found them numbered with the tranfgreffors. That the circumftance in which man difobeyed his Creator, was the eating the forbidden fruit, at the inftigation of him who is called the Serpent, we cannot doubt but the representations made by all poets and painters, of the transaction, are in the highest degree abfurd. The shape affumed by Satan, is reprefented by them as that of a large fnake, twined round an appletree, from which he is supposed to have addreffed Eve, who, instead of being frightened at hearing a fnake speak for the first time, and running away to her husband, as the ftoutest of her daughters would have done, enters into a friendly colloquy with him, and not only takes the reptile's word, in contradiction to what God himself had told her, but gives him implicit credit for knowing the councils of the Moft High; for God, fays he, doth know, that by eating it, you shall become as Gods; and accordingly she takes the apple, eats a part of it, and

gives the reft to her hufband. That huf band, too, fresh out of the hands of his Creater, and in frequent conference with him, gives an eafy credit to the tale of his wife, and takes the fnake's word at fecondhand, to authorize him in difobeying the pofitive command of the Almighty, and, without any repugnance, eats up the apple. Now, let us ftop, to confider not only how weak and filly thefe perfect creatures appear to be, from this reprefentation, but also how enormously criminal in the fight of God. God had not only forbid them to eat of the fruit, but had told them, that in the day they did eat of it, they fhould furely die. They not only disobey God, in eating it, but they do it under the affurance of the ferpent that God had told them a lie, and meant to deceive them; for that they should not die, but become as Gods: and thus is their disbelief of God's word made the forerunner or caufe (by this representation) of their act of disobedience; and their infidelity

appears

appears to be the occasion of man's mifery. Was it, then, to reftore fuch weak and wicked creatures (for greater turpitude cannot well be imagined) to a condition they had fo wilfully and wantonly forfeited, that the Son of God emptied himself of his Divinity, took upon him a human body, continued in it thirty-eight years upon earth, and at last suffered a painful and ignominious death; while the glorious angels that had alfo fallen, are condemned to everlasting torments? This, indeed, might well be called marvellous, even in our eyes. But it is almost as great a wonder, that none of the bright ornaments of the clerical profession, which have appeared among us, fince the revival of letters, have ever (that I have read of) attempted to give a better account of so astonishing a tranfaction, but have contented themselves with taking the account, as it came handed down to them, and exercised their great talents and deep learning, in palliating the objections and fmooth

fmoothing the difficulties with which it was attended; for none of them have ever been able to answer or remove them. Let not then an attempt to do, what fo many great luminaries of the Church have declined, be deemed too prefumptuous in a layman, more versed in the ways of men than in the fequeftrations of a cloyfter; for perhaps that very acquaintance with human policy which his fituation gave him, may have led him into a train of thinking, which may enable him better to develope the mazes of celestial and infernal polity, than the most studious and contemplative way of life could have done. Be that, however, as it may, and whatever may be his fuccefs, he trufts he fhall be excused for doing his best to correct erroneous opinions, and extend the boundaries of human knowledge, and fo more fully vindicate the ways of God to man. To begin, then, where all things have their beginning, with the infinite and eternal Being, instead'

of confidering Him as existing a folitary Being for an eternity, as it is abfurdly called, before he created any thing, and in utter darkness, as light is as much a creature as a man is, I shall suppose him ever in the exercise of his attributes, and always furrounded with light and glory, and hosts of intelligent creatures, the works of his hands; for is it more difficult to conceive the Deity to be always acting, than to conceive him always exifting? The difficulty only lies in our fixing a period or date to his beginning to work, and the necessary confequence is, that we fuppofe he must have existed an Eternity*, before that date

or

• Eternity, instead of being represented as a line infinitely extended, should be confidered as an unit or instant, without fucceffion or progreffion, and to have no relation to any thing but the Deity, in whofe existence it is comprehended; for to him all things are continually prefent, and the revolutions which make time to his creatures, do not refpect him; for

One