1. It has been alleged that the first man might have been created immutable by a necessity of nature, the consequence of which would have been his own perfect and unchanging happiness, and that of all mankind. The imagination seizes the transporting thought, and in a moment converts every spot of this barren wilderness into "the garden of Eden." Does it, however, become us to prescribe rules to Omniscience? Was the Deity obliged to impose a miraculous constraint upon the human will, and compel his creature to choose whatever is best with invariable determination and promptitude? If a parent were to caution his child against a danger, into which he afterward plunged himself by his inadvertence or perverseness, would the child be justified in censuring the parent, because, in addition to advice, he did not employ bonds and cords? Adam might have been created immutable by a necessity of nature. True--but Adam would then have been another being, and not a man. It might with similar propriety be asked, why men were not created equal to angels, or beasts to men? This sentiment implies, that it was not proper to create such a being as _man_ at all, an intimation sufficiently presumptuous. Adam possessed all the perfections essential to his nature, and conducive to his felicity, and all the motives to obedience, which a reasonable creature could demand. If he fell, it was _violating_ and not _concurring_ with the principles of his nature. And who was culpable for this violation? It is true he was _tempted_,--but then he was _forewarned_. He was _tempted_--so was the _second Adam_, the Lord from heaven, who effectually _resisted_ the temptation. 2. Some have supposed that the punishment was disproportioned to the offence. A more attentive consideration of the subject, however, will demonstrate the contrary. The compliance with the seductions of the tempter, of which our first parents were guilty, betrayed many lamentable symptoms of degeneracy. Pride, ambition, discontent, unbelief, presumption, ingratitude, and an undervaluation of the divine favour, are all plainly discernible through the thin veil of an extenuating apology, with which they vainly attempted to conceal their baseness.--"The woman, whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." And the woman said, "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." Endowed as they were with knowledge, it was a sin against the greatest _light_; surrounded as they were with motives, it was a sin against the greatest _means_; warned as they were of danger and promised eternal blessedness, it was a sin against the greatest _reason_; and placed as they were at the head of a numerous posterity, and in a sense the depositories and trustees of their happiness, it was a sin against the greatest _public good_.