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Aoyos, indeed, or second person, appears to have been the immediate Creator; for St. John assures us that all things were made by him, and that without him was not any thing made that was made.' St. Paul expressly affirms that by the second person in the blessed Trinity were all things created that are in the heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him and for him; and he is before all things, and by him all things consist.'-Coloss. iv. 17. Indeed the Hebrew Scriptures, in more places than one, expressly declare that this earth, and of course the whole solar system, was formed as well as created, not by any inferior being, but by the true God, even Jehovah alone. See Isa. xl. 12, xliv. 24; Jer. x. 10-13. But, though it be thus evident that the Xoyos was the immediate creator of the universe, we are not to suppose that it was without the concurrence of the other two persons. The Father, who may be said to be the fountain of the Divinity itself, was certainly concerned in the creation of the world, and is therefore in the Apostle's Creed denominated the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth;' and that the Holy Ghost, or third person, is likewise a Creator, we have the express testimony of two inspired writers. By the word of the Lord,' says the Psalmist, were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath (Hebrew, spirit) of his mouth.' And Job declares that the Spirit of God made him, and that the breath of the Almighty gave him life.' Indeed these three divine persons are so intimately united that what is done by one must be done by all, as they have but one and the same will. SECT. III.-—OF THE ORIGINAL STATE OF MAN.

We proceed to enquire into the specific nature of the first man. This must be implied in the image of God. Now this image or likeness could not be in his body; for the infinite and omnipotent God is without body, parts, or passions, and therefore such as nothing corporeal can resemble. Some have contended that man is the only creature on this earth who is animated by a principle essentially different from matter; and hence he is said to have been formed in the divine image, on account of the immateriality of that vital principle which was infused into his body when the Lord God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.' That this account of the animation of the body of man indicates a superiority of the human soul to the vital principle of all other animals, cannot, we think, be questioned; but, as the word immaterial denotes only a negative notion, the souls of men and brutes, though both immaterial, may yet be substances essentially different. This being the case, it is plain that the divine image in which man was formed, and by which he is distinguished from the brutes, cannot consist in the mere circumstance of his mind being a substance different from matter, but in some positive quality which distinguishes him from every other creature on this globe.

About this characteristic quality various opinions have been formed. Some have supposed

that the image of God in Adam appeared in that rectitude, righteousness, and holiness, in which he was made, which were perfect; his understanding was free from all error; his will biassed to that which is good. And this righteousness, say they, was natural, and created with him. They, therefore, call it original righteousness. To this doctrine many objections have been. made; because nothing which is produced in a man without his knowledge and consent can be in him either virtue or vice. Adam was unquestionably placed in a state of trial, which proves that he had righteous habits to acquire; but perfect righteousness is inconsistent with a state of trial. That Adam was not so is plain, as he yielded to the first temptation with which he was assailed.

Since man was made in the image of God, that phrase, whatever be its precise import, must denote something peculiar, and at the same time essential to human nature; but the only quality at once natural and peculiar to man is his rea son. It has therefore been concluded that it was the faculty of reason which made the resemblance. To give strength to this argument it is observed that when God says, Let us make man in our image,' he immediately adds, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth;' but as many of the cattle have much greater bodily strength than man, this dominion could not have been maintained but by the faculty of reason bestowed upon him and withheld from them. Yet it would be little short of idolatry to imagine that God is obliged to compare ideas and notions together; to advance from particular truths to general propositions; and to acquire knowledge, as we do, by the tedious processes of inductive and syllogistic reasoning. There can therefore be no direct image of God either in the soul or in the body of man; and the phrase seems to import nothing more than those powers or qualities by which man was fitted to exercise dominion over the inferior creation; as if it had been said, 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, that they may have dominion,' &c.

That the first man, however, was not left to discover religious truth by the mere efforts of his unassisted reason we think is clear. The inspired historian says that God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in is he had rested from all his works which he created and made;' but Adam could not have understood what was meant by the sanctification of a particular day, or of any thing else, unless he had previously received some religious instruction. There cannot therefore be a doubt but that, as soon as man was made, his Creator communicated to him the truths of what is called natural religion, and to these were added the precept to keep holy the sabbath, or set it apart for the purposes of contemplation and worship.

