An act of volition on the part of the Most High, first called them into being; a continued act of volition on his part supports them there, and it requires but a cessation of that act, if we may so express ourselves, in order to return them all to the nothingness from which they originally came. It is therefore a grevious error to perplex ourselves as to the probable state of the human soul, had God's sentence been carried fully into execution, without the intervention of any propitiatory Mediator. In this case, when the whole machine, the soul and the body of each man, had served its destined purpose, the latter would have been resolved into its elements or constituent parts, whilst the former, separated from the organs or implements by which it works, would have ceased to exist. But it suited not the goodness of the Creator to deal thus with his creature, whom he had once blessed with a vision of immortality. The same address which condemned Adam to return into dust, gave assurance that a Deliverer would arise to restore to him, and to all his descendants, the free gift just forfeited: and as with God "one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day," the effects of the great sacrifice on the cross were instantly felt.

With respect again to the moral consequences of the first transgression, both upon the culprits themselves, and upon their descendants, they were neither less serious nor less certain than its physical consequences. The innocence which had hitherto covered them as with a robe of light, was no more, and inflamed passions, with reasoning powers weakened and deformed, rendered both them and their children prone to evil. Whether this arose from some poisonous ingredient in the fruit itself, or was the mere offspring of that great law of mental association to which all living things are more or less obedient, the results were precisely the same. Man ceased, from that hour, to be the upright and innocent creature which he once was; and his offspring, to the latest posterity, are very far gone from original righteousness.

It is much to be regretted, that with a view of the case so intelligible as this, the metaphysical subtleties of the schoolmen should have mixed up questions which have with revealed truth no connection. Among the number of these, we have no hesitation in classing one which has produced many controversies in the Church of Christ-we mean the inquiry, how far we partake in the guilt of our first parents: -in other words, how far it is or is not possible that guilt,

and a proneness to guilt, should descend by inheritance. No sane person will now, it is presumed, contend that we are any where in Scripture called upon to repent of the sin of Adam, or that, in the proper sense of the term guilt, we are at all chargeable with it; but that we reap the fruits of the first act of rebellion, both in our physical and moral natures, is undeniable. To the commission of that crime may be traced back, as to the fountain-head, the diseases, the misery, and the temporal death to which we are liable; whilst of his own innate tendency to indulge his passions, at the expense of probity and right reason, there is no man whose personal experience fails to convince him. No doubt, the death of the Redeemer has more than counterbalanced these evils. The free gift of immortality, as regained by him, is now ensured to the whole human race beyond the possibility of forfeiture, whilst the means of attaining to an immortality of happiness lie equally within the reach of all. But that the original taint, as it has somewhat unfortunately been termed, still remains, no man who examines the workings of his own heart will deny, and we are without ground for imagining that it will cease to operate till the consummation of all things. We cannot close this chapter without a few remarks in reply to certain popular objections which have been occasionally brought against the entire history. Without pausing to partícularize these, it may suffice to state, that they resolve themselves into a decision, that the transactions recorded in the second chapter of Genesis, are to be taken not as realities, but as an allegory. Thus the man is to be regarded as emblematical of reason, the woman of sense, and the talking serpent of concupiscence; and hence the whole history denotes nothing more than the defection of the soul from God. We need scarcely observe, that whoever believes this to be the case, can have no steady or fixed belief in any part of Scripture, which throughout treats this narrative as a detail of facts; and least of all can the doctrine of the atonement be admitted by the advocates of so strange a theory. If the fall be merely an allegorical fall, the recovery must be allegorical also, and the whole gospel resolves itself into a tedious and even mischievous allegory.

Philosophers have, we believe, been led into these absurdities by the notion, that the narrative of Moses records events equally unworthy both of God and man. The temptation of an apple in particular, has been held up to unrestrained ridicule, as well as the account or the serpent's VOL. I.-F

conversation with the woman; whilst the punishment is pronounced to be out of all proportion too severe, for an offence in itself so trivial.

