LETTER XIV. FURTHER REFLECTIONS ON THE CONDUCT OF OUR FIRST XIV. THE surprise and censures of many have been excited LETTER by our first parents acting as they did, and occasioning thereby the loss of a paradise to all their posterity; but in justice to them we must recollect, that it is most probable, that every one of the descendants who blame them, would, in their situation, have acted no better; and that if any other human beings of former ages, or any even of ourselves were to be placed and circumstanced as they were, the same conduct and results would ensue. We ground this conclusion on the observed fact in daily life, that every one who has sprung from them, often imitates their error by sinning against better knowlege and better resolutions, and even right intentions. That Hell is paved with good intentions was the strong figurative expression of one of our most distinguished moralists; and the universal application of the remark to every age and individual, is as undeniable as its truth. If the good intention were sufficient, if to mean well were the same as to do well, or would necessarily and most certainly produce the corresponding action, there would be little vice or error in the world; but it is because we do not carry the good intention into the actual practice; it is because we feel and know what is right and proper, and most usually wish and mean to do it, but yet do not put the becoming pur XIV. LETTER pose into execution, but repeatedly deviate from the good intention and even resolution, into the action and indulgence which is contrary to it, that we ourselves so often misconduct our life; and that immorality, crime, sin and suffering are so intermingled and so prolonged among mankind. It is because we do not individually exert and direct our self-agency to restrain us from the wrong practice, that both moral and natural evil so much pervade society still, and have been such adhering residents among us. But if we, if the present race, the last of all the generations that have been living thro almost sixty centuries are still in this predicament, still acting with this unreasonableness and weakness; if we, with all the corrective and admonishing benefit of so much experience, are yet so infirm of purpose, and so defective in self-government, ought we to press the deficiency so hardly, against our similarly acting predecessors?— or, omit to perceive both the justice and the necessity of our divine Author's having put human life, into that state of discipline which alone has kept it so tolerable; which has prevented so much greater deterioration that would have ensued without it; and which has already led it to so many improvements, that would have been thought impossible by any of the contemporaries of either Adam or Noah, or even of Socrates and Cicero? Much indeed remains yet to do. Sighing for ourselves and others, we must all, with self-humbling sincerity, admit this truth ; but let us also be candid as to ourselves, and just to our Maker's wisdom and effectively-chosen measures. Much has been already accomplished in the meliorating process; His plans and means are achieving grand effects. He has exalted His human being into XIV. ennobling improvements. He has thus far largely, LETTER variously and beautifully regenerated His human nature into new features, to a new heart, and with a new spirit. Both the moral and the intellectual aspect of the world has now a more sunny appearance than ever, amid all its shades and deformities. The soul of man is visibly a new being already, compared with what it has been, and it is perceptibly on the advance. The rectifying agencies have never been so active nor so successful, as they are at this moment; nor is there any chance that the improving energies will diminish. Vast impulses too have become active, and are struggling for superiority. But a new creating spirit has also sprung every where into life, and is pursuing and repressing whatever actuates to mislead. The hand of our Maker is upon mankind; and what He has excited or is watching, He will guide, guard, teach, and in due time, and with all His fine and diversified complication of impulses, restraints, suggestions, aids, disciplines and government, will conduct to the grand issues that He means to educe from it. We find moral evil existing around us, as we grow up into observation and judgment. It must then have originated from those who preceded us. Our ancestors have therefore both committed and transmitted it. As far as we can carry up our inquiry, history presents the same defects and stains in the conduct of our species. It must then have begun from some portion of our predecessors, in the very earliest stages of human existence, because mankind, in no part of antiquity, appear without it; of its origin we have only one account. The singularity of this soleness is a strong indication of the veracity XIV. LETTER of its information; it is what no one was likely to have invented, and it comes to us with this recommendation to our belief, independently of the authority of the memorial record which contains it, that if we reject this account of its commencement, we have no other. It is this narrative which rescues us from utter ignorance of that which we are so deeply interested, so vitally concerned, truly to know. It will always deserve our profoundest meditation. There are some peculiar facts connected with Adam and Eve, which make it more likely that they should have erred, than even ourselves. We possess the accumulated experience, for many ages, of the folly and mischief of vicious actions, and of disobedience to God; and yet this is found insufficient to deter the myriads and millions who disregard it. Our first parents had no such result before them; all was new and untried at their period of existence. No suffering had occurred to tell them what pain was, or by its occurring from immoral or offending conduct, to admonish them against the conduct which would bring it upon them. A few other important particulars may be here also recollected. Adam and Eve, altho the ancestors of all human beings, were not in many very important points such human beings as we are, or as all their posterity have been. They were made, and not born. They were made at once full formed, and did not grow, as all their descendants have done, from the babe to the child, the child to the youth, and thence to the mature human being. They had no parent, and no parental example, instruction or guidance. They were complete in body, beauteous, and full of functional life and its activities; but they were vacant in XIV. mind, totally ignorant, untrained in moral conduct, LETTER and unacquainted with any harm or evil that made self-regulation desirable, or had led them to practise it. Cain and Abel were the first human beings that were born in an infant state, from parents, and trained under parental feelings, and control, and direction. They were the first children; the first that from a baby state grew into manhood. They were, as such, far more like what we are, than Adam or Eve, or any first created ancestor could be. Reasoning upon the laws of our present nature, we may surmise that Adam and Eve could not be of themselves, and in their own free agency, moral beings, until they had been educated to be so: and before any education could have such a result, they must be imperfect in that self-regulation, which constitutes moral conduct. It was to begin their moral formation, to lead them to be moral beings, making what was right to be done their steady principle of action, and therefore the laws of their Creator as teaching this, the rules of their conduct, and His counsels as the foundation of their judgment, that the first precept was imposed. This command could only commence the process of their moral discipline, and having to obey it, before they had acquired the self-government that would alone observe it, and which it was meant to begin; they violated the injunction: and by so doing, and by suffering from the misconduct, they attained the perception of the necessity of self-regulation, and began the first stage of their moral constitution. We, their descendants, first become moral beings, such as in the earliest stage we are; we first acquire the moral habits that arise within us by imperceptible |