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| God's Dealings with Adam at the Fall, and with Cain After His Crime, Admirably Explained and Defended.
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Chapter
XXV.—God’s Dealings with Adam at the Fall, and with Cain
After His Crime, Admirably Explained and Defended.
It is now high time that I should, in order to
meet all3016
objections of this
kind, proceed to the explanation and clearing up3017
of the other trifles,3018
weak points, and inconsistencies, as you
deemed them. God calls out to Adam,3019
Where art
thou? as if ignorant where he was; and when he alleged that the shame
of his nakedness was the cause (of his hiding himself), He inquired
whether he had eaten of the tree, as if He were in doubt. By no
means;3020
God was neither
uncertain about the commission of the sin, nor ignorant of Adam’s
whereabouts. It was certainly proper to summon the offender, who was
concealing himself from the consciousness of his sin, and to bring him
forth into the presence of his Lord, not merely by the calling out of
his name, but with a
home-thrust blow3021
at the sin which he
had at that moment committed. For the question ought not to be read in
a merely interrogative tone, Where art thou, Adam? but with an
impressive and earnest voice, and with an air of imputation, Oh, Adam,
where art thou?—as much as to intimate: thou art no longer
here, thou art in perdition—so that the voice is the utterance of
One who is at once rebuking and sorrowing.3022
But of course some part of paradise had escaped the eye of Him who
holds the universe in His hand as if it were a bird’s nest, and
to whom heaven is a throne and earth a footstool; so that He could not
see, before He summoned him forth, where Adam was, both while lurking
and when eating of the forbidden fruit! The wolf or the paltry
thief escapes not the notice of the keeper of your vineyard or your
garden! And God, I suppose, with His keener vision,3023
from on high was unable to miss the sight
of3024
aught which lay beneath Him! Foolish
heretic, who treat with scorn3025
so fine an argument
of God’s greatness and man’s instruction! God put the
question with an appearance of uncertainty, in order that even here He
might prove man to be the subject of a free will in the alternative of
either a denial or a confession, and give to him the opportunity of
freely acknowledging his transgression, and, so far,3026
of lightening it.3027
In
like manner He inquires of Cain where his brother was, just as if He
had not yet heard the blood of Abel crying from the ground, in order
that he too might have the opportunity from the same power of the will
of spontaneously denying, and to this degree aggravating, his crime;
and that thus there might be supplied to us examples of confessing sins
rather than of denying them: so that even then was initiated the
evangelic doctrine, “By thy words3028
| 3028 Ex ore tuo, “out
of thine own mouth.” |
thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be
condemned.”3029
Now, although Adam
was by reason of his condition under law3030
| 3030 Propter statum
legis. |
subject to death, yet was hope preserved to him by the Lord’s
saying, “Behold, Adam is become as one of us;”3031
that is, in consequence of the future taking
of the man into the divine nature. Then what follows? “And now,
lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, (and
eat), and live for ever.” Inserting thus the particle of present
time, “And now,” He shows that He had made for a time, and
at present, a prolongation of man’s life. Therefore He did not
actually3032
curse Adam and Eve,
for they were candidates for restoration, and they had been
relieved3033
by confession.
Cain, however, He not only cursed; but when he wished to atone for his
sin by death, He even prohibited his dying, so that he had to bear the
load of this prohibition in addition to his crime. This, then, will
prove to be the ignorance of our God, which was simulated on this
account, that delinquent man should not be unaware of what he ought to
do. Coming down to the case of Sodom and Gomorrha, he says: “I
will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according
to the cry of it which is come unto me; and if not, I will
know.”3034
| 3034 Gen. xviii. 21. [Marcion’s god also
“comes down.” p. 284, supra.] | Well, was He in
this instance also uncertain through ignorance, and desiring to
know? Or was this a necessary tone of utterance, as expressive of
a minatory and not a dubious sense, under the colour of an inquiry? If
you make merry at God’s “going down,” as if He could
not except by the descent have accomplished His judgment, take care
that you do not strike your own God with as hard a blow. For He also
came down to accomplish what He wished.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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