GOD'S LOVE TO FALLEN MAN

_Not as the transgression, so is the free gift_.--Romans v., 15.


How exceedingly common, and how bitter is the outcry against our first
parent, for the mischief which he not only brought upon himself, but
entailed upon his latest posterity! It was by his wilful rebellion
against God "that sin entered into the world." "By one man's
disobedience," as the apostle observes, the many, as many as were then
in the loins of their forefathers, were made, or constituted sinners:
not only deprived of the favor of God, but also of His image; of all
virtue, righteousness, and true holiness, and sunk partly into the
image of the devil, in pride, malice, and all other diabolical
tempers; partly into the image of the brute, being fallen under the
dominion of brutal passions and groveling appetites. Hence also death
entered into the world, with all his forerunners and attendants; pain,
sickness, and a whole train of uneasy as well as unholy passions and
tempers.

"For all this we may thank Adam," has been echoed down from generation
to generation. The self-same charge has been repeated in every age and
every nation where the oracles of God are known, in which alone this
grand and important event has been discovered to the children of men.
Has not your heart, and probably your lips too, joined in the general
charge? How few are there of those who believe the Scriptural relation
of the Fall of Man, and have not entertained the same thought
concerning our first parent? severely condemning him, that, through
wilful disobedience to the sole command of his Creator,