ticipate the remaining sections; and, as a proof of unlimited wisdom, it is unnecessary. The recognition of that wisdomof a few of its more superficial traces-constitutes man's science. That science he never expects to complete. Every step in advance is a protest against such an expectation, for it only affords him a more commanding view of the vast unknown. Every such step admonishes him also that his own mind is only as yet in process of development, for it appeals to hidden relations, and puts him in possession of new powers. Let him wait till he has exhausted the works of God, before he thinks of assigning limits to His wisdom. "There is no searching of His understanding." And every act by which the mind recognizes, in its own adjustment to the universe, a manifestation of the Divine wisdom, reflects the mirrored glory of the whole on the mind of the Maker.

1. When speaking of the animal dispensation as an illustration of the Divine benevolence, we saw Goodness where before we beheld only Wisdom and Power, for we saw that both the productions of power and the arrangements of Wisdom had waited to answer an end in the service of Benevolence. In the human dispensation, this is not merely repcated, but exceeded. For not only are the same special provisions for enjoyment to be found in man which we recognized in the animal (and which we shall not here re-consider), some of these provisions are enlarged, and other and higher provisions are superadded.

2. In the constitution of the first man, considered as a sinless being, we behold a creature whose every susceptibility and power tends to enjoyment. Regarded merely as a partaker of animal existence, the consciousness of life alone is the consciousness of enjoyment. Additional enjoyment was provided for him in the gratification of each of those appetites which relate to the support and continuance of life. As a percipient being, every organ of sense was an avenue of distinct and additional grateful sensations. As a reflective and rational being, the mere exercise and expansion of his intellectual faculties would occasion him enjoyment: improvement itself would be pleasure. The emotions of novelty and curiosity, of anticipation and hope, of cheerfulness and love, are only other names for happiness; and yet this is the only class of emotions of which unfallen man

would be conscious. The consciousness of a power to willof his doing what he did from choice- this was another and a deep source of enjoyment. And, then, the highest, the most exquisite of all, was the consciousness that he had done morally right, that he had acted in harmony with the objective and supreme will.

3. The constitution of man, regarded as successively existent, renders the goodness of the Creator more apparent still. How remarkable, for instance, is that provision by which the limitation and apparent defect of memory, owing to which, many things are forgotten, are made subservient to the more easy and prompt exercise of the judgment, which would otherwise be confounded and oppressed by the bewildering details of the past. And that emotional provision, by which, besides the pleasure we feel in merely intending good to another, the object of our kind intention feels pleasure in the mere knowledge of our intention; this operating, further, as a motive to the fulfilment of the intention; in which fulfilment, again, we experience pleasure, and the object of our regard again experiences pleasure in being the actual recipient of our kindness; while the foreknowledge of this, again, impels us to the act. And in this way, the feeling of kindness not merely survives the act which it prompts us to perform: it is even strengthened by the act, and would feel a pleasure in immortalizing its objects.* And that remarkable arrangement by which the impulse of compassion is strong in proportion to the helplessness of the object, and help is rendered with a promptness which does not wait for the decisions of reason; so that our instinctive nature is made to subserve our highest well-being. For all such instances, besides the preceding, accompanying, and resulting pleasure they yield as instinctive acts, are capable of yielding additional pleasure when conscience has pronounced them to be on the side of vir

tue.

And then there is the power of habit, by which every voluntary course of conduct essential to our well-being becomes increasingly easy and pleasant. Who but must perceive and admire the beneficence of this provision, by which every successive hour in which the first man persevered in obedience to the command of his Maker, rendered his failure less and less likely, and his obedience more agreeable and consciously ennobling!

4. The condition of innocent man answered, in beneficent

* Dr. Chalmers' Bridgewater Treatise, vol. i., c. 2.

contrivance, to his constitution. He found himself the inhabitant of a place in which every object and arrangement had been Divinely appointed to minister to his happiness. Was the active employment of his powers essential to his enjoyment? He had to gather the fruits which he needed, and "to keep the ground" which he occupied. It is by no means unusual for the sceptic to speak of man's appointment to labor as if the Bible had made it to originate in the primal curse, and then, having shown that labor is in reality a condition of our nature and a blessing, to exult as if he had convicted the Bible of inconsistency. Now, the only rest which the Bible promises even in Heaven, is rest from suffering, the only labor which it denounces as curse is toil, producing the "sweat of the brow" and the "sorrow" of the heart-a curse from which the mass is, at this moment, laboring to escape. But healthy bodily occupation was made a necessity and a duty in Paradise itself. Hence, too, the appointment, from the first, of a day of rest. And it is worthy of remark and remembrance, that, in this respect, the Bible is alone; that while the representations which are found in the writings of Hesiod, Plato, and the ancient classics generally, describe the happy state as one of indolence and ease, or only of optional activity, the writings of Moses evince the superiority of their origin by representing labor as a condition of happiness, and a duty.

