Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/18

14, that there was not a man to till the ground; whereupon one was formed of the dust of the ground, and the breath of life breathed into his nostrils. Being then placed in the garden of Eden, wherein were trees of every kind, pleasant to the sight, and good for food, particularly one in the midst of the garden, called the tree of life, and another called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he is severely prohibited from eating of this latter tree, yet allowed freely to eat of all the rest: which circumstance, if taken literally, is liable to be considered by some readers as a snare laid for him, under the most tempting appearances, either to entangle him in a direct act of disobedience, or to excite in him an appetite to forbidden fruit. But there being as yet no help meet for the man, the history proceeds to inform us, that Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon him; and while he was in this state, it is added, that he took one of his ribs from him, (although it does not appear, that he had been previously furnished with more than were necessary for his own use,) and formed it into a woman. Then in the third chapter we are further informed, that a serpent, more subtle than any other beast, and withal miraculously endued with the faculty of speech, discoursed with the woman in her own language, and with artful reasonings persuaded her to eat of the tree of knowledge, and finally involved Adam in the same transgression; although it is reasonable to suppose, that, coming out of the hands of his Creator, he was the most perfect and the wisest of mankind. But the calamity, into which the first pair thus plunged themselves, according to the generally-received doctrine, was not confined to their own persons, but extended itself to the whole of their posterity, who are therefore supposed to have been sentenced to eternal damnation, not for their