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of Parma, who was to command the descent upon England's shores. He, alas! was hemmed in by the Dutch navy, and not able to get out the flotilla in which his seventeen thousand veteran troops were embarked. Like a wild boar, struggling in a net, he was now foaming with rage, but utterly impotent to accomplish his assigned purpose. Well was it for Eng land, with no adequate forces gathered to meet her invaders, that her often ill-used allies, the faithful Hollanders and Zeelanders, now effectually frustrated the designs of her mighty foes. The night following the 7th of August, the English sent six fire ships among the Spaniards lying at anchor. The fright and the confusion were terrible, and most of their vessels, slipping their cables, hurriedly escaped; but the Capitana, one of the largest, was captured, and all the rest dispersed. Soon followed the fight off Gravelines, and the terrible punishment inflicted by the English on their proud foes, many of whose ships were taken or lost, and the remainder made haste to escape by precipitate flight. A storm overtook them in the Northern ocean, and nearly completed what the English fleet had begun. So that not one third of that vast Armada ever returned to Spain. Had not the ammunition of their brave assailants again failed them, all would probably have been captured. Thus ended, in complete failure and overthrow, one of the hugest efforts ever put forth against the rights and liberties of Protestant Christendom. God's blessing on the intrepid efforts of Eng land and the Netherlands combined, had blasted and withered the hope of their proud and tyrannous foe.

We may not follow our historian further, and only need notice here what every careful student of these volumes will greatly admire the careful presentation of the authorities relied on, many of them the hitherto private, but official letters of the great actors of this portion of important history. These are presented in copious foot-notes, which so largely fill many of these pages, sometimes in their original words, and at others in veritable translations. Though, in many interesting points, the results here enunciated will reverse, or greatly modify, the hitherto prevalent opinions, we are left

assured that the conclusions here arrived at are indubitable, and can never be reversed. Another feature, giving not a little dramatic interest to these volumes, is the careful presentation of many of the colloquies of leading personages, on the most important subjects, in the veritable words employed by them on the occasions referred to. Many of the early classical historians pretended to do this. But it remained for Mr. Motley actually to accomplish what their genius conceived as desirable, and which they only simulated. Sure we are, the reading public will anticipate with fond impatience the remaining half of this fascinating history. May the life and health of the distinguished author enable him to complete what he has so nobly begun.

ARTICLE IV.—THE RELATION OF ADAM TO HIS POSTERITY.*

THE Scriptures teach that sin and death came on all men through Adam. "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin." Sin and death are in the world, and the only question to be raised is, How did they come?

FIRST. The sin of all men is in some way connected with the sin of Adam. Every particular sin is in some way linked to that first sin. This is certainly a natural inference of sound reason. Sin has come down without interruption from the Fall, and has actually infected all mankind. The first child born into the world, loved neither God nor his brother, but was a murderer. The whole world has so lain in wickedness, that not one human being has ever been justified before God, on the ground of character and works, but by faith

* The following concise and lucid article, which may not carry conviction to all minds, will serve as introductory to a further discussion, of the subject of of which it treats. Ed.

only. The fact of moral depravity is universal; it enters into the experience of all men. Evil is natural to man, and is not expelled from the heart by any human effort. Now so universal an effect must be due to a common cause. Some have attributed the prevalence of sinfulness to the influence of example, but this is just as absurd as to ascribe the universal tendency of water to run downward, to some chance impulse given to the first drop. There is a law of depravity in the race, that is as certain in its operation as any law of physics. Sin strikes its roots deeper in the soul than any habit; there is a common nature from which it issues; and this we must refer to the head, the first man. This inference, so legitimate in itself, we find confirmed by the Scriptures. "By one man sin entered into the world," depravity was dif fused through the world of mankind, it passed from Adam to all others. "By one man's disobedience many were made sinners," all of whom he was the head, the whole race, come into the condition of sinners in consequence of his offence.

