For you must know what a thing ought to be, before you can know what it ought not to be; you must know what health is, before you can know what disease is; you must know how and why a good man is good, before you can know how and why a bad man is bad. You must know what man fell from, before you can know what man has fallen to; and so you must hear of man’s creation, before you can understand man’s fall. Now in Lent we lament and humble ourselves for man’s fall. In Passion week we remember the death and suffering of our blessed Lord, by which he redeemed us from the fall. On Easter day we give him thanks and glory for having conquered death and sin, and rising up as the new Adam, of whom St. Paul writes, ‘As in Adam all died, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.’ And therefore to prepare us for Lent and Passion week, and Easter day, we begin this Sunday to read who the first man was, and what he was like when he came into the world. Now we all say that man was created good, righteous, innocent, holy. But do you fancy that man had any goodness or righteousness of his own, so that he could stand up and say, I am good; I can take care of myself; I can do what is right in my own strength? If you fancy so, you fancy wrong. The book of Genesis, and the text, tell us that it was not so. It tells us that man could not be good by himself; that the Lord God had to tell him what to do, and what not to do; that the Lord God visited him and spoke to him: so that he could only do right by faith: by trusting the Lord, and believing him, and believing that what the Lord told him was the right thing for him; and it tells us that he fell for want of faith, by not believing the Lord and not believing that what the Lord told him was right for him. So he was holy, and stood safe, only as long as he did not stand alone: but the moment that he tried to stand alone he fell. So that it was with Adam as it is with you and me. The just man can only live by faith.