724

THEOLOGY.

not left without hope of restoration to some better state. Hadthey been furnished with no ground of hope beyond the grave, wecannot believe that the Righteous Judge of all the earth would haveadded to the penalty originally threatened. That penalty theywould doubtless have incurred the very day on which they fell;but as they were promised a deliverance from the consequences oftheir fall, it was proper to train them up by severe discipline forthe happiness reserved for them in a future state. After the pass-ing of their sentence, the man and woman were turned out into theworld, where they had'forrnerlv lived before they were placed inthe garden of Eden ; and all future access to the garden was forever denied them. They were not, however, in the same state inwhich they were originally before their introduction into Paradise::They were now conscious of guilt; doomed to severe labour;liable to sorrow and sickness, disease and death: and all thesemiseries they had brought, not only upon themselves, but also, aswe learn from different passages of the New Testament , upon theirunborn posterity to the end of time. Such is the brief but melan-choly account given by Moses, the earliest and most authenticof historians, of that fatal event, which first

“ Brought death into the world, and all our woe.”

This, as well as the whole system’of revelation in general, has beenobjected to by infidels, and represented as both ridiculous and un-reasonable, that the great Creator should subject a whole race ofrational beings to misery for such a silly offence as the eating of anapple. This objection lias been answered by no writer more satis-factorily than by Mr. Nicholls, in his Conference with a Theist ;wherein he argues, that the Creator had certainly a right to put hisrational creatures upon a test of obedience; which was the only-mark of gratitude they 7 could give; and that such a test could onlybe made by such a command of abstinence. And he adds, thatnone of all the duties of the moral law, afterwards delivered toMoses, could have atforded such a test of our first parents: forAdam, having daily converse with his Creator, could be in nodanger of worshipping'any other god, or making images of his invi-sible Creator; neither was he under any temptation of pro-faning his name; natural parents he had none; murder he couldnot commit, nor theft, nor adultery ; nor could a being who had re-ceived a whole world full of every enjoyment, covet any thingmqre. The prohibition of a particular fruit was therefore the onlytest, that could be prescribed as a trial of obedience to Adam.That women would have had less sorrow in the bringing forth ofchildren: that we should have been subjected to less toil, and ex-empted from death, had our first parents not fallen from theiriparadisaical state—are truths incontrovertible by him who believesthe inspiration of the Holy Scriptures . Death was certainly intro-duced by their fall; for the inspired apostle assures us, “ that inAdam all die;” and again, “ that through the offence of one many,are dead.” Many contend, that it includes death corporeal, spiri-tual, or moral and eternal; and that all mankind are subjected tothese three kinds of death, on account of their share in the guiltof the original transgression, which is usually denominated originalsin, and considered as the source of all moral evil.

Of the Restoration by Christ.

The events treated of in the last section paved the way for thedoming of Christ, and the preaching of the gospel; and unless we‘thoroughly understand the origin of the gospel, we cannot have

■ an adequate conception of its design. By contrasting the first with,the Second Adam, St. Paul gives us clearly to understand, thatthe great purpose for which Christ came into the world and suf-fered death upon the cross, was to'restore to mankind 1 that life■which they had lost by the fall of their original progenitor. Thepreaching of the gospel therefore commenced witli the first hint ofsuch a restoration ; and the promise given to Adam and Eve , tiiat“ the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent,”was as truly evangelical as these words of the apostle, by which weare taught, that “ this is a faithful saying, and worthy of all■ ac-

■ Captation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”

' fcl Tim. i. 15.) The former text laken by itself is indeed obscure,;

and the latter is explicit; but both belong to the same system,' fort'the scriptures contain but two covenants or dispensations of God ‘to man, in which the whole race is included. Christianity there-!,-fore is indeed very near as old as the creation ; but its principle!wire at'first obscurely revealed, and afterwards gradually deve-;

l loped under different forms, as mankind became able to receivethem. All that appears to have been at first revealed to Adamand Eve was, that by some means or other one of their posterityshould in time redeem the whole race from the curse of the fall;or if they had a distinct view of the means by which that redemp-tion was to be wrought, it was probably communicated to themat the institution of sacrifices. See Sacrifice. This promise ofa future deliverer served to comfort them under their heavy'sen-tence ; and the institution of sacrifices, whilst it impressed upontheir minds lively ideas of the punishment due to their transgres-sion, was admirably calculated to prepare both them and theirposterity for the great Atonement which, in due time, was to takeaway the sins of the world. After, the fall God was graciouslypleased to manifest himself to the senses of our first parents, andvisibly to 'conduct-them by the Angel of his presence in all therites and duties of religion. This is evident from the differentdiscourses which lie held with Cain, as well as from the complaintof that murderer Of being hid from his face, and from its beingsaid, that “ he went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelton the east of Eden.” Nor does it appear that God wholly with-drew his visible presence, and left mankind to their own inven-tions, till their wickedness became so very great, that His Spiritcould no longer strive with them. Adam continued 930 years alivingmonumeilt Of the justice and mercy of God ; of his extremehatred and abhorrence of sin, as well as of his love and long suf-fering toward the sinner. He was very sensible how sin had en-tered into the world, and he could not but apprise his children ofits author. He would at the same time inform them of the unityof God , and his dominion over the evil one; of the means bywhich he had appointed himself to‘be worshipped; and of hispromise of future deliverance from the curse -of the fall. Suchinformation would produce a tolerable idea of the Divine Being,and afford sufficient motives to obey his will. The effects of itaccordingly were apparent in the righteous family of Seth, whosoon distinguished themselves from the posterity of Cain, and fortheir eminent piety were honoured witli the appellation of the sonsof God. Of this family sprang Enoch so remarkable for virtueand devotion, as to be exempted from Adam’s sentence ami thecommon lot of his sons; for after he had walked with God 300years, and prophesied to his brethren, he was translated that heshould not see death. Of this miraculous event there can be nodoubt but that his contemporaries had some visible demonstra-tion ; and as the fate of Abel was an argument to their reason, sothe translation of Enoch was a proof to their senses of anotherstate of life after the present. Thus 1 did God by the spirit of pro-phecy, which is by some supposed to have been hereditary in theheads of families; by frequent manifestations of his own presence;and by uninterrupted tradition—make ample provisions for the in-struction and improvement of the- world ior the first 1 1656 years.After the deluge, he was-pleased to converse again with Noah,and make in his person a new and extensive covenant with man-kind. Of his power, justice, and goodness; of his supreme do-minion over the earth and the heavens; of his abhorrence of sin,and his determination not to let it go unpunished —that patriarchand his family had been most awfully convinced ; nor could theyor their children, for some time, want any other argument to en-force obedience, fear, and worship. The sons of Noah were 100years old when the deluge overwhelmed the earth. They hadlong conversed 1 witli their ancestors of'the old world, had fre-quented I lie religious assemblies, observed every Sabbath-day, andbeen instructed by those who had seen Adam. It is therefore im-possible that they could be ignorant of the creation of the world,of the fall of man, or of the-promise of future deliverance fromthe consequences of that fall; or that they could offer their sacri-fices, and perform the other rites of the instituted worship, with-out looking forward with the eye of faith to that deliverance seen,perhaps obscurely, through their typical oblations. In this stateof tilings, witli the awful remembrance of the deluge continuallypresent to their minds, religion might for some time be safelypropagated by tradition. But when by degrees mankind cor-rupted that tradition in its most- essential parts; when, instead ofthe one Supreme-God, -they set up several orders of inferiordeities, and worshipped all the host of heaven ; when, at the sametime : thcy were uniting mider one head, and forming a universalempire under the patronage of the Sun their chief divinity, God

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