Man's First Sin

It is something more than romance, that we cannot help feeling an interest, and even a deep sympathy, in that melancholy chapter in the history of our first parents, that narrates their apostasy. Whether it be from the wonted and cherished contemplation of those truths which their apostasy presents; or whether it be that the penaJ consequences of this first transgression have come upon us, and, in defiance of all our philosophy, we have an instinctive and resistless consciousness of the circling chain that binds our destiny with theirs; or whether it be that for the honor of humanity, we cannot suppress the wish that they had preserved their rectitude; certain it is, that we never read this tale of woe without becoming partakers in their blighted expectations.

The time was, when, above, without, within them, there was nothing to detract from their joy. Sin had not sullied them, nor had its turbid waters mingled with the pure current of their thoughts. There were no bodings of suspicion; recrimination and reproach had not yoisoned their lips; remorse had not begun to prey upon their conscience, nor had a shade of apprehension settled upon their brow. They had no conflict with themselves, none with one another, none with the creatures around them. And what is more, nothing disturbed their sweet fellowship with their Maker; they were happy in his love; with uplifted eye and adoring heart, they beheld, praised, and enjoyed him. So beautiful is the picture, that it seems almost like fable. We can scarcely believe that we ourselves are the progeny of such innocence and joy, and that our parents were once the possessors of an inheritance so bright and unsullied.

This primeval Paradise was of short endurance; how short, God has not seen fit to reveal to us. Our first parents were not confirmed in this holy and happy state, without a previous trial of their integrity. Nor was it a severe or unwise arrangement, which thus put them upon their good behavior, placed them literally in a state of “probation and suspended their destiny upon their perfect obedience. They enjoyed the immediate and miraculous teachings of their benevolent Creator, and all those means and motives to obedience which could be furnished by the supreme authority, the instructive wisdom, and the persuagive tenderness of infinite love. The world they occupied was full of God; every scene was illumined with his presence, every sound vocal with his voice, every object spoke his praise, and every part of this material universe was constructed for their enjoyment. Never, until the manifestation of the Son of God in the flesh, have there existed so many and so affecting appeals of the divine goodness to the heart of man, as were made to these, the first created of the human family; and never have there been found among their descendants those whose intellectual and moral constitution was so fitted to respond to these appeals in every act of filial love, holy fear, and uniform and unremitting obedience.

It was, therefore, in every view, a fitting arrangement, and one suited to their character, condition, and relations, that they should be the subjects of God’s moral government, and placed under law. Although it was not a written law, it was written upon their consciences; nor had they any desire to question its obligations, nor could they question them without blotting out from their bosoms those strong conceptions of right and duty which are found in the minds of fallen men, and in so much greater strength and purity in the unfallen.

To this great rule of action they had been obedient; but, in process of time, there was revealed to them another lavi a special and positive statute, as a test of their integrity. It was a prohibitory statute, and is in the following words: “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest eat; but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” The law was absolute. It was given to our first parents only; no others were present, no others were in existence, no others were bound by it, no others could transgress it; and when the specific object for which it was given was accomplished, it was repealed. It was intelligibly revealed; and revealed with as much precision and exclusiveness as the command given to Noah to build the ark, or the command to Abraham to sacrifice his son. There was also this strong peculiarity in this test of their obedience. They had committed no other sin; and against every other they were fortified by the consideration, that this prohibition obeyed, they were in no danger of committing any other. On every other point of duty they were safe; their only point of danger was centered in their liability to transgress this single interdict.

The ‘penalty of this law was expressed in the words,” In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely dieP The language is significant, and denotes that the death here threatened should be executed thoronglily, intensely, and in the most perfect manner. As we nse the word, there are three kinds of death, temporal, spiritual, and eternal.

