Evansville weekly journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 184?-18??, 1848-03-23

world, it would follow as an irresistible conse-
quence-even II we were not told that the
same Being must also be the Governor of his
own creation-that man, with all other things
was also created by him, and must hold his fe-
licity and virtue on condition of obedience to
His will. In the first chapters OF the Bible
there Is short and rapid historical narrative of
the rim which the world and man were
made-ot the condition upon which happiness
and mortality was bestowed upon our first pa
rents-of their transgressien of this condition
of the punishment denounced upon them
and the promise of redemption from it by the
''seed of the woman"
There are, and always have been, where the
holy scriptures have been known, petty wit
llngs, and self conceited reasoners, who cavil
at some OF the particular details of this nara
ton. Even serious lnqulrers after truth have
been perplexed to believe that there should
have been evening and morning before the ex-
! istence of the sun-that man should be made
! OF clay, and woman from the ribs of man
that they should have been forbidden to eat an
apple, and for disobedience to that injunction,
i be With all their posterity doomed to death,
and that eating an apple could give 'the
knowledge of good and evil"-that a serpent
should speak apd beguie woman. All this
is undoubtedly marvellous and above our COM
| prehension. Much of it is clearly figurative
and allegorical; nor is it easy to distinguish
what part of it is to be understood in literal
and not in symbolical sense. But all that it
i imports us to know or understand is plain;
the great and essential principles, upon which
our duties and enjoyments depend, are involv-
ed no obscurity A God, the Creator and Gov
ernor of the Universe, is revealed ia all His
4 majesty and power; the terms upon which He
Il gave existence and happiness to the common
parent OF mankind exposed to US in the
clearest light. Disobedience to the will OF
God. was the offence for which he was precip-
itated from paradise; obedience to the will OF
/ God is the merit by which paradise is to be re-
gained. Here, then, is the foundation of all
i morahty-the source of all our obligations, as
i accountable creatures This idea of the tran
cendant power of the Supreme Being is essen
TALLY connected with that by which the whole
duty Of man is summed up obedience to His
Il will. have observed that natural reason
might suffice for an obscure perception, but not
for the clear discovery of these truths Even
Cicero could start to his own mind the ques-
Il ton: Whether justice could exist upon earth
unless founded upon piety? but could not set
tie it TO his own satisfaction. The ray of Di-
vine light contained in the principle that jps-
tice has no other foundation than piety could
make its way to the soul of he heather, but
there it Was extinguished in the low, unsettled,
and inconsistent notion which were the only
foundations of his piety. How could his pie
ty be pure or sound, when he did know wheth-
he or they had or had not any concern in the
formation of the world, and whether they had
any regard TO the affairs or the conduct of man
kind? Once assume the idea of single God,
the creator of all things whose will is the law
of moral obligation to man, and to whom man
is accountable, and piety becomes as rational
as ii is essential, it becomes the first of human
duties, and not doubt can thenceforth remain,
that fidelity in the associations of human piety
and that most excellent virtue justice, repose
upon no other foundation At later age than
Cicero, Longlnus expressly quotes the 3dverse
OF the LIST chapter of Genesis as an example OF
the sublime. :'God said let there be light,
and there was light" and wherein consists lis
sublimity? In the image of the transcendent
power presented TO the mind, with the most
striking simplicity of expression. Yet this
verse only exhibits the effects of that transcen-
dent power which the first verse discloses in
announcing God as the creator of the world
The true sublimity is in the idea given us OF
. God. To such God the heart of man must
yield with cheerfulness the tribute of homage
which it never could pay to the numerous Gods
of Egypt, to the dissolute debauchees of The
heather mythology, nor even to the more ele-
waited, but not less fantastical imagina:oins OF
1 the Grecial philosophers and sages.
From your affectionate father,
/ JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.