ity on which all depends; and, finally, like the same laws, they are immutable. This is, obviously, the amount of the proposition in our confession, and catechisms, that the decrees of God are absolute and unchangeable, which to some sects of christians, has given great, and, I presume, unnecessary offence.

From the interpretation which has been given to this important proposition, we perceive the coincidence of reason, with religion; and the support which science, justly explained, may often render to revelation.

OF THE

COVENANT OF WORKS

AND THE

FALL OF MAN.

I PROCEED, in the next place, to the consideration of the Covenant of Works, and the fall of Man. This Covenant, as it is contemplated in our systems, is the transaction represented to have taken place between man and his Creator at his first formation, wherein a law of duty was prescribed to him, under the explicit threatening of death, in case of transgression, and the implied promise of life, on the condition of obedience. His whole duty, however, in this covenant, was collected in a single prohibition as its test. It is proper to observe, that the term covenant is not employed in the history of this transaction by the sacred writer. But it is not the object of the holy scriptures to arrange for us systems, with scientific precision and method. They simply express things in a free and narrative order, so as to be most easily conceived, and applied to use by the plainest readers; and this diffusive style has been collected, by divines, into specific propositions, and disposed, according to the order and dependence of ideas, into a scientific form, which, for the con

venience of arrangement, and conciseness of expression, requires, frequently, a peculiar and technical phraseology. Of this we have an example in this term. In the strictness of meaning usually annexed to it, a covenant could not take place between the Supreme Jehovah, and the insect man. For it properly signifies a stipulation between persons who are, in some degree, equal and free. Yet, as far as such an agreement can be supposed to exist between parties of such infinite disparity as the Creator and the creature, it will be found to be contained in this precept to Adam. In it a duty is to be performed—a reward is proposed for obedience—and a penalty denounced in case of transgression. For, although the reward is not explicitly stated in terms, it is manifestly involved in the threatening. If death was the forfeiture for disobedience, the necessary implication was, that life was the alternative for obedience.

Having justified the technical denomination which this transaction has received among divines, it is only necessary, farther, to suggest that it is spoken of, in our systems, under two different appellations, being sometimes styled, from its condition, the Covenant of Works, and sometimes, from its implied reward, the Covenant of Life.

Various circumstances in the constitution, administration, and appendages of the covenant, demand our most serious inquiries. 1. In the first place, the peculiar selection of a com

mand or prohibition for the trial of Adam's obedience. 2. In the second place, the full implication of the promise and the threatening. 3. Thirdly, the representative character of our first father in this transaction. 4. And lastly, the signification of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and of the tree of life.

1. ON THE SELECTION OF AN OBJECT FOR THE TRIAL OF

MAN'S OBEDIENCE.

When we consider the natural imbecility of the human mind, and the limited sphere to which the range of its ideas is confined, it cannot be surprising, if, in the revelation of the divine will, in the holy scriptures, as well as in that natural revelation inscribed on the face of the universe, we should find many facts which it is difficult, and some which transcend the utmost powers of reason to explain. The enemies of revealed religion examine, with scrupulous ingenuity, every part of that sacred volume which contains its history; and if its friends are not able to solve to the satisfaction of a captious philosophy, all the questions which, either the obliquity of ignorance, or the perversity of genius can raise upon it, they are inclined to reject the whole as a fable. No part of the whole system, perhaps, has been exposed to bolder inquiries than the Mosaic account of the fall of man, or been treated with more indecent levity than the test of his obedience proposed by divine wisdom in the fruit of the for

bidden tree.

From the earliest dawn of science, the speculations of philosophy have been employed, without being able to arrive at any satisfactory conclusions on the subject, to account for the introduction of evil into the works of an all-powerful, wise, and benevolent Deity. Revelation has proposed only a few simple facts relative to it, without explicitly unfolding the inscrutable relations which it holds to the purity and holiness of the divine nature; or pointing out the operations of the human mind in its progress from innocence to guilt. The first parents of the human race, had, already, the law of nature written on their hearts. It pleased the Creator, however to make proof of their constancy and perseverance in practical holiness, by an appeal to the great principle of all duty, which consists in obedience simply to the will of God. For this purpose it was requisite to impose upon the conscience some positive injunction; that is, one to which no natural morality, or immorality is attached, but the obligation to which rested solely upon the divine command; without any other moral consideration. From an action naturally immoral, a holy nature would instinctively shrink; so that no temptation from that quarter could be made to reach it. But the act being originally indifferent, the mind could approach it near enough to contemplate it on every side whence an insidious suggestion could be thrown in to induce, for a moment, an oblivion of the authority of Heaven. Here would be opened a field in which the tempter, the great enemy of