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CHAP. VIII.

PROOFS OF THE DIVINE LOVE ΤΟ MANKIND SUBSEQUENTLY TO THE FALL.

THE expulsion of the offenders from Paradise was the immediate, and requisite consequence of their transgression. Yet in the very judgement which the Almighty pronounced on the guilty pair three signal manifestations of mercy emanating from His persevering Love were interwoven. In the first place, a solemn promise was given of a future Deliverer, ordained to remove the evil brought upon the world by that malignant spirit, who under the assumed form of the serpent had withdrawn Adam and Eve from their allegiance to their God. Secondly, this Deliverer would be the offspring, and the offspring in some mysterious and special sense, of the woman, who had been foremost in yielding to the wiles of Satan, and the instrument of beguiling her husband into the same sin. Thirdly, the execution of the sentence, Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou

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return, was delayed: and the intimations given concerning the future Deliverer, and also respecting the labour and sorrow which should attend the cultivation of the earth by Adam for his subsistence, implied that Death might not be near at hand; that space would be granted for deep remorse and contrition to work upon the heart; and that in the unbounded compassion of the Most High means might be vouchsafed through which true repentance might be attainable, and might not be in vain in the eyes of a heart-searching God. We know that life was mercifully protracted in the case of Adam and of successive generations of his posterity to the length of many centuries.

While a most afflicting example of the corruption of human nature, a tremendous demonstration of the loss of the holy image of God in the soul of man, was exhibited in the family of Adam when Abel was murdered by his brother; the acceptance of Abel and of his sacrifice was a most encouraging attestation that grace was not denied to the fallen race of man. At the same time the punishment of the murderer, not by a sudden stroke cutting him off from the earth, from the eyes and from

the thoughts of men, but by a continued judge ment speaking aloud during the life of Cain to every contemporary individual, proclaimed the sanctity and the steadfastness of the Divine justice, and the certainty of the doom that would await every unrepenting sinner. It appears incontestable that the shedding of the blood of animals in sacrifice as exhibited by Abel-a practice thus shown to be nearly coeval with the existence of the human race, yet so little likely to have suggested itself to the family of Adam as in any way pleasing to God, especially as the flesh of animals was not granted to man for food must have been an institution commanded of God, and opening a prospective view to that Great Redeemer, who should take away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

From the time therefore when our first parents were removed from the Garden of Eden, they were placed as sinful beings in a state of penal probation, cheered by animating indications of attainable mercy. Their posterity inheriting their corrupted nature, were to be continued under a corresponding condition of trial.

Before we proceed to investigate the proofs of

the Divine Love towards man in the progressive preparations for the appearance of the predicted Redeemer, and in the complete developement of the plan of Redemption when he descended from heaven to dwell in human nature upon the earth; the more convenient course will be to notice the manifestations of that Love in the powers and faculties granted to man, and in the nature and the arrangements of the external objects with which he was now to be conversant.

Man found himself exposed to vicissitudes of seasons, against which the protection of clothing and of shelter were requisite. The Divine compassion had already indicated means of supplying the first of these wants; and the recesses of the woods would offer a present provision for the other. Man was under the necessity of procuring food by labour: and experience speedily showed that he was endued with strength and knowledge, and opportunities adequate for the purpose. He was surrounded by the animal creation, still subjected to his dominion, and retaining a large portion of the fear of him originally impressed upon them; yet now become in most instances subjects of precarious allegiance, and in many of harassing

or dangerous hostility. The smaller tribes infest his abodes, plunder his stores, injure his crops; a larger race invades his flocks and herds; and the more savage kinds glare upon him with an eye of defiance as he passes along, and will not hesitate to attack him when they are goaded by hunger, or irritated by his intrusion into their haunts. Still, however, by forethought and skill, and by concentration of force, he maintains his superiority. The dwellers in the wild give place before him: even the most powerful fly, or are progressively destroyed as he advances. Fallen as he is, Heaven sustains him in the substance of his primeval dominion over the other inhabitants of the globe. No living being which he has had occasion to encounter has proved capable of withstanding him. Every kind of beasts and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed (subdued) and hath been tamed of mankind.1 Various species of animals, as the cow, the horse, the camel, the reindeer, the majestic elephant, he has trained by domestication to minister most usefully to his support, or to his convenience. In the dog he has gained a watchful guard, and an attached and eminently

1 James, iii. 7.