to Eccl. vii. 29. "They have sought out many inventions;" Hosea, vi. 7. They like men [ like Adam] have transgressed the covenant: there have they dealt treacherously against me"-since man was free and could stand, and Satan only persuaded, but God solemnly forbade. But from the decree of God, the withholding of grace by which man might have actually stood, and the consequently just withdrawal of former grace, nothing else could follow, but a certain perpetration of sin. This does not destroy free agency. XII. Yet the serpent persuaded to this defection-a real serpent, as he is numbered among the animals-yet not the serpent merely, but as possessed by the Devil as is evident from his power of speech, and from murder with ly ing, being charged upon the Devil -John, viii. 44. "He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth." 2. Cor. xi. 3. "But I fear lest by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. XIII. This temptation was most artful-for, 1. Satan assumed the form of a pleasing animal. 2. He attacked the woman alone. 3. Immediately after the creation. 4. He persuaded her that the evil was small. 5. He first interrogates her-and then avows his unbelief of the threatenings. He then instigates to pride, by the hope of greater good, and at length attributes to God subtle envy which last, some, at the present day, in vain deny, against the express declaration of Moses-as if, to man, who, as soon as he had given heed to the temptation, became destitute of heavenly wisdom, this had been too glaring. XIV. Eve having been beguiled, through sincere affection impelled her husband to sin-God, for the time, blinding their eyes to a sense of misery. It is therefore absurd to suppose that Adam, knowingly and of his own choice, fell through excessive affection for his wifewhich, however, would by no means lessen his crime. XV. As eating the forbidden fruit was an external act of sin, so there was also internally, a disbelief of the threatening; pride and inordinate desire of more likeness to God-and at length the crav ings of unbridled appetite. And though these three appeared almost at the same time, yet they succeeded each other in this relative order, according to the progress of the temptation. But the Papists contend that pride preceded, depending on certain vain reasons, and this text of St. Paul, Rom. v. 19. "As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners;"-whereas, by the term disobedience, he does not mean the first internal act, but the whole wickedness committed. XVI. This wickedness was very great, as it was committed against God, although in a small thing, yet it was by man while perfect, including a violation of the whole moral law, in a place of rich abundance, and soon after creation-But the precise day of the fall, is not determined; by no means ought the sixth to be fixed upon, since on that day "all was very good”— Gen. i. 31. Obj. 1. "The Devil sinned in the beginning"-John viii. 44. Ans. Beginning must here be understood with some latitude. 2. Adam did not pass the night [i. e. did not abide] in honourPs. xlix. 12. Ans. Men in great worldly honour are here spoken of, and of them only it is denied that their prosperity will be lasting. XVII. To the curse following this sin, according to Moses, may be referred, 1. An humbling discovery of their nakedness, Gen. iii. 7. 2. Man's terror at the voice of God. Gen. iii. 8, 10. 3. The denunciation of the sentence; first, on the serpent, verse 14, 15-viz. upon that animal, and at the same time upon the Devil, who is plainly to be included-"Because thou hast done this thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed, and her seed." Then upon the woman, verse 16, which subjects her to many pains of parturition, and to the severe domination of her husband-"I will greatly multiply thy sorrows and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." And last ly upon the man, verse 17-19, on صر whom, as representing his whole race, was denounced a miserable and burdensome life, and a death following it, not as the termination of punishment, but the filling up of its measure." "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 shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee: and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shaft thou return." 4. The execution of the sentence, in the denial, evidently ironical, of man's great unlikeness to God; in his expulsion from the tree of Life and Paradise; and finally in the cherubim with" a flaming sword which turned every way,' to guard against his return-verses 22-24. "Behold the man is become as one of us to know good and evil. And now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and Ch. Adv.-VOL. XI. eat and live for ever; therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man, and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden, cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." XVIII. God herein manifested his long-suffering, in that he did not instantly destroy man; and his saving grace, especially in the punishment denounced upon the serpent, which contains a Proto-GospelGen. iii. 15, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman; and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."