Barnes' view of sin

George Somsel · October 2013

I'm sure some have Barnes even though the Logos edition hasn't yet been released. Could you check to see whether this depiction of his views is correct? (Please report back)

The doctrine of original sin has been insidiously attacked by Albert Barnes, a Presbyterian minister of this city, in his Notes on the Epistle to the Romans, which occasioned his suspension from the ministry, to which, however, he was subsequently restored, when the New School prevailed in the General Assembly. On the pretence that the Apostle did not mean to deliver any theory, but from admitted facts extolled the benefit of the atonement, Barnes bends to his own views the clear and strong testimonies which declare that all had sinned, and thus incurred the penalty of death. Gratuitously assuming that the doctrine of original sin is a metaphysical speculation of later ages, he explains what is said of the effects of Adam’s sin on the human race, as indicating its influence, but not any communication of guilt or punishment. Yet by the same rule of interpretation every revealed doctrine may be rejected as a theory which the sacred writers did not deliver. The Apostle testifies a fact when he declares: "By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men in whom all have sinned."* If the sin of Adam did not directly and as a cause induce the guilt of the human race, there was no ground for stating that "so death passed upon all men;" for in many of them it would not be the effect of sin, since a vast portion of our race die before the age of reason, and consequently without any actual sin. In this theory, which may be traced to the days of Pelagius, death is not the effect of Adam’s sin, even as to the adult, but it is caused by personal sins, to which Adam contributed no further than by the perverse p 63 example of his disobedience. The connexion then between Adam’s sin, and the necessity of death which embraces all, adults and infants, is destroyed by this interpretation, which further contradicts the positive testimony: "in whom all have sinned."* Whether this version be admitted, or the text be rendered, as some will have it, "inasmuch as all have sinned," the fact of sin being common to all who die, equally results from it, death being in all caused by sin: wherefore, as infants are manifestly incapable of actual sin, it must be admitted that they are sinners, in consequence of the act of the first man, whereby he and his posterity fell from original justice and innocence. "Death," says the Apostle, "reigned from Adam unto Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of the transgression of Adam."† Before the promulgation of the law on Sinai, and the transgressions consequent thereon, death held its sway over the whole human race, even over infants who had not sinned actually, as Adam sinned. There must be a cause for this universal necessity: there must be a sin common to all, of which death is the punishment. Barnes endeavours to confine the Apostle’s words to actual transgressors of the natural law; but the empire of death was not confined to them. It extended to the tender infant, because it entered into the world by the sin of the father of the human family, in whom all sinned, being all involved in the guilt and punishment of his transgression. But how can this be? Is it not a manifest absurdity to say that those sinned who had no existence? It were absurd to assert it in its ordinary meaning, because it implies actual prevarication: but it is not absurd to say that all fell from the unmerited elevation p 64 which Adam forfeited by his disobedience: that all lost, through his act, the gratuitous gifts which had been bestowed on him, as the head of his race: that all were thenceforth estranged from God, children of wrath, stained with sin, which is the death of the soul. There is indeed much that is mysterious in this economy of Divine Providence, but nothing absurd: of it we have a faint image in some legal enactments, which subject to penal disabilities the descendants of traitors even to the twentieth generation.* It behoves us to recognize and adore a truth of which the evidence presents itself constantly to us in the moral infirmities which we suffer. The gloomy reign of death over all men, for which so many evils prepare us, is as inexplicable without the admission of a general sin, of which it is the punishment, as the communication of the sin of Adam to the whole human race. Let those who say that the Apostle means only that death is universal, because men generally prove transgressors, show how this accounts for the pains, and sufferings, and death of millions of children before the use of reason.

Basil of Caesarea. A Treatise on Baptism and A Treatise on Confirmation, pp 62-64. Translated by Francis Patrick Kenrick. Philadelphia: M. Fithian, 1843.

