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prove them by one positive command. Accordingly, he prohibited the use of a certain tree in the midst of the garden, in these words: "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." A forbidden object becomes desirable to our perverse hearts, from the very circumstance of its being forbidden; but such perversity cannot be supposed of the first pair, in their original state of rectitude. Listening to the insidious suggestions of Satan, the great enemy of their peace, they were tempted to believe, that the tree of knowledge was withheld because it possessed the power of exalting their natures to an equality with angelic beings. Ambition superseded duty: they ate of the interdicted fruit! The condition of life and happiness was broken, and the penalty of death was incurred! The guilty pair were exiled from paradise, where they had been fed by the spontaneous fruits of the earth; and they were condemned to earn their bread with toil, and in sorrow.

Fanny. Was not the punishment severe for the breach of one command; that too an act by which no creature was injured?

Mother. The command was the test of an obedient disposition: the breach of this was, therefore, the violation of every other; because the rebellious temper was displayed. The Sovereign has a right to exact perfect obedience, and man is justly punished for his refusal to render it. But man is not left in despair: Divine Mercy had, from all eternity, laid the plan of his deliverance from the power and penalty of sin, by a Redeemer; and he now intimated the blessed hope, by a promise to the fallen pair. Fanny. You called the command not to eat of the tree, a positive command. Are not all the laws of God equally binding?

Mother. Certainly: but we divide them into moral and positive. The first include the duties which we owe to our Creator, or to ourselves, and each other, and which our own reason might, in some measure, have discovered: the second are such as derive their importance from the will of the supreme lawgiver, and such as we could not have

16

EDEN. DEATH OF ABEL.

known without a divine revelation. You will keep this distinction in mind; for in the study of the Scriptures, you will find frequent examples of the positive, under the Jewish dispensation, and two under our own,-Baptism, and the Lord's Supper.

Catherine. Where was the garden of Eden situated? Mother. Eden was a very fertile tract of country, as it is thought by many, not far from the Persian Gulph, and between what are now called Bagdad and Bassora. The garden of Paradise, with the river Euphrates running through it, is supposed to have been planted where Arecca now stands.*

The first descendants of Adam and Eve were Cain and Abel. Cain cultivated the earth, and Abel tended flocks. At an appointed time,† each offered a sacrifice: that of Abel was accepted, while Cain's was rejected.

Fanny. How did God testify his pleasure on that occasion?

Mother. The manner is not certain. The distinction, however expressed, was made evident to the mind of Cain; for it inflamed him with rage, and, instead of attending to the suggestion of his Creator, that he too might be accepted, if he presented his offering in faith and obedience, his jealousy instigated him to the murder of his innocent brother. Some divines have imagined that his mother believed she had received in him, the first-born, the fulfilment of the consoling promise of a Redeemer, and instilled such an idea into his mind. When, therefore, he saw his younger brother preferred, he was tempted to remove him from the possibility of enjoying his birth-right. You may remember to have heard our excellent preacher, not long ago, taking occasion, from this hypothesis, to caution mothers against nourishing the mischievous seeds of pride in their children; for thus early we have to lament the sad effects of Adam's disobedience, in the depravity of his children, who were formed, not like Adam originally, "in the image of God,"

*The situation of Paradise is a point of great controversy among the learned.

+"In process of time," or, "at the end of days"-as the words may be literally translated, and are translated in the marginal reading, seem to signify stated worship at the end of six days.

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but like him in his fallen state with inclinations averse from good.

Catherine. What is meant by a sacrifice?

Mother. Sacrifice generally means an offering made to the Deity as an acknowledgment of his power, and à payment of that homage which is due to Him. Eucharis tical sacrifices, or thanksgivings, were offered in Paradise; those which are called expiatory, were not instituted till Adam had transgressed the law of his Creator, and had learned, that without an atonement he could not be pardoned. That this sentiment has generally prevailed, we discover in the fact, that sacrifices have been found amongst the religious rites of all nations, before their conversion to Christianity. We have no direct account of the origin of this mode of worship; but we hesitate not to pronounce it of divine authority, because Adam was taught immediately by his Creator. And without a command, it is highly probable he would not have thought of destroying the animals committed to his care, nor would he have imagined, that an offering, apparently so cruel, could be acceptable to a Being, whose benevolence was impressed on all around him.