Temporal death, or the separation of the soul from the body, certainly came upon Adam, and has come upon all mankind, in consequence of his first transgression. The first man became a dying man, from the hour of his apostasy. Temporal death constituted a part of the penalty. The separation of the soul and the body, when viewed in all its visible concomitants and consequences, is the most natural and impressive image, or emldem of the true and proper death of a moral and accountable agent. And this is probably the reason why it is called death; that by the very name, the true and proper idea of death might be habitually held up before the minds of men. Those few theological writers who have expressed the opinion that the death threatened to our first parents was temporal death, affirm that this is the primary and most natural meaning of the word death. But it is to be borne in mind, that our first parents had no experience and no observation to guide them in determining its import. This threatening is the first paragraph in the Scriptures, and the first time in the history of our world in which the word is used. There is certainly no evidence that this is its primary meaning. There is much more reason to believe that the dissolution of the soul and the body is the secondary and figurative, rather than the literal and primary meaning. The mere separation of the soul and the l3ody does not constitute the true and proper death of the moral and accountable agent. When, immediately after the apostasy, temporal death was denounced, it is not called death, but simply the “returning of the body to the dust.” Temporal death may be more properly viewed as one of the appendages of the penalty, rather than as constituting the entire penalty itself A temporary separation of the soul and the body takes place as a sequence of the first transgression; nor would it ever have taken place without it; it is a standing and impressive evidence that all men are sinners. But whether the mere separation of the soul and the body be itself the original curse, is more than doubtful; and whether the curse could not have taken effect without it, may not be hastily decided. We are disposed to believe that if it had been executed upon our first parents, and no method of mercy had stayed the stroke of justice, temporal death would have been unknown, and these first transgressors would have sunk, body and soul together, under the wrath of God. Mere temporal death is not a sufficient punishment for sin; it is not such a punishment as it deserves. K the body were merely separated from the soul and returned to dust, and the soul, the corrupted and sinning agent, were received to the divine favor; there would be no evidence that the punishment is commensurate with the crime. God must punish sin; yet does he not inflict more or less than is implied in his threatenings. If the penalty of the law of paradise be commensurate with the ill-desert of disobedience; something far more dreadful than temporal death must have been implied in the threatening to our first parents.

By spirilual death is meant a judicial abandonment to a state of unmingled moral depravity. This death came upon our first parents the day they sinned. And a grievous punishment, a most dreadful curse it is, that for one act of disobedience, the transgressor shall be given up to unremitting and eternal disobedience; that when he has once crossed the line which separates sin from holiness, he shall have no opportunity and no power of returning; and that his evil propensities shall become so strong and violent, and his habits of sinning so inveterate, that nothing shall ever reclaim him. The Scriptures often allude to such a divine procedure as this. “My Spirit shall not always strive with man.” “So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust.” “Therefore he gave them over to a reprobate mind.” “Ye shall die in your sins.” “They shall utterly perish in their own corruption.” There is no greater evil than to be thug abandoned to an eternal course of sinning. Nor does this, as has sometimes been said, involve anymore confusion between natural and moral evil, or sin and suffering, than necessarily exists. Such a course and state of sinning is itself calamity; it is suffering and pain. To no small extent, all sin carries suffering with it; suffering is, in the nature of things, inseparable from sinning; it is mental suffering and ever will be so, from the intellectual and moral constitution which God has given to men. Men know, from experience, that there are sins which are attended with the most acute mental distress, while this distress is indicative of God’s displeasure. “A voice from heaven could scarcely declare more clearly, and certainly could not announce more impressively, that there are certain mental affections which God would brand with the stigma of his severest reprobation.” Nor is there any absurdity or confusion in the fact that one sin is often the punishment of another. Men feel this to be true, when they recoil from the first step in the course of transgression, because they know that it will be followed by a second, and that they are on the brink of a precipice. Nor is there any force in the often-repeated remark, that such a course of sinning, as it is the act of the sinner, cannot be the act of God as the punisher. The utter withdrawing of divine influences, and the judicial abandonment of the transgressor is everywhere represented in the Scriptures as God’s act. Nor is there any force in the reasoning, that the coui’se of sinning to which the transgressor is abandoned is his own chosen way, and therefore is no punishment. Sin is misery, and the sinner feels it. And if he does not feel it now, the time is coming when the burden will be greater than he can bear. I would not so impugn the moral government of God, as to harbor the thought, that it is not one of its invariable laws, that a state of mind that is bound by the cords of its own iniquity, is one which is not fraught with self-reproach, apprehension, and horror. Besides, the Scriptures teach us, that spiritual death is counteracted only through the atonement of the great Redeemer, and that the Redeemer’s work has respect to the penalty of violated law; and if this be so, spiritual death constitutes a part of the penalty.