Mark Barnes · October 2013

http://www.gospeltruth.net/menbornsinners/mbs28.htm

David Paul · October 2013

You are referring to the Barnes's Notes Barnes, right? (General statement: It should be Barnes's, not Barnes'...your grade school teacher was wrong if she taught you otherwise; hence, Thomas's doubt & Jesus's resurrection, not Thomas' doubt and Jesus' resurrection.)

The reason I ask is because it is in Logos...has been for some time.

This is what I have, George. If you don't find what you want here, I can post a few more paragraphs.

6. And the woman saw. She saw the tree, no doubt, and that it was likely to look upon, with the eye of sense. But only with the eye of fancy, highly excited by the hints of the tempter, did she see that it was good for food, and to be desired to make one wise. Appetite, taste, and philosophy, or the love of wisdom, are the great motives in the human breast which fancy assumes this tree will gratify. Other trees please the taste and the sight. But this one has the preëminent charm of administering not only to the sense, but also to the reason.
It would be rash to suppose that we can analyze that lightning process of instinctive thought which then took place in the mind of the woman; and worse than rash, it would be wrong, to imagine that we can show the rationale of that which in its fundamental point was a violation of right reason. But it is evident from this verse that she attached some credit to the bold statement of the serpent, that the eating of the fruit would be attended with the extraordinary result of making them, like God himself, acquainted with good and evil, especially as it did not contradict any assertion of Jehovah, God, and was countenanced by the name, “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” It was evidently a new thought to her, that the knowledge of good and evil was to result from the eating of it. That God should know this, if a fact, was undeniable. Again, to know good and evil as the effect of partaking of it, implied that the consequence was not a cessation of existence, or of consciousness; for, if so, how could there be any knowledge? And, if death in her conception implied merely exclusion from the favor of God and the tree of life, might she not imagine that the new knowledge acquired, and the elevation to a new resemblance, or even equality to God himself in this respect, would be more than a compensation for such losses; especially as the disinterestedness of the divine motives had been at least called in question by the serpent? Here, no doubt, is a fine web of sophistry, woven by the excited fancy in an instant of time.
It is easy to say the knowledge of good and evil was not a physical effect of eating of the fruit; that the obtaining of this knowledge by partaking of it was an evil, and not a good in itself and in its consequences, as it was the origin of an evil conscience, which is in itself an unspeakable ill, and attended with the forfeiture of the divine favor, and of the tree of life, and with the endurance of all the positive misery which such a condition involves; and that the command of God was founded on the clearest right,—that of creation,—occasioned by the immediate necessity of defining the rights of man, and prompted by disinterested benevolence toward His intelligent creatures, whom He was framing for such intellectual and moral perfection, as was by them attainable. It is easy to cry out, How unreasonable was the conduct of the primeval pair! Let us not forget that any sin is unreasonable, unaccountable, essentially mysterious. In fact, if it were wholly reasonable, it would no longer be sin. Only a moment before, the woman had declared that God had said, “Of the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden, ye shall not eat.” Yet she now sees, and her head is so full of it that she can think of nothing else, that the tree is good for food and pleasant to the eyes,—as if there were no other good and pleasant trees in the garden, and, as she fancies, desirable to make one wise, like God; as if there were no other way to this wisdom but an unlawful one, and no other likeness to God but a stolen likeness,—and therefore takes of the fruit and eats, and gives to her husband, and he eats! The present desire is without any necessity gratified by an act known to be wrong, at the risk of all the consequences of disobedience! Such is sin.
7. Certain immediate effects of the act are here stated. Their eyes were opened. This cannot mean literally that they were blind up to this moment; for Adam, no doubt, saw the tree in the garden concerning which he received a command, the animals which he named, and the woman whom he recognized as bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. And of the woman it is affirmed that she saw that the tree possessed certain qualities, one of which at least was conspicuous to the eye.
It must therefore mean that a new aspect was presented by things on the commission of the first offence. As soon as the transgression is actually over, the sense of the wrongfulness of the act rushes on the mind. The displeasure of the great Being whose command has been disobeyed, the irretrievable loss which follows sin, the shame of being looked upon by the bystanders as a guilty thing, crowd upon the view. All nature, every single creature, seems now a witness of their guilt and shame, a condemning judge, an agent of the divine vengeance. Such is the knowledge of good and evil they have acquired by their fall from obedience,—such is the opening of the eye which has required their wrong-doing. What a different scene had once presented itself to the eyes of innocence! All had been friendly. All nature: had bowed in willing obedience to the lords of the earth. Neither the sense nor the reality of danger had ever disturbed the tranquillity of their pure minds.
