tate” of holiness and felicity: and who, hav- of love, has in a moment learned to reproach ing artfully seduced our first parents from and upbraid. The heart which glowed at the their innocence, exposed them to the wrath promise and the prospect of a fair, numerous, of God, procured their expulsion from para- and happy progeny, now sinks in dejection dise, rendered them a prey to fear, shame, and at the dismal apprehension of that guilt and remorse, and subjected them to pain, disease woe, in which his folly had plunged all his and death.

hapless children. Where innocence sat enThe circumstances of the case, according throned, there fell despair broods over her to the scripture account of it, were these. own stinging reflections, and tormenting The devil observed the serpent to be an ani- fears. Above, the awful throne of an offendmal of peculiar sagacity and penetration, and ed God; beneath, a fathomless gulf, kindled fixes on him as a fit instrument of seduction. by the breath of Jehovah as a stream of Fearing a repulse from the superior firmness brimstone; within, a troubled conscience, and discernment of the man, he watches for, like the raging sea, incapable of taking rest. and finds the unhappy moment, when the “The glory is departed: the gold is become woman, being separated from her husband, dim, and the most fine gold changed.” opposed to his wiles inferior powers of rea- And now too a revolution in outward cirson and intelligence, with greater softness cumstances takes place, corresponding to that and pliancy. He addresses himself to a prin- which had passed on his internal constituciple in her nature, the immoderate indul- tion and character. Adam must no longer gence of which has proved fatal to so many possess that paradise of which he had renthousands of her daughters, curiosity; curi- dered himself unworthy. Justice drives out osity, the investigator of truth, the mother of from Eden the man, who had cast himself out invention; curiosity, the prompter to rash- from the favour of God. A wall reaching up ness, the parent of danger, the guide to ruin. to heaven, and immoveable as the decree of Having first gained her attention, he excites the Eternal, prevents the possibility of reher to doubt and to reason in the face of a turn. The flaming sword of the cherubim positive command; rouses in her a spirit of bars all access to the tree of life. His labour, pride and ambition; and at length persuades formerly his delight, must henceforward be her to make the fatal experiment. She eats accompanied with pain. The subject tribes of the prohibited tree, and, by transgression, throw off their allegiance, and either shun, or acquires the knowledge of evil, whereas she threaten their Lord. The elements change had hitherto known only good.

their influence, and his fair domain becomes By what arguments Adam was prevailed a vast solitude. The sole partner of his forupon to become a partner of her guilt, we mer joys, now become the cause and the are not informed. From the apology he companion of his guilt, becomes also the made for his conduct, it is to be inferred that companion of his woe. Mutual reflections female insinuation and address misled him and reproaches embitter and increase their from the law of his God. And thus were both common misery; and stern death stares them ruined by the operation of principles in them in the face. selves good and useful; but carried to excess, But will God contend for ever, will he be unchecked by reason, unawed by religion. always wroth? Then “the spirit should fail Eve perished by a curious and ambitious de- before him, and the souls which he had sire after a condition for which God and na-I made.” Behold a dawn of hope arises, and ture had not designed her, a desire to be “ as the promise of the Most High saves from God, to know good and evil;" Adam fell by despair. The moment man becomes, and complaisance to his wife, carried to unmanly feels himself, a miserable offender, that moweakness and compliance, yielding to his ment is the gospel preached unto him; as the subject, bidding defiance to his sovereign. woman was first in the transgression, so from

And what words can express, what heart her the prospect of salvation arises; and it is can conceive the bitter change! All his declared that "the old serpent, who is the posterity have experienced the melancholy devil and Satan," who had, in deceiving her, transition from health to sickness, from ease destroyed her posterity, should by one who to pain: very many have passed from afflu- was peculiarly her posterity, be destroyed ence to indigence, from glory to shame, and and slain. Thus they leave Eden, supported not a few have exchanged empire itself for and cheered with the expectation of triumph banishment or a dungeon. But more than over their bitter enemy, and of being restored the accumulated weight of all these at once, at length to the favour of their offended God. falls on the devoted head of our guilty first To keep alive this hope, as well as to afford father. The eyes, which before met the ap- present relief from shame, at this period, it proach of God with rapture, now are clouded would appear, sacrifice was instituted. The with sorrow, tremble with fear, or strain same victim shed its blood, the type of atonewith remorse and horror, at the voice of the ment: and furnished its skin to clothe the Almighty. That tongue, which was once naked, thereby presenting the emblem of a tuned only to the accent and the language perfect righteousness, to cover and shelter

the naked soul. And thus early, distinctly designed of God to be, and is in itself, the and unequivocally was Christianity taught | dearest bond of union among men. to mankind.

