by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law, sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me." We, therefore, conclude, that there was in this tree a property, which, if abused, would cause an injurious change in the nature of man: and, although the very determination to disobey was itself a change of nature,for, when man had brought his mind to consent to the violation of an express commandment of God, he may be truly said then to have undergone a change of nature, his innocence having been shaken from its base, and he having cast off his clothing of holiness, neverthless, until the act was committed, the change was not apparent. Man's nature, then, underwent change, first by his determination to disobey, which induced him to approach the tree with the purpose of eating of its fruit; and, next, by the eating of the fruit, which, as I have said, would, in its abuse, beget in him such a change as should be immediately visible. Sin consists of two parts, the internal and the external sin: the former is that which is conceived in the heart; and the latter is that which is brought into action: it is, according to our blessed Saviour's ample illustration," Whosoever looketh

upon a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart." So would it be with Adam: the first desire to eat of the tree was sin; and the taking of it was the further progress of sin. We do not, it will thus appear, altogether agree with those who would call the tree a mere probation, as though it possessed no power in itself; and as though that probation might have been in any thing else. We allow that it might have been in any thing else, if God had so chosen ; but, we are not here discussing what God might have done, but what He did do; and the plain construction of the Scripture will tell us, that He planted a tree which had a certain property in it; and that He issued a command of abstinence from it, which command had a twofold design,—the proving of man, and the preventing his touch of that which would deteriorate his nature. We may now understand that the tree of knowledge was it, by which man's obedience would be tried; that it was a tree, by which the knowledge of good and evil would be attained, or, by which he would learn the knowledge of the crimes he could be guilty of against his Creator and Benefactor; and which, had he not had this knowledge, he could not have been guilty of ;— for, how could he have sinned without the knowledge of sin?-and that in the tree was a property, which, if violated, would be very deleterious to his at present innocent and immortal nature. This is all the knowledge which the Scriptures afford us of the intention of this name; and is it not enough? It

tells us, that eating of the tree was sin, by it being the knowledge of sin. If Adam had not eaten of it, he would not have known sin; he would not have learned to sin; but sin, "taking occasion by the commandment, deceived him, and slew him." Was the commandment sin? God forbid! "Was then that which was good made death unto him? God forbid! But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in him by that which was good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful."

Of this tree, thus planted, and thus named, and possessed of this property, God said, "Thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." Of every other tree of the garden, permission had been given freely to eat. This was forbidden; and the reason wherefore it was forbidden, was graciously accorded: it would introduce death. Man, consequently, had two motives for abstaining,—the commandment of the Creator, which once given, to violate it was sin,and the effect, which would be the deprivation of his then happiness and being. We need make no further inquiry why God prohibited the fruit of this tree; his wisdom and goodness are alike verified in commanding an abstinence from it. Man was designed for life; this would produce death; so God's purpose and man's welfare were equally concerned in it. Our inquiry will be, what was the death, which was spoken of as the result of eating of it? Man is informed, that, in the day he should eat of this tree, he should die; that the immortality he

possessed, as man, should become forfeit. The condition on which he was to continue in Paradise was his abstinence from it: the fruit of it, by giving him the knowledge of good and evil, would render him an unfit inhabitant there. The effect of eating it would be sin; and the effect of sin would be his removal from the garden of Eden, in which was planted the tree of life; and, if removed from the tree of life, his body could no longer support an immortal existence. The promise, then, of these words, is, that he would sin, and that he would die; the latter, as a consequence of the former. We have seen in what his sin would consist: we will now see in what the promised death would also consist. We have learnt, that man was made up, or compounded, in mysterious union, of two parts, body and soul; that, a material substance, requiring, for continued existence, material support; this, an immortal essence, supported in other and to us unknown manner by the Almighty, who had ordained that it should not be subject to dissolution as was the body. The body, on condition, was not to die; and, as it was afterwards sentenced to death by removal from the tree of life, we infer that by the tree of life its immortality was maintained, or was to be maintained; death was, by reason hereof, a removal of man from Paradise, and a placing of him in a situation where the food he should be supplied with would have power to support his visible form or person but through a limited term. The body, then, would return to that which it originally was-dust; and the soul would return

unto God, from whom it came, to be dealt with according to his justice. The body, being composed of parts, was dissolvible. The soul, not being composed of parts, was not dissolvible. The body was not originally immortal; its origin was dust; and to that it could return. The soul was originally immortal, and could only return to whence it came-to God. This was the death which was promised; and this is the death which was actually inflicted. God had declared to Adam, that, if he should eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, in the day that he did eat thereof he should surely die; that his material frame should thenceforth commence its waste unto dissolution and mouldering decay. "Thou shalt surely die"-intends that he should in the visible flesh become mortal; that he should depart from Paradise, which was the seat of immortality; that his body should depend on other (and corruptible) food for its subsistence, than in it he enjoyed; and, so, in gradual failure, proceed to dissolution; and the punishment, actually inflicted on his transgression, was a forfeiture of Paradise; a removal from the tree of life; from the happiness, both in himself and in surrounding objects, of which he had hitherto been master; and a necessity of dissolution, of a return in his body to the dust from which he had been taken. He had, on his creation, come pure and spotless from the hand of God; but sin changed his material body, reducing it to what we now see it to be; and at the same time cast a blot on his soul, which made it also offensive in the eye of God. I will, however, go no further on this