is more than secured in the grant of pardon through a redeemer, as we shall hereafter endeavour to show.

3. It is in the conditional character of the threatening, then, wisely and graciously witheld from Adam, as something, not only unnecessary, but injurious for him to know, that the most probable solution of this difficulty is to be sought; and if we turn to the pages of revelation, we shall find this view of the subject amply confirmed. To select a few examples will be sufficient.

GEN. 22. We find that Abraham was ordered to sacrifice his son upon a certain hill; and so ignorant was he of the Almighty's having any other intention, that he proceeded so far, in obedience to the divine command, as to take up the knife to slay his only son Isaac. Το have acquainted him with the secret purposes of his maker would have spoiled the whole affair. His faith could not have been tested in the manner it was. But we do not charge the God of truth with falsehood and insincerity, because he witheld from Abraham his secret intention of accepting the life of a ram instead of the lad's life.

1 SAM. xxiii. 10-13. "Then said David, O Lord God of Israel, thy servant hath certainly heard that Saul seeketh to come to Keilah, to destroy the City for my sake. Will the men of Keilah deliver me into his hands? Will Saul come down as thy servant hath heard? O

Lord God of Israel, I beseech thee, tell thy servant. And the Lord said, he will come down. Then said David, will the men of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul? And the Lord said, they will deliver thee up. Then David and his men, which were about six hundred, arose and departed and went whithersoever they could go.

out of Keilah, And it was told

Saul that David was escaped from Keilah; and he forbare to go forth.” Here it is declared in the most positive terms, that Saul would go down to Keilah, and that the men of Keilah would deliver David into his hand; yet neither the one nor the other took place. How is this to be accounted for, except on the principle which allows a condition to have been implied? The cases of king Hezekiah, and of Nineveh, may also be referred to, as affording strong confirmation of the principle on which we are attempting to meet the difficulty under consideration.

It is worthy of remark, that although, in the instances just adduced, the declarations were made without any specified conditions, yet the reason of their non-fulfillment, was afterwards clearly manifest. David and his men hastened out of Keilah, and thus Saul was left without any motive for going down to that city. The prayers and tears of Hezekiah, induced the Lord to reverse the sentence of death which had been passed upon him, and to add fifteen years to his life. The humiliation and repentance of the Ninevites caused the Almighty

to repent of the evil he had threatened to bring upon them, and he did it not. So, likewise, in the case of Adam, we behold the reason why the sentence was reyoked. A substitute was found, who delivered him from the curse of the law, (in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die) being made a curse for him.*

4. The event therefore has proved the meaning of the law to have been, that Adam could not sin and live under the original. constitution, but that he might obtain mercy under a new one, which it was in the divine intention to introduce should the former one be violated. Thus, it is presumed, the difficulty before us may be obviated, and all ground of suspicion, as to the divine veracity, entirely removed.

SECTION VII.

Since the first act of disobedience was committed in Paradise, Adam and all his posterity have existed under a NEW dispensation.

MUCH confusion and misunderstanding have arisen through inattention to the fact which it is the object of this section to establish. At least this fact has not been so distinctly noticed, nor so prominently set forth,

Gen. ii. 17. Gal. iii. 13,

as its great importance, in theoretical divinity, would seem to require. And the consequence is, that the two dispensations, under which man has been placed, have been so mixed up, and blended together, as very greatly to perplex our inquiries, and to render it difficult, or rather impossible, to obtain any consistent or intelligible views on the subject.

We have seen already, that when the adorable Creator had made man, placed him in Paradise, and told him what he must do, and what he must not do, he did not withold from him what would be the consequences of transgression: "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Notwithstanding, however, that the duty of obedience was enforced by such a consideration, man rebelled against his maker, violated the divine cɔmmand, and subjected himself to the awful penalty which had been threatened, and must have been cut off, but for the interposition of that redeemer, who, as the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. For, as death was the penalty to be inflicted, it is clear that man could not have survived his transgression of the law a single moment, except through an act of mercy; but as mercy supposes redemption, it follows, that the life of our father Adam, and the covenant which he was under, must have terminated together. And we may go even farther than this, and affirm, that that dispensation did terminate with the first transgression, notwithstanding a redeemer interposed.

This will appear sufficiently evi

dent if we ask, for what end did a redeemer come forward? Was it to repair the broken constitution, or to introduce a new one? Not surely to repair the constitution which had been broken, for that was impossible. * As a lawdispensation, it required uninterrupted obedience; so that whoever broke it could never have a second trial under that law. This was forbidden by the very nature of such a constitution. What the law demanded of the transgressor of it, was not obedience now, but satisfaction; a satisfaction which he could render only by suffering the penalty.

a new one.

It must then be conceded, that, as the original covenant could not be repaired, the atonement to be made by the redeemer, procured for Adam a second trial under And if our first parents, through the amazing compassion of the triune God, were favoured with a second trial under a new dispensation, it will not surely be disputed, that all his posterity have existed under a new dispensation also. †

"For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law." "For what the law could not do because it was weak through the flesh, God hath done, who, by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, as a sacrifice for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled by us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit." Romans. viii. 3.

+"The sentiment of Stuart, therefore, does not appear to be strictly correct. The fall of Adam brought our

He says,