Brought death into the world and all our wo.

Nay, it were well if the charge rested here: but it is certain it does
not. It can not be denied that it frequently glances from Adam to his
Creator. Have not thousands, even of those that are called Christians,
taken the liberty to call His mercy, if not His justice also, into
question, on this very account? Some indeed have done this a little
more modestly, in an oblique and indirect manner: but others have
thrown aside the mask, and asked, "Did not God foresee that Adam would
abuse his liberty? And did He not know the baneful consequences which
this must naturally have on all his posterity? And why then did He
permit that disobedience? Was it not easy for the Almighty to have
prevented it?" He certainly did foresee the whole. This can not be
denied. "For known unto God are all His works from the beginning of
the world." And it was undoubtedly in His Power to prevent it; for He
hath all power both in heaven and earth. But it was known to Him at
the same time, that it was best upon the whole not to prevent it. He
knew that, "not as the transgression, so is the free gift"; that the
evil resulting from the former was not as the good resulting from the
latter, not worthy to be compared with it. He saw that to permit
the fall of the first man was far best for mankind in general; that
abundantly more good than evil would accrue to the posterity of Adam
by his fall; that if "sin abounded" thereby over all the earth, yet
grace "would much more abound"; yea, and that to every individual of
the human race, unless it was his own choice.

It is exceedingly strange that hardly anything has been written, or
at least published, on this subject: nay, that it has been so little
weighed or understood by the generality of Christians: especially