A. M. 1. A. C. 4004; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, 5411. GEN. CH. 3. that he was created in the full perfection of his nature; and yet it must be remembered, that a no created being can, in its own nature, be incapable of sin and default. Its perfections, be they what they will, are finite, and whatever has bounds set to its perfections, is, in this respect, imperfect, that is, it wants those perfections which a being of infinite perfections only can have; and whatever wants any perfection, is certainly capable of miscarrying. And as every finite creature is capable of default, so every rational being must necessarily have a liberty of choice, that is, it must have a will to choose, as well as an understanding to reason; because a faculty of understanding, without a will to determine it, if left to itself, must always think of the same subject, or proceed in a series and connexion of thoughts, without any end or design, which will be a perpetual labour in vain, or a thoughtfulness to no purpose. And as every rational be man necessarily requires a succession of time to transact | likeness and image of God, it cannot be supposed, but his affairs in; and therefore when we read of Adam, in the same day that he was created, (and that was not until God had made every beast of the field,) 1 inquiring into the nature of every living creature, and imposing on them proper names; falling into a deep sleep, and, with some formality, (without doubt,) receiving his wife from the hand of God; removing into the garden of paradise, and (as we may well suppose) walking about, and taking some survey of it; receiving from God both a promise and prohibition, and thereupon (as we may suppose again) 2 ratifying the first great covenant with him: when we read of all these things, I say, we cannot but think, that some time must be required for the doing of them; and therefore to suppose, after this, 3 that in the close of the same day, the woman wandered from her husband, met the serpent, entered into a parley with him, was overcome by his insinuations, did eat of the forbidden fruit, did prevail with her husband to do the same, and thereuponing has a liberty of choice, so, to direct that choice, it perceiving themselves naked, did instantly fall to work, and make themselves aprons: to suppose, that in the same evening God comes down, summons the criminals before him, hears their excuses, decrees their punishments, drives them out of paradise, and places two cherubim to guard all avenues against their return; this is crowding too long a series of business into too short a compass of time, and thereby giving an handle to infidelity, when there is no manner of occasion for it. We, who are not ignorant of Satan's devices, and how ready he is to wait for a favourable occasion to address kis temptations to every man's humour and complexion, can hardly suppose, that he would have set upon the woman immediately after the prohibition was given; and not rather have waited, until it was in some measure 4 forgot, and the happy opportunity of finding her alone should chance to present itself; but such an opportunity could not well instantly have happened, because the love and endearments between this couple, at first, we may well imagine, was so tender and affecting, as not to admit of the least absence or separation: nor must we forget (what the history itself tells us) that they were so much accustomed to the voice of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day,' as not to account it any new thing; and so well acquainted with the nature and plantation of the garden, as to run directly to the darkest thickets and umbrages, in order to hide themselves from his sight; which must have been the result of more than an hour or two's experience. And therefore, (if we may be allowed to follow others in their conjectures) it was either on the tenth day of the world's age, that our first parents fell, and were expelled paradise, in memory of which calamity, the great day of expiation,' (which was the tenth day of the year,) wherein all were required to afflict their souls,' was, in after ages, instituted; or (as others would rather have it) on the eighth day from their creation; that as the first week in the world ended with the formation of man and woman, the second was probably concluded with their fatal seduction. 76 6 must of necessity have a prescribed rule of its actions. God indeed, who is infinite in perfection, is a rule to himself, and acts according to his own essence, from whence it is impossible for him to vary; but the most perfect creatures must act by a rule, which is not essential to them, but prescribed them by God, and is not so intrinsic in their natures, but that they may decline from it; for a free agent may follow, or not follow, the rule prescribed him, or else he would not be free. Now, in order to know how it comes to pass, that we so frequently abuse our natural freedom, and transgress the rules which God hath set us, we must remember, that 10 the soul of man is seated in the midst, as it were, between those more excellent beings, which live perpetually above, and with whom it partakes in the sublimity of its nature and understanding, and those inferior terrestrial beings with which it communicates, through the vital union it has with the body; and that, by reason of its natural freedom, it is sometimes assimilated to the one, and sometimes to the other of these extremes. We