6. Who could ever have supposed that such a depth of wickedness and depravity could be found in such a weak and helpless child; that so venomous a principle, so corrupt a heart, lay hid in a babe apparently so harmless? Who could possibly have believed this, had not man himself, by his sinful and abominable life, by the imaginations of his thoughts (being “only evil continually,” and desperately bent on what is bad), of his own will brought it to light, and expressed, from his childhood, what was before concealed as in a seed? Gen. 6:5; 8:21. 7. Oh! most vile and most accursed root! from which springs the poisonous tree that is so fruitful in the production of every kind of plague. Oh, seed of the serpent, most hateful, most dreadful! from which an image at once so deformed and foul is generated; and which continually enlarges itself, as it is excited by outward temptations and by the scandals of the world. Full well might the blessed Jesus so solemnly and strictly forbid, that any, by bad example, should offend little children; knowing that the seed of the serpent lurks in them, as the deadly poison in the venomous worm, ready to break forth into open acts of sin, whenever an occasion presents itself. 8. Learn, then, O man! to know the fall of Adam, and the true nature of Original Sin. Learn, if thou art wise, to discern it in thyself. Examine it, not slightly and carelessly, but deeply, and as the importance of the matter deserves; for this infection is greater, this depravation deeper and more deadly, than can possibly be expressed by words, or even be conceived in idea. “Know thyself!” and deeply consider what thou art, O man! since the fall of thy first father; how thou, who wast in the image of God, art become the image of Satan, an epitome of all his wicked tendencies, and art conformed to Satan in all malice and ungodliness. For as in the image of God all the divine virtues and properties are contained, so in the image of the Devil, which man, by turning himself from God, has contracted, all the vices and properties are to be found, and the very nature of the Devil himself. For, as man, before the fall, bore the image of the heavenly Adam, that is, was altogether heavenly, spiritual, and divine; so, since the first apostasy, he carries about with him the image of the earthly Adam, being inwardly earthly, carnal, and corrupt.