Man, therefore, in his natural and original state was a rational and religious being, bound to do 'justice, to love mercy, to walk humbly with his God, and to keep holy the Sabbath day.' These seem to be all the duties which in that state were required of him; for as soon as he was introduced into the terrestrial paradise, and ad

mitted into covenant with his Maker, he was placed in a state in which other duties were enjoined.

authorise us to interpret eating and trees literally
in one part of the sentence and figuratively in
the other? A garden in a delightful climate is
the habitation, and the fruits produced in that
garden the food, prepared for the progenitors of
the human race; and though in the garden actually
fitted up for this purpose two trees were re-
markably distinguished from the rest, perhaps in
situation and appearance as well as in use, the
distinction was calculated to serve the best of
purposes. The one, called the tree of life, of
which, while they continued innocent, they were
permitted to eat, served as a sacramental pledge
or assurance on the part of God, that as long as
they should observe the terms of the covenant
their life should be preserved; the other, of which
it was death to taste, was admirably adapted to
impress upon their minds the necessity of im-
plicit obedience to the Divine will, in whatever
manner it might be made known to them.
SECT. IV.—OF THE FALL OF ADAM AND ITS

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CONSEQUENCES.

Moses, who in this investigation is our only guide, tells us that the Lord God, after he had formed the first pair, planted a garden eastward in Eden, and took the man and put him into the garden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God,' continues he, commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but 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.' The only law peculiar to his paradisaical state was the command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This was a positive precept, not founded in the nature of man, but very proper to be the test of his obedience to the will of his Creator. This was sanctioned by the penalty of death denounced against disobedience; and the subjects of that law must have understood somewhat of the nature of this penalty; but Christian divines have differed widely in opinion respecting the full import of the Hebrew words which our translators have rendered by the phrase 'thou shalt surely die.' All however agree that they threatened death, in the common acceptation of the word, or the separation of the soul and body, as one part of the punishment to be incurred by eating the forbidden fruit; and hence we must infer that, had the forbidden fruit not been eaten, our first parents would never have died, because the penalty of death was denounced against no other transgression. What therefore is said respecting the fruit of the tree of knowledge, implies notate, most of them being very absurd, and the only a law, but also, as it has been termed, a covenant, promising to man, upon the observance of one positive precept, immortality or eternal life; which is not essential to the nature of any created being, and cannot be claimed as the merited reward of the greatest virtue, or the most fervent piety.

This will enable us to dispose of the objections which have been sometimes brought by freethinking divines against the wisdom and justice of punishing so severely as by death, a breach of a mere positive precept; which, considered in itself, or as connected with the general principles of moral obligation, appears to be of little importance. We have only to reply that, as an exemption from death is not due either to the nature or to the virtue of man, it was wise and just to make it depend upon the observance of a positive precept, to impress upon the minds of our first parents a constant conviction that they were to be preserved immortal, not in the ordinary course of divine providence, but by the special grace and favor of God. The same consideration will show us the folly of those men who, because the terms of the first covenant, as stated in some systems of theology, agree not with certain philosophical maxims which they have adopted, are for turning all that is said of the trees of knowledge and of life into figure and allegory. But the other trees which Adam and Eve were permitted to eat were certainly real trees, or they must have perished for want of food. And what rules of interpretation will

From the preceding account of the primeval state of man, it is evident that his continuance in the terrestrial paradise, together with all the privileges which he there enjoyed, were made to depend upon his observance of one positive precept. No other duty was incumbent on him, except perhaps to keep the Sabbath, then first instituted. The punishment was denounced only against eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. To the word death in that passage divines have affixed many different meanings which we need not enumer

meaning of the word is sufficiently obvious. In any acceptation of the word, it denoted something new to Adam, which he could not understand without an explanation of the term; and therefore it was threatened as the punishment of the only transgression he could commit.

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The abstaining from a particular fruit in the midst of a garden abounding with fruits of all kinds was a precept which at first view appears of easy observation; and the penalty threatened against the breach of it was, in every sense, awful. The precept, however, was broken notwithstanding that penalty; whereupon the historian tells us that, lest they should put forth their hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever, the Lord God sent them forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground whence they were taken.' Their minds must now have been burdened with the inward sense of guilt, and they must have dreaded the threatened death; of which, however, they had probably no idea.

