s miserable. And let
this consideration make you cast away all your confidence in yourselves,
and carry you forth to a Redeemer who hath found a ransom--who hath found
out an excellent invention to cure all our distempers and desperate
diseases. The counsel of the Holy Trinity that met about--if I may so
speak--our creation in holiness and righteousness after his own image, that
same hath consulted about the rest of it, and hath found out this course,
that one of them shall be made after man's image, and for this purpose,
that he may restore again God's image unto us. O bless this deep invention
and happy contrivance of heaven, that could never have bred in any breast,
but in the depths of eternal wisdom, and let us abandon and forsake our
own vain imaginations, and foolish inventions! Let us become fools in our
own eyes, that we may become wise.

Man by seeking to be wise, became a fool, that was an unhappy invention.
Now it is turned contrary, let all men take with their folly and desperate
wickedness. Let not the vain thoughts and dreams of our own well being and
sufficiency lodge within us, and we shall be made wise. Come to the
Father's wisdom,--unto Jesus Christ, who is that blessed invention of
heaven for our remedy. How long shall vain thoughts lodge within you? O
when will you be washed from them? How long shall not your thoughts
transcend this temporal and bodily life? How long do you imagine to live
in sin, and die in the Lord,--to continue in sin and escape wrath? Why do
you delude your souls with a dream of having interest in the love of God,
and purchasing his favour by your works? These are some of those many
inventions man hath sought out.

Lecture XXIV.

Of Sin By Imputation And Propagation.

Rom. v. 12.--"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world,
and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all
have sinned."

This is a sad subject to speak upon, yet it is not more sad than useful.
Though it be unpleasant to hold out a glass to men, to see their own vile
faces into, yet is it profitable, yea, and so necessary, that till once a
soul apprehend its broken and desolate condition in the first Adam, it can
never heartily embrace and come to the second Adam. You have here the
woful and dreadful effects and consequents of the first transgression upon
all mankind. The effect is twofold,--sin and misery, or sin and death. The
su