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Q. 10.

What distinction is there in the two tables of this law?

A. The former contains the four first commandments, which comprise our duty to God;-the latter contains the six last commandments, which include our duty to ourselves, and to our fellow creatures. Q. 11. What is the summary of these ten commandments?

A. Supreme love to God, and love to mankind as to ourselves. This seems to be an exposition of the whole moral law, which is fulfilled in pure, disinterested benevolence.(h)

Q. 12. Did God give to our first Parents any test of their obedience, in addition to the moral law?

A. He did. He gave them a positive precept or law,* prohibiting them to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which stood in the midst of the garden of Eden.(i)

Q. 13. Was abstinence from partaking of the forbidden fruit a condition, on which was suspended their everlasting happiness?

IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. X. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

(h) Matt. 22. 37-40. Jesus said unto him thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

(i) Gen. 2. 16, 17. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, 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.

* The distinction between moral and positive laws and duties seems to be this, viz. moral laws or duties are founded in the nature or relation of beings, discoverable by the light of nature; positive laws or duties are founded in the relation of beings, discoverable by Divine revelation only. As good a reason, no doubt, exists in the Divine mind for the one as the other.

A. It was. God instituted this prohibition as a test of their conduct upon which was suspended their eternal future state.()

(j) Gen. 2. 17. 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. Rom. 6. 23. For the wages of sin is death.

CHAPTER XI.

Apostacy, Depravity, and Lost State of Man.

Q. 1. What is meant by the apostacy of the first human Pair?

A. Their falling from their original moral rectitude.(a)

Q. 2. In what way did our first Parents apostatize from their primitive state?

A. By violating the command of God in eating the forbidden fruit.(b)

Q. 3. Was there any peculiar temptation to induce them to disobey?

A. There was. The Devil, using the serpent merely as an instrument of temptation, deceived, and seduced our first Parents into sin.(c)

Q. 4. great sin?

Was their eating the forbidden fruit a

A. It was; because by doing it they sinned against the clearest light, and the most powerful motives, being unthankful and discontented, believ

(a) Eccl. 7. 29. Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions. (b) Gen. 3. 6. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat; and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat.

(c) Gen. 3. 13. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The Serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

ing the Devil rather than God, and bringing upon themselves the greatest evils.

Q. 5. How long did our first Parents continue in the state, in which they were created?

A. It is impossible to determine exactly. Some have conjectured, that they apostatized within twenty-four hours after their creation, from the fact, that God appeared to Adam after he had sinned in the cool of the day, which they suppose was the evening of the day, after which he was created. But what transpired between Adam's creation and apostacy seems to require a longer space of time. haps it was forty days, the time during which Christ was tempted in the wilderness. (d)

Per

Q. 6. How did the apostacy of Adam affect his posterity? or what was the connexion between him and them in a moral point of view?

A. Adam was their federal or representative head by divine constitution. If he obeyed, his posterity would be holy, or morally upright. If he disobeyed, they would be sinful, or morally depraved.(e) Q. 7. Was Adam the cause of the depravity or sinfulness of his posterity?

A. No. He was neither the cause, nor the author of it, but merely the occasion of it.

Q. 8. Are Adam's posterity guilty of his sin in eating the forbidden fruit?

A. Certainly not, if by this phrase is meant, that they are to blame for his act of eating the forbidden. fruit. Moral actions, holiness and sin, are personal, and are not transferable. The sins of Adam, and of his posterity, are perfectly distinct, and must of

(d.) 3.8. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day; and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. Mark 1. 13. And he was there in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts, and the angels ministered unto him.

(e) Rom. 5. 19. For as by one man's disobedience many were made (constituted) sinners.

necessity be so,-as distinct as his volitions and theirs.

Q. 9. Is it proper and just to attribute to Adam, as some have done, all the sin, guilt, and misery of this world?

A. Certainly not. To do it is wrong, because it is to reproach our common Progenitor and not ourselves, who are to blame; and because the charge is false, for Adam is not to blame for any sins, or guilt, or misery, but his own. The sins of his posterity are properly their own. To attempt to cast the blame of our sins, therefore, upon Adam, and exculpate ourselves, is wicked, and cruel, and savours of great impiety.(f)

Q. 10. What is meant by original sin?

A. In the common language of theological writers it means native depravity, or the innate sinfulness of the human heart; though it is sometimes used to mean the sin, which Adam committed in eating the forbidden fruit, and to mean this, not because it was the first sin ever committed, for Eve and fallen angels, also, sinned before this, and not because it was the first sin, Adam ever committed, though it was his first sin, but because it was that sin, which, by Divine constitution, decided the moral character, or laid the foundation for the native depravity, of all his posterity.

(f) Ezek. 18. 2, 3, 20. What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. As I live saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. The soul that sinneth it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. Deut.24. 16. The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers, every man shall be put to death for his own sin. Hosea 13. 9. O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.

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