The penalty of this law consists also in eternal death, or everlasting misery. This is the emphasis of the curse, and is the proper death of an intelligent creature. This is the primary meaning of the awful word death. It is used hundreds of times in the Scriptures to denote the everlasting punishment of sin. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” “The wages of sin is deathP “They which commit such things are woi’thy of death /” and that the declaration may not be misunderstood, the writer informs us that by death he means, “indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil.” It is called “the second death;” and this is the punishment which sin deserves; these its earnings, this its proper wages.

It appears to us, therefore, to be in accordance with the teachings of the Sacred Writings to say, that the penalty of the law of Paradise was temporal spiritual and eternal death. There is nothing unreasonable in believing that these three kinds of death were threatened by the same term. Death is a word which comprises all the evil which is the fruit of sin. All these evils actually exist, and are the result of the first apostasy. The Scriptures never make needless and nicely drawn philosophical distinctions; they address the common mind, and conscience, and sensitiveness. The due and just punishment of sin falls upon the whole man; it is his everlasting separation from all good to all evil; it is the destruction of both body and soul in hell. This is the penalty of the law given to our first parents; and this is the penalty of that universal law under which all moral beings exist. Nor is there any reason why it should have been different in the case of the first transgressors. When the penalty shall be finally executed, it will be seen what is meant by the death of the transgressor. It will be death without mitigation and without reprieve, and without hope.

If our first parents had preserved their integrity, the covenant into which God entered with them secured them from disobedience. They would have been confirmed in holiness: the Tree of Life would have been the pledge and sacrament of their confirmation; they would have eaten of it and lived forever. How under such fearful considerations on the one hand, and such auspices of heavenly kindness on the other, these two holy beings came to transgress this single prohibition, so reasonable in itself, and so intelligibly revealed, has long been, and still is, a vexed question. There are but two theories on this subject to which it is worth our while to advert. One ^V9, that it was impossible for God to prevent them from sinning; it is the old notion of the Platonic philosophy, that “evil proceeds from the restriction, or limitation of the divine power.” Some modern divines are very bold, and teach that while God desired, in every view, to prevent their fall, and did all in his power to prevent it, the catastrophe was beyond his reach. This theory, if we understand it, asserts that their apostasy is chargeable to the defectible nature of their moral agency, and like friction in a machine, was a necessary evil; that God submits to it of necessity, and that it remains for his wisdom and goodness to so restrain and direct this uncontrollable evil as to produce the least possible mischief. The other theory is, that their apostasy was foreseen by God; that it was comprised in his purposes; that he permitted it for wise ends, and in order to bring good out of evil; and that it will eventually be made to answer a most important purpose under the perfect administration of that Almighty Being who will cause all things to work for his own glory, and thus fulfil all his pleasure. Which of these theories accords best with the fact that “the Lord God omnipotent reigneth,” it is not difficult to determine. If there be one instance in which he is unable to accomplish his pleasure, who can tell but there may be ten thousand instances, and that the final history of the universe may not be the records of the divine imbecility, and the memorials of a disappointed Deity? How much more truthful is the last-mentioned view of this difficult subject, and how much stronger foundation does it furnish for hope and confidence in God, for prayer to him, for triumph in his government, for the exercise of his adorable sovereignty, and for exulting anticipations in those issues which, while they progressively unfold his unquestioned and infinite all-sufficiency, show that “the wrath of man shall praise the Lord, and the remainder thereof he will restrain.” I dare not speculate on this high theme any further than to say, that “our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the estate in which they were created by sinning against God.” Their perfect holiness was his gift; it was originally created by him; by him it was sustained; and when left to themselves, they fell. They were holy, but not immutable. The system of which they composed a part was subject to changes, because it was progressive. The fall of angels had already indicated that it was a system subject to moral derangement; the very fact that they were free implied the possibility of their sinning; while that wondrous remedial process, which as yet lay undisclosed in the divine mind had forestalled the otherwise untold evils of the sad catastrophe, and was already preparing to turn it to good account.