An event now took place in Adani's family In process of time, however, Adam has by which every former grief must have been the felicity of becoming a father; and en- renewed and embittered; and to his inexjoys the satisfaction of seeing the blessing pressible mortification he finds himself a root pronounced upon him in his better state, of bitterness, of which all his branches must notwithstanding his apostacy, taking effect. and do partake. Cain, incensed at the preferEve becomes the joyful mother, perhaps at ence given to his brother's offering, burning one birth, of two sons, and the earth begins with envy and resentment, watches his opporto be replenished. Behold the first parents tunity, and finding himself alone with him in of mankind exulting in affections unknown, the field, puts Abel to death. Thus man unfelt before; exulting in this fresh proof becomes the executioner of the dreadful senthat God had not forgotten to be gracious. tence of the divine law, upon man-brother Behold the nuptial tie strengthened and con- upon brother. What must have been the firmed; the voice of upbraiding and re- emotions of Adam's soul when these sad proach turned to the language of gratula- news were brought him! To lose a son, a tion, complacency, and love.

pious, promising son: almost an only one; Adam observes, with growing delight, his prematurely, unexpectedly, by the hand of sons increasing in stature and wisdom. Stung his own brother! The one dead! the other with keen reflection upon the happiness worse than dead; a wretch unworthy to live! which he had vilely thrown away, and the How would his own transgression again misery which he had entailed upon his hap- stare him in the face! How would he again less children, how would he exert himself accuse himself as the author of his own to repair that loss! How forcibly inculcate, wretchedness, and the propagator of wo on by his own fatal example, the obligations of wo to his posterity! The empire of Satan God's holy law! With what gratitude lead over this miserable world would now seem them to the promised atonement! With confirmed; and the purpose of the divine what heartfelt delight infuse knowledge into grace would be apparently defeated. But their opening minds !

God yet takes pity on fallen, guilty man, Man is destined to labour from the be- being mindful of his promise; and Seth is ginning; and, for his punishment, guilty given to supply the loss of Abel-Seth, in man must labour with the sweat of his whose line the promise runs, and of whom brow. But all the punishments of Heaven as concerning the flesh Christ should come. in reality, and in the issue, are blessings. And thus the divine interpositions always It is the privilege and the happiness of Adam seasonably and suitably meet our necessities and all his sons to be employed, though to and wants. weariness and fatigue. Accordingly the Adam's own. forfeited life is prolonged to heirs and possessors of the whole globe, as many generations, and he lives to sẽe his soon as they arrive at man's estate, betake posterity increased to a great multitude, inthemselves to the humble and necessary oc-venting and cultivating the arts which supcupations of that simple state of human na- port, adorn, or comfort life. But the time ture. “Abel was a keeper of sheep, and app aches, at last, that he must die. Mercy Cain was a tiller of the ground."

flew as on the wings of a dove to his relief; But Adam, we find, has taught his sons to justice walks with slow and steady steps to blend religion with their secular employ- his punishment. By himself sin had entered ments; nay, to make their very employments into the world, and death must inevitably the monitors and the means of religious follow, and pass, upon him and upon all men. worship.“ In process of time it came to He had seen the ghastly appearance of death, pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the in the person of his murdered son; he must ground an offering unto the Lord. And now drink the bitter cup for himself; “ And Abel he also brought of the firstlings of his the days that Adam lived, were nine hunflock, and of the fat thereof; and the Lord dred and thirty years, and he died.” had respect to Abel, and to his offering; but This is the end of all men, and the living unto Cain and his offering he had not re- should lay it to his heart. And thus at spect.'* And O, how early did the differ-length decayed the fabric which God himent passions and affections of the human self had reared; thus “the dust returned to mind discover themselves! Abel brings with the earth as it was, and the spirit to God who his offering, an humble, pious, and believing gave it.” And thus must conclude the hisspirit. Cain approaches the altar of God tory of every life, though protracted to a with a proud, selfish, murderous heart. And thousand years, whether adorned with virmelancholy it is to observe, the first quarrel tues, or sullied with vice, whether passed in the world, the first human blood that was with noise on the great theatre, or obscurely shed, were occasioned by religion, which is spent in the shade. To this complexion the • Gen. iv. 4, 5.

