fore, every virtuous feeling and holy purpose and emotion. When the word is thus taken, "love is the ful filling of the law." The two commandments in which all others are included are love to God and love to our neighbour. As on these hang all the law and the prophets, that is, all incumbent duties, in them must be included all holy affections toward God, and all right dispositions toward our fellow creatures, according to our relation to them and our opportunity of doing them good, "for love worketh no ill to his neighbour."

CHAPTER XVI.

FALL OF MAN.

How long our first parents continued in innocence we are not informed, and it would be in vain to conjecture; but the common opinion has been that the time was short.

Already an enemy of God existed; a fallen spirit, who had led a multitude of his fellow angels into rebellion, who were cast out of their celestial habitations, but had liberty, for a season, to roam about the universe of God. Satan, the prince of the devils, envying the happiness of man, formed the design of seducing him from his allegiance, and bringing him into the same degraded and wretched condition with himself. He, therefore, watched his opportunity, and knowing the woman to be the "weaker vessel,” he resolved to make his first assault on her. seems to have been curiously gazing on the beautiful

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fruit of the forbidden tree, when the arch-fiend, making use of the body of the serpent, which was the wisest of the animal tribes, and had originally an erect and pleasing form, "said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said. unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God. doth know, that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened; and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise; she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat." Here the positive commandment of God was violated, the covenant of life broken, and the curse of death incurred, not only for himself, but for all his posterity. Philosophically to explain how a perfectly holy creature could sin, is not easy; but as a practical matter the thing is not difficult. The mind of man was incapable of thinking of many things at once; to his constitution belong many natural desires and appetites. The objects suited to these might so occupy the mind, for a season, as to exclude higher and nobler ideas; and, in a moment of inadvertency, the lower propensities, which act with a blind force, might prevail with persons, before innocent, to do an act which God had forbidden; especially, when by an impudent falsehood the danger of the act was positively denied, and when it was confidently alleged that great good would be the result.

Whether the man was influenced to eat, by the same motives which prevailed with the woman, is a matter of uncertainty. Many suppose that he was led by love to his wife to determine to perish with her, rather than be for ever separated from her. It matters little what were his motives; the fact was, that he deliberately transgressed the law of God, and thus involved a world in ruin.

The immediate consequences of the fatal transgression were, a new set of feelings, of guilt, shame, and fear, which caused our first parents to cover themselves with fig-leaves, and to hide themselves among the thick trees of the garden; and when questioned by their Maker they attempted to excuse themselves, and to charge their fault upon another. They were now driven from the garden, and flaming cherubim stationed at the entrance to prevent their return. The ground was cursed for their sake, and doomed thenceforth to bring forth thorns and briars; so that man would have to eat his bread by the sweat of his brow. The sentence of death was also confirmed, "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." It may be asked, how the threatening, "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," was executed, since Adam continued to live upon earth for more than nine hundred years? “Let God be true, but every man a liar.” This threatening was executed, or began to be executed, that very day; for, from the moment of man's eating the forbidden fruit, he became mortal; death already began to work. Again, in death, as threatened in the penalty, every kind of evil is included. Temporal death, consisting of a separation of soul and body, was not the principal thing; but spiritual death, which consists in a separation from God, a loss of his favour, and image,

and which perpetuated, is eternal death, commenced on the very day on which man sinned. While man, after the fall, retained all his physical powers of soul and body, and continued still to be a moral and accountable creature, he entirely lost that clothing of moral excellence, which was the beauty and glory of his nature. He was now dead in law, and dead in trespasses and sins; and from being a holy being, became totally depraved; that is, destitute of any principle of true holiness; but capable of unlimited increase in wickedness.

That the posterity of Adam "sinned in him, and fell with him in his first transgression," is evident from the fact that they have all become mortal, and are subjected to all the temporal evils which fell upon him. They are all excluded from paradise, and are forced to till the earth with the sweat of their brow, which still groans under the curse, and spontaneously brings forth noxious weeds instead of useful grains and fruits. Woman is still, all over the world, subject to the same pains in parturition, which were threatened to Eve. But more than this, men come into the world destitute of that holiness, or original righteousness, in which Adam was created. By nature all are children of wrath. All go astray from their earliest years. "There is none that doeth good, no not one. There is no fear of God before their eyes, and the way of peace have they not known." This state of corruption is not confined to idolatrous Gentiles, but belongs also to the Jews, who were in external covenant with God. "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." And these streams of iniquity David traces up to the polluted fountain, when he cries out, "Behold, I was

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shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me."

That the universality of death in the human race, is owing to the transgression of Adam, is clearly evinced from the express declarations of Holy Scripture. "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive." "As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; so death hath passed on all men, because that (or in whom) all have sinned." "As by the disobedience of one, many were made sinners." "By one man's offence, death reigned by one." "Through the offence of one many are dead.' "By the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation." And the facts, known by universal experience, are in exact accordance with these declarations of the Bible. All men die. And that this is on account of the imputation of Adam's sin, is evident from this, that death reigns over "those who have not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression ;" that is, over infants who have not been guilty of any actual violation of the law of God.

Whether it was just in God to constitute Adam the representative of all his posterity, and suspend their salvation on his obedience, is not a question for us to discuss. Whatever God does is just, and not only just, but wise; and though darkness may rest on this transaction, this is owing to our ignorance and prejudice. We need not fear that the Judge of all the earth will not be able to vindicate his own dispensations to the whole universe.

Some have thought to evade or lessen the apparent hardship of the case, by denying the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity, and maintaining that children were only punished for the depraved nature