ARTICLE IV. THEOLOGY OF DR. EMMONS. By Rev. E. Smalley, D. D., Worcester, Mass. [Concluded from No. XXVI. p. 280.] With this simple indication of his opinions on these topics, we proceed to a condensed statement of his views respecting § 9. Man. What was his original state? "God made man upright." This, according to Dr. Emmons, means more than that God formed his body and gave him power to walk erect. It has special reference to the mind and heart. Nor does it comprehend the whole idea to say that God gave Adam all the powers of a free moral agent and thus qualified him to become holy. He entirely disagreed with Dr. Taylor of England, who affirmed, 'That it is utterly inconsistent with the nature of virtue, that it should be concreated with any person; because, if so, it must be an act of God's absolute power, without our knowledge or concurrence. To say that God not only endowed Adam with a capacity of being righteous, but moreover that righteousness and true holiness were created with him, or wrought into his nature, at the same time he was made, is to affirm a contradiction, or what is inconsistent with the nature of righteousness.' By no means, replies Dr. Emmons; for all that is meant by God's making man upright is, that he willed him to exercise his powers of moral agency aright. God chose that Adam should come into existence a perfect man in respect of bodily organization and mental endowment, and that he should commence his being by loving his Creator with his whole heart and soul. This is what is meant by predicating uprightness of him at his creation. Uprightness belongs to the heart, and gives a man his moral character.2 Man is the living image of the living God, in whom is displayed more of the divine nature and glory, than in all the works and creatures of God upon earth.” 3 Dr. Emmons had no doubt that God might have made Adam upright, in this exalted sense. He believed that he must have created him so; because, 1 Taylor, as quoted by Emmons, Vol. IV. p. 448. * Works, Vol. IV. p. 448. 3 Ib. Vol. II. p. 24. "To suppose that God implanted in his mind the principles of moral agency, without making him a moral agent, is extremely absurd. For, if God gave him the powers of perception, reason, and conscience, he must have been immediately under moral obligation, which he must have immediately either fulfilled or violated, and so have immediately become either holy or sinful.” 1 From the account which Moses gives of the creation of Adam, and from the history of him who was created in the image of God, up to the time of his eating the forbidden fruit, it was perfectly clear to our author that God made man upright in the sense of holy.2 Of the original nobility and happiness of man, Dr. Emmons had the most exalted conceptions. His chastened imagination endowed our first parent with all those qualities that can beautify the body, adorn the mind, and exalt the heart. Lord of the whole creation, the fit representative to higher orders of a new race of intelligent beings, he was of noble mein and majestic bearing, with countenance radiating "Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure." When discoursing on the original purity and bliss of our common progenitor, Dr. Emmons appears to forget the lapse of ages and the ruins of the fall. Unmindful of centuries and distance, he enters the garden of the Lord and gazes with rapt vision on one of the most beautiful of God's creations. The spirit of the scene transfused through his own spirit, he thus embodies his conceptions: "He was a noble and excellent Creature, as he came from the forming hand of his Maker. His affections towards his Creator, and every inferior object, were perfectly right. He possessed more holiness than any of his descendants ever possessed in this imperfect state. Yea, he was in this respect but a little lower than the angels of light. No man since the fall has ever displayed so much greatness of mind and goodness of heart as Adam displayed, while he resided in Paradise, and enjoyed the favor of his Maker. How happy was Adam in his original state of moral rectitude and perfect innocence! His body was full of vigor and free from pain. His mind was full of light, and free from error. His heart was full of holiness, and free from moral impurity. His eyes and ears were feasted with a vast profusion of new, beautiful, grand, and delightful objects. His inheritance was rich and large, comprehending the world and the fulness thereof. He sensibly enjoyed the love and approbation of his Creator. He was permitted a free and unrestrained access to the fountain of holiness and happiness. Heaven and earth appeared unitedly engaged to raise him as high in knowledge, holiness and felicity, as his nature would permit him to rise."3 1 Works, Vol. IV. p. 451. 2 Ib. pp. 448-454. * Ib. p. 455. The fall of man. Adam, endowed with reason and conscience, capable of loving God supremely and thereby securing forever that favor divine which is life, was put upon probation. A free, moral and accountable agent, God treated him as such by placing him under law. The law was that which the Creator had a perfect right to ordain, and which the creature had power to obey. It was a law in distinction from a covenant or constitution. Its words addressed to Adam personally; containing a precise prohibition, sanctioned by a precise penalty; Adam the very person prohibited; the thing prohibited his eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; and the penalty annexed death; 1. it had all the characteristics of a proper law. Strange that it should ever have been mistaken for a covenant. 2 It differs from other divine laws in but a single particular. That is, in duration. It was intended for the time being to answer a specific purpose. That purpose answered, the law was no longer in force. 3 In its nature, its extent applicable to those and those only who are specified in it, and its power to condemn-exercised only against those who disobey, its resemblance to all other divine laws is perfect. 4 The penalty by which this law was sanctioned is eternal death. Temporal death is no fit penalty for sin against a holy God. Spiritual death is neither more nor less than sin itself; and to suppose that sin itself was threatened as a punishment for sin, is absurd. It robs the threatening of all significance. 