We have the substance of all history. We have in substance,
the lessons, the warnings, the counsels, the encouragements, the
prophecies and revelations of all times and of all worlds. The tendency
of the whole story is to make us feel that righteousness is the one
great, unchanging and eternal good; and that sin, unchecked indulgence,
is the one great, eternal, and unchanging curse. The spirit of the
story, its drift, its aim, is _holiness_ from first to last. The writer
is moved throughout by the Holy Spirit--the Spirit of truth and
righteousness--the Spirit of God. We see it, we feel it, in every part.
We want no proof of the fact in the shape of miracle; the proof is in
the story itself. It is not a matter of dispute; it is a matter of plain
unquestionable fact. And that the story is essentially, morally, and
eternally true, is proved by all the events of history, by all the facts
of consciousness, and by the laws and constitution of universal nature.
And in the history of man's first sin as here given, and in the account
of its effects, and in the conduct of God to the sinning pair, I find,
not the monster fictions of an immoral and blasphemous theology, but the
most important elements of moral, religious, and physical science.
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