works!

Some suppose this to have been our first parents idea of the
threatening in case of disobedience, and expressed by them, when they
attempted to hide themselves from the divine presence, after their
fall. *

* Genesis iii. 9.

Had man then been destroyed, the race would have been extinct. But he
was spared; suffered long to continue and rear a family, from which
the myriads of human kind have descended. Though exiled Eden, and
doomed to labor and sorrow, he was still at the head of this lower
creation, and creatures below him generally subservient to his
comfortable subsistence. The ground was indeed cursed for his sake and
fatiguing cultivation rendered necessary; but still it yielded the
necessaries, and many of the comforts of life; though not the sweets
of its primitive state.

These effusions of divine goodness were probably the wonder of angels,
though so little noticed by men, the ungrateful objects of them.

But these were inconsiderable, compared with the strange provision
made for their eternal salvation.

That God bears good will to mankind, not--withstanding their apostasy,
and is desirous of their salvation, is from many considerations
apparent. It is the spirit of the text, and the general language of
the scriptures, as will be shewn in the sequel.

That God is willing that all should be saved, appears from the
sufficiency of the provision which is made for the salvation of
sinners; the frequent declarations that it is designed for all; the
offers which are made indiscriminately to all; and the suitableness of
the provision to the circumstances of all.

1. From the sufficiency of the provision which is made for the
salvation of sinners, This is adequate to the salvation of the whole
race. Christ, being a divine person, made an infinite atonement. In
him there is a fulness of merit. Was the number of sinners ten times
greater than that of our whole race, there would be no need of another
Savior, or of Christ's dying again for their redemption. In him
"dwells the whole fulness of the Godhead bodily." The reason all are
not saved, is not a deficiency of merit in the Redeemer, or any
limitation of his satisfaction. Sinners "are not straitened in him,
but in their own bowels."

2. That God is willing all should be saved appears from the frequent
declarations of scripture, that Christ died for all--Who gave
himself a ransom _for all_, to be testified in due time--We see Jesus
who was made a