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embraced to render the image complete; wherefore we conclude, that as man was created in the Divine image, he received from the plastic hand that formed him, the stamp of every communicable perfection of the Divine nature; nor is holiness the least prominent among these perfections, as God has revealed himself in the Bible. But this view of the subject does not depend upon ab stract speculations upon the perfections of God, for it is based on the declarations of his word. Eph. iv. 24: And that ye put on the new man which, after God, is created in righteousness and true holiness.' By the new man which we are here exhorted to put on, we understand the true Christian character. This, the text informs us, is created after God, i. e., after the likeness or image of God, and this is in righteousness and true holiness.' The image of God, then, consists in righteousness and true holiness; and as man was created in this image, he must have been holy; not merely free from unholiness, but postively holy; for he shone in the Divine image, which consists in righteousness and true holiness.

3. "We infer man's primitive holiness from the seal of the Divine approbation which was set upon him by his Maker. Gen. i. 31. And God saw every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good. As this was spoken of all the works of God, its meaning must be, that every thing was very good of its kind; the world was a good world, and the man that was created to people it was a good man. Now as man was a rational being, a moral agent, and destined to lead the career of this vast world, when God pronounced him good, it must have been with reference to him, such as he was, a moral being; he must, therefore, have been good in a moral sense. This clearly proves that man was not only free from all moral evil, but that he was positively good, or possessed real moral virtue. If, as some now assert, all moral good and moral evil consist in voluntary action, man being neither holy nor unholy

until he puts forth his volitions, the text under consideration, which asserts that he was very good, cannot be true; for in such case, it would be as correct to assert that he was very bad, as it would to pronounce him good. It must be perfectly plain that to assert that man was very good, because he was free from all moral evil, would be no more true, than it would be to declare that he was very bad because he possessed no moral holiness.

4. "One quotation from the pen of inspiration shall close the subject of man's primitive holiness. Eccl. vii. 29: Lo this only have I found, that God hath made man upright, but they sought out many inventions.' That this text relates to man's moral rectitude, and not to the erect posture of his body, appears from two con, siderations.

"This is the sense in which the word upright is uniformly employed in the Scriptures. Ps. vii. 10; My defence is in God, who saveth the upright in heart.? Prov. xi. 9: The righteousness of the upright shall deliver him.' See, also, Ps. xi. 7; xviii. 23, 25; xix. 13; xxxvii. 37; Prov. xi. 20; xii. 6. The above, to which many more references might be added, are sufficient to show that the term upright is uniformly used to signify moral rectitude.

"In the text under consideration the inspired writer represents his discovery of the fact that God made man upright, to be the fruit of labored investigation, which could not be the case if he alluded to the upright posture of his body. It would reflect no great honor on the intellect of the inspired penman to understand him as saying, that he had numbered a thousand persons, one by one, examining each, to learn that God had created man to stand erect in opposition to the quadruped race. It is clear, then, that God made man upright in a moral sense,* and if So, he must have been free from moral evil on one hand, and possessed moral virtue on the other."-Lee.

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CHAPTER VII.

THE FALL OF MAN.

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As Unitarians generally deny the fall of man, it will be our object in this chapter to establish this important doctrine of the Christian system; and, in the first place, in support of this doctrine, we urge the Mosaic account of this event, which is, "that a garden having been planted by the Creator, for the use of man, he was placed in it, to dress it and to keep it; that in this garden two trees were specially distinguished, one as 'the tree of life,' the other as 'the tree of the knowledge of good and evil;' that from eating of the latter, Adam was restrained by positive interdict, and by the penalty, in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die;' that the serpent, who was more subtle than any beast of the field, tempted the woman to eat, by denying that death would be the consequence, and by assuring her that her eyes and her husband's eyes 'would be opened,' and that they would be as gods, knowing good and evil;' that the woman took of the fruit, gave it to her husband who also ate; that for this act of disobedience, they were expelled from the garden, made subject to death, and laid under other maledictions.

"That this history should be the subject of much criticism" by Unitarians, is not a matter of surprise; for "taken in its natural and obvious sense, along with the comments of the subsequent Scriptures, it teaches the doctrines of the existence of an evil, tempting, invisible spirit, going about seeking whom he may deceive and devour; of the introduction of a state of moral corruptness into human nature, which has been transmitted to all men; and of a vicarious atonement for sin," to all of which Unitarians stand opposed; they there

fore endeavor to evade the argument founded upon this history in favor of the fall of man, by resolving the part now under consideration into an allegory, or an instructive fable; but "no writer of true history would mix plain matter of fact with allegory in one continued narrative, without any intimation of a transition from one to the other. If, therefore, any part of this narrative be matter of fact, no part is allegorical. On the other hand, if any part be allegorical, no part is naked matter of fact; and the consequence of this will be, that every thing in every part of the whole narrative must be allegorical. If the formation of the woman out of the man be allegory, the woman must be an allegorical woman. The man therefore must be an allegorical man ; for of such a man only the allegorical woman will be a meet companion. If the man is allegorical, his Paradise must be an allegorical garden; the trees that grew in it, allegorical trees; the rivers that watered it, allegorical rivers; and thus we may ascend to the very beginning of creation; and conclude, at last, that the heavens are allegorical heavens, and the earth an allegorical earth. Thus the whole history of the creation will be an allegory, of which the real subject is not disclosed; and in this absurdity, the scheme of allegorizing ends."— Horsley.

"But that the account of Moses is to be taken as a matter of real history, and according to its literal import, is established by two considerations, against which as being facts nothing can successfully be urged. The first is, that the account of the fall of the first pair is a part of a continuous history. The creation of the world, of man, of woman; the planting of the garden of Eden, and the placing of man there; the duties and prohibitions laid upon him; his disobedience; his expulsion from the garden; the subsequent birth of his children, their lives and actions, and those of their posterity, down to the flood; and, from that event, to the life of Abraham, are given in the same plain and un

adorned narrative, brief, but yet simple, and with no intimation at all, either from the elevation of the style or otherwise, that a fable or allegory is in any part introduced. If this, then, be the case, and the evidence of it lies upon the very face of the history, it is clear, that if the account of the fall be excerpted from the whole narrative as allegorical, any subsequent part, from Abel to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to Moses, may be excerpted for the same reason, which is neither more nor less than this, that it does not agree with the theological opinions of the interpreter; and thus the whole of the Pentateuch may be rejected as a history, and converted into a fable. One of these consequences must, therefore, follow, either that the account of the fall must be taken as history, or the historical character of the whole five books of Moses must be unsettled; and if none but infidels will go to the latter consequence, then no one wlio admits the Pentateuch to be a true history generally, can consistently refuse to admit the story of the fall of the first pair to be a narrative of real events.

"The other indisputable fact to which I have just now adverted, as establishing the literal sense of the history, is that, as such, it is referred to and reasoned upon in various parts of Scripture.

“Job xx. 4, 5: Knowest thou not this of old, since man was placed upon earth, that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment?' The first part of the quotation might as well have been rendered, since Adam was placed on the earth. There is no reason to doubt but that this passage refers to the fall and the first sin of man. The date agrees, for the knowledge here taught is said to arise from facts as old as the first placing of man upon earth, and the sudden punishment of the iniquity corresponds to the Mosaic account the triumphing of the wicked is short, his joy but for a moment.'