-For the seed of the woman here signifies Christ, with his faithful followers his enmity, the calling and sanctification of man-victory is also ascribed to him, but through the bruising of his heel, or the meritorious sufferings of Christ, and the chastisements of the faithful. This spiritual sense the Socinians and Menonites erroneously deny. XIX. We sincerely believe that Adam and Eve, with their pious posterity, received this Proto-Gospel by faith and were saved; for enmity with the serpent is expressly ascribed to Eve, and it must not be presumed that the divine promise failed of its accomplishment. But the argument for Eve's faith, derived from her expression at the birth of Cain, "I have gotten a man in the Lord," Gen. iv. 1, does not appear to be well founded; for the words can better be rendered, "with the Lord," or "for the Lord," than in the accusative, "Lord," as the name Jehovah is not found in the name Cain; and if Eve believing him to be the Messiah, paid him divine honours, she must be regarded as an idolatress; if she neglected it, the duties of religion were by her despised. H AMPLIAS 1 The following" Latin devotional rhymes" appear in the Christian Observer for November last, and the versification of them in the Appendix to the volume for 1832 -in which it is said that the Latin may be met with in several Roman Catholick books of devotion, of the school of Kempis and Quesnel. DE AMORE JESU. Jesu, clemens, pie Deus! Quisnam possit enarrare, Tecum pati, tecum flere, Fac nos dignos te videre, In beata cœli vita, Sweet with Thee the cross to bear, Boundless Majesty Divine, My hope, my life; oh make me thine. Make me worthy Thee to see, And vision beatifick know! It appears that Bishop MANT has recently published 66 Metrical Sketches on the Festivals." Al though we hold that no religious Of thy dwelling here on earth; Son of Man, to thee I cry! A firstborn, in the house of God; By the hallow'd water shed By the triple conquest won; By thy works with mercy fraught, Man of Sorrows, hear me cry To the mansions of the dead; By the wound, whence issuing flow'd Prince of Life, to thee I cry! Lord of Glory, God most high, CHRISTIAN Miscellaneous. The Inadequacy of a mere Rural Taste to Sacred Purposes. "He shall go in and out, and find pasture." The districts of Palestine were white with sheep. The figure is here taken from a folding place for flocks. The shepherd bore his rod in his hand, and as the flocks passed into the fold at night, he numbered them; and passing under the same rod, he counted them, as they went out to pasture in the morning. In a moral sense, our Saviour here says" By me, and only in this way, shall any one go in and out, and find pasture." We shall devote the residue of this essay to some considerations intended to show the truth, that mere delight in rural life is wholly insufficient to answer the ends of Christianity. There is a desire, in the irreligious heart, to supplant the method by which men are to receive the blessings of the Christian system. To illustrate this position, we need not go to the synagogue of the Jew, to the pagoda of the Hindoo, or to the mosque of the followers of the prophet of Mecca. We need not attend with the inhabitant of China upon the lessons of Confucius, or with the Greek disciple in the olive halls of philosophy, in which Plato taught. Our Saviour declares, that the human heart, in its unrenewed state, is a sepulchre. This, of itself, is enough to make many repudiate his instructions. Upon the sepulchre we sometimes chisel knots of flowers, and over the mouldering heart the proud mausoleum is not unfrequently built. Delusive hopes are often cherished, even by those who are guilty of flagrant crimes; but it is not our present object to reason with those who maintain an unblushing boldness in iniquity. We have in view the many persons who take refuge from the claims to Christianity, in an elegant taste, and a refined exterior. They keep aloof, through life, from despicable vices, that they may assiduously pursue after those reputable objects, in which they take delight. Many contract romantick notions from reading works of fiction, although it took but one of these works, partially to derange the mind of Sir Robert Boyle, so that he applied himself with renewed ardour to the abstract sciences as a corrective. But we may certainly cultivate a rural taste, without setting aside the requirements of Christianity. Sir Robert Boyle did not dispense with the obligations and duties which the gospel imposes, because he lived in the retirement of Stalbridge. Nor did Locke, because Oates was his chosen retreat: nor Linnæus, because he lived in the villas of Hartecamp and Hammarby: nor Hooker, because he wished his patron to dismiss him to the country, "that he might see divine goodness growing in the fields:" nor did Walton, because he heard the murmuring of every *It was no small part of the wicked ness of Dean Swift, that he ridiculed Boyle's Reflections. English brook: nor Pascal, because he loved the retirement of Port Royal better than the hum of Paris: nor Cowper, because the country was always clothed in charms to his sensitive mind: nor Pollok, because he loved the dells of Craig Lockart: nor Thomas Scott, because he spent days and weeks in the parks of Weston, When the weather would permit, he spent hours in the Underwood Park, which has been immortalized by Cowper. We might multiply instances, to an indefinite extent, to show that men may be embosomed in retirement, and in that retirement be followed by all the sweet constraining influence of Christianity. Poets, destitute of every sentiment of piety, may revive, in fancy, the age of pastoral innocence. The following picture is from the pencil of Milton; but it might have come from the pencil of Rousseau, or any other imaginative sceptic. "When the ploughman, near at hand, It is common, in books of travels, to meet with portraitures of. rural sights and natural curiosities. In this way a man of taste need not go beyond the hedges of his own farm, to know that there are moors in Scotland, vineyards. in France, lakes in England, pyramids in Egypt, and grottoes in the islands of the Egean Sea. All this, and far more, may be done by the mere power of intellect. We may enter and feed upon the various pastures of knowledge, and still have an utter distaste for the moral pastures of our Redeemer. The minds of unsanctified men may receive much pleasure, from the intellectual perception of rural sights and sounds. The irreligious historian may invoke his |