sufficient to satisfy the vain curiosity of man, it is amply sufficient to vindicate the power and goodness of God, which is the only purpose for which it concerns us to know any thing upon the subject. Liberty of will, and a power of regulating his actions by the dictates of that will, are essential to the perfection of every rational being. Without freedom of judgment, reason cannot exist; and that, without liberty of acting according to his judgment, would render reason a perpetual torment to its possessor. But this power of judging and acting for himself must, in every created and subordinate being, include the possibility of judging and acting wrong. The very existence of rational creatures, therefore, implies the possibility of evil: and with regard to the particular evil which caused the first disobedience both of men and angels, viz. PRIDE, we may observe, that the very excellences which are given as a security against other evils, prove a temptation to this; and the more perfect and excellent the creature is, the greater is this temptation to Pride, the mother of evil.

(1) P. 58.-Nor in the manner they would afterwards have been opened, had they come to eat of the same fruit with faith, and in obedience to the will of God.

The mode of conveying spiritual instruction by symbols and visible signs, serving at the same time as exercises of faith, and means of confirming it, is a leading feature of God's intercourse with man in every period of the world, and seems to be peculiarly suited to the constitution of human nature. "For since," says Archbishop King,5 man has a body as well as a soul, senses as well

5 66

5 In a Sermon on the Fall of Man.

as understanding; and that the soul does make use of the organs of the body and of the senses for its information; and that this is the natural course of our acquiring knowledge; it were a violence to the nature of man to invert the method, or separate the one from the other. And therefore God, in his communications with us, seems industriously to have avoided it.

"Now, this being the manner of God's entertaining an intercourse with man through the whole Scriptures, it is very evident that the two remarkable trees of Paradise, that of Life and that of the Knowledge of good and evil, were designed for these mystical purposes, and intended as settled and visible means to supply man with God's influence and assistance." These trees were truly sacramental. They were outward and visible signs, to which God had actually attached an inward and Spiritual grace; so that to have partaken of their fruit with faith, and in obedience to the Divine Will, would assuredly have procured, in one case, a happy Immortality, and in the other, an elevating Knowledge of things spiritual, pure, and holy; but if partaken of unworthily, and in defiance of God's commands, the former would doubtless have entailed an eternal Life of misery, as we know that the latter did a degrading and corrupting Knowledge of all things carnal, sensual, devilish. And as the sinful eating of the fruit of the tree of Knowledge brought death, and degradation, and misery into the world, so there seems no ground to doubt, that had man persevered in his faith and obedience, the fruit of the tree of Life, and of the tree of Knowledge, would have been the means through which God would actually have conferred upon him the rewards of an enlightened and blessed Immortality, of which he had appointed them the tokens and pledges. Till, however,

man should have rendered himself, by a humble, faithful, and patient continuance in well-doing, fit for the secure possession of glory, honour, and immortality, the fruit of the tree of life seems to have been mercifully placed beyond his power of attaining, by any knowledge he then possessed; and of the fruit of the tree of knowledge he was forbid to eat on pain of death.

(M) P. 59.—If they acquired, at the same time, some knowledge of human arts or their principles.

and

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER. And had the first parents of mankind been intrusted at once with all the intellectual power their faculties were capable of, their corporeal weakness would have rendered them peculiarly liable, through the influence of pride, to abuse that power, thus to fall into the same sin and the same condemnation as the more perfect angels had done before. God, therefore, seems mercifully to have withheld from them at first all knowledge but such as was essential to their happiness in the circumstances in which they actually were, and to have placed them in a state of probation admirably calculated to strengthen their faith, and so prepare them for the secure enjoyment of a more exalted state of happiness, consisting in a nearer approach to God, and a clearer insight into the wonders of his Almighty power. The fruit of the tree of knowledge was the appointed sacramental means of conveying to man this enlargement of understanding. An enlargement of understanding was the necessary consequence of eating thereof; but whether the increase of knowledge so acquired should be good or evil, a blessing or a curse, depended entirely upon whe

ther the fruit were eaten in obedience or disobedience to the command of God.

(N) P. 62.-Animal sacrifice, if not formally appointed, was at least accepted, and therefore, we are sure, suggested by God, at its commencement, as a type of the one true Sacrifice, to be once offered for the sins of the whole world.

"All holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed from God." Whether, therefore, the "faith by which Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain," and " by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts," Whether that faith were demonstrated by obedience to a positive command, or by prompt compliance with a holy suggestion, in either case the rite of animal sacrifice originated in the Will of God; and its general adoption in the world can only be accounted for by the existence of such a persuasion, whether solely produced, or only confirmed, by the " respect" which the Lord manifested "to Abel and his offering." This consideration brings MR. BENSON's views on the subject into nearer accordance with those of other divines than he himself seems willing to admit ; and admiring, as I do, the acuteness of all, and acknowledging the truth of most of his observations in xth, xith, and xiith HULSEAN LECTURES for 1822, I still maintain the primitive Divine institution of animal sacrifice as typical of the sacrifice of Christ. The inward suggestion and visible acceptance of Abel's offering are 7 Gen. iv. 4.

6 Heb. xi. 4.

quite sufficient to constitute a Divine institution, without having recourse to the arbitrary supposition of a previous express command. And with regard to the typical nature of the institution, the beautiful ideas thrown out by Benson in the conclusion of his xiith Lecture, make it not improbable that Abel might have some perception of the significancy of offering animals, whose skins were appointed to cover the bodily nakedness of fallen man, as an expression of gratitude for the effectual covering to be provided, through Christ, for their moral nakedness. To perceive this, however, he must have had a farther insight into the plan of redemption than he could obtain by his own reason alone, from the terms of the promise, as recorded in Genesis, iii. 15. But the same Spirit who suggested the propriety of the offering, could likewise so far enlighten his understanding, as to enable him to see its suitableness in this point of view, and, perhaps, to perceive some faint resemblance between the slaying of a victim and the bruising of the Deliverer's heel.

(0) P. 65.-All the details, the express revelation of which would have imposed an unnecessary and dangerous burden on the frailty of human faith.

Had the circumstances of Christ's history been predicted by the Prophets, with the same distinctness and fulness with which they are recorded by the Evangelists, it would have required a greater degree of faith than has ever yet been required of Man, for those who preceded the accomplishment to believe them all whereas those who were eye-witnesses of the facts, or who have such demonstrative evidence as we possess, that they have actu