We take the divine record on this subject as it is, and are not covetous to be “wise above what is written.” We have before spoken of the great Deceiver, “that old serpent, which is called the devil.” The first thought of apostasy did not originate with our first parents, but with him. It was his object to countervail the benevolent purpose of God in man’s creation. He had left his first estate; from a lofty seraph, he had become the “prince of devils;” from his high place near the throne of God, he had sunk to the regions of misery and despair; and from his glorious employment and immortality in the heavenly courts, he had become the most accursed of all created beings, and hurled down to the lake of fire. Our first parents were the first objects of his subtlety and malice. He hated them, and he hated their Maker. He envied their purity and blessedness, and would fain tempt them to become imitators of his rebellion, and partakers in his doom. This foul fiend was, for wise reasons, allowed to have access to the tranquil, and hallowed, and unsuspecting abodes of Eden. It was perhaps difficult for our first parents to see the reasons of the prohibition which laid its interdict upon the tree of knowledge; and this seems to have been the subtle snare which he first employed to tempt them from their loyalty. It was to the woman that this cowardly foe addressed the snare; he found her unprotected and alone; and accosted her with the words, “Yea liatli God said Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” God had given them dominion over this entire earth; and he artfully propounds the question, Is there a tree of which you are not permitted to eat? She listened to the tempter’s voice; he had gained her ear. She consented to reason with him. “And the woman said unto him, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.”

Perhaps the thought lingered in her heart, that the tree “belonged to man; that the prohibition may have been misunderstood; and that, if not misunderstood, it held them in bondage. The tempter was emboldened, and” he said unto the woman. Ye shall not surely die!” There may have been, at this bold suggestion, a doubt upon her mind as to the nature and certain execution of the penalty. Men rarely sin where there is not some degree of unbelief. Her faith was obscured by clouds; there was a veil cast over her mind, and vague thoughts of escape began to agitate her. Perhaps what he says is true, and we shall not die! And then thoughts, still more impious, injected by the tempter’s poisonous breath, began to fester within, and the fearful inquiry passed through her bosom, Can it be such a giant sin to eat of this one tree? And then her curiosity was appealed to: “God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, yoir eyes shall be openedP And then her vanity: “and ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil.” And last of all, her senses were ensnared; she looked upon the fruit; the tempter had gained her eye. Reason and conscience were easily blinded then. She tempted her fate. And when “she saw that the tree was good for food, and pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also to her husband with her, and he did eat.” The overpowering temptation to Adam we do not know. Perhaps the imagination of the great English poet had its antetype in reality; Adam was her husband and, in despair, he linked his fate with hers. And thus did man throw off his subjection to God, and renounce his allegiance to his I’ightful Lord and heavenly Father. The fearful deed was done. Evil they had never known before; but now “their eyes were opened,” and new scenes and new histories presented themselves to their view. Eden bloomed in unsinning loveliness and beauty no longer. It was li first sin.

“Earth trembled from her entrails, as again In pangs; and nature gave a second groan. Sky lower’d; and muttering thunder, some sad drops Wept at the completing of the mortal sin Original.”

