XLVI.

I COR. XV. 22. ́

IN ADAM ALL DIE.

A

S God created man in a state of perfection, it has been asked, Why He did not allow him to continue in it? The abruptnefs of a paradifaical state looks like (what we cannot conceive) a fort of hafty change in the counfels of the Almighty. We muft either, therefore, answer this objection, we are told; or muft give up the Mofaic account as a mere allegorical compofition.

Of the abruptnefs of a paradifaical state, (on which the objection is founded,) we can form no opinion, unless we were perfectly acquainted with the whole of God Almighty's plan in the redemption of the world by Chrift. It may relate to other worlds as well as to ours. We fee a natural connection

12

nection between our world, and the fun, the moon, and (for any thing we know) the planets and stars. Why may there not then be a moral connection alfo? As far as we can trace God Almighty's works, there is a connection among them all. In this view, then, the fall of man may be confidered only as a part of fome vaft plan perhaps only as the opening of it. This diffolves the objection fo far, at leaft, as to drive the objector to take refuge in his own ignorance.

Another probable fuppofition is, that as the world is meant to be a state of trial, the hiftory of the fall was a good introduction to it. It was like a table of contents at the beginning of a book. It fhewed at once the fatal consequences of mifcarriage in a state of trial, and tended to put men on their guard. Something of the same kind, our bleffed Saviour thought proper to present to mankind, on the opening of the Gospel. As the world was then more advanced, and become a wider scene of trial, our Saviour, in his temptation in the wilderness, gave his followers a view of those temptations they were afterwards to encounter, and of the proper mode of oppofing them by the truths of Scripture.

But,

But, whatever were the Almighty's reafons, (which it behoves us not to scrutinize too deeply,) for opening the world with the fall of man, whom he had juft created; of this we may be affured, that as far as Adam himself was concerned, his will was as free as ours. At the fame time, God made use of him as an inftrument, as he does of all his creatures, bad and good, in forwarding his own defigns.

XLVII.

LUKE, X. 26.

WHAT IS WRITTEN IN THE LAW? HOW

READEST THOU?

TH

HESE two queftions our Saviour propofed as an answer to a curious inquirer, who had the means, he thought, of anfwering himself. They were proposed to a Jew; but are equally adapted to a Chriftian. What is written in the Gospel? How readeft thou?-Both questions require a very ferious confideration.

We are first asked, What is written in the Gofpel? Though the Gospel contains all our hopes of eternal life, and inftructs us in all the means of obtaining it; there are numbers who never look into it, nor have the least knowledge of what is written in it.-Numbers again, though they may cafually look into it, or hear it read in churches,

rarely

rarely make it the fubject of their thoughts. If they should be asked, What is written in the Gospel? What are you to believe?-What are you to practife? What provifion does it make for finners?— What affiftance does it offer? They have nothing to answer: they know little of its contents.

The fecond question, How readeft thou? may be proposed to thofe, who do indeed read the Scriptures-but in an improper manner. They read them carelessly perhaps, and merely as a task -or with the prejudices of fome fect about them -or to feek objections or to find arguments to enforce a favourite tenet-or, perhaps, under fome ambiguous text to get a licence to fin.

All these modes of reading Scripture turn religion into mifchief.-An honeft man fees his path plainly before him. He knows that by reading the Scriptures, he must first learn his duty; and that when he has learned his duty, his only business is to practise it.