In answer to the observations touching the suspension of so inestimable a benefit, upon the eating or not eating of a particular fruit, we beg to observe, that, circumstanced as our first parents are represented to have been, it appears very difficult to devise any other, not to say any more appropriate, test of their faith and obedience. Of no moral crime, in the ordinary meaning of the term, could they be guilty. With the whole world for their possession, they could neither steal, nor covet, nor defraud; without another man or woman in existence, they could not commit adultery; for deceit or falsehood there was no room; to blasphemy they, to whom the glory of Almighty God was daily made manifest, could not well give utterance; how then could they be tried, except by the establishment of some arbitrary test? and what test so natural, as that of some fruit tempting to the eye, and doubtless of singular fragrance? The objection, therefore, if made at all, must not stop where it does. It must go on, and condemn all trial, because none besides that which actually occurred can be conceived. Now this, so far from diminishing, would only increase our perplexities a thousand-fold;-is it not therefore wiser and better to receive the declarations of Holy Writ literally, as they are made? The talking serpent is, without doubt, an extraordinary occurrence, view it how we may; but let us not therefore treat it as a fiction. It is at least not more surprising than the raising of the dead, of which no professed Christian doubts; whilst it may, after all, involve no such contradiction as has at first sight been supposed. Let it be borne in mind that the whole transaction is represented by the inspired historian, as something quite distinct from the ordinary occurrences of nature. A spirit possessed of great power is stated to have been the immediate agent-the serpent is said to have been the instrument, and nothing more than the instrument, by which that spirit acted. Now until we can explain with accuracy how it comes about,that spirit operates upon matter at all, it is not for us to declare, that this particular mode of operation was, or is impossible; whilst its very contradiction to the dictates of her own experience may be supposed to have had its full weight in leading the woman into the commission of the crime against which she

had been warned. If, as Milton represents him to have done, the tempter urged as a reason why she should eat of the fruit, that its juice had endowed him, an animal naturally dumb, with the faculty of speech; can we conceive any argument more weighty with one already more than halfdisposed to seek for knowledge at all hazards? Be this, however, as it may, we see nothing in the record itself, calculated to excite the reasonable distrust of any reflecting person. It holds its place in a volume confessedly and avowedly declarative of events out of the pale of ordinary calculation; and if that volume can be proved to be authentic, there seems to be no more reason for rejecting this, than other narratives to the full as extraordinary.

Lastly, in answer to such as contend, that the punishment awarded was wholly disproportionate to the degree of guilt incurred, it is sufficient to observe, that the punishment was simply a return on the part of man, to a state of nature, whilst the offence was as rank and flagrant an act of rebel. lion as ever was committed. A man is no less a thief who steals all that he can, provided that all be one shilling, than is his neighbour who steals all that comes within his reach, because it chances to be a bag of diamonds. Adam was as much disobedient to the will of God, in eating the forbidden fruit, as Aaron was disobedient, when he framed and worshipped the golden calf.

Finally, it is absurd to demand, why did God expose man to such a trial, knowing, as he unquestionably did, that man would fall? He who goes on asking such questions can never be fully satisfied, because, while we see through a glass darkly, it is in vain to expect that we shall obtain a satisfactory insight into God's designs in creating at all; but thus much we may observe, that if God foresaw how the trial would end, as he undeniably did, he likewise provided a more adequate remedy for the evil. Moreover, God having created man a free and responsible agent, it was right that an opportunity of exercising that freedom should be afforded; and though the issue was calamitous in no ordinary degree, it may be more than doubted whether man would have been so happy as he is, had no such opportunity of erring occured. Freedom of will is necessarily allied to a liability to err; and the former being as essential to happiness as to responsibility, it was better that it should be ours, fraught with danger as it is, than that we should fill the place of mere machines in God's universe. But above

all, when we consider how God interfered to heal the wound which Adam's frailty inflicted, we shall not it is presumed, cast a shadow of reproach upon our most beneficent Creator: it is enough for us to know, that if God permitted Adam, in the exercise of his free will, to fall, and to incur for himself and his posterity the sad calamity of death, he also, by the sacrifice of his own beloved Son, has more than restored to us the station which our great ancestor once filled in Paradise.

CHAPTER III.

Offspring of our first Parents.-Death of Abel.-Descendants of Cain and Seth.-Gradual peopling of the earth.-Noah and his family.--The Deluge.-Objections stated and answered.

A. M. 100 to A. M. 2257.-B. C. 5311 to 3154.

It has been shown that, previous to passing upon Adam the awful sentence of death, God cursed the earth with barrenness for his sake, and, to fulfil this curse, he caused a change greatly for the worse to take place in the temperature of the atmosphere. This was done not in anger, but in pity-not through any exuberance of wrath, such as frequently prompts us to heap execrations upon things inanimate, but that Adam, now rendered mortal, might have the less cause to regret that his sojourn in this world was not to be for everlasting. That men's affections for earth and earthly things become light, and easily withdrawn, in proportion as their lives make up a continued series of privations, the experience of every day proves; and as death is necessarily far more terrible in anticipation than in reality, God only acted with his accustomed goodness, when he caused the future career of our first father to partake at least as much of privation as of enjoyment. But though condemned to inhabit a world from which his subsistence was henceforth to be extracted only by the sweat of his brow, man was not entirely deserted by his Maker, or left to discover, through the efforts of his own genius, every means for the alleviation of his sorrows. Almighty God having vouchsafed to him the religious institution of sacrifice, as a type of that great act which should in aftertimes