is descended from one pair of ancestors; but may be taken to mean that there is one flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. (I Cor. xv. 39.) This, however, cannot be proved, the argument falls to the ground when we consider the whole force of the statement, we are all the offspring of God. (Acts xvii. 26-28.) The unity of men is further evidenced by death and redemption,—“ In Adam all die, in Christ all are made alive." (Rom. v. 12-14; 1 Cor. xv. 22, 49.) If there are other men than the Adamite, not having his image, they have not his redemption, nor any heavenly image. To say that the Mongol and Negro partake of redemption, just as four-footed beasts, and wild beasts, and creeping things were presented to Peter (Acts x. 11-15), is to misconceive the whole thing. The Mongol and Negro, if pre-Adamite, did not sin in Adam, are not of his race, nor possessors of the blessing of redemption.

We conclude, that the Adam of Scripture was the first man; and admitting, on Scriptural and scientific grounds, that the human frame is that structure which crowned the long process of organic life on the earth, firmly maintain that the first man, Adam, not only manifested a great and marked difference and improvement in structure, excelling all other creatures, but, in the essence of his nature, in personal consciousness, intellect, and emotion, excelled them in a degree that is immeasurable and practically infinite. That which so differenced him from the animal, which the science of physics cannot hope to detect, barely hope to conjecture, was a spirit uniting the fleshly organism and the rational animal life into an immortal personality.

In connection with this personality appeared an evil of most appalling character-Sin. Sin is a wilful violation of law; is an act or a course of conduct voluntarily pursued to the damage of physical or moral completeness of life. Law is disclosed in every throb of the mighty rhythmic life of the universe, law is implicated in every action of our life, obedience to it is our only guarantee of purity and happiness. Man, in pure personality, had God's love; and his own love to God, occupying will thought and feeling, determined the sanctity of his whole being. By entrance of sin that personality became impure, and

Death Prior to Adam.

293 unity with God was dissolved; for evil will made Divine will appear loveless. We cannot fully understand this; there is some great secret reserved to be made known hereafter to holy men; but we know that the effect of lawlessness was to raise strife in the soul, so that the spirit and flesh became contrary (Gal. v. 7)—strife issuing in death of the spirit by separation from God.

We must not forget that death reigned in the world before Adam either lived or sinned. From the very earliest times our earth has been an arena of strife; hence we are led to think that evil originated in a preceding existence and amongst other beings. "The opening chapters of Genesis unquestionably set us down, not at the earliest but in a subsequent the middle-stage of the mighty action, which it is the purpose of Scripture to unroll. Far away in the unfathomed depths of the earliest times, and pre-hexameral period, lies the beginning of the story; far onward in the future lies its consummation; indeed, in some sense, that is, if we regard the design and the result, the narrative stretches from one eternity to another." This complexity and continuance—affecting body and soul, and contaminating with guilt-shroud Adam's death with mysterious horrors of woeful anticipation, and make it a death which had not previously existed a death entering by sin. (Rom. v. 12.)

1

It is natural for us to wonder that even one wail of sorrow should mingle with the wide chorus of thanksgiving to God; and when we contemplate the past horrors desolating every land, and the possible future unimaginable eternal anguish to be endured by rebels against the Almighty, our amazement becomes an awful dread of some dire reality and calamity which even Infinite love, Divine wisdom and almightiness may not be able to prevent without violating the purity of moral government. We can conceive that Omniscience may have foreseen that the gift of freedom would render it impossible for the whole universe of spirits to be preserved. So far as man is concerned, we can also see that linking the inevitable danger with a type to show its reality and the unreasonable folly of transgression; and the giving a simple, 1 "Science and Scripture:" Rev. Philip Freeman.

earnest warning, joined with dread penalty, would be the best and only restrictions which purely moral rule could allow. Our feeble nature moreover can form a true conception of Omnipotence in creation, of wisdom in Providence, of love in redemption. By Creation, God calls into existence all the worlds, -occupying them with manifold forms of beauty, and giving them for abodes to living creatures,-small as a point of matter, grand as a seraph before the Throne. By Providence the world of matter is subjected to the physical law of God, and the world of spirit or intelligence to the moral order of God, spreading the profusion of Divine bounty, and executing Divine decrees. By Redemption is supplied guidance for the erring, strength for the weak, moral suasion, motives, spiritpower, pardon for the sinner; that every fallen being who wills it may be rescued from degradation and elevated to life and honour. Thus, in some degree, we realise that freedom of the creature may involve the possibility and thereby an actuality of evil, which even the Supreme may not be able to prevent, except by departure from the principle of moral rule.

