NORTHERN MEMOIRS. 7 



Tkeapk. That is not the point in dispute. I 

 have already granted that Adam's divine graces 

 sprung spontaneously from the refulgent ray of 

 the majesty of God. But what is that to us ? 

 Can we restrain our hands from blood, and our 

 hearts from malice and precogitated sin ? Now> 

 every man knows the reward of sin is not death 

 simply, but divine justice ; and divine justice 

 bars out all the footsteps of mercy. 



Am. That's undeniable ; however, I'm con- 

 vinced, that could we but govern our own irre- 

 gularities, our passions, our ambitions, and ex- 

 orbitant desires, we should shine like stars (among 

 men,) and seem, in some sort, almost immortal. 

 Theoph. That word (almost) was well put in. 

 But to the argument as to point of government. 

 If unlike Christians we govern ourselves, we ta- 

 citly slide into the inconveniency of slaves ; and 

 such we may suspect ourselves to be, because 

 to sink under the weight of every single temp- 

 tation, by which means we sully all those excel- 

 lent privileges that adorned our protoplast in 

 his primitive state. 



Am. What state, then, must we call this, a 

 state of apostacy ? 



Theoph. You may call it what you please ; for 

 every man is in a state good or bad ; but worst 

 of all is that state that lifts up its hand to rebel 

 against Heaven : Such were the giants in the 



