LECTURE XV.

Did our first Parents continue in the state wherein they were created?

We are now to consider the following answer of our catechism

"Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the estate wherein they were created, by sinning against God."

In discussing two or three of the previous answers, we have had occasion to say so much on the nature of that estate in which man was originally created, that it will not be necessary to add much to it here. It was an estate of perfect innocence, in which he had his standing under God, as his Lord and Creator; it was an estate in which he was perfectly conformed, in his measure, to the image of God; had intimate fellowship and communion with him; and an ample dominion over all the work of his hands in this lower world-the tree of knowledge of good and evil alone excepted: It was an estate too, in which he was bound to obedience by solemn covenant engagements, enforced, as was shown in the last lecture, by the awful sanctions of life and death, in all the various and extensive import of those terms; and in which he knew that his posterity, as well as himself, was to share. It was in fine, an estate which he had full power given him to maintain; since he could not lose it without the voluntary choice of evil; and since his will, though capable of choosing evil, was not only not inclined to it, but sweetly and perfectly disposed to the choice of good. Such being his estate, he was left to the freedom of his own will; and he fell by sinning against God.

How a being, formed and constituted as man was, should fall into sin,-how sin should ever come to be the choice of a perfectly free and holy soul,-is a problem on which the

strongest minds have often tried their strength; and hitherto, so far as I know, they have tried it in vain. The origin of moral evil is, in every view that we can take of the subject, an inexplicable mystery. It is one of the arcana of the moral world. While no one can doubt or deny the fact, that it does exist, for I do not believe that even professed atheists doubt it, yet to account for its existence, or to explain the process, or manner, in which it came into existence, is not, I suspect, within the reach of the human faculties in the present life.

Will any one undertake to affirm that the Deity could not have preserved all his moral offspring from sin?—We have no right to say that he could not. We are by no means sure that man might not have been made and preserved in a state of as perfect freedom as he actually possessed, and yet have been kept from sin. And for myself, I would not dare to say that infinite wisdom, power and goodness, could not have formed a system, into which as much happiness should have entered as will ever be found in our system, and yet that no moral evil should have entered with it—I cannot tell what infinite wisdom, power and goodness, could perform. Thus does this subject transcend our powers, as it relates to the Creator.

It is also unsearchable, I think, even as it relates to the creature. How man, being perfectly holy, should fall in love with sin,-how the first sinful exercise or emotion, should gain admission to his heart-is a difficulty which at present we are unable to explain. If we suppose that we find some assistance in an explanation, from the circumstance that man was powerfully and most insidiously tempted-as he certainly was-still the question returns, how did his tempter become a sinner?-how did the angels, who kept not their first state, fall into transgression? Sin did not first take place on earth. It began in heaven, among an order of beings of much higher rank and nobler powers than those which we possess. How did rebellion against God first find its way into their powerful, and pure, and holy minds?-And here, too, at least

in regard to the first that fell, there was no tempter. What shall we say to these things? In reference to our Maker, we should say "O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out." Yes, the judgments and the ways of God are past finding out.

And yet, my young friends, let it be remembered after all, that we know perfectly, all that we need to know on this very subject: yea, let it be remembered, that a murmuring desire to know more than God has made known on this subject, partakes of the nature of that very sin by which our first parents fell-the sin of wishing to be as Gods in our knowledge. We know assuredly that our Creator is perfectly holy, and perfectly opposed to all sin; that he is not and cannot be the author of it; that though he left man to sin, he did not incline. him to it; and that on this very fall of man, is founded the whole work of redemption by Christ; which will exhibit the divine glory, and raise the redeemed of the Lord to the greatest heights of heavenly bliss, throughout eternity.

In regard to man, we know that although he was created perfect, yet he was also created mutable; that being mutable, he was capable of falling; that though we cannot explain the manner in which sin was conceived in his heart, yet that under the temptation of the devil, there it was conceived; that he did sin, and that freely; and that sinning he fell, and "brought death into the world and all our wo;" and that this whole transaction did actually take place, in such manner as to leave the whole guilt of the fall resting on man, and on his vile seducer. These are facts, clearly ascertained to us in scripture; and they are all that it is of any practical use for us to know. If we could clearly understand all that is actually beyond our depth in this subject, what would be the consequence? It would make no alteration at all, in any one point of duty. It would then be our duty to act exactly as we are now called to act. Our knowledge might gratify curiosity, but it would not direct our practice. And it seems to be the character of the divine dispensations, and of the state of our

knowledge at present-not only in regard to religion, but to every thing else-that we should be acquainted with facts, and with the use that we are to make of them; but that we should be able to proceed but a very little way, in any of our theories for their explanation. To be humbly submissive to this order, and content with it, is an act of pious resignation wherever it is found; and those who act otherwise incur both guilt and torment, and after all make no advances whatever in knowledge. Hear the declaration of the wisest of men, speaking too under the guidance of inspiration, on this very point-which, if it had been duly regarded, might, one would think, have prevented many a long and painful inquiry. Solomon says, "Lo, this only have I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions." That is, the result of all my inquiries and investigations, and the amount of all that is revealed, and that can be known on this deep speculation, is simply this, That God made man holy, and that he and his posterity have made themselves sinThis then is the result of all, and here we rest.

ners.

Among other things, in regard to which the busy minds of men have employed themselves to little purpose, is the inquiry, what was the length of time that our first parents spent in the state of innocence, or before the fall? Some have concluded that the space was very small, and some that it was very considerable. If I were to form a conjecture, it would be, that it was neither the one nor the other. Supposing the truth of what has heretofore been suggested, that the angels were created on the first of the six days during which our earth was formed and furnished, it seems reasonable to suppose that there was some moderate period of time necessary for their probation, fall and punishment, and their efforts for the seduction of Adam and Eve. Yet no great space certainly was necessary for the whole. But what was the state of the fact we are not told, and therefore can never certainly know.

Another point which must be briefly noticed, in considering the fall of our first parents, is the character of the tempter.

The account given us by Moses of the primitive apostacy, as we have already shown, is not to be considered as an allegory, but as historical truth. Viewed in this manner, it appears that Satan, or the chief of the fallen angels, made use of the serpent for the seduction of our first mother.

A late commentator, Dr. Adam Clarke, has endeavoured, in an elaborate note of his commentary, to prove that a serpent was not the animal whose organs were used by the adversary, to hold his conversation with Eve.-That this animal was, on the contrary, a species of the ape, most probably the ourang outang. He supposes that he has assigned satisfactory reasons to prove the truth of his opinion. But I confess it appears otherwise to me, after reading and considering his statement, as carefully as I can. He admits-what indeed could not be denied that the Greek translators of the Old Testament, who lived some centuries before Christ, have translated the Hebrew word en (nehesh), which in that language is the name of the tempting animal, by opis (ophis), the Greek word for serpent. To me it seems unspeakably more probable that these translators should have known what was the animal really understood by the Hebrew word, than that the discovery should be made two thousand years afterwards, and this too, as the commentator admits, only by an analogy, or similarity between the Hebrew word and an Arabick term, which, in its root, signifies both devil and ape. But be this as it may, there are very frequent allusions to the tempter in the New Testament. He is there called not only the serpent, and the old serpent,-but the dragon, and the old dragon, -retaining the genus and describing a species. And although I admit with the commentator, both that the New Testament writers usually quoted from the Septuagint, and that the point, as a matter of faith, is not highly important, yet I cannot admit that the inspired writers of the New Testament would ever have given their sanction to a palpable error, or a gross falsehood; and by so doing, have not only retained but propagated it widely. Beside, though the commentator explains some difficult points very ingeniously by his new trans