OUR first father, Adam, is to be viewed, not merely as a private, but also as a public character. He stood at the head of the human race. Through his sin, millions have inherited an evil nature, and a tremendous curse. "In Adam all die:" "All have

sinned, and come short of the glory of God."

Such is fallen man's condition! We found it hard to rise to the contemplation of our first parents' pure and happy state in Paradise: but we can have no difficulty in understanding the dispositions and conduct of Adam and Eve after their transgression. The temper of mind then exhibited by them, we have ourselves experienced times without number.

Let us consider-What they felt, on having transgressed the divine law: How they conducted themselves, when called to account by God: The sentence passed upon them: and, The mercy offered to them.

1. The dejection of our first parents after their sin, was of the same kind with what we experience when we have done something which we know to be exceedingly wrong. We all have a conscience : that conscience is the voice of God speaking within our hearts and unless our heart has become hardened by repeated offences, the first feelings of a sinner, even of a little child, are those of shame, and fear and remorse. A child cannot hold up its head, when guilty: shame covers its face: it fears to meet an angry master, or an offended father: it is deeply sorry, and wishes the fault had not been committed: above all, it endeavours to keep out of the way of

reproof and punishment. This is the simplest way to conceive of Adam's state of mind, when he felt that he had broken God's command. Children are without disguise: they are too young to practise much deception; they show their feelings at once. So did our first parents.

Would not the thought flash upon their consciences "How reasonable the conditions which were placed upon us; how easy the test of our obedience! All the trees freely offered for our use but one! And this small prohibition we could not endure; but for the sake of a little momentary indulgence forfeited duty, happiness, and the favour of our gracious God!"-Such is every sinner's remorse, when he comes to a right sense of his wretched, undone condition!

2. Next observe, how they conducted themselves, when called to account by God. The Lord said unto Adam, "Where art thou?" He called our trembling parents out of their hiding-place. "Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee, that thou shouldest not eat?" He touches conscience to the quick. Eve does not escape: the question put to her, is, "What is this that thou hast done?" Now, in their answers we may remark that they tell the truth-they could scarce help it: but it is in such a way, as shows unwillingness to take that blame to themselves which they deserved. Adam throws the charge on his wife, and, in some measure, upon God himself: "The woman, whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and

I did eat." The woman throws the blame on the cunning of the serpent: "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.”—Does not this transaction forcibly remind us of our own inclination to seek for excuses; to shift the guilt on others; and to make out the best case we possibly can for ourselves? Instead of pleading from the heart, "Guilty," what devices have we for lulling conscience! Who can say that he honestly and entirely condemns 'himself in the sight of the heart-searching God!

3. As to the judgment passed on our first parents, and through them on all mankind, it hath constantly been fulfilled, and it will never cease fulfilling, to the end of time. Not to speak of the curse pronounced on the serpent, (although it is very remarkable and very awful,) let us look to our own sentence. It may be summed up in few words. Hard labour many bodily sufferings, and other humiliations: our earth, subjected to a perpetual curse: and death, closing our state of trial here below ;these are the melancholy terms of our sentence ! This is our lot. None escape this curse. Men may try, as they will, to make this world a happy dwelling-place sooner or later the mistake is discovered. It may be compared to a prison-house, where each man occupies a condemned cell; and all in their turn are led out to execution.

There was moreover, in part, an immediate execution of judgment on our first parents; and this in a way, which must have been deeply wounding to their feelings. They were banished forthwith from

their beloved Eden. They were restrained from taking of the tree of life; a tree, which appears to have stood in Paradise as a kind of sacramental pledge, that so long as they continued innocent, they should be immortal. "So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." No more did they enjoy uninterrupted vigour and health. Infirmity and decay began to work upon their bodily frame. Had it even been possible for them to approach the tree of life, there was the point of the flaming sword turning every way to remind them, "Eden is forfeited, and ye must surely die!"

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4. But what was the mercy offered to our unhappy parents?-If in this hour of their conviction and condemnation, God had not spoken kindly to them, they must have been utterly consumed with terrors. The Lord, however, graciously gave them the promise of a Redeemer. The seed of the woman, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ in human nature, was to come and destroy the power of "that old serpent, the devil." Mysteriously as the prophecy was worded, yet it served to shed a ray of hope over the future. The slightest word of encouragement often cheers the downcast heart. Thus, then, would this sure word of promise from the living and true God encourage Adam and his wife! It was the "hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began ;"

which in due time he revealed first to our fallen parents in Paradise, making it afterwards still clearer and clearer in succeeding ages. Without this hope, they must have sunk deeper and deeper: from despondency into outer darkness; from death temporal into death eternal; from a world of woe, into that abyss, "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched!"

Sacrifices were, no doubt, at this time instituted; the Lord having ordained them to preserve in man's memory the grand doctrine, that "without shedding of blood is no remission :" (Heb. ix. 22.) The skins of the animals thus slain, God directed our parents to use for clothing. And thus, sheltered outwardly from shame, and inwardly from despair, they would commence the dreary work of earning their subsistence from an accursed ground.

SECTION IV.

ADAM IN HIS FAMILY:-CHARACTERS OF CAIN AND ABEL.

And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.

And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.

And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering;