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in our beguiled parents, an effect the reverse of its own qualities! For, if it had the intrinsic charm of enlarging their knowledge and improving their faculties, then the short way to perfection would have been sinning against God! These things it surpasses all the limits of sobriety to affirm and our conclusion necessarily is, that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,' was so called, because, from the divine institution, it was a moral cause of that knowledge; i. e. it was a visible, familiar, and permanent lesson, by which man was not only admonished of the eternal distinction between good and evil; but was put upon his guard as to the quarter from which alone evil could assail him. This will receive additional light from the

Second part of our enquiry, which relates to the design of prohibiting the use of the tree to our first pa

rents.

Regarding that modesty which ought to limit our researches into the divine plans, and obeying the general dictates of scripture and reason, we may perceive that the prohibition answered the threefold purpose of trial, of instruction, and of a sacramental pledge.

That man should love and obey God, would spontaneously demonstrate itself to his pure conscience and his sound intelligence. But in that first age of his be ing, there could hardly exist an occasion of proving his obedience and love, without the intervention of a positive precept. Transgression of those commandments, which afterwards were written on the two tables of the moral law, was either physically or morally impossible. And yet it was in itself fit, and for the ends of moral government indispensable, that man's devotedness to

his God should be brought, even in his best estate, to some direct and effectual test. All the orders of rational beings of whom the scriptures give any account, were subjected, at their creation, to probationary law. But in what manner a state of probation could exist with a positive precept, is inconceivable. Nothing else could afford an opportunity of evincing submission to the divine authority; because nothing else could present to holy creatures a case of collision between their will and the will of their God. It is doubtful whether, without some such prohibition as that relating to the forbidden tree, the devil, sapient as he was, could have rendered a temptation to sin intelligible to our first parents. For, as nothing else was required of them but what their own pure nature led them instinctively to do, they could have no sense of restraint. In every thing else, the will of God coincided with their own propensities: so that throughout the whole range of their gratifications, there was not to be found either the occasion or the matter of trespass. Some positive statute, therefore, which might controul their will in a given instance, was requisite to produce and preserve in their minds the sense of their dependence upon God, and his authority over them, without which his moral government could have no place. The very fact of their being under moral government, seems to have demanded some positive test of their loyalty: as the very fact of their being rational creatures, supposes them to have been subjects of such a government. The contrary supposition is mere atheism. The propriety, therefore, of a positive test of their obedience, resulted from their accountable nature. And the more

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simple this test was in itself, and the more easy the duty which it prescribed; the more conspicuously was the benignity of their God revealed, and the more inexcusable was their own rebellion. What simpler test could they have chosen, than abstinence from a particular tree, however good for food and pleasant to the eyes? What duty could be of easier performance; seeing it did not intrench upon a single enjoyment; as they were surrounded with similar enjoyments; the Lord God having made to grow, every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food?' What could be more condescending on his part, than the appointment of so delightful a probation? And what more wanton, more thankless, or more provoking, on theirs, than the violation of its terms?

Disobedience under such circumstances, was of an aggravated sort but it will appear still more flagrant, from the consideration, that this very tree, whose touch was death, was fraught with salutary instruction. Placed in the midst of the garden, and often meeting the eyes of our first parents, it could hardly fail to teach them such truths as these:

That God is the Lord of all things; and, consequently, that man's dominion was neither absolute nor independent---that in the enjoyment of God alone, is the satisfying good of man---that in judging of good and evil, man is not to be directed by his own reason or pleasure, but by the revealed will of God---that man had not yet arrived at his highest happiness; but was bound to expect and desire a more perfect state; yet in that way alone which God had appointed---that if he would escape death, he must avoid the cause of it; i. c.

sin, or the breaking out of his desires beyond those limits which God had assigned to them. How much further the unclouded mind of the first man might have carried his reflections on the forbidden tree; to what sublime conceptions of the divine nature, and works, and providence, it might have led him, we, in our shattered state, with our discordant affections and obscure lights, are poorly qualified to judge. Yet, disabled as we are, by the Fall, from taking such rapid, capacious, and elevating views of whatever is fair, and good, and magnificent in the creature, and the Creator, as were competent to a sinless being, we can discern enough to persuade us, that the tree of knowledge of good and evil must have been, to innocent man, a rich source of intellectual improvement and moral joy.

The third use of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, was that of a sacramental pledge.

Our first parents were placed not only under the ge neral obligations of moral law, but under a peculiar moral constitution, which the sovereign goodness of God superadded to their condition as accountable creatures. This constitution is ordinarily termed, the corenant of works; by which, in the event of their adhering to the terms of their probation, the divine faithfulness was engaged to confer on themselves and on their posterity, an immortality of bliss. But, in the event of their failure, that same faithfulness was engaged to sub-, ject them and their progeny to the penalty of the law. It will be perceived, that punishment, upon the commission of sin, was a matter of course. For that a creature should rise up in rebellion against the Creator, and suffer no inconvenience on account of his crime, is a

contradiction, if not in words, yet certainly in things. Whereas the promise of eternal life was purely gratuitous; no creature having a right to demand more than this, that so long as he continues obedient, he shall not be miserable. Nor can any good reason be assigned, why the most high God, if it so pleased him, may not create rational beings for a temporary existence only, and, when his purposes are fulfilled, remand them back again to nothing. The promise, therefore, of eternal life, converted the law of obedience into a pacific covenant, of which the tree of life, and the tree of knowledge, were the two sacraments; the former being a visible document of God's faithfulness to his promise, and the latter a visible document of his faithfulness to his threatening. And thus the assurance of life or death being exhibited to our first parents, by sensible signs, they were constantly admonished of the interest staked in their hands,` and of the infinitely happy or horrible issue of their probationary state."

See The Christian's Magazine; New York, 1807, p. 67.

THE END.