gence of irregular desire had warped the will, and blinded the understanding of the wretched victim of his delusion, the tempter rises to the most uncontrolled audacity. He proudly and blasphemously contradicts the declaration of the all true and righteous God; charges him with falsehood, and imputes that falsehood to envy and malignity. For he said unto the woman; "Ye shall not surely die; for God doth know, that in the day ye eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." And now such was the overpowering tyranny of sensual desire indulged internally without resistance, and such the proud aspiring after knowledge, power, and independence, even in defiance of God himself, which arose in a mind, allowing itself deliberately to admit a doubt of the truth and beneficence of its Creator, that they completely overpowered and obliterated all faith, all gratitude, all obedience, all fear towards God. For when "the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took and did eat, and she gave also to her husband with her, and he did eat." With him, the same indulged sensual appetite, the same impious doubts of God's truth and benignity, the same proud aspirings after prohibited knowledge and power, in defiance even of God, seem to have been assisted and strengthened by the power of excessive and inordinate affection towards the companion of all his happiness, with whom he may have desperately resolved to link his fate. And this, the narrative of his fall, as well as the plea he himself advances in answer to the inquiry of his judge, seems to intimate. He pleads, not that any deception was practised on him, or that he laboured under any doubt as to the nature of the crime, or the certainty of the punishment which awaited it; he merely alleges "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." But in him the crime was aggravated by his longer experience, and therefore more deeply impressed conviction of the creative power, and the ever-active beneficence of his God. And it appears also to have produced in time a higher degree of impiety and depravation, while, instead of deploring his guilt, with deep hu

* Gen. iii. 12; compare also 2 Tim. ii. 11 to 15.

miliation, and exclaiming, "God be merciful to me a sinner,” he attempts to transfer (as it were) the odium of his guilt even on God himself; as if he was the author of his crime, because the consort whom that God bestowed on him had yielded to temptation, and then, by the undue ascendency she had acquired over his mind, seduced him into guilt, in opposition to the clearest knowledge, the most awful sanctions, and his original power of perfect self-control.

On the view which has now been given of the fall of man, it has, I trust, appeared, that the account which revelation gives of this signal catastrophe, far from outraging reason and surpassing credibility, is conformable to the probable principles, which the soundest reflection derives from the lessons of experience and the analogy of nature.* First, that some trial and probation seems suitable to the nature of all moral beings, in order to form them to habits of virtue, and thus give them a security of happiness. And next, that the guilt man incurred, was not, as at first glance it might appear, slight and trivial, but combined ingratitude and disobedience to God, with excessive sensuality, impatience of divine restraint, and an uncontrolled ambition to be as God, in the knowledge of good and evil.

But the character most criminal and most destructive evinced in this transaction, was the total disbelief in the truth of God, and the disregard of the divine threatenings as well as promises, it manifested. To secure moral improvement and ultimate felicity, it is indispensable, that the propensities of our nature, and the determinations of our will, should be habituated to submit to the commands and follow the will of God. It is therefore necessary that FAITH SHOULD BECOME THE PRINCIPLE OF ACTION AND THE GUIDE OF LIFE; for faith alone forms a sure foundation for the religious character, and supplies the support of every virtue, the source of right conduct here, and of certain happiness hereafter. Faith assures us, not only that "God is, but that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him."† It leads us to revere the perfections, to resign ourselves to the providence, to rely on the truth, to trust in the promises, and to

Vid. Butler's Analogy, part 1, c. 5, sec. 4.-Archbishop King, de Origine Mali, chap. v. sec. 3, and Bishop Hamilton on the Divine Nature and Attributes. + Heb. xi. 6.

obey the commands of the supreme Governor of the world. This alone can secure the rectitude and the happiness of every created being. By this principle, every creature however weak and fallible, is exalted to a connexion with that supreme God, who alone can enlighten his ignorance, sustain his weakness, and secure his happiness. As long as this connection is retained, as long as this faith is preserved, the creature partakes as it were, of the wisdom and the perfection, the security and happiness of that beneficent Creator, by whose will the true believer is directed, and to whose providential guidance he resigns himself. But this principle of faith, in its practical and vital efficacy, can scarcely be tried or exercised otherwise than by habitual obedience; and obedience can be exerted only when a command is imposed, from which there is some temptation to depart. A state of trial, therefore, seems expedient for every finite creature, as tending to form them to practical faith, and thus to secure the preservation of their rectitude and their well-being.

