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his hatred of his heavenly Benefactor, by dreading his voice, and flying from him as hastily as he should have fled from the infernal serpent?

Was he not deprived of the knowledge by which at first sight, he discovered the nature of Eve, and gave to all living creatures names expressive of their respective properties?.... Was he not, I say, deprived of that intuitive knowledge and excellent wisdom, when he foolishly hid himself among the trees from his all-seeing, omnipresent Creator? And is it not evident that he was lost to all sense of filial fear towards God, and conjugal love towards Eve, when, instead of self-accusations, penitential confessions, and earne,.. est pleas for mercy, he shewed nothing at his trial but stubbornness, malice, and insolence?

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Such was the state of corruption into which Adam had deplorably fallen, before he multiplied the human species. Now, according to the invariable laws of providence, an upright, holy nature can no more proceed from a fallen, sinful one, than gentle lambs can be begotten by fierce tygers, or harmless doves by venomous serpents: Common sense therefore, and natural philosophy dictates, that our first parents could not communicate the angelical life which they had lost, nor impart to their children a better nature than their own: and that their depravity is as much ours by nature, as the fierceness of the first lion, is the natural property of all the lions in the world.

FOUR OBJECTIONS.

I. Should it be said, that "This doctrine reflects on the attributes of God, who, as the wise and gracious Governor of the world, should have foreseen and prevented the fall of Adam :"

I answer: (1.) God made man in his image, part of which consists in free agency, or a power to determine his own actions. And if creating a free

agent is not repugnant to divine wisdom and goodness; the wrong choice or sin of a free agent, can be no impeachment of those perfections in the Deity.*

(2.) Suppose man had not been endued with freedom of choice, he would only have ranked among

• God answers thus for himself in MILTON.

Man will fall,

He and his faithless progeny. Whose fault?
Whose but his own? Ingrate! he had of me
All he could have: I made him just and right.
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Such I created all th' etherial pow'rs;
Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.
Not free, what proof could they have giv'n sincere
Of true allegiance, constant faith or love,
Where only what they needs must do, appear'd;

Not what they would? What praise could they receive?
What pleasure I from such obedience paid,
When will and reason (reason also is choice)
Useless and vain, of freedom both despoil'd,
Made passive both, had serv'd necessity,
Not me? They therefore, as to right belong'd,
So were created, nor can justly accuse
Their Maker or their making, or their fate.
As if predestination over-rul'd

Their will, dispos'd by absolute decree,

Or high fore-knowledge. They themselves decreed
Their own revolt, not I; if I fore-knew,

Fore-knowledge had no influence on their fault,

Which had no less prov'd certain unforeknown.

YOUNG expresses the same sentiment with his peculiar boldness and energy.

Blame not the bowels of the Deity :

Man shall be bless'd as far as man permits.
Not man alone, all rationals, Heav'n arms
With an illustrious, but tremendous, pow'r
To counter-act its own most gracious ends;
And this of strict necessity, not choice:
That pow'r deny'd, man, angels were no more,
But passive engines, void of praise or blame.
Heav'n wills our happiness, allows our doom:
Invites us ardently, but not compels ;

Heav'n but persuades, almighty man decrees;
Man is the maker of immortal fates,
Man falls by man, if finally he falls.

admirable machines, and nothing could have been more absurd than to place him in a state of probation. And suppose, when he was in that state, divine power had irresistibly turned the scale of his will to obedience, the trial would have been prevented, and the council of divine wisdom foolishly defeated.

(3.) God did all, that a wise and good Ruler of rational and free creatures, could do to prevent sin. He placed in Adam's heart, a vigorous principle of holiness: He granted him sufficient strength to continue in obedience: He indulged him with his blessed presence and converse, to encourage him in the way of duty: He strictly forbad him to sin: He enforced the prohibition by the fearful threatning of death; He promised to crown his continuance in holiness, with a glorious immortality; and gave him the tree of life, as a pledge of this inestimable blessing. To have gone farther, would have been entirely inconsistent with his wisdom; an absolute restraint being as contrary to the liberty of a moral agent, and the nature of the divine law; as chaining down an harmless man that he may not commit murder, is contrary to the freedom of Englishmen, and the laws of this realm. Nor can we, either with reason or decency complain that God did not make us absolutely immutable and perfect like himself: This is charging him with folly, for not enduing us with infinite wisdom, and knowledge every way boundless; that is, for not making us gods instead of men.