must observe further, that," in this compound nature of ours, there are several powers and faculties, several inclinations and dispositions, several passions and affections, differing in their nature and tendency, according as they result from the soul or body; that each of these has its proper object, in a due application of which it is Clarke's Inquiry into the Original of Moral Evil. 10 Stillingfleet's Sacred Origins. "Clarke of the Original of Moral Evil. a God, though he be omnipotent, cannot make any created being absolutely perfect; for whatever is absolutely perfect, must necessarily be self-existent: but it is included in the very notion of a creature, as such, not to exist of itself, but of God. An would be of itself, and not of itself, at the same time. Absolute absolutely perfect creature therefore implies a contradiction; for it perfection, therefore, is peculiar to God; and should he communicate his own peculiar perfection to another, that other would be God. Imperfection must, therefore, be tolerated in creatures, notwithstanding the divine omnipotence and goodness; for contradictions are no objects of power. God indeed might have When man is said to have been made according to the refrained from acting, and continued alone self-sufficient, and perfect to all eternity; but infinite goodness would by no means allow of this; and therefore since it obliged him to produce external things, which things could not possibly be perfect, it preferred these imperfect things to none at all; from whence it follows, that imperfection arose from the infinity of divine goodness.King's Essay on the Origin of Evil. A. M. 1. A. C. 4004; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, 5411. GEN. CH. 3. De enticed; and when lust had conceived, it brought forth sin, and sin, when it was finished, brought forth death.' That some command was proper to be laid upon man in his state of innocence, is hardly to be denied. * pendence is included in the very notion of a creature, and as it is man's greatest happiness to depend on God, whose infinite wisdom can contrive, and infinite power can effect whatever he knows to be most expedient for him; so was it Adam's advantage to have a constant sense of that dependence kept upon his mind, and (for that reason) a sure and permanent memorial of it, placed before his eyes, in such a manner, as might make it impossible for him to forget it. And as this dependence on God was Adam's greatest amidst easy and satisfied; that they are none of them sinful in themselves, but may be instruments of much good, when rightly applied, as well as occasion great mischief, by a misapplication; and therefore a considerable part of virtue will consist in regulating them, and in keeping our sensitive part subject to the rational. This is the original constitution of our nature: and since our first parents were endued with the same powers and faculties of mind, and had the same dispositions and inclinations of body, it cannot be, but that they must have been liable to the same sort of temptations; and consequently liable to comply with the dictates of sense and appetite, contrary to the direction of reason, or the precepts of Almighty God. And to this cause the Scripture seems to ascribe the commission of the first sin, when it tells us that 'the wo-happiness, so it seems necessary on God's part, and man saw the tree, that it was good for food, and pleasant highly comporting with his character of a creator, that to the eye, and desirable to make one wise,' that is, it he should require of his creatures, in some acts of hohad several qualities which were adapted to her natural mage and obedience, (which homage and obedience must appetites; was beautiful to the sight, and delightful to necessarily imply some kind of restraint upon their nathe taste, and improving to the understanding; which tural liberty) an acknowledgment and declaration of it. both answered the desire of knowledge implanted in her And if some restraint of natural liberty was necessary in spiritual, and the love of sensual pleasure resulting from Adam's case, what restraint could be more easy, than the her animal part; and these heightened by the suggestions coercion of his appetite from the use of one tree, of the tempter, abated the horrors of God's prohibition, an infinite variety of others, no less delicious; and at and induced her to act contrary to his express command. the same time, what restraint more worthy the wisdom God indeed all along foreknew that she would fall in and goodness of God, than the prohibition of a fruit, this inglorious manner; but his foreknowledge did not which he knew would be pernicious to his creature? necessitate her falling, neither did his wisdom ever conceive, that a fallen creature was worse than none at all. The divine nature, as it is in itself, is incomprehensible by human understanding: and not only his nature, but likewise his powers and faculties, and the ways and methods in which he exercises them, are so far beyond our reach, that we are utterly incapable of framing just and adequate notions of them. We attribute to him the faculties of wisdom, understanding, and foreknowledge; but at the same time, we cannot but be sensible, that they are of a nature quite different from ours, and that we have no direct and proper conceptions of them. When we indeed foresee or determine anything, wherein there is no possible matter of obstruction, we suppose the event