Thus, our first parents having been placed in a state of trial, seems not only conformable to revelation, but to the deductions of reason and the analogy of nature. Hasty and superficial reasoners may pronounce it absurd or incredible, that God should expose his creatures to any trial, or any temptation, accompanied with difficulty or hazard. They may form fancied schemes of supernatural restraint, forcibly preventing any injurious deviation from right, or of supernatural wisdom and strength, constantly supplied, as each particular occasion required them. They may talk of absolute indefectible perfection originally given to prevent sin, or pardon absolutely granted as often as crime existed; of punishment never being threatened, or if threatened, never being executed. They may condemn a system of discipline and trial, as an awkward circuitous scheme, uncertain and inoperative. But such speculations appear chimerical and unscriptural. Such objections tend to overturn natural as well as revealed religion; and drive us not only out of Christianity, but into Atheism. Rejecting, therefore, all such rash and visionary speculations, and considering with humble attention, the nature of the trial to which man was first subjected, we perceive it fraught with wisdom and mercy, and clearly illus

trating the glory of the divine attributes and the perfection of God's moral government.

But above all, it exhibits by the clearest example, the free agency of man, and the conditionality of the divine covenant with the first parents of the human race. "Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat, for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." This was the condition; and to comply with this condition our first parents were evidently enabled, by their being formed "after the image of God." Their reason enlightened and directed, their propensities moderate and subordinate, their enjoyments various and fully competent to bestow such happiness, as they ought to have been satisfied with, their conviction of the existence of their Creator and supreme Lord clear and certain, their information as to the nature of their duty distinct and full, and every possible care short of absolute compulsory restraint, taken to preserve them in their obedience, they were undoubtedly free to stand or fall, subject to no fixed necessity, their conduct determined by no antecedent decree. Nothing can be more repugnant to every semblance of Calvinistic predestination than the plain tenor of this great transaction with the first parents of mankind. And indeed the great majority of Calvinistic writers avowedly maintain the freedom of Adam, and his sufficiency by the nature God had bestowed on him, to fulfil the command imposed on him as the test of his obedience. They maintain this whenever they labour to illustrate the great change made in human nature by the fall; which they state to have consisted in the loss of this freedom, and in the slavery of the will to sin which then took place. And this slavery they represent as prevailing universally over the entire human race, and unconquerable in any except the individuals selected from eternity, according to an unconditional decree of irrespective predestination, in consequence of which the irresistible influence of divine grace ultimately leads them into the path of indefectible obedience, and infallibly secures their final salvation; while the rest of the fallen race are left without will or power to resist the slavery of sin; and according to an eternal decree of reprobation, are abandoned without hope or help, to unavoidable guilt here and eternal punishment hereafter. It is obvious, that

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this scheme represents the situation of our first parents as directly opposite to that of all their posterity, and the divine conduct towards them and all their successors, without any similitude or analogy, the perdition or salvation of the latter being altogether independent of their own conduct or choice. This, in the very first view, seems a strange and contradictory opinion, as improbable in theory as it has been shown (I trust) to be different from the whole tenor of the sacred records, as these detail the subsequent dispensations of the God of Justice and Mercy to the fallen race of man. But this circumstance is more immediately connected with our next subject of inquiry, which will be, the deplorable consequences of this fall to Adam and all his posterity, and afterwards the contemplation of the great scheme of redemption, combining supreme justice with mercy, preserving the authority of the divine law, and yet preventing the destruction of fallen, guilty man.

In the mean time, let the contemplation of that sin by which death was introduced into the world, with all its miseries, impress on us the salutary instruction it is calculated to convey. Let it warn us against indulging even in thought, irregular desires, or exposing ourselves to the influence of sensual temptations, or the contagion of irreligious society. Let it warn us against harbouring any distrust of the truth of God's word, or any doubt of the accomplishment of those sacred promises which insure to those who believe in and obey God, eternal happiness; or of those solemn threatenings which denounced the severest future punishment against impiety and vice. And let it especially warn us against that impious presumption which, affecting a wisdom beyond the reach of human capacity, undervalues and rejects revelation, though supported by the clearest evidence; because its account of the divine nature and counsels contains mysteries which we cannot fathom, and difficulties which we cannot solve.

And may the divine aid assist our feeble efforts, strengthen our weak resolutions, and direct our steps into the paths of righteousness, and through the valley of the shadow of death, lead us into the region of eternal blessedness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be all honour and glory, now and for ever.—Amen, and amen!