wise and the beautiful, the brave and the

a

good, as well as the simple and the homely, furnishing matter for a little conversation. the timid and the vicious, must come at last. There must be more virtue, religion, and “Here the rich and the poor meet together; good sense among the young men of the here the wicked cease from troubling, and age, before this crying evil be remedied. the weary are at rest.”

Finally, let us take the conclusion of the The next Lecture, if God permit, will at- book of God, and the bright prospect which tempt to exhibit to you, the comparison and it discloses to our view, to support and contrast of the first and second Adam: in cherish us under the melancholy scene exthe former of whom all died; and by the hibited to us in the beginning of it. “Aclatter, an elect world is made alive, and cording to his promise, we look for new “raised up together, and made to sit to heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth gether in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” righteousness.” “ And he that sat upon the

Let us endeavour to improve what has throne said, Behold I make all things new."* been said; by learning habitually to acknow- " And he showed me a pure river of water ledge, adore, and serve the great Author and of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of preserver of our being, who has lavished so the throne of God, and of the Lamb. In much goodness upon us, who adorned our the midst of the street of it, and on either nature with his own glorious image, pitied side of the river, was there the tree of life us in our low and lost estate, and has laid which bare twelve manner of fruits, and help for us on one who is mighty to save: yielded her fruit every month: and the and who, by the exceeding great and pre- leaves of the tree were for the healing of cious promises of the gospel, is aiming at the nations. And there shall be no more making us partakers of a divine nature, and curse; but the throne of God, and of the delivering us from that bondage of corrup-Lamb, shall be in it, and his servants shall tion, in which we are sunk by reason of sin. serve him. And they shall see his face, and

Let us learn, secondly, from the sad ex- his name shall be in their foreheads. And ample of the first transgression, to rest con- there shall be no night there, and they need tented with that state and condition which no candle, neither light of the sun: for the Providence has assigned us in life; to use Lord God giveth them light, and they shall only lawful means for bettering it; to make reign for ever.”+ “I beheld, and lo, a great the known will of God the only rule of con- multitude which no man could number, of duct; never to reason and tamper with all nations and kindreds, and people and temptation; but to repel or flee from it at tongues, stood before the throne, and before once: and to shun those as our worst ene- the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and mies, who, on any occasion or pretence, palms in their hands; and cried with a loud would attempt to make us think lightly of voice, saying, Salvation to our God which the law of God.

sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. Let me take occasion, thirdly, from that And all the angels stood round about the institution which God designed for the com- throne, and about the elders, and the four pletion of human happiness in a state of in- beasts, and fell before the throne on their nocence, and for the mutual assistance and faces and worshipped God; saying, Amen: comfort of the sexes, in their fallen condi- blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thankstion, to censure and condemn that spirit and giving, and honour, and power, and might practice of celibacy, which is one of the be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen. crying vices of our own age and country, And one of the elders answered, saying unto and which is equally inimical to religion, to me, What are these which are arrayed in good morals, to public spírit, and human white robes ? And whence came they? And comfort

. He who says, or lives as if he I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he thought, that it is “good for man to be said unto me, These are they which came alone,” gives the lie to his Maker; sins out of great tribulation, and have washed against the constitution of his nature, dis- their robes, and made them white in the honours his parents; defrauds another of one blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they beof the justest rights of humanity, and in a fore the throne of God, and serve him day case too where it is impossible so much as to and night in his temple, and he that sitteth complain; and exposes himself to commit on the throne shall dwell among them. offences against society which are not to be They shall hunger no more, neither thirst mentioned in this place. In truth, celibacy any more, neither shall the sun light on is a vile compound of avarice and selfish- them, nor any heat; for the Lamb, which is ness, which would fain pass upon the world in the midst of the throne shall feed them, for prudence and self-denial; and the state and shall lead them unto living fountains of of our own country at present, in this re- waters: and God shall wipe away all tears spect, looks as if a single state, as in Ro- from their eyes.” 1 man Catholic countries, were established by Thus the mercy of God, and the blood of a law, but that the laity, not the clergy, the Lamb, remove the guilt, and rectify the were bound by it. But, alas! I am only * Rev. xxi. 5. Rev. xxii. 1-5. 1 Rev. vii. 9-17.

