486 Fartnc$M of Witt. in paradise was wise and innocent, but imperfect in a state oftrim; Sense, or appetite, or passion, or all these together, joined with the devil in the serpent to make a false representation of things to his understanding, without giving him sufficient evidence to have determined his judgment on their side, and influenced his choice : Then hiswill, which ought to have suspended his judg- ment till he had made further search and enquiry, did in some heedless and unwatchful moment, rashly suffer the soul to assent to falsehood, and as rashly and hastily followed these false repro- tentations, and determined its choice to evil instead of good. Or we may suppose, that the will being tempted and enticed strongly by appetite and passion, both by an inordinate sensual appetite to the forbidden fruit, and inordinate desire ofknowledge and am- bition of being as a god, determined itself rashly, without delay and enquiry, to obeyand comply with the strong bias of present appetiteand passion, without waiting for a mature judgment of the understanding ; and thus man those what was evil, and disobeyed hisMaker : And herein man appeared highlycriminal in his first sin, and the fault must be laid entirely upon himself, because it was a free act of his will, which was a self-determining power. And indeed there is no such thing as actual sin, properly speaking, but in free acts of the will. Whereas if we suppose the understanding to be necessarily determined to judge accord- ing to the appearances of things, and the will necessarily to fol- low the judgment of the understanding ; then the blame will be ready to be cast on the providence of God which placed Adam in such circumstances, as that such false representations should be made to his understanding which he could not avoid, and which ivould necessarily first determine his judgment, and consequently his choice of evil, and his disobedience to his Maker. 1 will not assume so much as to pretend this is the only way whereby we can account for sin's coming into the world, and making its first entrance into the innocent heart of the first man ; but I think this gives as fair and easy a solution of it, as any that I have found. VIL This doctrine spews us the excellency and rewardable- ness offaith in the gospel of Christ, and the criminal nature of unbelief. When the Christian revelation is proposed to man as coming fromGod, it becomes man as a rational creature to con- sider the proofs and evidences brought to confirm it, the prophe- cies, the miracles, the internal excellencies, and all external tes- timonies that come with it : And it is the will which must employ and determine the mind to dwell upon these enquiries diligently and faithfully; in proportion to the merits of the Cause, to keep the heart sincere and unbiassed in the enquiry, to attend care- fully to every gleam of light., and every argument, and to suffer itself-to be convinced, at last, by the preponderating. weight of
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