being a few scriptural statements, and reasonings, which will, he hopes, serve as hints, and form a basis, for ulterior investigations of their own.

I. What was the death threatened to, and incurred by Adam, as the consequence and punishment of his first transgression?

As the fall of man is a fact which we learn exclusively from the sacred writings, so likewise the nature of it, the circumstances connected with it, and the consequences involved in it can be derived only from the same infallible source. What, then, saith the scripture in reference to this subject?

Were it not that the minds of men are preoccupied from the very cradle, with nursery tales concerning the fall,* and that the impressions made by these are afterwards strengthened by systems of divinity almost as decidedly romantic, this is a question which might be speedily answered. The narrative contained in the three first chapters of Genesis, although brief, is so explicit, and the arguments and conclusions of the apostle Paul, in the 5th and 6th chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, and the 15th chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, are so clearly founded upon, and deduced from, that narrative, literally understood, that nothing but the most perverse ingenuity, and a disposition to seek for mysteries, and metaphors, where all is plain and obvious, could ever have involved the subject in darkness or perplexity.

When we inquire, what are the declarations of the book of Genesis, concerning the creation and fall of man, the few following simple, and intelligible facts

* May not many individuals, in this country, trace their views of the fall to the impression made upon them, at an early period of life, by Milton's Paradise Lost?

present themselves to our notice :-That God formed and organized the body of the first man of the dust of the ground, or of materials common to it, with the earth, upon which it was to tread,-that the body so formed was animated by him, with a principle of life, Genesis ii. 7.-that this life was not absolutely but conditionally bestowed, 16. 17.-that the condition of its tenure was violated, iii. 6.—and that thus the forfeiture threatened, viz, the loss of the life originally bestowed, and the returning of the body to its primitive elements, was incurred, 19. If words have any meaning at all, and if scripture is not to be made a mere nose-of-wax, what can be gathered from the inspired narrative, concerning the fall, and its consequences, more than I have now stated?

Nor are the apostolic testimony and reasonings, already alluded to, at variance in the remotest degree with Moses' narrative. When Paul, in the 5th and 6th of the Romans, and the 15th of first Corinthians, speaks of death, as the consequence of Adam's one transgression, he connects with the word death no qualifying epithet, nor does he furnish his readers with the slightest hint, that it was to be understood by them in any other than its ordinary and current acceptation.* In a matter of such importance as this, had it been the apostle's intention to speak of death, in a sense different from that of the termination of this present life, is it once to be supposed, that writing, as he did, under divine direction, he would have adopted, and employed terms, in their very nature, calculated to deceive?

Warranted by the declarations, and reasonings of scripture, therefore, for I acknowledge no other, or

* See Romans v. 12 to the end, vi. 23. 1st Corinth. xv. 21, &c.

higher authority, I thus answer the first question :The death, with which Adam was menaced, in case of disobedience, and which he actually incurred, was death in the ordinary acceptation of the term, that is, the termination of the animal existence, which God, at his creation, had conferred on him, followed by the dissolution of his body.

Clear, however, as the matter appears to me, and must do to all who take a plain, scriptural, and impartial view of it, there have not been awanting men, dignified with the title of theologians, who have fancied, and written treatises to prove, that besides the loss of natural life, Adam was threatened with, and actually incurred spiritual and eternal death. Without inquiring what is the exact meaning attached to this phraseology by those who employ it, it is sufficient to observe, that the arguments by which the doctrine of spiritual and eternal death is supported, are of a negative, rather than of a positive kind, and may with propriety be stated in the form of so many objections to the view which I have just shown to be derived from a perusal of the inspired narrative itself.

In the first place it may be objected, that it exposes God to the charge of having uttered a threat, which he did not actually carry into effect. The divine declaration was, IN THE DAY that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,—but Adam did not die in the day that he transgressed the divine command, having lived for many centuries afterwards, therefore some other death must have been intended, besides the loss of this present life. To this I answer, that I consider God, in this, as well as in all cases, to be the best interpreter of his own meaning, and perceive, that he has furnished

us with an interpretation of his meaning in this particular case, by the event. In the day, or time, or moment, that thou eatest thereof, i. e. of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt become mortal, or obnoxious to the stroke of death, I have no hesitation in proposing, as God's own solution of the difficulty.*

In the second place it may be objected, that Adam's possession of a soul, Genesis ii. 7. implies his having been originally endowed with something superior to natural life, or an immaterial and immortal principle. In answer to this, and without stopping to inquire into the meaning of the English word soul, I observe, what indeed must be obvious to every reflecting person, that the life, or whatever it was, that Adam originally possessed, is to be determined, not by turning over the musty pages, or annoying ourselves with the vague and discordant theories of divines, but by a reference to the signification of the Hebrew word where translated soul, as well as to that of the corresponding Greek word тxн by which it is rendered in the septuagint version, and the New Testament. This

* In the view taken by me of this passage, viz, that it was intended to intimate not the exact time of the execution of the threatening, but the certainty of death being deserved and incurred, the moment that the transgression should take place, I happen to coincide with a great number of expositors. Such of my readers as are inclined to prosecute their researches into this matter further may consult Le Clerc's Commentary and Paraphrase, L. Howel's complete history of the Bible, Stackhouse's history of the Bible, Poole's synop. crit. ap. loc., Bishop Patrick's Commentary on the historical books of the Old Testament, &c. Some of these authors in illustration and confirmation of their view, refer to the case of Shemei 1. Kings ii, who did not suffer death on the very day on which his transgression took place, although Solomon's menace literally interpreted imported as much, verse 37. S. Castellio and Dr. Geddes, in their repective translations seem to have regarded the threatening, Gen. ii. 17, as having been uttered, without any reference to the time of its actual execution. If any of my readers have in their possession a work of the Rev. Geo. Holden, on the fall of man, they will find at page 20, a note, giving a very accurate view of the meaning of the passage in question.

signification may be ascertained in two different ways. 1. By observing that we in Hebrew, and 4x woa in Greek, which is the phrase translated living soul in Genesis ii. 7, is also the same phrase, in the original, which, when applied to the inferior animals, is rendered by the English words living creature, in Genesis i. 21. and 24, and ii. 19.* Whence this marked difference, in rendering the same words, is of course the first question that will occur to the mind of the unlettered reader, and sorry am I to say, that it cannot be answered, without reflecting severely upon the partiality, and want of candour, evinced in this, as well as in several other instances, by the translators of the authorised version. Correct, and even slavishly literal as they are, where no party purpose is to be served, and no favourite theory is to be supported, the moment some popular dogma crosses their path, or the voice of royal anthority is interposed, truth and fidelity are, without hesitation, sacrificed at their shrine. But for some bias of this kind, what could have induced men, whose claims to sense, and learning, it is impossible to dispute, to abandon the phrase living creature, which besides being a literal translation of the Hebrew words, had answered their purpose, and expressed their meaning, admirably, when speaking of the inferior animals, and to substitute in its place, when applied to man,living soul, a term ambiguous in its very nature, and calculated to suggest a difference, where no difference exists? If in doing so, they were influenced by the consideration, that as man is possessed of a nature or life superior to that of the other animals, therefore the term expressive of life, when

* See also Genesis i. 20 and 30, where the same phrase occurs in the original, with a similar application, although somewhat differently translated.