646 / 674
TIDE
ETERNAL DURATION
0P
[b1SC.
Mir.
course, in
order
to
debate,this point
here, would
be
tog
tedious.
The
équity
of
this
,wise
and
awful
constitution of God
has
been lately
vindicated
in
a large treatise
on the
"
Ruin
and Recovery
of Mankind,"
especially
in
the second
edi-
tion
ofhat
book.
But
it
is
enough
for
my
present ar-
gument
to
say,
that God
himself
will
make
the
equity of
this constitution
to
appear
with much more evidence
and
conviction
in
the
last great
day, when
millions
of
actual
criminals
shall
stand
before the
judgment
-seat,
who owe
the
first
spring
of
their
sin
and ruin
to
our
common
parent,
%and
yet
will fall
under
the righteous condemna-
tion
of
the
judge.
Ans.
2.
When God decreed
to give
thee
a being,
O
sin-
ner, and designed thee
in his
eternal
ideas
to
be
a
man,
placed
among a thousand
blessings
of nature
and provi-
dence,
it
was
then a favour of
thy
Creator
;
for thou
wert
designed
alsó
in this
original divine idea to have
full
suf-
ficiency
of
power to become
wise
and happy.
It
was
also
a
favour from
thy
Creator that
hé
took
all
these thy
sufficiencies
of
power,
and
put
them into the
hand
of
one
man, even
the
Father of
thy race, because he
was as
Wise,
and
holy,
and
as well
able
as
any man
of
his
pos-
terity
could
be,
to preserve
his
station
in
the favour
of
God,
and
to
secure
thy
happiness together
with
his own
;
and
he
had much stronger obligations to
obey
his
Maker,
and
more powerful motives to secure thy happiness than
thou
thyself,
'or
any
single
man
could possibly have,
be-
cause
he
was
intrusted
with the
felicity
of
so
many mil-
lions
of
his own
dear
offspring as
well as his own.
Now
though
Adam, thy first father, being thus furnished
with
sufficiencies
of
power,
and
with
the strongest
obligations
to preserve
himself and
thee, has
actually
sinned
and
ruined
himself and
his
offspring;
this
is
indeed an
unhappy truth
;
but
the
great God
is
not
to blame,
who
has not
only
acted
wisely
but
kindly towards
his
crea-
tures
in
this
constitution, because,
so
far
as
we
can
judge,
it
was
much more
probable that
Adam would have
maintained
his
innocence and
his
happiness, together
with
that
of
his
offspring. Again,
When
the race
of
man
was
ruined,
and
God
saw
that
every man
would come
into the
world
under unhappy
çircu
mstances
of
guilt
apd;
corruption
of
nature,
he
pro-