God, however, did not send them forth thus hopeless and forlorn from the paradise of delights which they had so recently forfeited. He determined to punish them for their transgression, but at the same time to give them hopes of recovering more than their lost inheritance. Calling therefore the various offenders before him, and enquiring into their different degrees of guilt, he began with pronouncing judgment on the serpent, in terms which implied that there was still mercy for man. Yet the serpent was

only the instrument of the temptation. We are told that, when the foundations of the earth were laid, the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy; and it is at least probable that there would be similar rejoicing when the six days work of creation was finished. If so, Adam and Eve, who were but a little lower than the angels, might be admitted into the chorus, and thus be made acquainted with the existence of good and evil spirits. At all events, their gracious and merciful Creator would inform them that they had a more powerful enemy than a brute; that he was a rebellious angel, capable of deceiving them in many ways; and that they ought therefore to be constantly on their guard against his wiles. They must have known too that they were themselves animated by something different from matter; and, when they found they were deceived by the serpent, they might surely, without any remarkable stretch of sagacity, infer that their malignant enemy had actuated the organs of that creature in a manner somewhat similar to that in which their own souls actuated their own bodies. If this be admitted, the degradation of the serpent would convince them of the weakness of the tempter when compared with their Creator; and confirm their hopes, that since he was not able to preserve unhurt his own instrument of mischief, he should not be able finally to prevail against them.

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Having thus punished the original instigator to evil, the Almighty Judge turned to the fallen pair, and said to the woman, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow; in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.' And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, thou shalt not eat of it; cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth unto thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.'

Here is a terrible denunciation of toil and misery and death upon our first parents, which has since been continued in a greater or less degree upon all their posterity. But they were not left without hope of restoration to some better state. Had they been furnished with no ground of hope beyond the grave, we cannot believe that the Righteous Judge of all the earth would have added to the penalty originally threatened. That penalty they would doubtless have incurred the very day on which they fell; but, as they were promised a deliverance from the consequences of their fall, it was proper to train them up by severe discipline for the happiness reserved for them in a future state.

They were now conscious of guilt; doomed to severe labor; liable to sorrow and sickness, disease and death; miseries which they had brought, not only upon themselves, but also, as we learn from different passages of the New Testament, upon their unborn posterity to the

end of time. Such is the brief but melancholy account given by Moses, the earliest and most authentic of historians, of that fatal event, which first

Brought death into the world, and all our woe.

Death was certainly introduced by the fall; for the inspired apostle assures us, that in Adam all die; and, again, that through the offence of one, many are dead. Many contend that it includes death corporeal, spiritual or moral, and eternal; and that all mankind are subjected to these three kinds of death, on account of their share in the guilt of the original transgression, which is usually denominated original sin, and considered as the source of all moral evil.

That all men are subjected to death corporeal, in consequence of Adam's transgression, is universally admitted; but that they are in any sense partakers of his guilt, and on that account subjected to death spiritual and eternal, has been very strenuously denied. But it would extend this article beyond all due limits to enter into this controversy. Some few divines of this school are indeed of opinion that the phrase, 'By one man's disobedience many were made sinners,' means nothing more than that the posterity of Adam, through his sin, derive from him a corrupt nature. But, though this be admitted, the more zealous abettors of the system contend that it is not the whole truth. It is true (say they) that all men are made of one man's blood, and that blood is tainted with sin; and so a clean thing cannot be brought out of an unclean. What is born of the flesh is flesh, carnal and corrupt: every man is conceived in sin, and shapen in iniquity; but then there is a difference between being made sinners and becoming sinful. The one respects the guilt, the other the pollution of our nature; the one is previous to the other, and the foundation of it. Men receive a corrupt nature from their immediate parent; but they are made sinners, not by any act of their disobedience, but only by the imputation of the sin of Adam.

Such are the consequences of Adam's fall, and such the doctrine of original sin, as maintained by the more rigid followers of Calvin. That great reformer, however, was not the author of this doctrine. It had been taught so early as in the beginning of the fifth century, by St. Augustine, the celebrated bishop of Hippo, see AUGUSTINE, and the authority of that father had made it more or less prevalent in both the Greek and Roman churches long before the Reformation. Calvin was indeed the most eminent modern divine by whom it has been held in all its rigor; and it constitutes one great part of that theological system, which, from being taught by him, is now known by the name of Calvinism. Those by whom it is embraced maintain it with zeal, as in their opinion forming, together with the other tenets of their master, the only pure system of evangelical truths; but it hath met with much opposition in some of the Lutheran churches, as well as from private divines in the church of England, and from the great body of Dutch remonstrants. See CALVINISM, ARMINIANS, and SYNOD of Dort.

SECT. V.-HISTORICAL VIEW OF THEOLOGY
FROM THE FALL OF ADAM TO THE COMING OF
CHRIST.

