah. If, on the other hand, there was no poisonous quality in the fruit, but it was prohibited, simply as a test to Adam; then, by eating, he did not make himself mortal, but only rebelled against his God, and for his rebellion, mortal disease was that day implanted in him, which neither food nor physic could remove. In either of the cases, death began his career on the day of transgression; a career which, if I may be allowed to personate death, he has unweariedly been pursuing ever since, and which he will pursue until Adam and all his offspring shall fall before him.

The first great threatening of God to man has its full accomplishment without abatement. In this instance the Almighty does not recede from his word. The coming of a Mediator into the world has no ways mitigated it, for the blessed Saviour did not come to save men from dying, but leaves them all to die as universally as though he had not come; but he came to destroy death and raise the dead-to swallow up death in victory-to take captivity captive, and to deliver those who are appointed to die. As death came by man, so by man shall death be destroyed;