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If it be true, that "as in water face answereth to face, so does the heart of man to man, it will, we trust, be equally apparent to the reader before he closes this volume, that "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son."

NEW YORK, September, 1850.

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RESPONSES

FROM

THE SACRED ORACLES.

A

THE SONS OF THE FIRST MAN.

LL inquiries respecting man are of trifling import compared with his relations to God and futurity. It is certain that as he alone of all terrene existences is gifted with intelligence, he alone can hold communion with an intelligent immaterial Creator. That such a being exists, the world with its countless appearances of design, all irreconcilable with our experience of accidental effect, distinctly intimates: and, if God's existence cannot be legitimately questioned, it is unreasonable to suppose that he created such a world as this, without any assignable end, or formed man to abandon him to the control of his animal instincts. The simple admission that man is a creature, implies that he was not left to the slow operation of unaided reason to discover the Author and the end of his existence. To have created man, and not imparted to him whatever degree of knowledge was necessary to enable him to perform at once the highest purposes of his being, would have been inconsistent with that benevolent wisdom which the Creator has displayed even in the minutest of his works.

Hence the presumption in favour of an original Revelation to man; and, by consequence, of the authenticity and genuineness of the Mosaic Record; a record which has all the proof the nature of the case admits of; which might have been readily compiled from traditional history preserved beyond the Deluge, when the length of antediluvian life rendered the tradition from

Adam to Abraham safe.in its transmission, and free from corruption; which, from its extreme antiquity, is essentially independent of all external testimony; yet, in its principal facts, has more historical and moral, if not more positive and collateral testimony in its favour, than any other events in the annals of the world.

It is foreign from our purpose to investigate its credibility; this we assume; not, however, for the purpose of fabricating a theory in religion and morals, but to aid us in an inquiry of transcendent importance.

It must be admitted that man's judgment is apt to be swayed by his early educational impressions; still, such impressions may be right; and it is within the province of mind to discriminate between essential principles and adventitious notions; by a logical process of thought to separate the true from the false, and by the absolute laws of human testimony to distinguish fact from fable. Our prepossessions, if in favour of truth, need but facilitate our inquiries after truth; and as all spiritual truths disclose deeper relations to the mind when believed from the heart, so our belief in Christianity may lead to the discovery of new arguments in its support, where the sceptic would be blind, or the philosopher could but theorize. Indeed, the darkness of antiquity cannot be explored without the torchlight of Christianity. It is to the Record of the creation, what science is, in any attempt to decipher the hieroglyphics of Egypt; and whether we would explore the past or pry into the future, alike indispensable as the guide and reward of all our inquiries. Wonderful system! which comprehends the several dispensations of God to man, from the beginning to the consummation of all things! hardly less to be prized for the discoveries which it makes, than for the hopes which it inspires!

Now if man fell from his original estate of moral purity, and provision was made for his final deliverance from the guilt and power of sin through faith in a Divine Redeemer, it were to be presumed that his early history would serve to elucidate matters of such moment to the human family. Should his true history, if such be extant, be wanting in facts to guide inquiry and warrant legitimate conclusions, then, whatever the formula of schools or the deductions of speculative reason, it could not be proved that "by man sin entered into the world, and death

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