The events treated of in the last section paved the way for the coming 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 the great purpose for which Christ came into the world and suffered death upon the cross. The preaching of the gospel, therefore, commenced with the first hint of such a restoration; and the promise given to Adam and Eve, that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent,' was as truly evangelical as these words of the apostle, by which we are taught that 'this is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.' 1 Tim. i. 15. The former text, taken by itself, is indeed obscure, and the latter is explicit; but both belong to the same system, for the Scriptures contain but two covenants or dispensations of God to man, in which the whole race is included.

Christianity, therefore, is indeed very near as old as the creation; but its principles were at first obscurely revealed, and afterwards gradually developed under different forms, as mankind be came able to receive them. All that appears to have been at first revealed to Adam and Eve was, that by some means or other one of their posterity should 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 redemption was to be wrought, it was probably communicated to them at the institution of sacrifices. This promise of a future deliverer served to comfort them under their heavy sentence; and the institution of sacrifices, whilst it impressed upon their minds lively ideas of the punishment due to their transgression, was admirably calculated to prepare both them and their posterity for the great atonement which, in due time, was to take away the sins of the world.

After the fall, God was graciously pleased to manifest himself to the senses of our first parents, and visibly to conduct them by the angel of his presence in all the rites and duties of religion. This is evident from the different discourses which he held with Cain, as well as from the complaint of that murderer of being hid from his face, and from its being said that he went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt on the east of Eden.' Nor does it appear that God wholly withdrew his visible presence, and left mankind to their own inventions, till their wickedness became so very great that his spirit could no longer strive with them. Adam continued 930 years a living monument of the justice and mercy of God; of his extreme hatred and abhorrence of sin, as well as of his love and longsuffering towards the sinner. He was very sensible how sin had entered into the world, and he could not but apprise his children of its author. He would at the same time inform them of the unity of God, and his dominion over the evil one; of the means by which he had appointed VOL. XXII.

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himself to be worshipped; and of his promise of future deliverance from the curse of the fall. Such information would produce a tolerable idea of the Divine Being, and afford sufficient motives to obey his will. The effects of it, accordingly, were apparent in the righteous family of Seth, who soon distinguished themselves from the pos terity of Cain, and for their eminent piety were honored with the appellation of the sons of God. Of this family sprang a person so remarkable for virtue and devotion as to be exempted from Adam's sentence and the common lot of his sons; for after he had walked with God 300 years, and prophecied to his brethren, he was translated, that he should not see death. Of this miraculous event there can be no doubt but that his contemporaries had some visible demonstration; and, as the fate of Abel was an argument to their reason, so the translation of Enoch was a proof to their senses of another state of life after the present. See ENOCH.

Notwithstanding this watchful care of God over his fallen creature man, vice, and probably idolatry, spread through the world with a rapid pace. The family of Seth married into that of Cain, and adopted the manners of their new relations. Rapine and violence, unbounded lust and impurity of every kind, prevailed universally: and when those giants in wickedness had filled the earth with tyranny, injustice, and oppression-when the whole race was become entirely carnal-God, after raising up another prophet to give them frequent warnings of their fate for the space of 120 years, was at length obliged, in mercy to themselves, as well as to the succeeding generations of men, to cut them off by a general deluge. See DELUGE.

The sons of Noah were 100 years old when the deluge overwhelmed the earth. They had long conversed with their ancestors of the old world, had frequented the religious assemblies, observed the Sabbath-day, and been instructed by those who had seen Adam. It is therefore impossible that they could be ignorant of the creation of the world, of the fall of man, or of the promise of future deliverance from the consequences of that fall; or that they could offer their sacrifices, and perform the other rites of the instituted worship, without looking forward with the eye of faith to that deliverance seen, perhaps obscurely, through their typical oblations.

In this state of things, with the awful remembrance of the deluge continually present to their minds, religion might for some time be safely propagated by tradition. But when by degrees mankind corrupted that tradition in its most essential parts; when, instead of the one Supreme God, they set up several orders of inferior deities, and worshipped all the host of heaven; when, at the same time, they were uniting under one head, and forming a universal empire under the patronage of the sun, their chief divinity, God saw it necessary to disperse them into distinct colonies, by causing such discord among them as rendered it impossible for any one species of idolatry to be at once universally established.

