which follows the feparation of soul and body. It is aftonishing that any other death should have been understood by those words *, when the very fentence of condemnation itself confines us to the fenfe here given—In the sweat of thy face (says God) fhalt thou eat bread, till THOU RETURN UNTO THE GROUND: for out of it waft thou taken: for dust thou art, and UNTO DUST SHALT THOU RETURN †. In this State, Adam begot a Pofterity, which naturally became fharers in his original condition of Mortality ‡. And, Were they injured in not being made partakers of a gift never bestowed upon them? Abfurd! * See note [C] at the end of this Book. + Gen. iii. 19. "By death (fays Mr. Locke) some men understand, « endless torments in Hell-fire.-But it seems a strange way "of understanding a Law, (which requires the plainest " and directeft words), that by death fhould be meant, "eternal life in mifery. Can any one be supposed, by a "Law, which fays, for felony thou shalt furely die-not ❝ that he should lofe his life, but be kept alive in per16 petual and exquifite torments? And would any one "think himself fairly dealt with that was fo used ?” Reasonableness of Christianity, Vol. II. p. 508. They They were left and continued in poffeffion of all the Rights inherent in their original nature; and would have had the benefit of the FREE GIFT, had not he, to whom it was given, and from whom they were defcended, forfeited it before they came into Being *. What Phyfical contagion they contracted at their birth, either of body or of mind, is of little ufe to enquire; fince, however Man came by his Malady, his cure is one and the fame. So good reafon had St. Paul not to think he impeached the Juftice of God, when he said, that DEATH reigned from Adam to Mofes, even over those who had NOT SINNED AFTER THE SIMILITUDE of Adam's tranf greffion, i. e. over thofe who died before they came to the knowledge of good and evil. Now, as the death, here mentioned, could be only Phyfical, though total; the death fpoken of, in the fame fentence, as See what is faid concerning the difference between the forfeiture of natural and adventitious Rights. Div. Leg. B. V. § 5. + Rom. v. 14. See alfo note [D], at the end of this Book. H 3 de denounced on the rest of mankind, who had finned after the fimilitude of Adam's tranfgreffion, muft, confequently, be Phyfical likewife. Thus both infants and adults falling under the very letter of the fentence denounced on Adam, we fee how God's justice is made apparent. Another important truth emerges from this account of the FALL, viz. that this part of the Mofaic Hiftory is No ALLEGORY, as hath been commonly imagined, The root of which conceit, as indeed of many other extravagances that have deformed the rational fimplicity of the Chrif tian Faith, hath been the confounding the diftinct and different fanctions of natural and revealed Religion with one another, For Divines, as we faid, having mistaken thefe fanctions to be the fame, namely IмMORTALITY, they were led to conclude, though against the exprefs words of the text, that Adam's tranfgreffion was a breach of fome precept of the MORAL LAW, and, confequently, that the account which reprefented it as the violation of a positive Command, Command, was an ALLEGORY: and being once got upon this fairy-ground, every man had it in his power to purfue, as he liked, the favourite Vision, which he himself had raifed from an Allegory left unexplained by the facred Writer. Numberless have been these monfters of the Imagination. But a late Allegorift of the history of the Fall hath fo difcredited the trade, by his abfurd and abominable fancies, fit only to be told by himself, that were it not for the account which both believers and unbelievers find in this commodious method of evading difficulties, we might hope at length to get free of the dishonour of having fo long abufed a rational mode of information. We have fhewn what the laft believing Writer hath invented, to render the abufe adious; let us now fee what the last unbelieving Writer hath offered to render the abufe ridiculous. He affures us, that the Scripture account of the FALL is a MERE * See the Memoirs of the Life of Mr. W. Whiston, Vol. I. p. 339. ALLEGORY, in the manner of the eastern Fables, fignifying that man was formed to a fiate of happiness and perfection, which he enjoyed as long as he continued innocent, but loft and forfeited it by following his luft and paffions, in oppofition to the will of his Creator; and became miferable as foon as he became a wilful and babitual finner *. Here we fee the learned Doctor throws afide his ufual reserve, and preaches up rank DEISM without difguife; while he makes the FALL from, and RESTORATION to, life, as taught in the Old and New Teftament, to be nothing more than an Emblem of the frail Condition of Man, to whom God had given the LAW OF NATURE for his only guide. On this principle he attacks Dr. Waterland's and Bifhop Sherlock's expla nations of the ftory of the FALL. But the force of his reafoning (as hath been the good fortune of moft deistical Writers) fprings not from the truth of his own notions, but from the futility of his Adver 、,་ *Dr. Middleton's Works, 4to. Vol. II. p. 131; and Vol. III. p. 199. fary's |