esis was for the single pair; in the Apocalypse it is for nations, yielding fruit of twelve kinds, and every month-or rather, perhaps, as bearing twelve crops, one every month. "The precept given to Adam was at once the test of his obedience and the token of his dependence. A moral precept would not have answered so well, for moral duties recommend themselves by their intrinsic fitness as well as by the authority which enjoins them. But in this precept man had only the mere will of God to regard as the rule of his obedience. It has been thought strange that the trial of man was not by something more grand. But this is to measure the Deity by ourselves. The eye fixes on the state of the mind, and that is discovered in the smallest matters. If a feeble temptation prevailed, could a more powerful one have failed of success?' It may be remarked, too, that by this test alone was he to be tried, that in no other quarter was his innocence to be brought into peril; and when to this we add the gentleness of it, we must admit that the terms in which it has been condemned are no less foolish than they are impious."Dr. Belfrage. "Primitive man was brought into a constitution of things in which every object was calculated and designed to influence him, and each to influence him differently from all the rest. But then he himself was endowed with a constitution capable of classifying these objects according to their real importance, and of regulating their power over himself accordingly. Hence the spirit and design of the primal prohibition. It told him, in effect, that he possessed a fixed constitution, including the power of self-government; that he stood at the head of created things, and was capable of governing them; that he must not, therefore, allow himself to be governed by them; and that his security, happiness, duty, required that his will should harmonize with the supreme will; in a word, that his constitution was formed in harmony with the divine constitution, and could find perfection only by voluntary conformity to it."-Dr. J. Harris. "There was light in his understanding, sanctity in his will, and rectitude in his affections; so that his members yielded to his affections, his affections to his will, his will obeyed his reason; and his reason was subject to the will of God."-Thomas Boston. 66 Again and again on the monuments of Egypt do we find this tree of life, with many branches and many fruits. Often from the midst of its leaves and boughs a female arm is stretched, (the Wisdom of the Book of Proverbs?) pouring from a golden urn streams of living water into the thirsty lips of men and women and children......And it is the same more or less with the hieroglyphs of other nations. On the ruins of great Assyrian cities which have been recently laid open and brought among us, we find everywhere the sacred tree; obviously the most holy of all symbols, beneath which kings and priests stand in veneration. The religion of the Zend-a-vesta also looks to a mysterious tree as connected with all the life and joy and blessedness which belonged to the kingdom of Ormuzd. Even in the tree-worship of Buddhism, in the legend which connects the sacred fig-tree with its founder's attainment of that supreme wisdom by which he became one with the impersonal intelligence of the universe, which he strangely identified with the highest blessedness attainable by man, we may possibly trace a dim, distorted refraction of the beauty of the original symbol."-Rev. E. H. Plumptre, D.D. "In Eastern poetry they tell of a wondrous tree on which grew golden apples and silver bells; and every time the breeze went by and tossed the fragrant branches, a shower of these golden apples fell, and the living bells they chimed and tinkled forth their airy ravishment. On the gospel tree there grow melodious blossoms-sweeter bells than those which mingled with the pomegranates on Aaron's vest, holy feelings, heaven-taught joys;...and when the Holy Spirit breathes upon the soul, there is the shaking down of mellow fruits, and the flow of healthy odours all around, and the gush of sweetest music, whose gentle tones and joyful echoings are wafted through all the recesses of the soul."-Dr. James Hamilton. "Be strong, live happy, and love! But, first of all, His great command: take heed, lest passion sway I in thy persevering shall rejoice, And all the blest. Stand fast! to stand, or fall, Perfect within, no outward aid require; And all temptation to transgress repel."-Milton. QUEST. 13. Did our first parents continue in the estate wherein they were created? ANS. Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the estate wherein they were created, by sinning against God. ECCLES. vii. 29. Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions. GEN. iii. 13. And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. ROM. V. 12. By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin. I. The original state of man.-He was left to the freedom of his own will. Free agency is an essential characteristic of human nature. It consists in a liberty of choice and will. Man was endowed with intelligence, reason, and conscience, and with responsibility for his actions. He was also created holy and righteous. But his state was fallible, and made dependent upon his free will. His duty was made plain by promise and by threatening. II. The fall from that state.-Man fell from righteousness into guilt, from holiness into depravity, from liberty into bondage, from the love of God into enmity, and from happiness into misery. III. The cause of the fall of our first parents.-It is here stated to be sin against God. God had given them a law, had entered into covenant with them, had laid them under obligation. They had accepted his arrangement, and were possessed of its privileges. But they sinned, and broke the covenant; they disobeyed God, and transgressed his law: Rom. v. 12; Hos. vi. 7, margin. The sin was their own deliberate act. LESSONS. 1. Man was accountable to God for his actions. 2. God ever deals with us as responsible. 3. One sin transgresses the whole law, as it sets God's authority at defiance: James ii. 10. 4. One sinner can destroy much good: Joshua vii. 5. One sin can ruin a soul: Ezek. xviii. 4. ANECDOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. A godly minister, having preached on the doctrine of original sin, was afterwards waited on by some persons, who stated their objection to what he had advanced. After hearing them, he said, “I hope you do not deny actual sin too." "No," they replied. The good man expressed his satisfaction at their acknowledgment; but to show the folly of their opinions in denying a doctrine so plainly taught in Scripture, he asked them, “Do you ever see a tree growing without a root?" "I overheard a discourse," says one, "something like altercation, between a deacon, his son, and servants. Some one had informed him that the cattle had broken into the corn-field, and were making great ravages. His servants were ordered to make haste and turn them out, and repair the breach. 'How came they in there?' said one. 'Which way did they get in?' said another. 'It is impossible; the fences are good,' said a third. 'Don't stand here talking to no purpose,' cried the deacon with increased earnestness; 'they are in the field destroying the corn. I see them with my own eyes. Out with them speedily, and put up the fence.' As I approached he became more calm. 'Your pardon, sir; these fellows have quite vexed me. They make one think of our pastor's sermon on the origin of sin; spending his time needlessly inquiring how it came into the world, while he ought to be exhorting us to drive it out."" When the English Reformer, John Bradford, saw a culprit on his way to the scaffold, he is reported to have said, "There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford." Melancthon, after he was advanced in the Christian life, was accustomed to say, in reference to the native corruption in him, that he found "the old Adam stronger than the young Melancthon." When Colonel Gardiner received a challenge to fight a duel, he replied, "I fear sinning, though you know, sir, I do not fear fighting." "Set not thyself against God's any law! The train that speeds thy neighbour to his home QUEST. 14. What is sin? ANS. Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God. Sin is a great evil in the sight of God, and stands in opposition to the law of God. Man was made under law, and bound to obey. I. Sin is any want of conformity unto the law of God.-The law of God is his revealed will in the moral nature of man, or conscience, and in the Scripture. It is extensive as man's being. Want of conformity indicates more than negation. It is the want of purity of heart and will-want of congeniality with the holiness of God. Not coming up to the standard given by God is sin: 1 John iii. 4. The corrupt heart is sin, and brings forth corrupt fruit: Luke vi. 44, 45. A want of entire obedience is sin: James ii. 10. II. Sin is transgression of the law of God: 1 John iii. 4.-The law defines duty and limits moral conduct. Disobedience of that law is passing the boundary, and is sin. The transgression of a law of nature is sin: Rom. ii. 14, 15. Much more is a breach of written law a sin: James iv. 17. III. Sin occasions guilt and pollution.-It makes the transgressor answerable to divine justice. It deserves punishment, because blameworthy. It defiles the soul, and makes it morally vile both to the sinner and to God. It degrades the soul. Scripture speaks of sins of ignorance, Lev. iv. 2, as needing forgiveness; and of sins of presumption or deliberate act: Ps. xix. 13. The want of right affections, and the acts of wrong affections, are sins in the sight of God, and polluting to the soul. IV. Sin is the condition or act of a moral agent, such as man.-It cannot truly be ascribed to any creature devoid of intelligence and responsibility. LESSONS. 1. Sin is a great evil in the sight of God. He says, "Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate :" Jer. xliv. 4. 2. It is ruinous to all who indulge it. "Be sure your sin will find you out:" Num. xxxii. 23; Ezek. xviii. 4. 3. It ought to be always guarded against. "How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" Gen. xxxix. 9. "Abstain from all appearance of evil:" 1 Thess. v. 22. "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not:" 1 John ii. 1. 4. "Christ hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God:" 1 Peter iii. 18. ANECDOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. A minister explaining the distinction between sins of omission and commission, said, “Behold yonder fire which lately burned with so much brightness. It is now dull. Let it alone, it will soon go out; but if you pour water on it, you will put it out." The first is omission, the second commission. Archbishop Ussher in his last days was often heard praying, "Lord, forgive my sins, especially my sins of omission." At a missionary station in South Africa, among the Hottentots, a question was asked at some children in a class: "Do we possess anything that we have not received of God?" A little girl five years old immediately answered, "Yes, sir; SIN." A rich lady one day, when she heard a person speaking of all as sinners, said with great surprise, "But ladies are not sinners!" "Then who are?" she was asked. "Just young men in their foolish days." The Bible says, "There is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God:" Rom. iii. 22, 23. "The existence of sin," says Dr. Hodge, "is an undeniable fact. No man can examine his own nature, or observe the conduct of his fellow-men, without having the conviction forced upon him that there is such an evil as sin. This is not a purely moral or theological question. It falls also within the province of philosophy, which assumes to explain all the phenomena of human nature as well as of the external world. Philosophers, therefore, of every age and of every school have been compelled to discuss this subject.' The Rev. John Newton once said of a certain preacher, "I never heard him preach but once; and then he made this observation: 'If you ask me what a sinner is, I answer, he is a young devil; and if you wish to know what a devil is, I answer, an old sinner."" Jeremy Taylor says that whosoever sins against light, kisses the lips of a blazing cannon. 66 'The young," says Mr. Ward Beecher, "are seldom tempted to outright wickedness ; evil comes to them as an enticement. The honest generosity and fresh heart of youth would revolt from open wickedness and undisguised vice. The adversary conforms his wiles to their nature. He tempts them to the basest deeds by beginning with comparatively innocent ones, gliding to more exceptionable, and finally to positively wicked ones.' "My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not." "Resist beginnings. Whatsoe'er is ill, Though it appear light and of little moment, |