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DISC. " your

little ones which

IV.

ye

faid fhould be

"a prey, and your children which in that

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day had no knowlege of good and evil, they "fhall go in thither." Here, to know good and evil is, evidently, to know the nature of both, and so to form a judgment` upon that knowlege, as to chufe the one, and refuse the other. Thus again the fame. fentiment is expreffed in the well-known paffage of Ifaiah, "Before the child fhall "know to refuse the evil and chufe the

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good." And again, the woman of Tekoah fays to David, "As an angel of God, "fo is my lord the king to difcern good " and bad," that is, to distinguish, judge, and act accordingly. This laft paffage is fimilar to thofe before cited from Genefis, and must explain them; namely, "Ye "shall be as gods, knowing good and " evil;" and, "Man is become like one "of of us, to know good and evil." It may be added that a New Testament writer ufes the words in the very fame fenfe. For

a Deut. i. 39.
2 Sam. xiv. 17.

b Ifai. vij. 16.

the

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IV.

the Apostle, fpeaking of adults in Chrif- DISC. tianity, as oppofed to babes in the faith, styles them fuch as have " their fenfes ex"ercised to discern good and evil'

Such being the plain and acknowleged import of the expreffion in other parts of the Scriptures, why should we fuppofe it to be different in the inftance before us? Let us rather conclude it to be the fame.

The question then will be, how could this Tree in the Garden of Eden confer a knowlege of good and evil? How could it enable 'man to difcern the nature of each? How could it inform him which was to be pursued, and which to be avoided?

Shall we say, with the Jewish writers, that there was any virtue in the fruit, to clarify the understanding, and fo to teach man knowlege? But if fo, why was it prohibited? For the knowlege, which we

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IV.

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DISC. fuppofe to be implied in the phrafe, is perfective of man's nature; it is true wisdom and if he really acquired it by tasting the forbidden fruit, he was much benefited by tranfgreffion. We must therefore determine, that the Tree was defigned to teach the knowlege of good and evil, or to be productive of true wisdom, not in a phyfical but in a moral way. It inftructed our firft parents to fly from and avoid death, and the cause of death, which must have been in fome manner denoted by this Tree; as they were directed to chufe life, and the cause of life, fignified to them by the other Tree, which bore that appellation.

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The prohibition, being calculated for man's trial, was at the fame time calculated to give him the information neceffary for that purpose. Such is the nature and defign of every law. It conveys the knowlege of good and evil by prohibiting the latter, and confequently enjoining the forBy the law," fays St. Paul, "is the knowlege of fin. I had not known lust,

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"except

IV.

"except the law had faid, Thou shalt not DISC. "covet "." It is the law, in every cafe respectively, which gives the knowlege of good and evil. Obedience to it is good, and the reward is life; difobedience is evil, and the penalty death. And the trial of man, thus informed, is, whether he will obey or disobey; in order to the manifef tation of the lawgiver's juftice, wisdom, power, and glory, by rewarding or punishing him, as he does the one or the other. The difficulty lies here: Why an action to appearance fo unimportant and infignificant as that of eating or forbearing to eat the fruit of a Tree should have been appointed as the test of his obedience ?

To folve this difficulty, let it be confidered, that, befide those laws usually termed moral, and supposed to speak their own fitness and propriety, from an obvious view of the nature and conftitution of things, it is not ftrange or uncommon for God to try the love and obedience of man by other

• Rom. vii. 7.

precepts,

IV.

DISC. precepts, ftyled pofitive and ceremonial. Such was the order for Abraham to quit his country and kindred, and afterward to offer his fon Ifaac: upon which latter occasion, notwithstanding the proofs before given by him of an obedient fpirit, God was pleased to say, Now I know thou "feareft God." Such were the ritual obfervances regarding facrificature and other particulars, obferved among the patriarchs, and afterwards, with additions, republifhed in form by Mofes. Such are the injunctions to abstinence and felf-denial, with the inftitutions of Baptifm and the Lord's Supper, among Chriftians. What hath been thus done under every other difpenfation, was done likewife in Paradise.

And as touching these fame precepts called pofitive, even they are not, what they are fometime deemed to be, arbitrary precepts, given for no other reafon, but because it is the will of God to give them. They carry in them a reason, which, though

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