certain and infallible; and, were the foreknowledge and predetermination of God of the same nature with ours, we might be allowed to make the same conclusion: but why may not it be of such a perfection in God, as is consistent both with the freedom of man's will, and contingency of events? As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are his ways far above our ways:' and therefore, though it be certain that he who made Eve, and consequently knew all the springs and weights, wherewith she was moved, could not but foresee, how every possible object, that presented itself, would determine her choice; yet this he might do, without himself giving any bias or determination to it at all: 2 just as the man, who sees the setting of the chimes, can tell, several hours before, what tune they will play, without any positive influence, either upon their setting or their playing. So that Eve, when she was tempted, could not say, 'I was tempted by God,' for God tempteth none: neither had the divine prescience any influence over her choice, but by her own lust was she drawn away, and The prohibition of some enormous sin, or the injunc1tion of some great rule of moral virtue, we perhaps may account a properer test of man's obedience; but if we consider the nature of things, as they then stood, we may find reason perhaps to alter our sentiments. 5 The Mosaic tables are acknowledged by all to be a tolerable good system, and to comprise all the general heads of moral virtue; and yet if we run over them, we shall find that they contain nothing suitable to man in the condition wherein we are now considering him. Had God, for instance, forbidden the worship of false gods, or the worship of graven images; can we suppose, that Adam and Eve, just come out of the hand of their Maker, and visited every day with the light of his glorious presence, could have even been guilty of these? Besides that, the worship of false gods and images was a thing which came into the world several hundreds of years afterwards, either to flatter living princes, or supply the place of dead ones, who, the silly people fancied, were become gods. Had he prohibited perjury and vain swearing; what possible place could these have had in the infant and innocent state of mankind? Perjury was never heard of till the world was better peopled, when commerce and trade came in use, when courts of judicature were settled, and men began to cheat one another, and then deny it, and so forswear it: and oaths and imprecations could never have a being in a state of innocence: they borrow their original manifestly from the sinfulness of human nature. The like may be said of all the rest. How could Adam and Eve have 'honoured their father and their mother,' when they never had any? What possible temptation could they have to be guilty of murder, when they How could must have acted it upon their own flesh? A. M. 1. A. C. 4004; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, 5411. GEN. CH. 3. other animal: that it did not creep on the ground, but went with its head and breast reared up, and advanced : that by frequently approaching our first parents, and playing and sporting before them, it had gained their good liking and esteem, is not only the sentiment both of Jews and Christians, but what seems likewise to have some foundation in Scripture; for when God says, That he will put enmity between the serpent and the they commit adultery, when they were the only two upon the face of the earth? How be guilty of theft when they were the sole proprietors of all? How bear false witness against their neighbour, or covet his goods, when there was never a neighbour in the world for them to be so unjust to? And so (if we proceed to Christian precepts) how could they love enemies, how could they forgive trespasses, when they had no one in the world to offend against them? And the duties of mortification and self-woman, and between his seed and her seed,' the implidenial, &c., how could they possibly exercise these, when they had no lust to conquer, no passion to overcome, but were all serene and calm within? Since, therefore, all the moral precepts, that we are acquainted with, were improper for the trial of man's obedience in his state of innocence; it remains, that his probation was most properly to be effected, by his doing or forbearing some indifferent action, neither good nor evil in itself, but only so far good or evil, as it was commanded or forbidden. And if such a command was to be chosen, what can we imagine so natural and agreeable to the state of our first parents, (considering they were to live all their lives in a garden) as the forbidding them to eat of the fruit of a certain tree in that garden, a tree hard at hand, and might every moment be eaten of, and would therefore every moment give them an opportunity of testifying their obedience to God by their forbearing it? a wise appointment this, had not the great enemy of mankind come in and defeated it. 2 Who this great enemy of mankind was, and by what method of insinuation he drew our first parents into their defection, Moses, who contents himself with relating facts as they happened outwardly, without any comment, or exposition of them, or who, by a metonymy in the Hebrew tongue, uses the instrumental for the efficient cause, tells us expressly, that it was the serpent; and for this reason, some of the ancient Jews ran into a fond conceit, that this whole passage is to be understood of a