a

disorders of sin. Thus guilty, fallen man is no mixture of evil intrudes itself, where recovered and restored. Thus the evils re- none but the trees of life find a place. And corded in the first pages of the Bible are thus the several parts of divine revelation remedied and done away in that bright reve- explain, illustrate, strengthen, and confirm lation of a world to come, which is opened each other; and the whole taken together, to us in the close of it. Thus is Adam, and exhibiting throughout one great leading obhis renewed offspring, conducted from a ter-ject, carrying on one great design, and restrial paradise, where the tree of know-accomplishing, at length, the one original ledge of good and evil grew up among the purpose of the ETERNAL, is gloriously trees of life, to the paradise of God, where perfect.

ADAM AND CHRIST COMPARED.

LECTURE III.

And so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a

quickening spirit-1 CORINTHIANS XV. 45 The frame of nature, the ways of Provi- dim and scattered fragments become both dence, and the work of redemption, mutu- legible and intelligible. ally illuminate, explain, and support each Nay, farther, the different parts of scripother. The invisible things of God are ture itself, taken separately and without clearly understood by the things which are connexion, may seem to have less force, made: the world is evidently upheld and beauty, and importance; but when brought governed by him who made it at first. And together, like the magnet and the steel, they the suspension of the laws of nature, and immediately attract each other and unite; the special interpositions of Divine Provi- like the scattered bones in the valley, bone dence, constitute the proof, that the gospel coming together to his bone, there starts up dispensation is from Him who has the uni- a perfect man, nay, an exceeding great army. verse under his control, to continue or to Type meeting the thing typified, prediction change its appearance at his pleasure; who squaring with event, promise tallying exhas all hearts in his hand, and consequently, actly with accomplishment, scripture acall events at his disposal. When we at- quires a solidity which bids defiance to all tempt to contemplate the providence of God, created force: becomes, in its own energetic we immediately find it to be a system infi- language, “as a hammer that breaketh the nitely too vast for human capacity to take rock in pieces.” The persons exhibited, the in, too complex for our penetration to unfold, events recorded, the scenes described, the too deep and mysterious for our understand- institutions ordained in one age and state of ing to fathom. All that we can do is to con- the world, which were the shadows of good sider the detached parts of this majestic things to come, are not only instructive and whole, as they present themselves to our interesting in themselves, but acquire a senses, or to our reason; as they are trans- weight and importance which they possessed mitted to us in the history and experience not before, when viewed in their relation to of others; or as they are discovered to us Him, to whom all the prophets give witness, by a revelation from heaven. Without the and whose person, character, and work, are Bible, it were utterly impossible to give a the fulfilling of all that was written of old tolerable account, much less one completely time. satisfactory, of the origin of the world, or The history of Adam ministers both pleaof the appearances of nature; of the events sure and instruction to us as men: but Chriswhich are past and are recorded, or those tjans feel a peculiar interest in the perusal which are every day presenting themselves of it, by considering Adam “as the figure of to our observation. But when reason vouch- him who was to come." safes to kindle her feeble lamp with fire from Having, in the last Lecture, attempted a the altar of God, and to supply it continually delineation of the life of the first man, acwith fresh oil from the sacred stores, what cording as it is transmitted to us in the holy was formerly dark becomes clear: what be- scriptures, we proceed, in prosecution of our fore seemed intricate and perplexed, is found plan, to institute in a few particulars, a comto be in perfect order and harmony; and the I parison between Adam and Christ; between

a

the federal head and representative of the first man, into whose nostrils God breathed human race, and the covenant head and re- the breath of life, and who thereby became presentative of the church. But first, let us a living soul, was “the type or figure of him observe wherein the first man differs from, that was to come:"* and in many other and wherein he resembles all other men, places, in his epistles, shows us wherein the who have descended from him by ordinary resemblance consists. Following him theregeneration.

