merciful God, did not admit our first parents to mercy; to repent and be forgiven, especially if they should sin no more in the like manner; but become thenceforth absolutely obedient to his word; to be restored to his favour; to have, without dying, eternal life? Would not this have more clearly answered our reasonable apprehension, concerning the nature of the goodness of God, than that he should purpose to allot us to go through a life of many sins, and much original and ac quired infirmity; at last, indeed, to have a way through death, unto this immortality? I answer, an inspired writer has suggested an answer to this query: If, says he, we believe not, yet he abideth faithful; he cannot deny himself. If God had denounced that man should die, unless he would keep the commandment which had been enjoined him, it could not be, that he, for whom it is impossible to lie,' should, after our first parents had herein transgressed, still admit them not to know that death, which he had most expressly declared against such transgression. To this we may unquestionably add further; that if it had not been most fit, in the reason and nature of things, that man now should die, the unerring goodness and wisdom of God would not have threatened nor appointed this punishment; which, I think, is suggested by Moses: behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lesthe live for ever." The meaning of the words will, I dare say, by none be thought, that the man, by eating the forbidden tree, was actually become wise as Matth. xxv. 34. 2 Tim. ii. 13. u Gen. iii. 22. The God is wise; knowing, as God is knowing. This, in fact, was not true; and, in the nature of the thing, was impossible. But they point out for our consideration, that the man, whom God had made so that he ought to be kept in the hand of God's counsel, had now taken upon him to be guided, contrary to God's directions, by his own. The creature was not made intrinsically allwise, not endowed with a beam of unerring wisdom, not capable of being to himself a steady dictator in every thing that was right, for the guidance of his life. creature, able indeed to reason, but liable often to reason not aright, had now set himself up to judge, without dependance upon what God had said or should say to him, what should be his good and what his evil: and now, lest---he live for ever. The point, here intimated, seems to be, whether it could be meet, that this creature, now subject to vanity, should be indulged with a peccant immortality? And here, how ought we to consider, that to Snatch from God's hand the balance 1 to venture to define, contrary to what is, what we may think might better have been his dispensations to his creatures; to Rejudge his justice, be the God of God, POPE. is a most blind employment; rather examining, what is * Quartus gradus et altissimus eorum, qui naturâ boni sapientesque gignuntur, quibus a principio innascitur ratio, recta constansque quæ supra hominem putanda est, Deoque tribuenda. Cic. de Nat. Deor. ubi sup. y Wisdom ii. 1. declared to have been, in fact, his purpose towards us; and considering, how, although he made man upright,* just and right, Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall: MILTON, Par. Lost, b. iii. man had of God Although All he could have Id. Ibid. consistently with his being a free agent---; I say, considering, that although man was thus created, yet God, foreknowing how our first parents would abuse their liberty, did verily fore-ordain, before the foundation of the world, a man to be the power and wisdom of God unto our salvation. We may reasonably apprehend, however apt we are to judge otherwise, that if God had not known that our first parents, in eating of the tree, had begun a thought, which (whilst they and their posterity remained free agents) would not be so changed as we may imagine; he would not have denounced nor executed upon man that sentence of death, which obtains against us. We may observe further, that if this is indeed the appointment of God; as we have all reason to say of all that is so, Whatever is, is right, Y so it must unquestionably be true, that if there could have been some better way provided for us, than what a Eccles. vii. 29. See Romans i. 26. 1 Cor. i. 24. 1 Peter i. 20. is appointed, such way would have been given to us. But since this is the way, and we can prove from the scriptures, that we may, if we will, through this dispensation of God toward us, come at length to an eternal life; hence we rightly conclude, that although it doth not yet appear what we shall be, nor how every particular of God's appointments doth conspire to connect and make up the one universal design of Him, of whom the whole family of the heavens and the earth is named: yet nothing can be more commendable in us, than to believe and confess, that both great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty! and just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. A consequence of the Fall, I apprehend, must have been, that a depravity of the mind of man gradually arose, and was occasioned by it. God, at first, made man upright, yashar, not inclined to any evil; but man was, when thus upright, to be immortal. After the As in matters of speculation and philosophical enquiry, the only judge of what is right or wrong, is reason and experience; so, in matters either of human testimony or divine revelation, the only certain rule of truth is the testimony of the revelation itself. Clark's Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, Introduction. с 1 John iii. 2. Ephes. iii. 15. -Man, who here seems principal alone, 'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole. РОРЕ. transgression, our first parents were to die: they had now, in the body, what would by degrees bring them to decline, and, in the end, effect their dissolution; and a body become thus corruptible, presseth down the soul.h prægravat unà Atque affigit humo divinam particulam auræ. HOR. It will introduce affections grosser and less pure, irre gular and distempered; other than they would have known, had they never been incumbered with such a decaying tabernacle. The sages of the heathen world would readily have admitted this truth. St. Paul himself, in describing the state of the unregenerate man, speaking in his person, saith, I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. This is hardly more express than Plato ;* who says, 'As long as we have the body, and our soul is intermixed with such an evil, we shall never satisfactorily possess ourselves even of what we desire.' The philosopher, we sce, and others who followed him, would readily have allowed, that it is of the utmost consequence to a divine spirit, whether it be joined to a mortal or an immortal Wisdom ix. 15. i Rom. vii. 18, 19. k ἕως ἂν το σώμα εχωμεν, καὶ ξυμπεφυρμένη ή ημων ή ψυχή μετά τῇ τοιαυτα κακε, ο μηποτε κλησωμεθα ἰκανως Ἡ ἐπιθυμαμεν. Plat. in Phæd |