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saying, Thou shalt not eat of it; cursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of "it all the days of thy life," Gen. iii. 16, 17. Now a few words shall be spoken of sorrow as a curse, before I speak of a Christian's sorrow and his happy deliverance therefrom.

Sorrow sent as a curse must heighten sorrow: and none but those who are callous in unbelief and hardness of heart, but must feel their sorrow heightened by the curse that attends it. Take for instance, sickness and bodily pain; the mind feels the sore; the spirits sink under the anguish of the body. This is sorrow: but the mind reflects: this sorrow it says, is the fruit of my sin. This is redoubled sorrow; the curse of sin and the knowledge

thereof.

Now of sorrow as a curse, these two things may be bricfly spoken. It is, 1st. Entailed upon all our first parent's descendants; and 2d. On the ground, and on all its productions. 1st. Upon all their descendants. Now as the woman was first in the transgression, so this part of the curse more particularly falls on man, through Eve. And be it observed also that by this ineans, no one of the human race can escape its influence; "in sorrow thou "shalt bring forth children." Now if this sorrow was the fruit of sin, and Eve was then a sinful as well as sorrowful woman, it follows that all her offspring must be brought forth in sin, as well as in sorrow: for how can the same effect be produced

without the same cause. O the boasted purity and innocence of a new-born child! Where is it? Could it be, it would be a prodigy in nature, at which all nature would surely stand astonished. Now the blood being once tainted, must always remain tainted as long as it flows in the same channel: just as the filthy waters of a city, running through its streets and lanes are not purified, till they mingle with the wholesome waters of a neighbouring stream. Like produces like as we may see in Creation. The lion is a lion still, however many removes he may be from the first lion which existed in this world. The seed of the woman is under the wrath of God, and subjected to the malice and rage of the devil, however far any of that seed may be removed in order of time from the first woman. I feel however this is sufficient, to shew the scripture view of entailed sin and sorrow. I turn over but the first leaf in my Bible, and in the second, I see it confessed in all its aggravating circumstances, and in consequences justly alarming. I therefore pass on to observe,

2d. This curse is entailed on the ground, and on all its productions.

Eve's sin introduced the curse into the world; but Adam's compliance, and fall into the same sin, sealed the curse upon all Creation: and this in a twofold way. 1st. It sealed it upon all rational beings; sealed it I say and not introduced it; for Eve's transgression so introduced sin, that it only

hung suspended over the world; and had it been. possible for Adam to have stood, whilst Eve fell, the curse would most probably have fallen upon Eve only, but Adam and all mankind had stood secure. But that God who decreed the fall of Eve, decreed that Adam also should fall; and I know not into what to resolve the fall of either, but into the divine permission, working through the fall those counsels of grace, which were planned and resolved on in an eternal covenant. Now the fall of Adam sealed the curse in two ways; first, by both parents being involved in the fall, and consequently no part of the human race being exempt; thus the blood became wholly tainted; and the effects of natural generation were to produce scions like the parent tree. 2d. By Adam's being the federal head and not Eve. Adam was the creature of God's glory: Eve was but an help-meet for him. Adam had all creatures under command, so had not Eve; Adam had also a command to till the garden of Eden, before Eve was formed from him. And even to Adam was the punishment of disobedience declared, be-fore Eve was formed. Now all these things made Adam's crime great indeed, for he was Lord of all below; he had the sole management of the garden given him by God: the curse was revealed to him when alone; and if the curse was made known before Eve was formed, it behoved him at all events to have given religious instruction to Eve, and even if she would disobey, to have endeavoured to have stood

in his own integrity: endeavoured I say; for Adam assaulted on all sides, could not stand through endeavours without God's Spirit; and as God's Spirit was not promised to help Adam in creature-perfection; nay, as it could not be given till a far better covenant than that of works, even a covenant of grace began to be revealed, so Adam could not stand; and this I say without impeaching the divine proceedings; for God had a right to do what he would with his own. 2d. The sin of Adamı sealed the curse upon all the rest of the Creation. What strange animosities disturb the creatures of the brute creation. Now these surely are the effect of the fall. But the ground is cursed: and on this I intend a little to dwell. The ground may here imply a substance to be operated upon by the art and labor of man.

The labor of man then, must imply, the exertion of human means to some desirable end. The labour of men in primeval ages was indicative of the degree of cultivation in which they put their minds; I may go further, of the exercise of their thought in a proper or improper manner on the being and perfections of a God. Witness the choice, Cain and Abel made of the occupations of life, and the respect God had to the fruits of those occupations. Now the ground may imply the mind of man, to be cultivated by himself, by means which he employs to gain some end. Observe, man before the fall was called under the visible cultivation of Eden, to

till his mind. As long as he did this as God commanded, he fulfilled the requirements made upon creature-obedience. But a single act of rebellion disables man from cultivating the garden, or his own mind in an acceptable way: he is visibly dispossessed of Eden; and inwardly stripped of those powers of mind, under which, once obedience was enjoined him. Weak and wicked by the fall, he must do something. He labors, but not on a garden of Eden, nor on a perfect mind; but in a wilderness bringing forth thorns and thistles, and on a heart the seat of all iniquity. He labors in his own strength, by the sweat of his brow; he toils in earnest thought to recultivate his mind, and to present a fairer prospect within, to the eyes of his Maker. O Adam! a righteousness was near better than thine own, or God had frowned thee to hell, for thy impious working: a bleeding victim typifies thy bleeding Lord; the coat of a slain creature, covers thy now deformed body, and points thee to the perfect righteousness of thy immaculate Savior.

The sweat of thy brow, cannot purchase thee again the beauty of thy soul, or the peace of thy conscience: another than thee deigns to work for thee with more agonizing toil in a garden; and sweats drops of blood, from off his sacred head, to wash thy foulest stains of guilt away.

But having thus far spoken of sorrow in general, as a curse entailed upon man, I hasten to observe