fore, and the other sacred writers of the New First,—In the manner of his production. Testament, as our guides, we observe, Other men arrive at their maturity, such as First, that Adam typified Christ, as being it is, by slow and insensible degrees; they in a peculiar sense the Son of God. The make a progress through infancy, childhood, evangelist Luke, in tracing the natural pediand youth, to man's estate; Adam was creat-gree of our Saviour, ascends step by step ed perfect at once; the moment he began to from son to father, till he comes to the first exist, he existed in all the dignity and progenitor of all, “ who was,” says he, "the strength of reason, and intelligence. All Son of God;" that is, his immediate offspring, other men are conceived in sin, and brought deriving his existence without any interposiforth in iniquity; he came from the hands of tion, from the great source of being. And his Creator, holy and blameless, the son of what saith the scripture concerning the MesGod. The mental powers of the wisest and siah? “I will declare the decree: the Lord most intelligent of mankind, his sons, are hath said unto me, Thou art my Son, this narrow and contracted; we know but a few day have I begotten thee,”+ and when he things, and them imperfectly: the whole bringeth in the first begotten into the world," world of nature was an open volume to his he saith, “And let all the angels of God understanding. Since the fall, men are born worship him.”I into the world with the seeds of decay and As the manner in which Adam was prodissolution in the constitution and frame of duced, was new and unexampled, so the contheir nature; but Adam was created incor- ception and birth of Christ were “a new ruptible, immortal. The property and power thing in the earth:” the former created of of the greatest of his posterity is cramped dust from the ground, the latter formed by and confined; limited by mountains, rivers, the power of the Holy Ghost in the womb of and seas; liable to be encroached upon, dis- a virgin. But Adam, the son of God, though puted, invaded, taken away: but the domi- made in the likeness of his Creator, expressnion of the first man was uncontrolled, his ed that divine image only externally, as the authority indisputable, his property univer- coin exhibits the image and impress of the sal; the beasts of the field, the birds of the sove

overeign: whereas Christ the Son of God air, and whatsoever passeth through the displayed “the brightness of his Father's paths of the sea, all, all were put under his glory," and bore “ the express image of his feet. But Adam, fallen and lost, is just what person.” Adam the son of God was produced all his hapless children are; like them a in time, on the sixth day of the creation, afslave to divers lusts and passions; like them ter all the other works of God were finished: liable to disease and death; like them a prey but Christ, the Son of God, the eternal wisto sorrow, fear, and remorse; like them a dom of the everlasting Father, thus speaks child of wrath, an heir of hell; and like them, of himself. The Lord possessed me in the to be recovered, restored, re-established, only beginning of his way, before his works of by the mercy of God, and through the aton- old. I was set up from everlasting, from the ing blood of a Saviour; and how that Saviour beginning, or ever the earth was. When was typified or held forth to the world, by there were no depths, I was brought forth: the person, character, and relative connex- when there were no fountains abounding ions of Adam, is to be the subject of the re- with water. Before the mountains were setmaining part of this discourse.

tled, before the hills was I brought forth: Adam, perhaps, was not himself aware, while as yet he had not made the earth, nor that he was in this respect fulfilling the de- the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of signs of Providence. We know that many the world: when he prepared the heavens I others exhibited striking types of the pro- was there: when he set a compass upon mised Saviour, in their persons, offices, and the face of the depth: when he established actions, without being conscious that such the clouds above: when he strengthened honourable distinction was conferred upon the fountains of the deep: when he gave them; and Moses, the inspired author of the to the sea his decree, that the waters should history of the first man, no where hints, that not pass his commandment: when he aphe considered Adam, or that Adam consider- pointed the foundations of the earth: then ed himself in this light. But to us the matter I was by him, as one brought up with him: is put beyond a doubt, by one who wrote also and I was daily his delight, and rejoicing under the inspiration of God, the great apos- always before him: rejoicing in the habitatle of the Gentiles, who informs us, that this

66