into a world filled with Inhabitants; and the most meritorious part of the third, as soon as ever he was blessed with a Help meet for him *.

The truth is, the State of Natural Religion, under which Adam lived till he was put into Paradise, unobserved by Divines; and the mistaken ideas entertained of it, by them, when they had observed it, and distinguished it from the Revealed, betrayed them into these absurdities, and gave birth (as we shall see hereafter) to a thousand errors, which have obscured and deformed the glories of that last great and best Work in God's moral government, THE REDEMPTION OF MANKIND BY THE SACRIFICE OF HIS SOX.

From the account here given, God's JUSTICE, with regard to the effects of Adam's transgression upon his Posterity, is fully declared. Adam fell, and forfeited the free gift of immortality-in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. He returned to his former state in which he was created, subject to mortality; that death which follows the separation of soul and body. It is astonishing that any other death should have been understood by those words, when the very sentence of condemnation itself confines us to the sense here given

In the sweat of thy face (says God) shalt thou eat bread, till THOU RETURN UNTO THE GROUND: for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and UNTO DUST SHALT THOU RETURN §.

In this State, Adam begot a Posterity, which naturally became sharers in his original condition of Mortality. And, Were they injured in not being made partakers of a gift never bestowed upon them? Absurd! They were left and continued in possession of all tlie Rights inherent in their original nature; and would have + Gen. ii. 17.

Gen. ii. 18.

See note [C] at the end of this Book.

§ Gen. iii. 19.

11 By death (says Mr. Locke) some men understand endless torments in Hell fire.-But it seems a strange way of understanding a "Law, (which requires the plainest and directest words), that by "death should be meant, eternal life in misery. Can any one be sup"posed, by a Law, which says, for felony thou shalt surely die-not "that he should lose his life, but be kept alive in perpetual and ex"quisite torments? And would any one think himself fairly dealt "with that was so used?" Reasonableness of Christianity, vol. ii,, p. 508.

had

had the benefit of the FREE GIFT, had not he, to whom it was given, and from whom they were descended, forfeited it before they came into Being *. What Physical contagion they contracted at their birth, either of body or of mind, is of little use to enquire; since, however Man came by his Malady, his cure is one and the same. →

So good reason had St. Paul not to think he impeached the Justice of God, when he said, that DEATH reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had NOT SINNED AFTER THE SIMILITUDE of Adam's transgressiont, i. e. over those who died before they came to the knowledge of good and evil. Now, as the death, here mentioned, could be only Physical, though total; the death spoken of, in the same sentence, as denounced on the rest of mankind, who had sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, must, consequently, be Physical likewise.

Thus both infants and adults falling under the very letter of the sentence denounced on Adam, we see how God's justice is made apparent.

Another important truth emerges from this account of the FALL, viz. that this part of the Mosaic History is NO ALLEGORY, as hath been commonly imagined. The root of which conceit, as indeed of many other extravagancies that have deformed the rational simplicity of the Christian Faith, hath been the confounding the distinct and different sanctions of natural and revealed Religion with one another. For Divines, as we said, having mistaken these sanctions to be the same, namely IMMORTALITY, they were led to conclude, though against the express words of the text, that Adam's transgression was a breach of some precept of the MORAL LAW, and, consequently, that the account which represented it as the violation of a positive Command, was an ALLEGORY: and being once got upon this fairy-ground, every man had it in his power to pursue, as he liked, the favourite Vision, which he himself had raised from an Allegory left unexplained by the sacred Writer. Numberless have been these monsters of the Imagina

See what is said concerning the difference between the forfeiture of natural and adventitious Rights. Div. Leg. B. v. §5. Rom. v. 14. See also note [D] at the end of this Book.

tion. But a late Allegorist of the history of the Fall hath so discredited the trade, by his absurd and abominable fancies, fit only to be told by himself*, that were it not for the account which both believers and unbelievers find in this commodious method of evading difficulties, we might hope at length to get free of the dishonour of having so long abused a rational mode of information.

We have shewn what the last believing Writer hath invented, to render the abuse odious; let us now see what the last unbelieving Writer hath offered to render the abuse ridiculous. He assures us, that the Scripture account of the FALL is a MERE ALLEGORY, in the manner of the Eastern Fables, signifying that man was formed to a state of happiness and perfection, which he enjoyed as long as he continued innocent, but lost and forfeited it.by following his lusts and passions, in opposition to the will of his Creator; and became miserable as soon as he became a wilful and habitual sinner↑.

