cle to make a snake, a serpent,
talk, and to talk only with Eve, and that as soon as the serpent (?)
seduced Eve into eating the forbidden fruit, God then performed another
miracle to stop his speaking afterward, that if this be true), then it
follows beyond contradiction, _that God is the immediate and direct
author_ or cause _of sin_: an idea that can not be admitted for one
moment, by _any_ believer in the Bible. _God called it a beast--"more
subtile than all the beasts the Lord God had made."_ As Adam was the
federal head of all his posterity, as well as the real head, so was this
beast, the negro, the federal head of all beasts and cattle, etc., down
to creeping things--to things that go upon the belly and eat dust all
the days of their life. If all the beasts, cattle, etc., were not
involved in the sin of their federal head, why did God destroy them at
the flood? If the crime that brought destruction on the world was the
sin of Adam's race alone, why destroy the _innocent_ beasts, cattle,
etc.? When all things were created, God not only pronounced them good,
but "very good;" then why destroy these innocent (?) beasts, cattle,
etc., for Adam's sin or wrong-doing? But, that these beasts, etc., were
involved in the _same_ sin with Adam, is positively plain, from _one
fact alone_, among others, and that fact is: That before the fall of
Adam in the garden, all was peace and harmony among and between all
created beings and things. After the fall, strife, contention and war
ensued, as much among the beasts, cattle, etc., as with the posterity of
Adam; and continues so to the present time. Why should God thus afflict
_them_ for another's crime, if they were free and innocent of that
crime? God told Adam, on the day of his creation, "to have dominion over
everything living that moveth upon the earth:" but to Noah, after the
flood, he uses _very_ different language; for, while he told Noah to be
fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, the same as he said to
Adam, yet he adds, "and the fear of _you_ and the _dread_ of you _shall_
be upon every beast of the earth, etc., and all that moveth upon the
earth, etc.; into _thy_ hands are they delivered". If these had
continued in their "_primeval_ goodness," wholly unconnected with Adam's
sin, is it reasonable to suppose that God would have used the language
toward _them_, that he did in his _instructions_ to Noah? It is
impossible! The intelligent can also see the judgments o