It is not for us to weigh the actions of men. The sin of our first parents was a great sin, if for no other reason than that it was the first sin of nian. To pass from a state of perfect holiness to a state of transgression; to cross the line; to sin so soon; to sin in Paradise, and so near to heaven; to sin in God’s immediate presence, within hearing of his voice, and while lying within his light as angels lie upon his bosom; to sin after all that he had done for them and given to them; after he had made them for himself and for each other, and to augment and guard their joys, had sanctified for them and blessed to them his holy Sabbaths; to sin not knowing what might be the direful consequences upon their posterity through all generations, or if knowing, thus to trifle with the character and destiny of myriads upon myriads unborn; to sin at the loss of God’s favor, and the certain, fearful looking for of his displeasure; to abjure their Paradise, because there was an interdict upon a single tree; to disobey their great Maker at the instigation of him who was a murderer from the beginning, and thus launch forth from the peaceful home of heaven’s complacency and joy, upon an ocean of storms; and all that they might know the evil, when they might have known only good; this was a sin which can be weighed in no earthly balance. Melancholy truth! — they fell. How changed the picture, and with what mortification, shame, and fear do we look upon it! What and where are our great ancestors now? They have lost their integrity, and their reward begins to be measured out to them according to their works. It was a day of gloom, and the reign of terror. Dark shadows came upon them like the deep midnight. Never, probably, were beings more forlorn, desolate, bewildered, or whose bosoms heaved more with unavailing sighs, or whose allotment was more drear and melancholy, this side the “blackness of darkness.” What a crowd of terrible reflections must have rushed upon their minds, that for violating this one precept, they had lost their holy and happy immortality! They have no God to look to but the God they have so wickedly offended, and no refuge from the bitterness of their grief They sigh, but into whose ears can they breathe their sighs? They weep, and they were the first tears ever shed in this world of sorrow. Perhaps they pray; but who is there to hear, or befriend them! Most truly was it a scene of desolation, anguish, and despair. It was the sting of sin; the bitterness, the hopelessness of those who had thus madly separated themselves from God. If ever despair was written on the countenance of man, it was the despair of that hopeless hour. Fear could not undo the deed; repentance and reform could not undo it. It was too late to think of sinless obedience, and securing the divine favor from the Tree of Life. The cherubim and the flaming sword carried death to every such presumptuous hope.

The CONSEQUENCES OF THIS SIN upon the tra7isgressors themselves, are stated by the sacred historian. They had fallen, but they had not become obdurate and remorseless. Conscience did its office; their eyes were opened, and they saw their shame. They were stripped of their glory, and left naked and open, in all their degrading infamy, to one another’s inspection, and reproach, and to the searching eye of Him who cannot look on

“ipr sin. They were confused and confounded, even to weakness, so much so, that they hid themselves amid the trees of the garden. They sought to flee from God. “There was a schism between man and his Maker;” they stood apart. Yet not long; for though man hid himself from God, God did not hide himself from man. They saw the gathering storm, and were filled with agony and alarm.

They themselves were no longer one. That guilty woman, half prostrate with terror and amazement, flees to her agonized husband, himself overwhelmed in horror and despair; but only to encounter his reproach and embittered crimination. “Unto the woman God said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow shalt thou bring forth thy children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” It was a terrible sentence thus to have her own equality with her husband disturbed, to be made the daughter of suffering and sorrow, and to have her highest earthly hopes withered in their bloom.

And that guilty man, what words does he hear from the voice of God his Maker? Unto Adam, God said, “Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying. Thou shalt not eat of it; cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shall thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns and thistles also shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shall eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return to the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shall thou return.” Nature herself had already begun to feel the shock. This fair creation was for the first time clad in mourning; Eden put off its gay attire, and a sickly hue overlay its foliage and flowers. The thunder awoke behind the clouds, and forked lightning darted its streams of terror. The earth was smitten with barrenness, and many a gloomy waste where there were no fountains of water, had begun to appear without tree, or plant, or blade of grass. Sorrow and toil were the bitter inheritance of the transgressors, till they returned to the ground from which they were taken. They were not allowed to remain in Paradise.

