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CHAP. XVI.

BEFORE THE FALL.

1. If any one asks,-What have men now to do with the state of society before the Fall?-we reply, that whatever emanates from the Most High deserves the profoundest consideration from mankind, and especially the state of our first parents; as, if we can in any manner discover how they ought to have lived, we shall learn what is the state of man most conformable with the divine will. It may indeed be alleged, that an alteration having been made by God in the state of things after the Fall, (Gen. iii. 14 to 19,) we are unable to live exactly as our first parents should. To this it may be replied, that we are bound to make the nearest approximation to the state in which they were originally placed, that the present constitution of things will allow. The farther we go from it, the more iniquity abounds.

2. We have elsewhere assumed that the divine law, or the law of LOVE, was designed by God to govern all orders of spiritual beings throughout the universe. (i. 5.) If this be so, there is only one way, whatever their rank, in which they can act in opposition to the will of their Great Creator; and that is, by refusing to love him or each other as they ought. Moral obligation, on this supposition, must be the same in all classes of intellectual beings; and the great difference among them seems to be, that some have more wisdom and power, and a greater effusion of the holy spirit, than others. Possibly all wisdom and power is comprehended in the gift of the holy spirit, which we are told our Lord had without measure. And the higher the order of intellectual spirits, the greater, we may presume, is their love for other beings of their own and other orders, and the Great Creator, whose love is infinite. Hence we read that 'God is love!'

3. The different classes and orders in the vegetable and animal world contribute in a very high degree to our gratification. By comparing intellectual nature with theirs, we may conjecture that in a future state of being, the various ranks of spiritual beings will minister to the gratification of the spirits of just men made perfect; in a manner somewhat resembling that which inanimate and animate nature now does to us, though greatly superior both as to manner and degree. Had it been the divine will, all mankind from the creation might have eat grass as oxen; and no animal life but that of man, and no veget

able but grass, been called into existence. Every one must perceive how incomparably less beautiful our world would have been. Nothing would have been presented to the eye but one universal monotony; nor anything to the taste but one unvarying kind of food. What, therefore, the lower world would be, the spiritual world would resemble, if one order of spiritual beings only existed.

4. It has elsewhere been intimated (vi. 214) that in some part of the mighty universe, God may please to appoint that there shall be spiritual beings assailable by various degrees of satanic temptation; that those of them who by divine grace pass through this probation acceptably to Heaven, may form a distinct order to reciprocate felicity with other orders; and that this peculiar order may be man. But though Heaven sees fit to expose men to the temptation of the devil, it does not render it necessary that in any cases they should be vanquished. Divine grace would have preserved our first parents from falling had they done their duty. Neither they, therefore, nor any other human being ever was, or ever can be, overcome but by willing to be so. To every one, the language of the apostle may be addressed:There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.'

5. Reasoning by analogy, it is impossible to doubt that the heavenly bodies are all peopled with intellectual beings. If, excepting in the regions of the damned, our world be the only part of the universe where the will of Heaven is continually resisted, how melancholy is this distinction. If, on the other hand, the divine will is elsewhere so contemned, how amazing the favour Heaven has manifested to us; that for our sakesChrist Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.'-For though the blood of Christ is no doubt fully sufficient to expiate, not the guilt of mankind only, but that of all sinful creatures throughout the universe; it is not to be imagined he has any where else become obedient unto death." Whichever alternative we take, there is consequently something quite peculiar in the dealings of Heaven with our world. 6. All orders of beings, and every individual of them that ever have been, or ever shall be created; ever have lived, moved, and had their being, and as long as they exist ever will live, move, and have their being in the Great Creator. A continual sense of this dependence is indispensable to their well-being, in order that they may love him as they ought! We may conjec

ture, therefore, that the divine communication to Adam-- of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die'was primarily designed to preserve in him the continual sense of his dependence on Heaven. It was undoubtedly the test of his obedience. Such test might have consisted either-in the prohibition of sinning,-in requiring certain positive duties,-or in something being interdicted. The first was wholly inapplicable to the state of our first parents, because it would have been uniting two of the most opposite things in the world,-directing the mind to infinite holiness principally by the thought of sin,ignorance of which was much more consistent with a state of perfect innocence.