After this dispersion, there is reason to believe that particular revelations were vouchsafed

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wherever men were disposed to regard them. Peleg had his name prophetically given him from the dispersion which was to happen in his days; and not only his father Heber, but all the heads of families mentioned from Noah to Abraham, are with much plausibility supposed to have had the spirit of prophecy on many occasions. Noah was undoubtedly both priest and prophet; and, living till within two years of the birth of Abraham, or, according to others, till that patriarch was nearly sixty years old, he would surely be able to keep up a tolerable sense of true religion among such of his descendants as sojourned within the influence of his doctrine and example. His religious son Shem, who lived till after the birth of Isaac, could not but preserve in tolerable purity the faith and worship of the true God among his descendants.

But, though the remains of true religion were thus preserved, God in his infinite wisdom, saw it expedient not only to shorten the lives of men, but also to withdraw his presence from the generality, who had rendered themselves unworthy of such communications; and to select a particular family, in which his worship might be preserved pure amidst the various corruptions that were overspreading the world. With this view Abraham was called.

Accordingly we find him distinguished among the neighbouring princes, and kings reproved for his sake; who, being made acquainted with his prophetic character, desired his intercession with God. History tells us of his conversing on the subject of religion with the most learned Egyptians, who appear to have derived from him or some of his descendants the rite of circumcision, and to have been for a while stopt in their progress towards the last stage of that degrading idolatry which afterwards rendered their national worship the opprobrium of the whole earth. See MYTHOLOGY and POLYTHEISM. We are informed that his name was held in the greatest veneration all over the east; that the Magians, Sabians, Persians, and Indians, all gloried in him as the great reformer of their respective religions: and it appears extremely probable that not only the Brachmans, but likewise the Ilindoo god Brahma, derived their names from the father of the faithful.

The worship of the patriarchs seems to have consisted chiefly of the three kinds of sacrifice (see SACRIFICE); to which were doubtless added prayers and praises. Such of them as looked forward to a future redemption, and had any tolerable notion of the means by which it was to be effected, as Abraham certainly had, must have been sensible that the blood of bulls and of goats could never take away sin, and that their sacrifices were therefore valuable only when they were offered in faith of that great promise, which they, having seen it afar off, believed, and were persuaded of it; and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims upon earth.' That such persons looked for a 'better country, even a heavenly one,' in a future state, is highly probable; though the precise measure of their knowledge we can only conjecture. They believed in a future Redeemer according to the promise. The patriarchal worship had the same end in view

with the Christian-the attainment of everlasting life in heaven, although the generality of men appear not, in the early age of which we now write, to have extended their views beyond the present life.

It is a fact ascertained by profane history, as well as sacred, that the Israelites were once slaves in Egypt, and that they at last got free. Now it has been justly remarked that considering the great power of the Egyptian monarch, their having obtained their liberty in any other way than in the manner recorded by Moses, would have been a greater miracle than all the ten he records. Upon these ten miraculous exertions of the divine power it has also been justly remarked, that most of them were such as to militate directly against the idolatry of Egypt. The two first of them were exerted upon their great god, the river Nile, whose waters were turned into blood, and made to produce noxious swarms of frogs. The murrain upon the cattle was also a visible judgment upon their absurd idolatry and brute worship; for these cattle were among their cheif deities. See APIs. The fly, which became a plague, was a god of the Phonicians; and the extraordinary thick darkness effectually put to defiance the power of the chief god of Egypt, Osiris, whom they adored as the sun, the fountain of light. But the swarm of lice struck even Pharaoh's magicians themselves with such astonishment that they acknowledged it to be a work of the Almighty.

The God of Israel having thus magnified himself over the Egyptians and their gods, and rescued his people from bondage by such means as must not only have struck terror and astonishment into the whole land, but also have spread his name through all the countries which had any communication with that far-famed nation, proceeded to instruct and exercise the Hebrews, for many years in the wilderness; inculcated upon them the unity of the Godhead; gave them statutes and judgments more righteous than those of any other nation; and, by every method consistent with the freedom of moral agency, guarded them against the contagion of idolatry and polytheism.

The Jewish law had two great objects in view; of which the first was to preserve among them the knowledge of the true God, a rational worship springing from that knowledge, and the regular practice of moral virtue; and the second was to fit them for receiving the accomplishment of the great promise made to their ancestors. When the true God first tells them, by their leader Moses, that if they would obey his voice indeed, and keep his covenant, then they should be a peculiar treasure to him above all people: to prevent them from supposing that he shared the earth with the idols of the heathen, and had from partial fondness chosen them for his portion, he immediately adds for all the earth is mine.' By this addition he gave them plaink to understand that they were chosen to be hi peculiar treasure for some purpose of general importance; and the very first article of the covenant which they were to keep was, that they should have no other gods but Him. The Almighty thus becoming their king, the govern

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