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SERMON VI.

ON THE DANGER OF HUMAN DEPRAVITY.

GEN. vii. 22.

"All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land died."

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THE degradation of the human race, the sacred historian relates in the book of Genesis, is frequently referred to in subsequent parts of scripture: and, in reviewing the melancholy account of the fall of man, who was "made but a little lower than the angels," we contemplate, so to speak, the magnificence of a mouldering ruin. What desolation has sin occasioned in the uni

verse! Numerous indeed are the disasters which originate from guilt; and they might have been greater still, had the criminals not been checked at times in their career of iniquity.* In particular, the signal judgment which the text records, was an awful warning to future ages.

At the period which the Patriarch foretold, "the windows of heaven were opened. The overflowing of the water passed by; the deep uttered his voice." The guilty trembled. Behold on the summit of the rocky cliff, some listening with dismay to the shrieks of their helpless companions. The cry of death was heard from afar,-terrifying on every side those who, with the utmost consternation visible in their countenances, had fled for safety to the surrounding hills. Looking down to the abyss

* Nunc mihi, qua totum Nereus circumtonat orbem
Perdendum mortale genus.-Ov.

below with horror which no words can describe, they must have perceived many a corpse of kindred and acquaintance floating on the waters. At last, punishment overtook those wretched survivors who had found a temporary place of refuge on the mountains. Even there "the floods overflowed them. All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land died."

But, in discoursing further from this impressive passage of sacred scripture, let me call your attention to the practical instructions suggested by the history of the deluge, and caution you against unbelief and disobedience,-unbelief and disobedience, the very causes of that catastrophe which the text records. These, no doubt, are topics which ingenuity has illustrated, and eloquence adorned,-topics on which many eminent men have written or declaimed in

times that are past; but we may still gather some gleanings of the harvest,

I. "Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief." Its fatal effects were strikingly exemplified in the case of the antediluvians, who would not believe a venerable patriarch, the preacher of righteousness. Beyond doubt, that credulity which has sometimes disgraced common sense, ought to be avoided; for it has proved a fertile source of superstition, not to mention other pernicious consequences: but sceptical opinions have a tendency no less dangerous, a tendency frequently subversive of all religious and moral obligation. Be jealous, therefore, of that arrogance which believes too little, as well as of that weakness which believes too much. Be particularly on your guard against the invidious insinuations of those men, who presumptuously reject what are

called the mysterious doctrines of revealed religion.

Though objections to some of these doctrines have been collected with laborious industry, and brought forward in the most specious and imposing form, the inspired writings still deserve the fullest credit. To complain, that some of the doctrines contained in the Bible are abstruse, is, in fact, to complain of those limits which providence, in its wisdom, has fixed to all human investigation. And let it never be forgotten, that the imperfection of our faculties and our inquiries—our incapacity of explaining some sublime doctrines in a satisfactory manner, can never affect the validity of the evidence on which we believe that their origin is divine. The evidence is strong, and the doctrines rest on a solid foundation. Had it been stronger, so as to preclude the possibility of doubt; in short, had it been altogether irresistible→→

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