real serpent; which creature, they suppose, before the fall, to have had the faculty of speech and reason both. But this is too gross a conception to have many abettors; and therefore the common, and indeed the only probable opinion is, that it was the devil; some wicked and malicious spirit (probably one of the chief of that order) who envied the good of mankind, the favours God had bestowed upon them, and the future happiness he had ordained for them, and was thereupon resolved to tempt them to disobedience, thereby to bring them to the same forlorn condition with himself, and his other apostate brethren; and that, to effect his purpose, he made use of a serpent's body, wherein to transact his fraud and imposture. Why the devil chose to assume the form of a serpent, rather than that of any other creature, we may, in some measure, learn from the character which the Scripture gives us of it, namely, that it was more subtle than any beast of the field, that the Lord God had made;' where the word 'subtle' may not so much denote the craft and insidiousness, as the gentle, familiar, and insinuating nature of this creature. That the serpent, before the fall, was mild and gentle, and more familiar with man, than any cation must be, that there was some sort of kindness and intimacy between them before. There is no absurdity then in supposing that this creature was beloved both by Adam and Eve. She especially might be highly delighted, and used to play and divert herself with it. She laid it perhaps in her bosom, adorned her neck with its windings, and made it a bracelet for her arms. So that its being thus intimate with the woman, made it the properer instrument for the devil's purpose, who sliding himself into it, might wantonly play before her, until he insensibly brought her to the forbidden tree and then, twisting about its branches, might take of the fruit, and eat, to show her, by experience, that there was no deadly quality in it, before he began his address; and his speech might be the less frightful or surprising to her, who, in the state of her innocence, not knowing what fear was, might probably think (as he might positively affirm) that this new-acquired faculty proceeded from the virtue of the tree. b Josephus's Antiquities. b. 1. 5 Basil, Hom. on Paradise. 6 Mede's Discourses. 'Tennison or Idolatry; Patrick's Commentary; and Nicholls' Conference, vol. 1. a The beauty of the serpent, which the devil made choice of, is thus described by Milton : So spake the enemy of mankind, enclosed Eve, upon hearing the serpent speak, inquires by what means it was, that it came by that faculty; and is told, that it was by eating of a certain tree in the garden. I was at first, as other beasts that graze To satisfy the sharp desire I had Sated at length, ere long, I might perceive Of reason in my inward powers; and speech I turn'd my thoughts, and with capacious mind A. M. 1. A. C. 4004; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, 5411, GEN. CH. 3. a glorious appearance. Now, if the serpent, whose body the devil abused, was of this kind (though perhaps of a species far more glorious,) it was a very proper creature for him to make use of. For these serpents we find called in Scripture seraphs, or seraphim, which gave the name to those bright lofty angels, who were frequent-petual dependence on him. He knows full well, that ly employed by God to deliver his will to mankind, and, coming upon that errand, were wont to put on certain splendid forms, some of the form of cherubim, that is, beautiful flying oxen, and others the shape of seraphim, that is, winged and shining serpents. Upon this hypothesis, we may imagine farther, that the devil, observing that good angels attended the divine presence, and sometimes ministered to Adam and Eve in this bright appearance, usurped the organs of one of these shining serpents, which, by his art and skill in natural causes, he might improve into such a wonderful brightness, as to represent to Eve the usual shechinah, or angelical appear-frame. And, if it has done this to a brute animal, what ance, she was accustomed to; and, under this disguise, she might see him approach her without fear, and hear him talk to her without surprise, and comply with his seduction with less reluctancy; as supposing him to be an angel of God's retinue, and now dispatched from heaven to instruct her in some momentous point, as she had often perhaps experienced before during her stay in paradise. with such beautiful fruit? Why did he place it on an eminence in the garden, for you to behold daily, unless he is minded to tantalize you? The true design, both of the prohibition and penalty which you relate, is to keep you in ignorance, and thereby oblige you to live in per A 'learned Jew has expounded this transaction in a new and uncommon way. He supposes that the serpent did not speak at all, nor did Eve say any thing to it; but that, being a very nimble and active creature, it got upon the tree of knowledge, took of the fruit and eat it; and that Eve, having seen it several times do so, and not die, concluded with herself that the tree was not of such a destructive quality as was pretended; that as it gave speech and reason to the serpent, it would much more improve and advance her nature; and was thereupon emboldened to eat. the virtue of this tree is to illuminate the understanding, and thereby to enable you to judge for yourselves, without having recourse to him upon every