“In either hand, the hast’ning angel caught Our ling’ring parents, and to the eastern gate, Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast To the subjected plain; then disappeared.”

We know not the place of their last earthly rest, and only know it was in some far-off land, where flowers of paradise never grow, and the bird of paradise never utters its song. The cypress wept there; for it was the mourner’s tribute. Yet faith and hope were there, pointing to a verdant immortality.

The effects of their sin upon their characters were even more mournful than these sad effects upon their outward condition. What a loss was that when this newly created pair lost the image of God! WomaiiUs beauty, probably never since equalled, how did it fade then, with the fading of her radiant innocence, and how did it wane, and become expressive of her benighted, and waning, and poisoned mind? What has dimmed those bright lineaments so lately on the face of man and chased away that placid smile and lofty bearing, and covered him with shame? The curse has overtaken them. They began to die. Their very frame is blasted and shrunk, and the freshness of its immortality fled, as though death had passed upon it even in its bloom. And the living soul within was darkened and dead in sin. There was not a vii’tuous, or holy thought or emotion remaining in their bosoms. “Every imagination of the thoughts of their heart was only evil continually.” They were the “seeds of sin, that bitter root,” which struck deep into the soil, that but yesterday was prolific in fruits of righteousness. They had broken God’s covenant; and that single sin was the knell of their rectitude, and tolled the dirge, “dying thou shalt die” — dying utterly, dying forever.

But the consequences of this first sin were not confined to themselves; others were involved by it in the same condemnation and punishment. The curse pronounced upon the first woman is woman’s curse still. To what extent it has been executed, is best known by woman’s history, especially in antichristian and pagan lands, where there is so little to alleviate her humiliation and sorrow. It is the history of cruelty and oppression. Women there are slaves, and the mothers of slaves. In countries not a few, she is treated more like a brute than a woman. In others, she is the captive of a capricious tyrant, holding her honor and her life by the tenure of his fitful passions. In others, she is sold to the highest bidder. In others, where public sentiment constrains her to the sacrifice, and makes her life bitter if she refuses his memory this devotion, she perishes by thousands on the funeral pile of her deceased lord. Lands such as these record little else of woman, than that, in all that is dear to woman’s heart, she is trodden down and trampled upon. And in Christian lands, alleviated as the curse is, it is a sorrowful history. There are no skies so smiling, no government so protective and generous, no bonds so endearing, where woman is not the sufferer.

And with literal severity, has the original sentence upon the man fallen upon his sons. “In the sweat of his brow he eats his bread.” On the earth he cultivates, thorns and thistles have sprung up in vexatious exuberance. Noxious reptiles and devouring insects ravage his harvest fields. Cold and heat, drought and flood, storms and tempest desolate sea and land, and defeat his fondest hopes. Millions are destined to procure a scanty and sorrowful subsistence from the rocky soil and impoverished bosom of that earth which was once watered only by the dews of heaven, and which, now at best, yields its fruits only to painful labor and toil. Toil that is unremitted, and mingled with watchfulness, care, and solicitude; toil that becomes a burden and a weariness to the body and the mind; but which the sun everywhere looks upon as it sets upon millions of the weary and heavy-laden, and as it rises only to urge them on in labor and weariness. It is toil which pervades all classes and orders of men, and all the professions they follow. The rich are no more exempt from it than the poor; nor is the student any more exempt from it than the craftsman and the day-laborer. It is toil which none can shrink from without being the greater sufferers, and which ends only with the decrepitude of years and where “the weary are at rest.”