Evil is so intense, that sometimes we would that it be put an end to at once. We say,-"Let present misery and future anguish in no wise be permitted." We must not be rash in decision. The malignant influences, painfully felt by us, and our spiritual dangers, “as tenants of this haunted planet," we may be sure, tend to some good end. They are so wrought into the physical and moral plan of the universe that they cannot be regarded as a surprise on the Almighty, or as an unforeseen calamity. The mighty tempter of man, whom we believe to be a subtle, fallen archangel, manifested by that temptation, how great a degradation had come upon him by wickedness. That archangel chose evil for his good; the fact of choice proves freedom, brings in responsibility, and casts out necessity; even as freedom in its very essence includes power of choice, and thereby capacity to bring in evil. Man possesses powers of the same nature, but less in degree. If we set before us the essential contrast of light and darkness, of good and evil; that good becomes a higher good by trial, and evil a greater evil by refusal of good; that truth must be manifested as separate from a

lie, and righteousness must be displayed as opposed to unrighteousness; that through eternal ages the height and depth of truth and right may be seen; we shall begin to know that the mystery of iniquity is a necessary mystery that a parenthesis of misery must, some time or other, be brought within the Divine rule. If you say,-" But for sin I might be happy as a glorious seraph, enjoy an overflow of blessing, and have deep insight of Divine goodness; and why should this good not be given, instead of having to be wrought out by the misery of millions?" We reply," The highest and best gift, to created beings is freedom; freedom involves choice, responsibility, and the possibility of transgression. Shall no free existences be created? nothing to love God? nothing able by choice to say, 'Lord, we are Thine and Thou art ours!' why, this would be sin's most awful triumph! fatal in the casting down of moral perfection and goodness! perverse in turning liberty, which is guided by motive and reason, into supremacy of blind and inevitable fate!" For God not to create because free beings must necessarily have power to abuse His bounty were folly indeed. "How can we conceive a more awful triumph of evil, than that its dark and hateful spectre, while yet unborn, should tie up the hands of the Almighty from the noblest exercise of His creative wisdom, and imprison His infinite riches of goodness within His own bosom; so that matter should never exist, because it might issue in a soulless and infinite chaos; and no reasonable souls ever spring to life, to love and adore their Creator, lest the dark power of evil should seize upon them, in spite of all His perfection, and drag them down into an abyss of ruin. To deny life to infinite numbers of holy and happy beings, whom His power could create and His wisdom govern, and in whom His goodness might delight itself for ever, through the fear of the victory of evil, in the abuse of His own gifts-what were this but for the Supremely Good to play the coward and the murderer, and thus to deny His own being, and renounce His Godhead, lest the abusers of His free bounty should suffer the just punishment of their crimes ?"1

There may be mercy even in the condemnation. Punish

1 "Difficulties of Belief,” pp. 66, 67: Professor Thomas Rawson Birks.

ment may be Divine medicine, the alone effectual, for sin of the soul. Every stroke of God, as a rectifier, may not only be against hatred and all evil, but much more for the enlargement of love wisdom and joy. We may be sure that the power of God has not gone beyond His wisdom, nor wisdom exceeded goodness.

Allowing that wisdom permits the entrance of evil, and forbids the exercise of physical power in its destructionevil coming out of freedom granted to angels and men, evil is not an arbitrary thing on God's part; nor are we to think that Divine Omnipotence means the power to condense into a single moment the great results of the revealed plan of mercy. Granting that evil is a veiling to some, and a casting down to others, it is an unveiling to many more, and the disciplinary means of receiving power to ascend beyond the former height. Trials, which strand or sink some, are as those tempests on the sea, which purify the land and make mariners skilfully bold. Men are not victims to "the ruffian violence of an impure reprobate ethereal race." The poet may write— "Video meliora proboque,

Deteriora sequor,"

and the saint exclaim, "the good that I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do;" nevertheless, God gives victory to the valiant, and the ruin of those that perish must be ascribed wholly to their own sin; not to the denial, on God's part, of grace. Moreover, who can tell what may happen "when their irremovable sorrow finds beneath it a still lower depth of Divine compassion, and the sinful creature, in its most forlorn estate, and in its utter shame, encounters the amazing vision of tender, condescending, and infinite love?"1

It may be seen from such reflections that sin, in the fact of provision against its existence, and provision for its destruction, drives out chance and fate from the world. The living God has ordered that we shall have the power of life in ourselves, and be free. We are free: not a man lives but knows that his freedom counts for something in the world. Even the physical struggle is not so much pitiless and embittered, as an adjustment of endless variety, and a display of power 1 "Difficulties of Belief," p. 239: Professor Thomas Rawson Birks.