y a strong and overmastering disposition to trust in
ourselves, and to distrust our Maker, ought not this discovery to waken
in us the very same feeling that Isaiah gave expression to, when he said
that the whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint; the very same
feeling that David gave expression to, when he cried: "Behold I was
shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me?"

This is to repent of original sin, and there is no mystery or absurdity
about it. It is to turn the eye inward, and see what is _lacking_ in our
heart and affections; and not merely what of outward and actual
transgressions we have committed. Those whose idea of moral excellence is
like that of the young ruler; those who suppose holiness to consist
merely in the outward observance of the commandments of the second table;
those who do not look into the depths of their nature, and contrast the
total corruption that is there, with the perfect and positive
righteousness that ought to be there, and that was there by
creation,--all such will find the call of the Creed to repent of original
sin as well as of actual, a perplexity and an impossibility. But every
man who knows that the substance of piety consists in positive and holy
affections,--in holy reverence, love and trust,--and who discovers that
these are wanting in him by nature, though belonging to him by creation,
will mourn in deep contrition and self-abasement over that act of
apostasy by which this great change in human character, this great lack
was brought about. 2. In the second place, it follows from the subject
we have discussed, that every man must, by some method, _recover his
original righteousness, or be ruined forever_. "Without holiness no man
shall see the Lord." No rational creature is fit to appear in the
presence of his Maker, unless he is as pure and perfect as he was
originally made. Holy Adam was prepared by his creation in the image
of God, to hold blessed communion with God, and if he and his posterity
had never lost this image, they would forever be in fellowship with their
Creator and Sovereign. Holiness, and holiness alone, enables the creature
to stand with angelic tranquillity, in the presence of Him before whom
the heavens and the earth flee away. The loss of original righteousness,
therefore, was the loss of the wedding garment; it was the loss of the
only robe in which the creature could appear at the banquet of God.
Suppose that one of the poster