" and that the never-ending life of hap"piness promised to our first Parents, "if they had continued obedient, and grown up to perfection, under that

46

deconomy wherein they were placed, "should not have been continued in the "earthly Paradise, but only have com"menced there, and been perpetuated "in a higher state; that is to say, after "such a trial of their obedience as should દ seem sufficient to the divine wisdom, "they should have been translated from earth to Heaven."

Thus has it been attempted to shew what was the original state of man as cre ated in the image of God, what the nature of his trial under the first dispensation in Paradise, and what the fatal consequence of his failure. From this humiliating scene, on which we have been looking back, we now direct our eyes to one of a more promising kind; even to that, in which this malicious conqueror, who triumphed over our first Parents in Paradise, was himself conquered and disgraced in his turn. In consequence of which victory gained over him, by the Captain of our salvation, every

one

one delivered from his bondage, and dying with Christ unto sin, shall at his rising again, be enabled to say, in the triumphant language of the Apostle, "O death where is "thy sting? O grave where is thy vic"tory? The sting of death is sin." But sin has been nailed to the cross of Christ. The debt of nature indeed still remains to be paid. But as the body, in consequence of what the Son of God has done for man, is committed to the earth, "in sure and "certain hope" of a resurrection; death is now swallowed up in victory; whilst the gift of God is eternal life, through Je◄ sus Christ our Lord.

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REFER

REFERENCES.

A.

THE learned Jackson has left a passage on this subject, which well deserves the consideration of the modern Unitarian. After a long quotation from Pliny, be thus proceeds: "We have no reason sufficient to persuade 68 us to believe or to suspect that this great naturalist did ever peruse any part of the Book of Grace; not so "much of it as is contained in the History of Moses; "much less such passages in it as concern this point, as "are comprehended in the Prophets, in the Evangelists, k "or in St. Paul's Epistles. Or if any man have better $5 reasons than I have to believe or suspect that he might "read them all, or the most part of them; it would, "notwithstanding, be a groundless surmise to imagine,

that he had been catechized by Christ's Apostles, or "their deputies; or that he had received any spiritual 66 grace, either by Baptism or imposition of their hands. "Now albeit we suppose or grant, that he had read the

books of Moses or some passages in the Prophets, but deny (what I think no man will affirm,) that he was baptized or made partaker of Grace by Christ: the "cause is clear that he could have no better guide for ❝ searching after or finding out those orthodoxial truths, for notions which he hath most elegantly expressed, than "recta ratio; that is, the right use of reason; which

"nature,

"nature, though corrupted in him, had not utterly extin "guished, but much weakened. And here I can rather "wish than pray, that this man had lived in this age, or "that he might be restored to life again, to encounter "those Semi Christians, which contend for the sove"reignty of recta ratio; as if it were the only guide or "rule of Christian faith. But albeit I dare not pray nor can I hope to hear Pliny speak to this or to any other

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good purpose in this life; yet I verily believe that the "writings which this uncatechized heathen bath left, "and he himself shall rise up in judgment against those "proud phantastick spirits, which have been baptized in "the name of Christ, and catechized in the fundamental "points of Christian faith, do either flatly deny or capti

ously question, whether our nature were so deeply tainted with that siu, which we call original; or so far deprived of freedom or power to restore ourselves to our "primæval state of nature; as that the death and resurrection of a Redeemer more than man, and his everJasting priesthood, were necessarily required for freeing us from the bondage of satan."

JACKSON, Vol. iii. p. 22.

B. 1

"EVERY man, (says the same learned author) to whom "God hath given grace or power to reflect on his "younger years, or to survey his own heart, his affec

tions, or inclinations either past or present, may re"spectively find a more exquisite image of satan within "himself, than any painter can make. Though few or none in this age be bodily possessed with a legion of devils, yet most men either by nature; ill-breeding, or

་

"bad

"bad company, if they would rightly examine themselves, "their actions, their passions, or projects by the rule of " Scripture, might easily discover more than a legion of

unruly, lewd, or vain thoughts of unhallowed desires, "or vicious habits; such as are malice, pride, envy, un"charitableness, &c.; which daily plead or fight for the "sovereignty of the law of sin or lusts of the flesh, over "the dictates or motions of the law of the mind or spirit. "And these are the true and most exquisite pictures or 66 images of the diabolical nature. And it was a wish

or prayer worthy to be written with the point of a "diamond (as I have seen it written,) though in no sa"cred place; Lord deliver me from myself. His mean"ing, which wrote it (I take it) was, that he might be de"livered from vicious or unruly thoughts or habits, or "other like soldiers of satan; which every man, before "mortification of the flesh, or renovation by the spirit, "doth suffer to be lodged or billetted in his breast."

JACKSON, Vol. iii. p. 33.