They knew that they were naked. This second effect results immediately from the consciousness of guilt. They now take notice that; their guilty persons are exposed to view, and they shrink from the glance of every condemning eye. They imagine there is a witness of their guilt in every creature, and they conceive the abhorrence which it must produce in the spectator. In their infantile experience they endeavor to hide their persons, which they feel to be suffused all over with the blush of shame.
Accordingly, they sewed the leaves of the fig, which, we may suppose, they wrapped round them, and fastened with the girdles they had formed for this purpose. The leaves of the fig did not constitute the girdles, but the coverings which were fastened on with these. These leaves were intended to conceal their whole persons from observation. Job describes himself sewing sackcloth on his skin (Job 16:15), and girding on sackcloth (1 Kings 20:32; Lam. 2:10; Joel 1:8) is a familiar phrase in Scripture. The primitive sewing was some sort of tacking together, which is not more particularly described. Every operation of this sort has a rude beginning. The word girdle (חֲגֹורָה) signifies that which girds on the dress.
Here it becomes us to pause for a moment that we may mark what was the precise nature of the first transgression. It was plainly disobedience to an express and well-understood command of the Creator. It matters not what was the nature of the command, since it could not be other than right and pure. The more simple and easy the thing enjoined, the more blameworthy the act of disobedience. But what was the command? Simply to abstain from the fruit of a tree, which was designated the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, upon pain of death. We have seen already that this command arose from the necessity of immediate legislation, and took its shape as the only possible one in the circumstances of the case. The peculiar attraction, however, which the forbidden tree presented, was not its excellence for the appetite or pleasantness to the eyes, since these were common to all the trees, but its supposed power of conferring moral knowledge on those who partook of it, and, according to the serpent’s explanation, making them like God in this important respect. Hence the real and obvious motive of the transgressor was the desire of knowledge and likeness to God. Whatever other lusts, therefore, may have afterwards come out in the nature of fallen man, it is plain that the lust after likeness to God in moral discernment was that which originally brought forth sin in man. Sexual desire does not appear here at all. The appetite is excited by other trees as well as this. The desire of knowledge, and the ambition to be, in some sense, divine, are alone peculiar and prevalent as motives. Hence it appears that God proved our first parents, not through any of the animal appetites, but through the higher propensities of their intellectual and moral nature. Though the occasion, therefore, may at first sight appear trivial, yet it becomes awfully momentous when we discover that the rectitude of God is impugned, his prerogative invaded, his command disregarded, his attribute of moral omniscience and all the imaginable advantages attendant thereupon grasped at with an eager and wilful hand. To disobey the command of God, imposed according to the dictates of pure reason, and with the authority of a Creator, from the vain desire of being like him, or independent of him, in knowledge, can never be anything but an offence of the deepest dye.
We are bound, moreover, to acknowledge and maintain, in the most explicit manner, the equity of the divine procedure in permitting the temptation of man. The only new thing here is the intervention of the tempter. It may be imagined that this deciever should have been kept away. But we must not speak with inconsiderate haste on a matter of such import. 1st. We know that God has not used forcible means to prevent the rise of moral evil among his intelligent creatures. We cannot with reason affirm that he should have done so; because, to put force on a voluntary act, and yet leave it voluntary, seems to reason a contradiction in terms, and, therefore, impossible; and unless an act be voluntary, it cannot have any moral character; and without voluntary action, we cannot have a moral agent. 2d. We know that God does not immediately annihilate the evil-doer. Neither can we affirm with reason that he ought to have done so; for, to lay an adequate penalty on sin, and then put the sinner out of existence, so that this penalty can never be exacted, seems to reason a moral inconsistency, and, therefore, impossible in a being of moral perfection. 