()f his spiritnnl life, but. also in order that man, haYing n body by nature morta] 1 might haYe life in that body. Thero is nothing to indicate that man's body, thong·h free from concupiscence nnd sin, would naturally, without that righteousness which is the result of obedience to a law, be exempt frotn the decay ctnd dissolution to which all material creation is naturally subject. Indeed the sacred history itself intimntes as much by t.he "tree of life" being planted in the midst of the garden 11s the "sacrament" of man's preservation from natural death, of which tree ho might C'at so long as he obeyed the command not to eat of the "tree of knowledge of good :mcl evil." 1 We know indeed that the effect of the transgression was that m11n became like the rest of the animal creation in this respect, losing his right to "the tr~c of life;" and the converse, viz. that the obedience waa required. in order to n;title him to that right, seems to-follow of necessity. On the other hand, we might infer from St. Paul's arguments, that while this law was necessary for man, in order that by obedience he might attain righteousness andlife, 2 yet its effect on human nature, c~en though pure from sin, must have been somewhat the same as the law produced on sinful man; that is, that the command being a prohibition of that wl1ich- was naturally desired, would of itself provoke transgression, even as the strength of the current is felt only when it is resisted. So that man in his natural state, though free from sinful passion, yet being destitute of that wisdom which experience alone can give; and of that supernatural grace which Christ's redemption alone can supply,- being also spiritually in a state of unstable equilibrium, in which the least deviation would cr<'ate the tendency to decline further, while there was no power of recovery,-sooner or later could not but fall. Infidelity raises superficial objections against the sacred history, as if it were inconsistent with God's wisdom and justicethat man should have been subjected to temptation, and again that the consequences of an act apparently so insignificant should have been so serious. But on the contrary, the difficulty really is to concei-ve it possible that the original history of man, a reasonable and spiritual being w:ith a material nature, could have been, consistently with the goodness and wisdom of an Almighty Creator, other than that which Holy Scripture describes. Such a being not created with a pure and sinless nature; one with moral and spiritual faculties to be developed, not under some law ; one with an animal nature not sub- ject to the natural laws of decay and death, unless freedom from them should be gained as the reward of obedience ; and one, thus constituted, not liable to fall and lose the reward, we may even say not certain to fall sooner or later ;-all such hypotheses present difficulties to human thought far more serieus than any that can be raised o~t of the sacred history. And, it must be observed, these questions which we have discussed are not some curious, but unprofitable, speculations. They touch moat nearly, and practically, the \\"hole subject of the law, and illustrate very forcibly the necessity, on which the Apostle Paul so much insists, of an economy not of law but of grnce, in order that man, even in hie best state, may obtain righteousness and lifo,
LAW FROM ADAM TO MOSES,
16. No reverent reader of Holy Scripture can fail to recognise the profound insight into the moral and spiritual nature of man which is revealed in the history of 1 S. August. 'De Gen. ad Lit.' vi 86: "Dcnique non ait Apostolus, Co111us quidcm mort11le propter peccatnm; secl cwpy,s mortuumpropter pe_ccatum. Illu~ 9uippe, an~e pcccatum, et mortale secundum aliam et 1mmortale secundum aliam causam d1c1 poterat: id est mortale, quia poterat mori, immortale quia poterat non mori .. , quod ei prrestabatur do ligno vital, non de ~011stitutione naturre; a quo ligno separatus est cum pcccassct," etc. 2 Cf. Gal iii. 21. INTRODUCTION TO THE PEN'fA'l'EUCH. xiii