218 HENRY KIRKE WHITE S REMAINS. 



treat in a subsequent letter.) — Admitting then, that the 

 books of the Pentateuch were written by divine inspira- 

 tion, we see laid before us the whole history of our race, 

 and, including the Prophets and the New Testament, the 

 whole scheme of our future existence : we learn, in the 

 first place, that God created man in a state of perfect 

 happiness, that he was placed in the midst of everything 

 that could delight the eye or fascinate the mind, and that 

 he had only one command imposed upon him, which he 

 was to keep under the penalty of death. This command 

 God has been pleased to cover to our eyes with impene- 

 trable obscurity. Moses, in the figurative language of 

 the East, calls it eating the fruit of the Tree of Know- 

 ledge of Good and E%il. But this we can understand, 

 that man rebelled against the command of his Maker, 

 and plunged himself by that_ crime, from a state of bliss 

 to a state of sorrow, and in the end, of death. — By death 

 here is meant, the exclusion of the soul from future 

 happiness. It followed, that if Adam fell from bliss, 

 his posterity must fall, for the fruit must be like the par- 

 ent stock ; and a man made as it were dead, must like- 

 wise bring forth children under the same curse. — Evil 

 cannot beget good. 



But the benign Father of the universe had pity upon 

 Adam and his posterity, and knowing the frailty of our 

 nature, he did not wish to assume the whole terrors of 

 his just vengeance. Still, God is a being who is infinitely 

 just, as well as infinitely merciful, and therefore his de- 

 crees are not to be dispensed with, and his offended jus- 

 tice must have expiation. The case of mankind was de- 

 plorable ; — myriads yet unborn were implicated by the 

 crime of their common progenitor in general ruin. But 

 the mercy of God prevailed, and Jesus Christ, the 

 ^lessias, of whom all ages talked before he came down 

 amongst men, oiFered himself up as an atonement for 

 man's crimes. The Son of God himself, infinite in mercy, 

 offered to take up the human form, to undergo the sever- 

 est pains of human life, and the severest pangs of death ; 

 he offered to lie under the power of the grave for a cer- 

 tain period, and, in a word, to sustain all the punishment 