Here we see the learned Doctor throws aside his usual reserve, and preaches up rank DEISM without disguise; while he makes the FALL from, and RESTORATION to, life, as taught in the Old and New Testament, to be nothing more than an Emblem of the frail Condition of Man, to whom God had given the Law OF NATURE for his only guide. On this principle he attacks Dr. Waterland's and Bishop Sherlock's explanations of the story of the FALL. But the force of his reasoning (as hath been the good fortune of most deistical Writers) springs not from the truth of his own notions, but from the futility of his Adversary's." Pray tell us," (says the learned Doctor, with that vivacity which he never restrained, when he had his Adversary at advantage,) "What is it we Christians are obliged to believe of it? [the story of the Fall.] Must we believe it to be all an Allegory? "No. It is the allegorical interpretation that has drawn "all this clamour from me, of weakening the authority "of Moses and favouring infidelity. Must we believe "it to be all literal? No. We are not allowed to do "that, since there is certainly much mystery in it. What "then are we to do? Why we are to consider it as See the Memoirs of the Life of Mr. W. Whiston, vol. i. p. 339. ↑ Dr. Middleton's Works, 4to. vol. ii, p. 131. and vol. iii. p. 199.

"neither

"neither fact nor fable; neither literal nor allegorical; " to interpret one sentence literally, the next allegorically; the third again literally; and so on to the "end of the chapter; which, like the very Serpent "it treats of, is all over spotted and speckled; here with "letter, there with mystery; and sometimes, with a dash "of both *"

This, on a supposition (the truth of which, both the Deist and the Believer took for granted) that the Mosaic account of the FALL was an ALLEGORY, hath its weight. But none at all, on the supposition, whose truth I have endeavoured to evince, that the Mosaic account is a HISTORY OF FACT, and not, as the learned Doctor pretends, A MERE ALLEGORY; interlarded, indeed, as the ancient Histories of greatest weight have always been, with strong figurative expressions, as well allegorical as metaphorical. In such a kind of composition, the best rules of interpretation not only justify the rational Critic in understanding some expressions literally, and others allegorically, but necessarily require his observance of this rule. To do what the learned Doctor requires of him-To stick throughout, either to the letter or the figure, would betray much ignorance of the genius of ancient literature. When Adam is said to have eden of forbidden fruit, and Israel to have committed whoredom, Do these phrases (used by the samne Historian in his History of the Fall, and afterwards in the History of the Jewish Defection) make one more an ALLEGORY than the other? Are not both narratives of facts figuratively adorned? the first, to denote Adam's transgression of a positive Command; and the other, to signify the defection of the Israelites into Idolatry.

The cold raillery, therefore, of our learned Doctor, while he considers the Mosaic Account of the FALL, as neither fact nor fable, neither literal nor allegorical, but to be sometimes interpreted one way, sometimes another— might, for his credit, have been spared; as informing us of nothing but his inattention to, or ignorance of, literary composition, as it was in its primeval state; early formed, and still continuing to exist, amongst People undisciplined by arts and polished manners.

See the Doctor's Defence of his Letter to Waterland.

The truth is, our Critic in his censure, and those learned Divines, in their defence, have equally confounded two distinct Species of Writing with one another; that is to say, an ALLEGORY with a real HISTORY ornamented with metaphorical and allegoric colouring. The Divines, to serve their occasions, did it, either wittingly or inadvertently; and the learned Doctor, to serve his, either followed their example or imitated their practice, These Divines had observed, that preceding Commenítators on the Bible had, occasionally, in the narrative parts, jumped from the literal to the allegoric sense, and so backward and forward to the end of the Chapter, because they found, that where the language was full of figurative terms, it was reasonable and necessary so to do. Their error was, in supposing they might do the same, in what they believed to be an ALLEGORY. On the other hand, our Doctor saw the absurdity of this practice in an Allegory; but his error was, in supposing it to be equally absurd to do the same in a figurative narra

tion of fact.

And what occasioned the common mistake of both parties was, their having (as we say) confounded these two species of Composition with one another; which they would never have done, had they but considered, that the end of an ALLEGORY is to hide, and the purpose of allegorical, that is figurative expressions, only

to ornament.

But, as the History of the Fall is, in Dr. Middleton's sense, a MERE ALLEGORY, and as his MORAL of the Fable tends to reduce the whole Doctrine of the Gospel to MERE DEISM; I shall now endeavour to shew, from the very genius of Antiquity, that his Moral is not of the nature of those which the most early times loved to disguise under that cover.

It is, in the learned Doctor's opinion, A MERE ALLEGORY, in the manner of the Eastern Fables, signifying, that Man was formed to a state of happiness and perfection; which he enjoyed as long as he continued innocent, but lost and forfeited it by following his lusts and passions, and so became miserable.

The truth of his idea, of its being A MERE ALLEGORY, hath been examined already. But this is not the whole