XII. Divine Instructor; they were even in danger of being LETTER misled by each other. Each had to attain and practise against the other, the resolution and the ability not to yield to any suasion or influence, when the request was improper, the advice erroneous, or the entreaty prejudicial. Love, a beauty and a blessing as it is, would to them as to us, be as pernicious as a fiend's hatred, without this self-guarding and selfcommanding power. How many myriads have been victims even to intending kindness, not purposely misleading, for want of this acquired independence and wisely-resisting power! These views seem to present to us the rationale of the events in Paradise-the leading principles on which they were permitted or appointed to take place.3 3 It is a curious fact, that the Mexicans had a tradition of the history of Eve, and a representation of it, in their symbolical paintings. Humboldt thus mentions the circumstance. In describing the hieroglyphical paintings of the Mexicans in the Borgian Museum, at Veletri, he says, that No. 1, Cod. Borg. fol. 11, represents 'the mother of mankind, the serpent woman, Cihua cohuatl.' Another, No. 2, 'the same serpent woman, the Eve of the Mexicans.' Humb. Researches, vol. ii. p. 83, 4. Of the Codex Vaticanus, he mentions, the group, No. 2, represents the celebrated serpent woman Cihua cohuatl, called also Quilatzi or Tonacacihua, woman of our flesh. She is the companion of Tonacateuctli. The Mexicans considered her as the mother of the human race. After the God of the celestial Paradise, Ometeuctli, she held the first rank among the divinities of Anahuac. We see her always represented with a great serpent.' Humb. ib. vol. i. P. 195. Their Adam is called Tonacateuctli, or, Lord of our flesh.' He is represented in the Codex Borgianus, fol. 9. Humb. ib. 226. LETTER XIII. CONSIDERATIONS ON THE TRANSGRESSION OF ADAM AND LETTER THE new made beings did not attain that self-governXIII. ment, nor that docility, without which human existence could not but become a frequent scene of moral evil. Not even their veneration or love for their Creator and Benefactor, was of force sufficient to restrain them, from that action and gratification, which would be the beginning of it, and the certain cause of more, by disregarding and disobeying His counsels and commands. The natural inclination to do what they chose, and to have a pleasure within their own easy reach, overcame their resolutions and motives to obey. They plucked; they eat; they sinned; they showed their own weakness and folly. They committed a disobedience, which, having once done, they were certain to repeat. I believe they did no more than what every one of their descendants would have done. As far as I can judge and feel of myself, I have no doubt that I should, in that state and stage of human being, have erred in the same manner. I think I have, in many parts of my life, in some respect or other, acted as wrongly, with as strong reasons to do otherwise, and with no greater temptations than they had to resist. I can have, therefore, no doubt that Adam and Eve, in these incidents, were a fair and full representation of human nature. XIII. In 'Adam all sinned,' because all would have sinned LETTER under the same circumstances, and all have ever since sinned in the same manner. Our first parents were not worse than any of their posterity. In them the natural powers and tendencies of their order of being, at its commencement, were fairly tried and put into action. The result corresponded with the circumstances. It would have been the same if they had been immediately destroyed, and others created instead, to undergo a moral education by the same or by any other devised events. No moral being can start up at once like a mushroom; nor a babe, be a man of knowlege and virtue in its cradle. If a thousand new creations of human kind, had been made the experiments, in the room of Adam and his beautiful companion, all would have equally proved, by yielding to the temporary inclination in opposition to the prohibition, that human nature, in that stage of its being, had not the self-regulating power, nor the spontaneous will, nor the persevering wisdom, to govern its actions by its Creator's commands, nor to restrain themselves as their own welfare required; nor would, in a paradise of continual enjoyment, acquire what they were thus deficient in. It was, therefore, of no use to make a new Adam and Eve in their stead. It would be more beneficial for the moral formation of the human race, to effect that gradually which could not be achieved immediately; and therefore that the offending pair should be continued, and that they should be acted upon so as that their very sin should, from the consequences which would be attached to it, become an everlasting admonition and instruction to themselves and to mankind. This would make their very transgression, by its painful consequences, a XIII. LETTER perpetual benefit and friendly Mentor to them. It was, therefore, a part of the divine plan, that altho they had transgressed, they should not be immediately destroyed, but be taught and disciplined instead, and thus be made to feel the folly of the disobedience, by an abiding conviction from its painful result. The threatened death was fastened by the disobedience upon them and their race, because human beings that would not be counselled and guided by their God, and would not use self-restraint, were not those whom He meant to make immortal, or who could be so, with lasting happiness to themselves or others. The species of human kind, to whom He designed to give an eternity of life and happiness, were to be those only who would, with affectionate and grateful docility, be instructed and governed by Him; and who would train themselves to such habits, and moralized mind and will, which such obedience and self-government would produce. Hence on the day of their disobedience, death began his dominion in the human world, and became fixed for ever on human nature on this earth, as long as any of Adam's posterity should be upon it. Sin then entered the world, and death by sin." On that day he brought mortality upon himself and all; a prospect of an everlasting perpetuity of being had been presented to him, if his obedience had been unfaltering. But this wonderful boon, one of the greatest that an Eternal Being can give, was not to be the enjoyment of a selfish, vacillating, unsteady, uncertain, ungovernable, or undutiful spirit; it was therefore taken away at that time and on that event from this world, and from all that would here resem 1 Rom. v.12. XIII. ble their first parents in fickleness and misconduct, LETTER to be connected with and be afterwards offered, as a new and special promise of divine benevolence to mankind, by HIM who first brought, really and authoritatively, life and immortality to light, in the grand future which He opened to us; and who devoted Himself to the most ignominious punishment, which human laws then inflicted on the greatest human crime, in order to secure the future paradise and Sabbath to us.2 The continuance of Adam and Eve in a paradise of every sensorial delight, would not be at all likely to increase their disposition for self-restraint. Continued enjoyment makes self-indulgence more natural and more dear to us, and fosters an aversion to 2 I consider Vice, Crime and Sin to be the three terms which designate immoralities, or wrong actions, according to their relative effects and connections. VICE is the more personal denomination, as they concern ourselves. We are vicious in practising them, because they bring an individual stain and depreciation and deterioration upon us. CRIME is their appellation as they affect others; as actions which have been denounced and forbidden by social laws and feelings, from their injurious results to others. We are criminal in doing them, in the eye of the established laws, of the appointed tribunals, and of our fellow beings. But SIN is their peculiar character, as between ourselves and God. It is the brand which is fixed upon them with reference to Him, to His moral government, to His sovereignty and honor, and to the well-being of His universe. All wrong actions of mankind, or of any other order of reasoning beings, are SINFUL in His sight, because they are always in counteraction to his wishes, plans and purposes: they are a direct disobedience to Him, and therefore a revolt from our natural allegiance to Him, and an act of rebellion against Him. Sin is therefore always represented as associated with His displeasure; for it is always, in every shape, in some degree or other, a producer of evil, and a cause of its continuance and perpetuity. It is ever invading the welfare and happiness of some part of His living and sentient family, and is always impeding or preventing their improvements. It is these consequences, besides the blot it keeps up in the moral beauty of creation, which have occasioned Sin to be characterised as exceeding sinful.' |