justification by faith from Papal oblivion, so she ought now to lift and light again this torch of redemption, by the man of sin so vilely trod in the dust. And when the Church begins to sing, with the heart and also with the understanding, "O Salem, our once happy seat, then Babylon's walls will tremble, for the hour of God's judgment has come. To the private Christian this belief is eminently beneficial. It gives him deep, thorough, intelligible views of sin, and exalted views of Divine goodness. It tends directly to create heavenly-mindedness. Heaven becomes home in the strictest sense. The idea of having come from there has a marvellous quickening power to make one want to go there. The treasure is all there, and the heart cannot help being there, too. The Christian rejoices not in earthly power, not even though demons are subject to him, but that his name is written in heaven, in the old census-roll of empire, the book of lives, where it was recorded when he was born, and before he ever left home, and went into exile. Christ's promise," Him that overcometh, I will not blot out his name from the book of life,” is sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. O that every weary, way worn traveller Zionward would believe, and learn from experience how nourishing, consoling, invigorating is this truth! One experiment would be an argument so convincing in its power that he would never doubt again, but go on singing: CHAPTER XV. THE NATURAL MAN. "HOWBEIT THAT WAS NOT FIRST WHICH IS SPIRITUAL, BUT THAT WHICH IS NATURAL, AND AFTERWARD THAT WHICH IS SPIRITUAL.”. - 1 Cor. xv. 46. T is commonly supposed that Adam was created holy In the garden of Eden, and that he fell from his origi nal uprightness, and all his race with him. But we have just showed that heaven is our native country, or fatherland, and that redemption involves a return by a Redeemer's blood to primeval place, purity, and happiness. Now if mankind fell in Adam, heaven is not their native land, nor is redemption a return. A man cannot return to a place he never was in, nor to a character he never possessed. On the contrary, if mankind are a celestial race, now in exile, but destined to return to their native skies, then the idea of a fall in Adam cannot be true. And yet for some twelve or thirteen centuries the idea of heaven being our native home has lain under ban and anathema, and Christendom has been taught to believe that a fall in Adam was plainly and distinctly taught in the Bible. Yet it has never been proved that the Bible represents Adam and Eve as created holy in Eden. This has been for the most part assumed, with little attempt at proof. But this is too important a matter to take for granted. For if Adam is not plainly taught to have been created holy in Eden, he is not taught to have fallen there. A man cannot fall from a holiness he does not possess. He cannot be represented as falling from a holiness he is not represented as possessing. If the Scripture reveals the fact of a fall, it must reveal the fact of a holiness to fall from; it is impossible to indicate the one without indicating the other. Yet it has never been proved that the Bible in any manner hints that Adam, when first formed out of dust, was any holier than any of his posterity naturally are as they rise into life. It is generally conceded that men are prone to sin; that they are born with some kind of bias to evil which renders it certain they will yield to temptation on the first opportunity. It has never been seriously attempted, so far as we know, to show that Scripture does not ascribe exactly the same character to Adam, placing him in the category of natural or carnal, and not in the category of spiritual. We take issue, then, with the Church of Rome, and all churches that drink of her cup, in reference to the alleged teachings of the Bible in the premises. The Scriptures do not intimate in the slightest degree that Adam and Eve, in Eden, were at first holy or spiritual, but, on the contrary, set them forth as the representative specimens of a fallen and sinful race. We will consider, in the first place, such slight attempts as have been made to prove that Adam was holy at the time of the formation of his body. "God said, Let us create man. But the soul is the man. Now God does not create sinful souls." The proper reply is, that create is used here of construction out of existing materials, as the mechanic creates a house, the artist creates a picture. The materials existed before, the combination did not exist. So of God it is said, He can create, and he destroy. As destroying only separates soul and body, so creating only combines them. The dust existed. The soul existed. Hence it is generally conceded that by the expression, “God breathed into him the breath of life, and man became a living soul," no more is meant than that God caused him to breathe, and he became a living animal. "Living soul" is applied to him in common with birds, beasts, and reptiles, in the same chapter. "God created man in his own image and after his likeness; and by this a moral image and likeness is meant.” Many of the ablest minds have believed, however, that a moral resemblance is not implied, but one of constitutional faculties and dominion, a likeness purely analogical, as indicated in the words, "Let us make man in our image, and let him have dominion." Man, as a rational moral agent, endowed with supremacy over nature and her tribes, stands, analogically, in the place of God. His relation to the natural world is similar to that of God in the moral universe. Hence, after the flood, that image and likeness is spoken of as still subsisting. "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he him." St. James also speaks of it as perpetual. "Therewith [the tongue] curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God." St. Paul implies that there was a sense in which the man was more in the image of God than the woman (1 Cor. xi. 7): "The man ought not to cover his head, for that he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man." The relation of the man, as husband and father, is in a special sense analogous to the relation of God to the Church and moral universe. It is plain, therefore, that the image and likeness was not by inspired apostles regarded as moral. "God saw all that he had made, and pronounced it very good." So God says of Israel (Jer. ii. 21), "I planted thee wholly a right seed"; and (Num. xxiii. 21), " He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel." Such statements are relative. "Very good" means fit, appropriate, well adapted to the end in view, not morally good. Were sheep and oxen, serpents and lizards, |