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principle of life to put them in action; and this curious formed body is capable of having a wife taken out of it, and yet remains a perfect compleat person. Thus organized, the Lord breathed into him the breath of life; and when Adam took in that breath, he took it for himself and his wife; 8e, for it cannot be proved that God breathed into Eve

as he did into Adam. Gen ii. 21. And the Lord

caused

consent, (nay, if God gave them a law in order to prevent it) contrary to the will, against the inclination, and in opposition to the designs of the Supreme Governor of the world, is so derogatory to God, so dishonorable to his character, and so contrary to the written word, that I cannot admit it; for, upon its very surface I read a vilé impeachment of all those attributes that endear his government, and that constitute God the object of my worship. If we separate from God Love the ideas of love, wisdom, power, and goodness,

a

he ceases to be a fit object of worship. But how strange does it appear, that those men that will readily allow, that Satan could not impoverish the Gadarenes by drowning their pigs, but by obtaining leave from God. Yet, they would fain have us believe, that the same enemy immersed a world of rational intelligencies in an ocean of guilty misery, from which they can never emerge, but as they are buoyed up to a pitch of Divine

caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam. Adam was not dead when God took the rib out of his side; but God 'operating and working in that life, built him a wife meet for him. Though the life that she lived in him was not intelligible,

till

vigor and activity, (for. their vigor and their activity, is the vigor and activity of him who is their life) by his hand, whose protection they bad forfeited against his will, as represented by

them.

Paul boldly and unequivocally asserts the design of God in giving the law: Rom. v. 20. Moreover, the law entered that the offence might abound; but, where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. The only difficulty that can be made to appear, arises from the ambiguity of the term law; for the term is used to express not only a command moral or positive, but also the influence of an external power, or an internal principle upon the mind; whether that power or that principle be good or bad. Thus Paul expresses himself, when describing the influence of the blessed spirit, and its corresponding effects, "the law of the spirit of life," &c. meaning the impelling energy, the irresistible influence of the divine power upon his mind. When speaking of the influence of sin, he calls it"a law in his members," &c.

till an intelligible soul was joined to that life; so before she was taken out of him, she was sustained in him, and by him; for she lived in him, and by him, though not yet made meet for him (by form and reason) to have conjugal commu

nion

In the words above cited, it either means that standard of perfection, which springs from the properties of the divine nature, as bearing a relation to man, who does in himself, or is to be made by another to quadrate with that standard, or that positive command that God gave the man in the garden of Eden, respecting the tree of knowledge of good and evil. A moral command as it arises from the unchangeable nature of things, is of eternal continuance: a positive command ceases to claim obedience, when the end of its institution is answered. It is evident that Paul could have no reference to the ceremonial law; for the design of its institution was typically to take away sin; and before it could take away sin, sin must have existed, and it could not have existed prior to a given law, of which it is a transgression. He could not refer to the judicial law, for its design was to punish, in a civil sense, crimes committed against the state: he could have no reference to the second publication of the law upon Sinai, for offences existed before this: it must therefore refer to a law given anterior to

the

nion with her; so Jesus Christ was set up from. everlasting. (He that is Wisdom direct me here in this transcendent glory.) I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth.

was;

the commission of any crime, when man was in the pure, simple state of nature. Do not let your prejudices be so shocked as to impede the operation of thought, when you see, that with the Apostle we are going to inform you, that God gave a positive command to Adam, that a certain offence should abound in consequence of its disobedience. We can prove from facts, that God has given a positive command, expressive of a supposed will, and that at the time of giving it, he was determined it should not be obeyed in the sense it was understood by the subject; and to that extent the words of the command admited of. A demonstration of this we have in the command which God gave unto Abraham, to sacrifice his son Isaac; the words of the command were plain,' positive, and unqualified in all the objects it embraced. Abraham, from the whole of his conduct, considered it in this light, for he acted conformable to the given order: throughout the whole, there was nothing left undone that ought to have been done. Moriah was to be the scene of action; to Moriah he came; the sacrificing of Isaac was the visible end proposed; Isaac was there; the wood

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was; Prov. viii. 23: when there was no depths, I was brought forth; ver. 25.

This Christ speaketh of his human nature, I was set up, cannot be applied to his Godhead; for setting up signifieth his being inferior to his Father,

that was to consume the burnt offering prepared; Abraham in one hand carried the fire that was to consume, and in the other the knife (the size of which he measured with his eye, to ascertain the depth he should plunge it in his son) that was to slay the burnt offering. At that critical juncture, when the father's hand was uplifted, to yield perfect obedience to the command, an angel was dispatched, commissioned from God, to prevent the obedience; Gen. xxi. 1. 13: for whatever Abraham did, was only preparatory to the obedience required; this is evident from the reflection of Isaac; "Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt-offering? The proof of Abraham's design, and the light in which he considered the command, are from the whole of his conduct indubitable. But the design of obeying, is not obedience in the sense required by the letter of the command: his being prevented by an angel, proved it the design of God, that he should not obey, in the sense Abraham understood it, and as required by the command itself.-I would here anticipate an objection

7. Jos: Hussey, in his Glory of Christ Unveild, never loses sight. of this striking text from the ving very ning to the end of that volume

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