But this was not all. Their sin was the parent sin of the race, as they themselves were its parents. If we look for the source of man’s universal sinfulness, we trace it to this fountain-head. If we inquire, Whence is it that every child of

Adam possesses “a carnal mind that is enmity against God;” and why it is that this entire world of intelligent and moral beings, in every age and land, and under all the varieties of their external condition, is distinguished by all the characteristics of wickedness, convulsed by furious passions, rankling with envy, pride, and malice; and how it is, that iniquity in all its forms of ungoverned and unrestrained selfishness, seducing and being seduced — deceiving and being deceived — often gratified and still exacting, and when ungratified still more intense and vehement — always predominating, and yet becoming more clamorous — and unless arrested by heavenly grace, waxing worse and worse; we can only say that our fallen primogenitors begat a posterity in their own fallen likeness. They are born depraved, because this was the character of their depraved parents. “The cockatrice’s egg has broken out into a viper.”

This first sin involved the race in sin; and sin is as truly characteristic of everything that is human as speech and reason. The youngest infant and the man of gray hairs suffer and die, because they are sinners. “j5y one mcun sin entered into the world, and death by sin: and so death passed upon all men, for that all are sinners.” By an arrangement of heavenly wisdom, and for the best of purposes, Adam was constituted the federal head and representative of his posterity. “By the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation;” through “the offence of one, many are dead;” the “judgment was by one to condemnation;” and. “by one man’s disobedience, many were made sinners.” The law of Paradise was given to the first man, not only as the root from which all the branches of the race should proceed, and from which they should derive their nature, but as their appointed representative. In the eye of the law, they fell when he fell; his forfeiture of eternal life and his legal responsibilities were entailed upon them; they are his heirs, and the heirs of this attainted inheritance. Every sin, every sorrow, every grave, and every sigh in the prison of eternal despair is not only the fruit of sin in the individual sufferer, but the fruit and expressive memento of that “mortal sin original.” The “angel standing in the midst o{ the sun, did not occupy a prouder position than innocent man;” the foul fiend, confined in chains of darkness, scarcely occupies a more abject position than sinning man immediately after his fall, incurring as he himself did, the wrath and curse of God, both in this life and that which is to come, and, but for God’s preventing grace, dragging after him the unnumbered generations of men.

Why he was suffered to fall we know in part; but we may well wait for the solution of this problem, till we know more of the final issues of that great Redemption of wMcli the “second Adam, the Lord from heaven” is “both the Author and the Finisher. It is not necessary to push our inquiries on this point any farther, than to have the assurance, that “high and mighty purposes” have been, and are yet to be thereby accomplished. If man fell from a lofty height, and infinite mercy caught him in his guilty fall, we may be sure that his apostasy is in harmony with the ends of infinite wisdom, rectitude and goodness, and that those ends will be accomplished.

It is much more important for us to leave these ] problems unsolved than to neglect the great moral:, lessons which man’s first sin reads to us. Sin is a very different thing after it is committed from what men imagine it to be before. To measure the wickedness of that one offence, lies not within the range of human thought. Yet such is all sin. It is always an evil that cannot be measured. It is not possible for the human mind to travel over the immeasurable tracts of misery which it describes. Loud and admonitory is the voice from this first sin. Serpent-like, it charms but to devour. It made Lucifer the “archangel ruined,” and the loveliest, happiest pair the most degraded and the most miserable. It is easier to sin than to bear the punishment of sin, or to repent of it after the deed is done.

We need not throw the blame of our own sins on our great ancestor. It is a crushing burden he has to bear, if he has not found a forgiving God. “If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself: and if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it.” We have nothing to cover us from God’s omniscient eye; no cloak for our sin; no fig-leaf covering even to hide our shame. It is not to such a covering that we must repair. As well might our first parents have thrown themselves back upon their obedience to the law they had broken, as we, their descendants, have recourse to works of law for our justification before God. This is an unavailing — nay, a preposterous refuge for a transgressor. It is too late now to think of such a hiding-place. Yet is there a refuge even for the transgressor. One there is who is “an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”

“Go ye that trust upon the law,
And toil and seek salvation there;
Look to the flames that Moses saw,
And shrink, and tremble, and despair.
But I’ll retire beneath the cross.
Saviour! at thy dear feet I’ll lie:
And the keen sword that justice draws,
Flaming and red, shall pass me by.”