one of these creatures verifies, in the most awful manner, the aptness of the figurative name which Adam himself had given it! Is it reasonable to suppose, that he who thus acted, and was thus instructed, was guided by blind impulse in his proceedings; or that all the rest of nature, from which such lessons were extracted, was a sealed book to him? Nay, these lessons not only teach us, in the most irresistible manner, that nature was the book from which Adam was instructed, but they place, beyond a cavil, the nature of the instruction which was drawn from it, and the mode by which it was imparted. They establish, in the clearest manner, that, from the very beginning, the invisible things of God were preached by the visible.

In whatever aspect we view the situation of the first man, the truth of what has now been stated will receive additional confirmation. A creature, with reasoning powers such as he possessed, could not have been inactive; there must have been objects provided on which his faculties were to be exercised. But to what could they have been directed? If to the phenomena of nature, merely in a scientific point of view, the subject lacked interest. The garden, nay, the tree of life alone, brought forth every thing he required: he could. apply his philosophical discoveries to no practically useful or interesting purpose. If he examined the same phenomena in a metaphysical spirit, he would only find reduplications of the same admirable contrivance-new proofs of an Almighty hand; a matter about which he was fully informed, and had

no difficulties or doubts to solve, for none had yet arisen. But, imagine it revealed to him, as the specimens of instruction already quoted show it was most certainly revealed, that the visible creation contained types, or figures, or illustrative emblems, of spiritual things, of a creation, unseen to mortal eye, but revealed to the eye of faith in these emblems; and what a copious, what an endless subject, for inquiry and investigation, is opened up to him. It is not, as already noticed, at all necessary for us to know the extent to which he was enlightened in these matters; it is enough to ascertain that this was his employment-that this was the mode by which spiritual instruction was given him.

See, then, the creation framed; bearing evidence, in every feature, that this was the arena on which light was to be brought out of darkness, and the good severed from the evil. See the character of God, as good, shining in every part of the work; and behold man, placed in it, with an understanding fitted to comprehend it all, and the great question at issue. Observe, that, before him, good and evil, light and darkness, life and death, are placed: and behold him seduced to choose death rather than life, evil rather than good. The wiles of the enemy seem to be triumphant, and all the gracious purposes of heaven in the creation overthrown. But this cloud is introduced, this shadow intervenes, only to make the light shine more conspicuously-only to admit a more full display of the character of God, as the just God and the merciful: just, in the punish

ment he inflicts on the seducer, by making his subtile dealing recoil on himself; and merciful, in the gracious promise of deliverance, through the seed of the woman.

If Adam had formerly been in any doubt, as to what light shining out of darkness meant, could he be so now? or could he for an instant doubt, that the gracious voice which he now heard pronouncing the blessing, was the same which said, Let there be light, and there was light? Or, could he hesitate to believe that the promise had been contemplated by Divine Wisdom, when he made the light to shine out of darkness? Let human ingenuity set itself to work; let the brightest intellects combine, to devise something to comfort the heart of the poor trembling rebel, when he was ejected from Eden. How miserably would the finest spun scheme, which talent and philosophy could frame, contrast with the support and consolation that would arise to his mind, when he reflected on the evidence contained in the creation, that THE PROMISE to bruise the head of the serpent had been the eternal purpose of the Son of God. He would feel assured that nothing could frustrate that purpose; and the assurance of this would be sufficient to strengthen his mind through the many years of toil and trouble which lay before him; yea, amply sufficient, when 'kept in memory,' to make him fear no evil, in that hour when dust was to return to dust, and the spirit to God who gave it.

Reader, reject all the puerile notions concerning the first Adam, imbibed in early youth; or the still

more serious errors regarding him, instilled by polemical discussion, rabbinical dotage, or philosophic foolery. He was a man as thou art; and if ever man required the hope of eternal life, and the faith of the Gospel to support him, amidst the evils and frailties of mortality, it was the man who brought death into the world-the curse and all its consequences. He was a reasonable being; and a faith, adequate to the trying circumstances in which, for 800 years, he had to witness the consequences of his rebellion, must have been one so convincing to his understanding as a man, as to have withstood all the suggestions of unbelief, and all the temptations of him who first withdrew him from his allegiance. Would a dark and unintelligible promise have done so? No. God has ever been light, and in him is no darkness at all; and we shall find reason, in the following chapters, to conclude, that although the path of the just has always been, and still is, shining more and more unto the perfect day, it was at all times distinctly defined, and gave hope, security, and peace to those who sought it.

CHAPTER IV.

LANGUAGE.

In the preceding chapters we have had occasion, more than once, to refer to the slender consideration which is generally given to the brief, but most interesting, facts which are recorded in the Bible concerning the early state and history of man. Perhaps, in nothing has this unjust and unphilosophical spirit been more manifested, than in regard to the subject of this chapter. Indeed, when due weight is given to a circumstance, in connexion with it, which we shall immediately bring under the notice of the reader, he will cease to find fault with us for treating with very little respect the current notions, whether learned or vulgar, on almost any part of the economy or history of the early ages of the world.

Many years have not elapsed since a Professor, of high philological character, published a work in two large volumes, the scope and design of which was to prove, that language had a very rude and imperfect origin: that it commenced in the reduplication of such sounds as, 'agg, agg,'-'wagg,