THREE QUESTIONS

PROPOSED AND ANSWERED,

There are three questions, growing out of the information with which we are furnished by the scriptures, that have often struck me as demanding more than ordinary attention. These are:

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

II. What is the cause of the resurrection of the dead ?

III. Is there any authority in scripture, or in reasonings legitimately derived from scripture, for the ordinary doctrine of the eternal punishment of the wicked in a state of existence succeeding the present?

It is impossible for any sober-minded and reflecting individual to deny, that these are questions of the last importance. They do not, like those barren and unprofitable speculations which in every age have engaged

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the attention and constituted the studies of theologians by profession, turn upon trifling cob-web distinctions, make a cold appeal to the understanding, or afford an opportunity for learned leisure to while away the tedium of a vacant hour; but lead at once and inevitably to valuable because practical results. If, in the prosecution of my inquiries, I shall be able to demonstrate, that sentiments with which in infancy our minds are imbued, and which advancing years generally tend but to deepen and strengthen, are in reality the offspring of ignorance and superstition, fostered and matured by tyranny and self-interest, or both; and that such sentiments, instead of illustrating and commending, are at variance with the character of the God of Revelation, representing Him as a gloomy despot, whom the scriptures declare to be LovE itself; I shall, in that case, enjoy the enviable distinction of having been instrumental in relieving such as may be convinced by my arguments from a state of the most painful and degrading thraldom; and the unspeakable happiness of seeing the hideous fabric which, for eighteen centuries at least, men have been employed in raising and consolidating, ready to crumble into atoms at the touch of divine truth.-To accomplish these most desirable objects, it is not to carnal reasonings that I shall have recourse. To the lively oracles, and to them alone, shall my appeal be made. In what respects religion, God only is competent to decide; and as I disclaim the aids of mere human authority on my own part, so do I reject, and treat with disdain, every

attempt to confute me, and overturn my statements, by a reference to the opinions of fallible man on the part of others. I stand at God's, not man's, judgment seat; and by the divine law and testimony, therefore, must the matters in controversy between my opponents and myself be determined.-Let it not be supposed by the reader, taking a superficial glance at the subject, that any part of the following argument could have been spared. A candid and enlightened attention to what I have written will, I trust, suffice to shew, that all the enquiries, and statements, and reasonings, which precede, are indispensibly requisite to bring out in its full lustre the conclusion that follows. So close, I should rather say inseparable, is the connection subsisting among all the questions proposed for examination, that, without understanding the grounds and principles of the answers which I return to the first and second of them, it is impossible to perceive and appreciate the full force of the solution given to the last. In order to prevent disappointment, however, be it observed, that, in what follows, it is very far from being the author's intention to present his readers with a thoroughly digested and systematic treatise: all that they have a right to expect from him being a few scriptural statements and reasonings, which will, he hopes, serve as hints, and form a basis, for ulterior investigations of their own.

FIRST QUESTION.

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 for the knowledge of which we are indebted to the sacred writings, so for the nature of it, the circumstances connected with it, and the consequences involved in it, we must consult the same infallible guide. What then saith the scripture in reference to this subject?

Were it not that the minds of men are pre-occupied 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 easily answered. The narrative contained in the three first chapters of Genesis, although brief, is so explicit, and the arguments and conclusions of the

May not many individuals, in this Country, trace their views of the fall to the impressions made upon their minds, at an early period of life, by Milton's Paradise Lost? Even the shrewd and sagacious Sandeman, unable to get rid of his nursery and educational prejudices on the subject, has contented himself with serving up to his readers, in the form of plain prose, the same ideas concerning Satan and the fall of man, which the Prince of modern Epic Poets had already presented and invested with all the charms of his glowing imagination. See Sandeman's observations on Spirit, in the 4th of his letters on Hervey's Dialogues.