occasion. To judge for himself is the very privilege that makes him God; and for that reason he keeps it to himself: but eat but of this tree, and ye shall be like him; your beings shall be in your own hands, and your happiness vast and inconceivable, and independent on any other. What effect it has had on me, you cannot but see and hear, since it has enabled me to reason and discourse in this wise ; and, instead of death, has given a new kind of life to my whole may not creatures of your refined make, and excellent perfections, expect from it? Why should you shrink back, or be afraid to do it then? You have here an opportunity of making yourselves, for ever; and the trespass is nothing. What harm in eating an apple? Why this tree of knowledge more sacred than all the rest? Can so great a punishment as death be proportionate to so small a fault? I come to assure you that it is not; that God has reversed his decree, and eat you what you will, ye surely shall not die.” For 3 Thus the serpent suggested to Eve, that God had imposed upon her, and she was willing to discover whether he had or no. Curiosity, and a desire of independency, to know more, and to be entire master of herself, were the affections which the tempter promised to gratify; and an argument like this has seldom failed ever since to corrupt the generality of mankind: insomuch that few, very few, have been able to resist the force of this tempThis opinion is very plausible, and, in some degree, tation, especially when it comes (as it did to Eve) clothed founded on Scripture: for though the woman might per- with all the outward advantage of allurement. ceive by her senses, that the fruit was pleasant to the eye, whoever knows the humour of youth, and how he himself yet it was impossible she could know, either that it was was affected at that time, cannot but be sensible, that as good for food, or desirable to make one wise, any other the fairness of the fruit, its seeming fitness for food, the way than by the example and experiment of the serpent, desire of being independent, and under her own managewhich merely by eating of that fruit, (as she thought,) ment and government, were inducements that prevailed was changed from a brute into a rational and vocal crea-with our first parents to throw off the conduct of God : ture. This, I say, is a pretty plausible solution; and so this curiosity of trying the pleasures of sense, this yet it cannot be denied, but that the text seems to ex-itch of being our own masters, and choosing for ourselves, press something more, and that there was a real dialogue between the woman and the serpent, wherein the serpent had the advantage. And therefore (to persist in our former exposition) it is not improbable, that the tempter, before ever he accosted Eve, transformed himself into the likeness of an angel of light, and prefacing his speech with some short congratulations of her happiness, might proceed to insnare her with some such cunning harangue as this: "And can it possibly be that so good a God, who has so lately been so bountiful to you, as to give you such an excellent being, and invest you with power and dominion over all the rest of his creatures, should now envy you any of the innocent pleasures of nature? Has he indeed denied you the use of the tree of knowledge? But why did he plant it at all? Why did he adorn it Isaac Aberbenel. together with the charming face of sin, and our ignorance and inexperience of the consequences of it, are generally the first means of our being corrupted against the good maxims and principles we received from our parents and teachers. It is in the essential constitution of man, (as we said before,) that he should be a free agent; and if we consider him now as in a state of probation, we shall soon perceive, that God could not lay any restraint upon him, nor communicate any assistance to him, but what was consistent with the nature he had given him, and the state he had placed him in. God created man a free agent, that he might make the system of the universe perfect, and supply that vast opening which must otherwise have Bishop King's Discourse on the Fall, at the end of his Origin of Evil. 'Bishop King's Sermon on the Fall. 'Bishop King's Essay on the Origin of Evil. A. M. 1. A. C. 4004; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, 5411. GEN. CH. 3. happened between heaven and earth, had he not interposed some other creature (endued with rationality, master of his own elections, and consequently capable of serving him voluntarily and freely) between angels and brutes. In the very act of creating him, therefore, God intended that he should be rational, and determined, as it were by a law, that he should be free; and having engrafted this in his make, it would have been a violation of his own laws, and infraction on his own work, to have interposed, and hindered the use of that faculty, which by the law of nature, he had established. We do not expect, that the situation of the earth, or the course of the sun should be altered on our account, because these seem to be things of great importance; and we apprehend it unreasonable, that for our private advantage, the order and harmony of things should be changed, to the detriment of so many other beings. But to alter the will, to stop the election, is no less a violation of the laws of nature, than to interrupt the course of the sun, because a free agent is a more noble being than the sun. The laws of its