The translation of Enoch, in the order of events, next arrests our attention. He was a descendant of Seth, the third son of Adam, who was given to Eve to console her for the loss of Abel, and whose family continued a long time in the practice of a pure religion. This pious man, pious in the midst of universal corruption, was translated to heaven when 365 years of age (B. C. 3017), without suffering the pain of dying. This remarkable event would intimate, to a people destitute as yet of a written revelation, and guided only by the partial light of tradition, that both the souls and bodies of the righteous would find a glorious reward.

The life of man, at this time, was protracted to a great length. Methuselah, the oldest of whom we have any account and who died in the year of the flood, lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years. (B. C. 2348.) The earth then would be rapidly peopled; and wickedness appears to have arrived at a great height about this time; for, in the year of the world 1656, all mankind were swept

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away by a flood, because the earth was filled with violence, and the imagination of man's heart was only evil continually. From this most awful judgment, one righteous man, with his family was preserved. Noah, the greatgrandson of Enoch, was commanded by God to build an ark, or vessel, and to go into it with his wife, his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet, and their wives; and to take with them also cattle and fowls, and creeping things, of every description, that they might be kept alive. Of clean birds and beasts, seven pairs, and of unclean, two. Catherine. All the creatures being alike the production of a holy God, why are any called unclean?

Mother. The term is here first used, and no reason is given. From subsequent scriptures we learn, that clean animals were such as might be used in sacrifice; unclean were of the kinds forbidden. In the ceremonial laws of the Israelites, of which we shall speak by and by-we find a similar discrimination with respect to their food.

Fanny. It would seem impossible to construct a vessel sufficiently capacious to contain such a multitude of creatures, together with the provision necessary for their subsistence.

Mother. The Mosaic history has been assailed at all points; and your difficulty, more obvious than many which have been objected, has not been overlooked. Moses gives the dimensions of the ark, and men who were qualified for the task, have calculated that it was adequate to its purpose. The great length of time required. to construct a vessel of sufficient strength and dimensions, to contain so many living creatures, and to resist a deluge of waters, afforded an opportunity to the sentenced race, to return to their long-suffering Sovereign, had they been so inclined.

Charles. How long was Noah employed in building the Ark?

Mother. Moses has not told us; nor has he left sufficient data, to enable us to calculate with certainty. Subsequent writers have therefore disagreed on this point. Some say, a hundred years. Others think, even a longer period. While the Ark was preparing, he warned his contemporaries of the impending calamity; but no peni

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tence appeared to avert the divine wrath, and "in the six hundredth year of Noah's age, in the second month and the seventeenth day of the month, were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened, and it rained forty days, and all the high hills and all the mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered, and all flesh died that moved upon the earth.”

Charles. I think the hills must have been compara. tively very low. Forty days of rain would not cover our high hills, much less our mountains.

"The founWe do not

Mother. You forget, my son, that the deluge is not said to have been effected by the rain alone. tains of the great deep were broken up." know the precise manner of this awful event, but we can imagine vast torrents of water bursting from the bowels of the earth to be designed by the phrase. The amount of these, added to the rain, we cannot calculate; but that they did surround the globe, even to the highest point of land, is proved by appearances existing at this day, which can be accounted for, only on the supposition of an universal deluge.

Fanny. I should like to know what you allude to, because I wish to have no scruples respecting any part of the Bible.

Mother. I will mention some. Vegetable matter, which must have grown on the surface of the earth, is now found at great depths below it. Marine plants, skeletons of fishes, and vast quantities of shells, are found buried in the summits of high mountains in various parts of the world. Bones too of animals, the natives of one climate, are discovered in another, where they could not have existed in a living state. How all these things could have been deposited in places so extraordinary, we never could have known, had not Moses recorded the history of the flood.

Charles. Mother, I do not yet understand your proofs. Mother. It is natural, my son, to suppose, that the affrighted creatures, both man and beast, would flee for security to the highest points of land in their respective districts, while the waters were rapidly rising around

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