(4.) In case men fell, divine mercy had decreed his recovery by Jesus Christ: And when the Almighty Redeemer shall have brought life out of death, and light out of darkness, the mysterious drama of creation and redemption, of which we see but one or two acts, will appear, even to our objectors, every way worthy of its infinitely wise and gracicus Author.

II. In the mean time they will still urge, that "Adam's posterity (then unborn) could not justly partake of the consequences of his transgression." But, shall ca

vils overthrow matter of fact? Do not we see in every unrenewed person, the unbelief, pride, sinful curiosity, sensuality, and alienation from God, to which our first parents were subjected at their fall? Do not women bear children with sorrow as well as Eve? Is the ground less cursed for us than for Adam? And do not we toil, suffer, and die as he did? If this order of things were unjust, would the righteous God have permitted its continuance to the present time? Besides,

Adam contained in himself, as in miniature, all his posterity. The various nations of. men, are nothing but different branches growing from that original root. They are Adam, or man, existing at large; as the branches of a spreading oak, with all the acorns that have grown upon, and dropped from them, during a long succession of summers, are nothing but the original acorn, unfolding and multiplying itself with all its essential properties. It is then as ridiculous to wonder, that the sons of depraved Adam should naturally be depraved, as that an acorn should naturally produce an oak; and a poisonous root, a malignant plant. Again,

Adam was the general head, representative, and. father of mankind; and we suffer for his rebellion legally; as the children of those who have sold themselves for slaves, are born in a state of wretched slavery; and as the descendents of a noble traitor, lose the title by their ancestor's crime: Naturally, as the sons of a bankrupt suffer poverty for their father's extravagance, or as Gehazi's leprosy clave to him and his seed for ever: And unavoidably, as an unborn child shares the fate of his unhappy mother, when she inadvertently poisons, or desperately stabs herself.

III. "But," say the same objectors, "supposing it be granted, that we are naturally depraved; yet if our depravity is natural, it is necessary; and we are no more blameable for it, than lions for their fierceness, or Ethiopians for their black complexion."

(1.) Our objectors would not, I presume, be understood to insinuate by " blameable," that our depravity does not render us detestible in the eyes of an holy God, or that it is not in itself blame-worthy. Do they less dislike the complexion of the Ethiopians, or less detest the destructive rage of lions, because it is natural to them? If moral dispositions ceased to be worthy of praise or dispraise, as soon as they are rooted, morally necessary, and, in that sense, natural; what absurd consequences would follow! Sinners would become guiltless by arriving at compleat impenitency; and God could not be praised for his holiness, por Satan dispraised for his sinfulness; holiness being as essential to God, by the absolute perfection of his nature, as sin is morally necessary to the devil, by the

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uncoable habit which he has wilfully contracted,

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he obstinately remains.

(2.) Should they mean, that "we are not answerable cr accountable for our depravity:" I reply, Though I should grant (which I am very far from doing*) that we are no way accountable for cur moral infection, yet it cannot be denied that we are answerable for our obstinate refusal of relief, and for the wilful neglect of the means found out by divine mercy for our cure. Can we justly charge God with either our misfortune, or our guiit? Do not parents, by the law of nature, represent their unborn posterity? If Adam ruined us by a common transgression; has not Christ, the second Adam, provided for us a common salvation? Jude 3. Heb. ii. 3. If by the offence of one,

* MILTON introduces Adam speaking thus:
Ah why should all mankind,

For one man's fault, thus guiltless be condemn'd,
If guiltless? but from me what can proceed,
But all corrupt, both mind and will deprav'd,
Not to do only, but to will the same

With me? How can they then acquitted stand
In sight of God? Him after all disputes
Forc'd I absolve.

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