nature are to be esteemed more sacred, and cannot be changed without a great miracle: there would then be a kind of shock and violence done to nature, if God should interfere, and hinder the actions of free-will; and perhaps it would prove no less pernicious to the intellectual system, than the sun's standing still would be to the natural. To apply these reflections to the matter now before us. Had God, to prevent man's sin, taken away the liberty of his will, he had thereby destroyed the foundation of all virtue, and the very nature of man himself. For virtue would not have been such, had there been no possibility of acting contrary, and man's nature would have been divine, had it been made impeccable. Had God given our first parents then such powerful influences of his Holy Spirit, as to have made it impossible for them to sin, or had he sent a guard of angels, to watch and attend them so as to hinder the devil from proposing any temptation, or them from hearkening to any; had he, I say, supernaturally overruled the organs of their bodies, or the inward inclinations of their minds, upon the least tendency to evil; in this case he had governed them, not as free, but as necessary agents, and put it out of his own power to have made any trial of them at all. All therefore that he could do, and all that in reason might be expected from him to do, was to give them such a sufficient measure of power and assistance, as might enable them to be a match for the strongest temptation; and this, there is no question to be made, but that he did do. 1 We, indeed, in this degenerate state of ours, find a great deal of difficulty to encounter with temptations. We find a great blindness in our understandings, and a crookedness in our wills. We have passions, on some occasions, strong and ungovernable; and oftentimes experience an inclination to do evil, even before the temptation comes: but our first parents, in their primitive rectitude, stood possessed of every thing as advantageous the other way. They had an understanding large and capacious, and fully illuminated by the Divine Spirit. Their will was naturally inclined to the supreme good, and could not, without violence to its nature, 'Nicholls's Conference, vol. 1. make choice of any other. Their passions were sedate, and subordinate to their reason; and, when any difficulties did arise, they had God at all times to have recourse to: by which means it came to pass, that it was as hard for them to sin, as it is difficult for us to abstain from sinning; as easy for them to elude temptations then, as it is natural for us to be led away by temptations now. And therefore, if, notwithstanding all these mighty advantages towards a state of impeccancy, they made it their option to transgress, their perverseness only is to be blamed, and not any want of sufficient assistance from their bounteous Creator. Great indeed is the disorder which their transgression has brought upon human nature; but there will be no reason to impeach the goodness of God for it, if we take but in this one consideration, That what he thought not fit to prevent by his almighty power, he has, nevertheless, thought fit to repair by the covenant of mercy in his Son Jesus Christ. By him he has propounded the same reward, everlasting life after death, which we should have had, without death, before; and has given us a better establishment for our virtue now, than we could have had, had we not been sufferers by this first transgression. 2 For let us suppose, that, notwithstanding our first parents had sinned, yet God had been willing that original righteousness should have equally descended upon their posterity; yet we must allow, that any one of their posterity might have been foiled by the wiles of the tempter, and fallen, as well as they did. Now had they so fallen, (the covenant of grace being not yet founded,) how could they ever have recovered themselves to any degree of acceptance with God? Their case must have been the same, as desperate, as forlorn, as that of fallen angels was before: whereas, in the present state of things, our condition is much safer. Sin indeed, by reason of our present infirmity, may more easily make its breaches upon us, either through ignorance or surprise; but it cannot get dominion over us, without our own deliberate option, because it is an express gospel promise against the power of sin, that it shall not have dominion over us;' against the power of the devil, that greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world;' against the power of temptations, that " God is faithful, who will not suffer us to be tempted above what we are able;' against discouragement from the presence of our infirmities, that we may do all through Christ that strengthens us; and, in case of failing, that 7 we have an advocate with the Father, and a propitiation for our sins.' Thus plentifully did God provide for man's stability in that state of integrity, thus graciously for his restoration, in this state of infirmity. In both cases, his goodness has been conspicuous, and has never failed! In like manner, (to absolve the divine nature from any imputation of passion or peevishness, of injustice or hard usage, in cursing the serpent and the earth; in driving our lapsed parents out of paradise, and in entailing their guilt and punishment upon the latest posterity,) we should do well to remember, that the serpent, against which the first sentence is denounced, is to be |