07 - Chapter 07

CHAP. VII. PROOFS OF THE DIVINE LOVE TO MAN ANTECEDENTLY TO THE FALL. To the eye of Omniscience there is no unknown or distant futurity. There is in fact no futurity. With the Lord a thousand years are as one day.1 By parity of reasoning, ten thousand or ten thousand millions of ages are with him as one day. When He created our first parents, He equally knew the state of holiness in which he created them; the condition of guilt and misery into which they would speedily plunge themselves and their posterity by disobedience ; and the plan which His mercy had predetermined for their redemption by the Lamb slain for them in the divine counsels from the foundation of the world.’1 The love of God then, if it was to be exemplified in perfection towards man, was to be adapted and exercised in modes corresponding to the peculiarities of these successive conditions of the beings who were to be the objects of that love, [1] 2 Peter 3:8.
[2] Revelation 13:8.

Each of those states, taken in connection with the arrangements of the divine love displayed respecting it, will require separate consideration.

We are in the first place to regard man in Paradise.

Concerning the state of our first parents, as dwellers in the garden of Eden, a state of very brief continuance, the Scriptures enter not into details. It was like the morning dew that passeth away. But so long as the commandment of God was kept, it was a state of unsullied happiness. Man, stationed amidst scenes of exquisite beauty; needing no artificial shelter in a climate of congenial temperature ; exempted from pain and from external violence ; called to no labour which was not in itself a delight; invested with dominion over all the creation around him; honoured with the promise of a posterity which should multiply and overspread the earth; and assured of immortality in happiness if he should maintain his obedience to the Giver of all these blessings: man was a most eminent demonstration that God is Love. But there was a contingency, an aweful contingency. " If he should maintain his obedience!"

Adam and Eve were placed in a state of trial. They were so placed from the beginning by their Creator. All his purposes are the determinations of Omniscience. When he fixed the newly formed pair in a state of trial, he foreknew the result. That it is not necessarily incompatible with the perfection of divine love in the Creator to call into existence a class of beings, that their obedience may be manifested under probation, and that its wilful failure may be visited with deserved punishment, is a position which has been discussed in a former chapter, and, as I apprehend, has been rationally established. A state of probation implies the possibility of failure in the beings subjected to the trial. If all the circumstances constituting and accompanying the appointed trial are compatible with perfect love on the part of God, the result, whatever it be, may not only be consistent with the amplest measure of love which could rightly be exercised, antecedently to the trial, or subsequently, towards the beings in question; but may be a most appropriate and an efficacious instrument in the hands of a God of love for illustrating his counsels ; for confirming obedience to his laws; and for immeasurably increasing happiness by the example thus displayed before the dwellers in countless worlds throughout the universe. It may be a proof throughout eternity, and to all creation, that God is Love.

If then we should consider a state of probation abstractedly, what are the circumstances which, so far as we may presume to judge, we should deem essentially connected with it if it be ordained by a God of Love ? We might reply, that the appointed trial should be adapted to the faculties of those on whom it would attach; that it should be definite; simple; fully intelligible; and distinctly made known beforehand, and with all its consequences, to the beings exposed to it; that they should be exempted from all extraneous compulsion or constraint towards disobedience; that the trial should not exceed the strength previously granted, or avowedly ensured, if sought, to the tempted individuals; that the rewards annexed to obedience should be abundantly encouraging; that disobedience, if it should ensue, should be voluntary, and chosen with open eyes.

We turn to Adam and Eve in Eden. What was their condition as to the several particulars which have been enumerated ? The purpose and the essence of every trial ordained for man on the part of God are to constitute it a test whether, as to the point of trial, the individual will prefer obedience to the authority and the clearly understood will of his Creator to the gratification of his own desire. Under this point of view, the medium of trial, however important with reference to attendant characteristics already enumerated, is immaterial. Wilfully to pick up a prohibited feather, or to snatch at the crown of an empire, would equally prove rebellion in the heart against God. But in the trial of our first parents, all the accompanying circumstances were adjusted beforehand with the most gracious care. Various objects which, at this day, would be temptations to human desire, were unknown, or would have been wholly indifferent to inhabitants of Paradise. What could have been more appropriate than the selected object of prohibition ? Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat.’ Could any object of trial have been more thoroughly simple and definite ? The fruit of one single tree. Observe that it was not the fruit of one particular species [1] Genesis 2:17. of tree of which there might be a number of individuals dispersed in the garden of Eden. It was the fruit of one tree, the only tree of its species, and placed centrally and conspicuously in the midst of the garden.^ The verj sight of the tree was a perpetual memento against trangression. The penalty of disobedience was previously announced, and was also plain and definite. In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die. Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die? The recompense of obedience, the permanence of that state of felicity the fulness of which they were experiencing, was equally distinct and certain. The power of external violence on the part of the tempter was wholly out of the question. And allurements could not succeed but by the decided and free assent of the tempted. Could more have been expected ? God is Love !

[1] Genesis 3:3.
[2] Genesis 2:17; Genesis 3:3.