3d. We know that God does not withdraw the evil-doer from all intercourse with other moral agents. Here, again, reason does not constrain us to pronounce that it is expedient so to do; for the innocent ought, and it is natural that they should, learn a holy abhorrence of sin, and a salutary dread of its penalty, from these waifs of society, rather than follow their pernicious example. The wrong-doers are not less under the control of God than if they were in the most impenetrable dungeon; while they are at the same time constant beacons to warn others from transgression. He leaves them to fill up the measure of their iniquity, while the intelligent world are cognizant of their guilt, that they may acknowledge the justice of their punishment, and comprehend the infinite holiness of the judge of all the earth. 4th. We know that God tries his moral creatures. Abraham, Job, and all his saints have to undergo their trial. He suffered the Lord Jesus Christ, the second Adam, to be tempted. And we must not expect the first Adam to be exempted from the common ordeal. We can only be assured that his justice will not allow his moral creatures to be at any disadvantage in the trial. Accordingly, 1st, God himself in the first instance speaks to Adam, and gives him an explicit command not arbitrary in its conception, but arising out of the necessity of the case. And it is plain that Eve was perfectly aware that he had himself imposed this prohibition. 2d. The tempter is not allowed to appear in his proper person to our first parents. The serpent only is seen or heard by them,—a creature inferior to themselves, and infinitely beneath the God who made them, and condescended to communicate with them with the authority of a father. 3d. The serpent neither threatens nor directly persuades; much less is he permitted to use any means of compulsion: he simply falsifies. As the God of truth had spoken to them before, the false insinuation places them at no disadvantage.
Man has now come to the second step in morals,—the practice. Thereby he has come to the knowledge of good and evil, not merely as an ideal, but as an actual thing. But he has attained this end, not by standing in, but by falling from, his integrity. If he had stood the test of this temptation, as he might have done, he would have come by the knowledge of good and evil equally well, but with a far different result. As he bore the image of God in his higher nature, he would have resembled him, not only in knowledge, thus honorably acquired by resisting temptation, but also in moral good, thus realized in his own act and will. As it is, he has gained some knowledge in an unlawful and disastrous way; but he has also taken in that moral evil, which is the image, not of God, but of the tempter, to whom he has yielded.
This result is rendered still more lamentable when we remember that these transgressors constituted the human race in its primeval source. In them, therefore, the race actually falls. In their sin the race is become morally corrupt. In their guilt the race is involved in guilt. Their character and doom descend to their latest posterity.
We have not yet noticed the circumstance of the serpent’s speaking, and of course speaking rationally. This seems to have awakened no attention in the tempted, and, so far as we see, to have exercised no influence on their conduct. In their inexperience, it is probable that they did not yet know what was wonderful, and what not; or, in preciser terms, what was supernatural, and what natural. But even if they had known enough to be surprised at the serpent speaking, it might have told in opposite ways upon their conclusions. On the one hand, Adam had seen and named the serpent, and found in it merely a dumb irrational animal, altogether unfit to be his companion, and therefore he might have been amazed to hear him speak, and, shall we say, led to suspect a prompter. But, on the other hand, we have no reason to suppose that Adam had any knowledge or suspicion of any creature but those which had been already brought before him, among which was the serpent. He could, therefore, have no surmise of any superior creature who might make use of the serpent for its own purposes. We question whether the thought could have struck his mind that the serpent had partaken of the forbidden fruit, and thereby attained to the marvellous elevation from brutality to reason and speech. But, if it had, it would have made a deep impression on his mind of the wonderful potency of the tree. These considerations apply with perhaps still greater force to Eve, who was first deceived.
But to us who have a more extensive experience of the course of nature, the speaking of a serpent cannot be regarded otherwise than as a preternatural occurrence. It indicates the presence of a power above the nature of the serpent, possessed, too, by a being of a malignant nature, and at enmity with God and truth; a spiritual being, who is able and has been permitted to make use of the organs of the serpent in some way for the purposes of temptation. But while for a wise and worthy end this alien from God’s home is permitted to test the moral character of man, he is not allowed to make any appearance or show any sign of his own presence to man. The serpent alone is visibly present; the temptation is conducted only through words uttered by bodily organs, and the tempted show no suspicion of any other tempter. Thus in the disposal of a just Providence, man is brought into immediate contact only with an inferior creature, and therefore has a fair field in the season of trial. And if that creature is possessed by a being of superior intelligence, this is only displayed in such a manner as to exert no influence on man but that of suggestive argument and false assertion.

