whom he loved with the same love as he loved their glorious Head, and whom he blessed in him with all spiritual blessings, should ever be, even for a single moment, the objects of his wrath, much less the children of his wrath, can never be admitted, without destroying the sense of Scripture, and reason also. Nor do I believe that the non-elect are children of God's wrath. In short, there can be no such thing as children of God's wrath, till begetting and annihilating are the same thing. But from a careful survey of man, wrath and anger are found to be predominant in his nature. Man, as fallen from God, is the subject of a sinful nature. The moment Adam fell, as the just reward of his transgression, the seeds of every sin were sown in his heart, as the fountain-head of all corruption, and they were all handed down to his posterity; "For who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" There are many who allow this because they feel it, and yet do not see the full meaning of what is properly styled original sin. "Original sin," says the Church of England, in her articles, "is the fault of every one that is born into this world:" it is as much his fault as if he had, with Adam, eaten of the tree of good and evil; "For that," or in whom, says the Apostle, "all have sinned.* "His crime makes guilty all his sons." MILTON. But the corruption of our nature, the sinfulness of our nature, is the fruit of original sin; and from this fruitful source, all the sins of our hearts, and all the sins of our lives, proceed a black catalogue! and, amongst the rest, wrath stands foremost. "Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee, and the remainder of wrath shalt thou restrain.†"-" The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God;t" the wrath * Romans 5. † Psalm 76, of man, as if it was his very nature, God will restrain. Although man be the subject of so many sins, yet I do not recollect another such expression in the book of God; (it is as if he had said of the tiger"The fierceness of the tiger I will restrain;) for we do not read the like of any other particular sin-such as the lust of man, the covetousness of man, the envy of man, or the drunkenness of man; but we read of the pride and lofty looks of man, which are the general forerunners of wrath, and these shall be brought low. We find, by experience, how soon we are angry! How often full of wrath! How easily are we provoked on all occasions! No part of our life, no age, is exempt from this sin; it begins with our earliest infancy, and is carried by some of the human race to their dying moments. In the second verse of this chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, there is a similar phraseology" The children of disobe dience." They certainly cannot be the children of the disobedience of God. But disobedience is the prominent feature in children, and disobedience is particularly applicable to the ungodly; for he will "take vengeance on them that obey not the Gospel." And this term, children of wrath,' is reckoned up in these verses, (and not the slightest argument to prove that we are the children of God's wrath,) amongst the other sins they had fallen into, as a part of their conduct in the days of their unregeneracy, and as the effect of being dead in trespasses and sins. "And you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein, in times past, ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh, and of the mind; and were by |