7. The performance of positive duties would also have been exceptionable, because the holiness of God requires perfect obedience to his injunctions, or an atonement. Had our first parents, therefore, been less mindful of what they owed to Heaven, in a matter of this kind, they might have been recalled to their duty by some milder punishment than an expulsion from Paradise, and its accompanying evils. But if these had been immediately dependent on the exact performance of such duties, the least dereliction might have incurred the penalty. It remains then, as a test of obedience, that something otherwise indifferent, should be prohibited; which as abstinence required little effort, so the violation arose not from inattention, but active and premeditated rebellion. That the trial of man's disobedience, says a historian, should be by such a prohibition as is mentioned by Moses, appears perfectly rational, and adapted to the state of innocence: no moral precept would have been at all proper for that purpose. It must, therefore, have been some indifferent action, neither good nor evil in itself, but so far only as it was commanded or forbidden. Our first parents had no sooner eaten the forbidden fruit, than they perceived the fatal effects of their transgression ;- the eyes of them both were opened;' but in a sense quite different from that which the tempter had promised them.-(Guthrie.)

8. On our first parents securing the favour of Heaven, every thing depended. The easiest imaginable test of obedience was required; nothing more than to avoid doing a particular act, -a kind of forbearance every day required from infants. Had the penalty been slight, it would have made them still more regardless of the loss of the divine favour; and if the tremendous sentence with which they were threatened, could not keep them from disobeying, it is certain that nothing less would. So far, therefore, from considering their treatment severe, the divine denunciation was evidently an act of mercy: they perfectly knew the consequence of disobedience, and they alone were blameable. So great, indeed, was their guilt, that it is

difficult to find language sufficiently condemnatory of it; whilst, on the part of the Divine Being, our highest conceptions must fall short of his goodness, both as to the happiness prepared by him for our first parents, and his care that they should avoid doing that which would cause them to forfeit it. Some may object, that it was not consistent with Infinite Benevolence, to pass sentence of death on all mankind, for the guilt of two persons. This might have some show of reason, if multitudes were found yielding a sinless obedience to the divine law; but, so far from this being the case, the history of mankind furnishes no single instance of any man's doing his duty, as perfectly as he might in the present state of things. Every man, therefore, having merited the punishment in his own person, it cannot be objected to as being severe.

9. The progenitors of the human race were not only created free from all taint of sin, but seem to have been in total ignorance, either that it had existed in any part of the Universe, or might ever enter the world to which they were just introduced; excepting, of course, their disobedieuce of the divine injunction. It appears, also, that, independently of their having merited punishment, it was incompatible with the divine government of the world, that they should know of the existence of evil, be disposed to commit it, and continue immortal. After the Fall, 'the Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever,-therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden.' Our supposition derives some weight, from considering that, if men can commit so much iniquity, as we find many do, within the narrow limits now assigned to human life; what would be the extent of their guilt, if they were immortal here? and what might be the state of the world, if all were so, and iniquity were thus to abound? Though antecedent to the Fall, our first parents appear to have been ignorant of sin, we are not to suppose them without any other law than the prohibition already given, as the divine law must have been imperative on them; but the knowledge of a rule of conduct, and the various ways in which it may be violated, with the consequences, are altogether different. We may suppose that there are associations in the Universe, the members of which are practically unac quainted with guile. Adam having the fullest means of knowing all that was lawful and right, was perfectly compatible with his entire ignorance of every thing unholy. The only penal enactment known to our first parents, therefore, seems to have been, that relating to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.'

10. To what purpose all this? it may be asked:---We answer, to evince, that in man's primeval state, there would probably

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