SECONDLY. The death of all men is in some way connected with the sin of the first man. We mean death of the body. This, however, does not include all that is signified by the word as used in the Epistles, but does without doubt in some places enter chiefly into the idea. That Paul regarded the death of the body as a consequence of sin, and of our connection with Adam, is evident, not only from Rom. v: 12, 19, "death entered into the world by sin, and so death passed on all men," "death reigned from Adam to Moses," "by one man's offence death reigned by one;" but also from viii: 10, "the body is dead because of sin ;" and I Cor. xv: 22, "as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Here the Apostle is speaking of the death of the body, as is seen from the preceding passage, "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead." Science has raised a doubt on this point. It shows that animals died before the Fall. But the Bible does not refer here to brutes; the death of man comes by sin. Science further objects, that man by his very constitution, is subject to death.

He is mortal and must return to dust. This is

true of man now; and yet the dissolution of soul and body, as it actually takes place, must, in harmony with the Bible, be put to the account of sin. Had there been no sin, man would have been translated to immortality without death, perhaps after the manner of Enoch and Elijah. Those who are alive on the earth at the coming of Christ, shall never see death, but shall all be changed. Such, without sin, would probably have been the transition of mankind from earth to heavAdam was not created immortal, because he was to be put upon trial; but if he had not fallen, he would have become immortal by eating the fruit of the tree of life. Gen. iii: 22.

THIRDLY. On what principle did sin and death pass upon the whole race of man in consequence of Adam's first sin. Here there are several theories with which we are not at all satisfied. (1.) That we actually committed Adam's sin. This is the Realism of Augustine, who maintained that we all were personally existing in Adam and consented to his sin. Now this does not seem possible. Consciousness, knowledge of right and wrong, and volition, seem to be necessary even to any conception of an act of sin. (2.) That there was a mysterious identity of Adam and his posterity, by virtue of which we personally share with him the guilt of his first transgression. This was the view adopted and defended by Edwards. There was an organism, according to their theory, of some kind, by which Adam and his posterity formed one complex person, one moral whole, just as the whole tree is contained in, and developed from the first bud. By virtue of this Union, that act of disobedience was morally, though not literally, ours. Now, if by the word guilt here, is intended moral turpitude or blameworthiness, we object that that is a personal thing and not transferable. How can it be? The consequence of that act may extend to the whole race, but the guilt must be restricted to him who did the deed. The depravity of our nature is doubtless propagated from father to child, but actual ill-desert abides with the sinner alone. (3.) That there is no causal connection of any kind between Adam's sin, and the moral condition of his posterity.

His sin was the occasion, but in no wise the cause of theirs. According to this theory, the soul consists of activities only, without any substratum or entity, in which these activities inhere. There is no ground of the soul's exercises. Of course, therefore, there can be no propagation of depravity or any moral qualities; and it is absurd to inquire what is the manner of sin's origination in man, for spirit acts without manner. The sinful condition of the race, consequent on Adam's Fall, must be referred to a Divine Constitution, in other words, an appointment of God, that, if Adam fell, all his descendants would voluntarily become sinners. This theory looks to us like nothing so much as a labored process of self-mystification. When the wrath of God goes forth against sin, it will not terminate on abstract moral exercises, but will reach deeper, and penetrate to some guilty actor. Activity is not a concrete, but an abstract term. It expresses a quality or condition of some being or thing, of which it is predicated. This theory is just the old Pantheistic notion back again, that man consists of qualities without distinct personality. Its advocates no doubt think they have an idea, and know what they mean! The simple fact is, that moral activities and exercises depend on, and are a manifestation of substance or essence, and do not exist separately. Again, to assert that there is no how to the action of spirit, is to talk against the common opinions of mankind. Certainly the mental powers of the soul act according to fixed and well known principles. There are laws of thought. What is Logic, but the science of the how of the spirits action in reasoning? Even the voluntary powers of man are under law.` Any one who is not controlled by reason, whose will is so free that he does not act from motives at all, is commonly reckoned a natural fool. Further, to say that there is no moral state antecedent to and below volition, which gives to volition its character as right or wrong, is to contradict the facts of Christian consciousness. All theories aside, we feel that our will is in bondage to a sinful nature. Sin dwells within us, as a principle, deeply seated in our moral constitution; it is manifested in the first development of our moral

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