In a similar manner, man's intellectual powers were called into easy activity by the office assigned to him of comparing, discriminating, and giving names to objects; and his sense of obligation, by an easy law relating to his appetites and senses a law requiring him, not to perform, but simply to omit the performance of a single action. And thus, by a threefold act, the hand of Goodness gave an impulse to his powers, physical, mental, and moral, and called the whole into pleasurable activity.

5. Would it conduce to the happiness of a holy being to be made sensible of his dependence on his all-sufficient Creator, and of the kind care of the Creator to provide for his wants? The creation of woman was calculated to answer this twofold end. The desire of man for a "help-meet" was, perhaps, one of the first of which he was conscious; and to awaken this desire, was, probably, judging from the phraseology, one of the Divine designs, in bringing the animals in pairs into the presence of Adam. The immediate production of woman, then, was calculated to deepen his sense of dependence and obliga

tion; while the particular method of her formation which God was pleased to select was calculated "to give his newly-created children a lively sense of their reciprocal duties."

6. Would it still more conduce to man's enjoyment that he should hold intercourse with his Maker? This must be regarded as the crown of the creature's happiness. And yet direct communion with his Maker appears to have been man's familiar privilege. If he that walks with a wise man becomes wise," what must he become who walks with "the only wise God!" If the external creation was calculated to reproduce itself, in a living paradise, within his bosom, what could be the effect, had been long continued, of his habitually coming into the felt presence of the Creator himself, but to be rapidly advanced in every intellectual and moral excellence! Hence, also, "God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it He had rested from all his work which God had created and made." Thus, from the beginning, "the sabbath was made for man;" and for what assignable object could it be made for man in paradise, but for his progress in knowledge and holiness, by holding communion with God? Indeed, the reason assigned for its consecration implies this, as well as the statement that God sanctified it or set it apart from a common to a religious use; and that He blessed it or made it a source of peculiar advantage to man. For in what other way could God's cessation from the work of creation form a reason for the institution of the sabbath, except as its completion filled up that outline of his character which it was for his glory to display, and for man's highest advantage to contemplate? Thus, a rich objective provision was made answering to every part of man's subjective nature, and calculated to fill him with grateful admiration of the Divine goodness.

7. Still further was this goodness displayed in the progressiveness of its exercise. The work of creation had now paused, and Providence had commenced its reign; henceforth the character of God was to be learned not merely from the adaptation of his works to man's constitution considered co-existently, but also from the manner in which they were effected and disclosed. Accordingly, we find his goodness exemplified in the manner in which, step by step, He was pleased to adapt his conduct to man's constitution, considered as successively existent. Having formed his creature in a locality of general adaptation, the Creator then conducted him into a scene of special adaptation, as if to impress him from the first with a sense of his Maker's good

ness.

There, the first day which dawned on him was a sabbath; and the first being with whom he found himself in communion was his Divine Creator. The mammer in which all the trees of the garden (with one exception) were given him to awaken and gratify his appetite, and to regale his senses; the simple and easy manner in which his mind was first called into exercise, in naming the animals; the natural manner in which his consequent sense of superiority was gratified, by being invested with an easy dominion over them; the mode of appealing to his social nature, and of then gratifying it by the creation of a helpmeet for him; and then the easiness of the command which appealed to his sense of duty; — indeed, the whole train of circumstances appears to have been arranged with the benevolent design of easily and successively developing the various parts of his constitution, and of enlarging his view, at each step, of the goodness of his Creator.

The supposition that man was not merely potentially, but actually, perfect, from the earliest moment of his creation, besides contravening the true theory of human nature, is out of harmony with the inspired narrative, and impairs our view of the Divine goodness. That his nature was potentially perfect, or capable of all perfection, we affirm, in effect, when we say that he was made in the Divine image. Besides which, being created with all his capacities in a state of mature readiness for exercise and development, and having nothing to unlearn, his progress would be distinguished by corresponding rapidity. But still that progress, however rapid, implied successive steps― greater attainments to-day than yesterday, and, in consequence, preparation for greater still to-morrow. And the method employed by God to secure this progress exhibits Him in the relation of a wise paternal instructor aiming at once to engage the affections, and to improve the opening faculties of his child. In this light, the test of the creature's obedience (not to eat of a certain fruit) appears to be, what it really was a first lesson in moral obligation morality made easy.

8. When showing, in a preceding chapter, that man's every movement is right or wrong in relation to that constitution of nature into which he has been introduced, his condition, viewed in connection with his want of experience, may possibly have awakened the idea of hardship. Now, the sufficient reply to this (if, indeed, it deserves or requires any) as far as the paradisiacal state is concerned, is, that his every movement there might have been regulated by a reference to the Divine will.