die." Are we obliged to believe that this in fact is our melancholy condition? Assuredly not-for we defy our opponents to prove that there has not been a fall, while we can show from evidence independent of Scripture, that in all probability there has; a probability that becomes certainty if we once admit that that Scripture is authority-no, that fall has made our story sad and sorrowful enough-but it was foreseen and provided for; and that God, whose government brings good out of evil, has revealed a mode of recovery by which all that was lost shall be regained and increased, so that the second Paradise shall be sublimer than the first. Looking forward, then, in the midst of our bitterest afflictions to the glorious future of the true believer in his glad inheritance, we can bid it the heartier welcome, and feel it with the keener relish, as we contrast it with the present and the past-and thus hope, that "rainbow that is arched upon falling tears" seems all the brighter from the darkness of the cloud that is behind it. this is mere assertion-what are the proofs that man is a fallen creature? Now, the truth of the remarks in our first chapter involves the truth in question, for it is certain that he is not now enjoying the innocence, peace, purity, and happiness which we have there described as distinguishing his state at the beginning. But the proofs of that state, to those who deny or doubt the authority of Scripture, must of necessity be open to cavil or objection, for certain knowledge on the subject is attainable only by Divine revelation. Enough, however, has been said, we think, to show that the Mosaic account of paradise is not in itself incredible, and even

But

that there is evidence amounting to a presumption that it is true. But if that evidence have any value at all, it corroborates a conclusion which we arrive at from other proofs, and must be taken for what it is worth to fortify the inference that man's existing condition is one of degradation and apostacy.* In addition, then, to the arguments (whatever their weight) which go to establish a prior state of things on earth far happier than the present, we argue that man has fallen, first of all because the supposition of his lapse, regarding it for the present as a mere hypothesis, accounts for all the phenomena which we employ it to explain, and therefore must hold its ground until superseded by another which also explains them all, and explains them more satisfactorily. But the only rival hypothesis worth noticing, or that of natural progress without a fall, shall be considered hereafter and compared with that which its advocates would employ it to supplant. At present we shall only observe that one of those phenomena is spiritual darkness, or the darkness of ignorance, delusion, wickedness, and sorrow.

And first of the darkness of ignorance. Is it then, or is it not, a fact that this night feature of

*

We can either argue (as in p. 48) from a distinct class of proofs that the primitive state of man was one of great virtue and happiness, so that there was something to fall from, and then fortify such proofs with independent evidence that his present state is abnormal, or we can argue (as here) that the evidence of his early innocence and joy corroborates the independent evidence which goes to prove that his present cannot be his normal condition. But the statements here and in page 48 are not to be taken together.

our history, as, in accordance with the Scriptural illustration, we may term it, distinguishes the natural condition of man always and everywhere? Then if it be, is it not accounted for on the supposition of an apostacy from God which leaves us in spiritual, just as the daily departure of each portion of the earth from the sun leaves us in natural, obscurity? But can that fact be reasonably disputed? We have tried to show already, putting Scripture, for argument's sake, aside, that this state of darkness can hardly have been our original and normal condition, but that another and a widely different one possibly, and perhaps probably, was. But can any reasonable person deny that it is our actual condition at present? If the light of nature be like that which, after nightfall, supplies to a certain extent that want which the sun's absence occasions, but still leaves us in great comparative obscurity, and unable, without additional light, to see with anything like the requisite distinctness, it is just the sort of light which, we contend, has been actually allowed to us, and which shows the necessity for a Divine revelation to supplement such a scanty source of enlightenment. But if it be contended that this light of nature has no such nocturnal character, we deny the fact; for the spiritual ignorance, doubt, and perplexity of man always and everywhere, when without a revelation, disprove it. Some, indeed, have gone so far as to say that there is no such thing as natural religion at all--anything that deserves to be called religion wrought out by the mere operation of man's natural understanding. "Traditional religion," they say, "that is, a revelation from God handed down

from generation to generation, though often corrupted in its transit; this we can understand, but we cannot understand how a creature, naturally so blind and polluted as man, can originate for himself a creed that, with any justice, can be termed true or rational; for just as we cannot conceive that a wandering savage, as he paces the shore, can be dreaming of optics and astronomy, or the inventions and contrivances which aid us in their study, yet easily imagine that as he stumbles upon the instruments of science which a stranded bark has left upon the beach, he may conjecture the uses for which some of them were designed; so, while we can hardly suppose that man can reason out the doctrines of what is called natural religion for himself, we can yet suppose that fragments of a Divine revelation may have floated on the waters of tradition, and left him to separate all that was substantial and useful from the weeds and the foam that were drifted along with it in this perilous and precarious transport." But be this as it may, we contend that the light of nature alone is, after all, and comparatively speaking, but darkness; the dubious and uncertain illumination of a spiritual night, just such as the cause we have assigned for it would produce. The very variety of religions at all times on earth is itself an evidence of the fact, and resembles the case of men guessing about colours when the sun is down. We read of Monotheism, Dualism, and Polytheism, creeds that make the Deity a single being, two beings, and it may be ten thousand, varied with Atheism, which makes Him nothing, and Pantheism, which makes Him everything, with the higher Oriental

ism that made Him spiritual, the Hellenism that made Him human, and the Fetichism that makes Him inanimate or else brutal- the nature worship that adores the stars, and the gross idolatry that adores a stone! We hear of religions which tell us that God can be approached by but one Mediator, by thousands of mediators, and without any mediator at all. Is all this consistent with light and with day, and if not, does not the cause to which we ascribe ita separation from God, and therefore from light-account for it? Whether or not another hypothesis can explain it better is not now the question. We only ask whether the facts are true, and if so, whether the supposition is adequate to their explanation.

Let us turn, in the next place, to the statements and confessions of some of the profoundest scholars and some of the wisest philosophers that ever existed. If there be any subject upon which such men might be expected, if our natural state were not that of benighted creatures, to be clear, explicit, and unanimous, we might suppose it to be the immortality of the soul—yet Socrates concludes his long discussion about the condition of souls after death in these words, "that these things are so as I have represented them it does not become any man of understanding to affirm; and in his apology to his judges he says upon the same subject, "if the things which are told us are true." Similar to this is the language of Tacitus, addressing the shade of his friend Agricola, "If (as the wise suppose) the souls of men are not destroyed with their bodies, may yours repose in peace;" and that of