5 This law Adam broke. Of the forbidden fruit the woman gave to him, and he did eat. Eve, previously beguiled by Satan, had already partaken of the interdicted tree. In the most favorable circumstances possible for persevering obedience, with unimpaired natural ability to maintain his integrity, with the express prohibition of God sanctioned by the threat of death, directly before him, he yet put forth his rash hand and ate of the forbidden fruit. The deed was done, the penalty incurred, and he died to holiness and peace apparently forever. The frown of God was upon him, and he already began to have an earnest of eternal death. This sin of Adam was original sin. 6 No one else can be guilty of it. It is named thus, not because it was the first transgression in the world, for Eve was before Adam in sin; nor simply because it was the first offence of the first man; but because, by a divine constitution, this was the particular sin which should so remarkably affect the moral condition of all mankind. In the divine purpose it was so arranged, that all the subsequent sinfulness of the first parents and their 2 Ib. p. 465. 1 Works, Vol. IV. p. 464. VOL. VII. No. 27. 3 Ib. p. 468. whole posterity should be seen to have been occasioned by this one sin. By one man's disobedience many were made sinners.' So intimately connected was Adam with his children, that his lapse had a most disastrous influence upon their state and prospects. Not that his posterity committed his first sin; not that he transferred to them the guilt of that offence; not that he conveyed to them a morally corrupt nature; but that God appointed Adam to be the public head of his race, and determined to treat them according to his conduct.' 2 The great reason why God devised and adopted this mode of treatment, was his regard for his own glory. Some particular reasons may also be assigned. There was fitness in placing human nature, uncorrupted and unimpaired, on trial. This trial, in the circumstances, was equivalent to a trial of each individual of the race. Its repetition in every other case, then, would have been neither wise nor benevolent. Resulting as it did, this trial prepared the way for the promise of a Saviour. If Adam, surrounded with such safeguards and appliances that his fall has been a marvel to the universe, nevertheless fell before the tempter and was in perishing need of one mighty to save, it was quite certain that every man would have the same need.4 Be it remembered, however, that the fall of Adam placed his posterity under no absolute necessity of sinning. A certainty that we shall, is not a necessity that we must sin. Sin, in its own nature, is voluntary, not necessitated. Adam must answer for his own sins, and we must answer for ours.' 5 God has done no injustice, therefore, to the race in making Adam the public head of his posterity. No one has the least right to complain of this arrangement, because there is no imputation of Adam's sin to his descendants, nor transfer of his guilt to them, nor punishment inflicted on them for his sake. In the exercise of his sovereignty, God had a perfect right to bring man into being, and appoint the bounds of his habitation, or place him under any constitution which infinite wisdom saw to be best. "If he had a right to bring us into existence, he had an equal right to determine how he would bring us into existence, whether as single detached individuals, like the angels, or as naturally and constitutionally connected with our first and great progenitor." 7 Man's present condition. Though fallen he has still all the powers of a moral and responsible agent. His mind is immaterial and indivisible, yet it has many faculties and susceptibilities. In perceiving, 1 Works, Vol. IV. p. 493. Ib. pp. 487-491. 3 Ib. p. 492. Ib. p. 493. 7 Ib. remembering, reasoning, judging, and willing, it is the same man, working all in all. The power to perform these operations constitutes him a moral agent. This is his natural ability to do whatsoever God requires of him. That which specially distinguishes man from the lower orders of creation is conscience. He has indeed far higher capacity for progress in knowledge and happiness than they 2; but his peculiar characteristic is the faculty of moral discernment.3 With this power, he sees the essential difference between virtue and vice; is conscious of moral obligation; is self-approved when he does right, and self-condemned when he does wrong; and feels that he deserves reward or punishment according to his works. Such are his powers now, although he has lost that moral image of God in which he was created. He can make indefinite advancement in knowledge and holiness, and is under the most imperative obligation to love God with all his heart and soul. What he might and ought to do, however, he utterly fails to do. From the commencement of his moral agency, he begins to sin. Making self his god, he withholds his supreme affections from the true God. Observation and experience render it probable, and the Scriptures make it quite certain, that, as soon as a human being has the powers of a moral agent, he exercises unholy affections. In other words he sins as soon as he becomes capable of sinning.5 How early this is, may not perhaps be known with absolute certainty, but probably it is sooner than he can utter his thoughts; 6 nay, it is very natural to conclude that infants are moral agents as soon as they are agents.' 7 All by nature, are 'dead in trespasses and in sins.' The race is sinful. 'All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.' Why is this? Not because they have not power to exercise holy affections, as well as sinful ones. They have this power. Not because a sinful nature was transmitted to them from the first sinner, by which all their sinful exercises are caused. For it is impossible to conceive of a corrupt and sinful nature prior to, and distinct from corrupt and sinful exercises.' 8 Nor is it through the force of a selfdetermining, self-sufficient, independent power, by which they set themselves in opposition to God. But the ultimate reason is to be found in the eternal purpose of God that, if the first man, tried in circumstances the most auspicious should disobey and fall, his de 1 Works, IV. p. 503. 4 Ib. pp. 158, 159. 2 Vol. II. pp. 26, 28. Ib. p. 504. 3 Vol. IV. p. 162. 7 Vol. II. p. 163. Vol. IV. p. 508. Dr. Emmons did not, as some have imagined he did, believe in the annihilation of infants See Note, Vol. IV. p. 510. 9 Ib. |