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Discourses Delivered in Murray Street Church
Discourses Delivered in Murray Street Church Author:Gardiner Spring Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: DISCOURSE III. rt.'V" .--. HUMAN DEPRAVITY, OR MAN A FALLEN BEIWO. Rom. v. 20.—" Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." The fell of man, th... more »e basis of christian doctrine, was brought about, as scripture relates, by the seductive artifice of an evil spirit, who, under the form of a serpent, enticed the mother of the race to eat the forbidden fruit. She persuaded her husband to commit the same trespass, and thus they lost their innocence, exchanged their Maker's likeness for that of their seducer, and became obnoxious to the threatened penalty of death. And had that penalty to its utmost extent been instantly inflicted upon them, what cause had God's violated justice given for wonder or censure? But we read in scripture of a Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world, and of grace given us in Christ before the world began. God was seized with no surprize when He found Adam taken in the tempter's snare; He foresaw his fall before He created him; and had He not had a gracious purpose concerning him, which his fall could not frustrate, He who does nothing in vain would doubtless have spared Himself that glorious effort of power and love, which gave being to man, and to such a world as this for his habitation. In foresight of the deed, God from eternity designed that the trespass of Adam, instead of being visited by a stroke which would have instantly ended his earthly existence and precluded that of his race, should be the occasion of introducing a scheme of mercy whose developments and results were to form the grand materials of time's diversified history, and of eternity's joy and praise. That scheme accordingly was then introduced: and hence it was that Adam, after his sentence was pronounced, did not find himself in that condition of hopeless horro...« less