Murphy, J. G. (1873). Notes on the Old Testament: Genesis (pp. 113–119). Boston: Estes and Lauriate.

It appears that Albert wasn't the actual author of the Genesis commentary, btw.

David Paul · October 2013

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531270#Comment_531270

I think what you want will be in this section.

8. And they heard the voice of the LORD God, walking in the garden in the air of the day: and the man and his wife hid themselves from the face of the LORD God amidst the trees of the garden. 9. And the LORD God called to the man and said unto him, Where art thou? 10. And he said, Thy voice I heard in the garden; and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself. 11. And he said, Who showed thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee not to eat? 12. And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat. 13. Then said the LORD God to the woman, What is this thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. 14. Then said the LORD God unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou above all cattle and above every beast of the field: upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. 15. And enmity will I put between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
16. Unto the woman he said, Multiply, multiply will I thy sorrow and thy conception: in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children; and unto thy husband shall be thy desire, and he shall rule over thee.
17. And to the man he said, Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and didst eat of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it, cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. 18. And thorns and thistles shall it grow to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. 19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, until thou return to the soil, out of which thou wast taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
20. And the man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. 21. And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife coats of skin, and clothed them.

This passage contains the examination of the transgressors, 8–13, the sentence pronounced upon each, 14–19, and certain particulars following thereupon, 20, 21.
8, 9. The voice, we conceive, is the thunder of the approach of God and his call to Adam. The hiding is another token of the childlike simplicity of the parents of our race under the shame and fear of guilt. The question, Where art thou? implies that the Lord was aware of their endeavor to hide themselves from him.
10–12. Adam confesses that he was afraid of God, because he was naked. There is an instinctive hiding of his thoughts from God in this very speech. The nakedness is mentioned, but not the disobedience from which the sense of it arose. To the direct interrogatory of the Almighty, he confesses who made him acquainted with his nakedness and the fact of his having eaten of the forbidden fruit: “The woman gave me of the tree, and I did eat.”
13. The woman makes a similar confession and a similar indication of the source of her temptation. She has now found out that the serpent beguiled her. The result has not corresponded to the benefit she was led to anticipate.
There seems not to be any disingenuousness in either case. Sin does not take full possession of the will all at once. It is a slow poison. It has a growth. It requires time and frequent repetition to sink from a state of purity into a habit of inveterate sin. While it is insensibly gathering strength and subjugating the will, the original integrity of the moral nature manifests a long but fading vitality. The same line of things does not always occupy the attention. When the chain of events linked with the act of sin does not force the attention of the mind, and constrain the will to act a selfish part, another train of things comes before the mind, finds the will unaffected by personal considerations, and therefore ready to take its direction from the reason. Hence the consciousness of a fallen soul has its lucid intervals, in which the conscience gives a verdict and guides the will. But these intervals become less frequent and less decisive as the entanglements of ever-multiplying sinful acts wind round the soul and aggravate its bondage and its blindness.
14, 15. Here begins the judgment. Sentence is pronounced upon the serpent in the presence, no doubt, of the man and woman. The serpent is not examined, first, because it is a dumb unreasoning animal in itself, and therefore incapable of judicial examination, and it was the serpent only that was palpable to the senses of our first parents in the temptation; and, secondly, because the true tempter was not a new, but an old offender.
This sentence has a literal application to the serpent. The curse (Gen. 9:25, n.) of the serpent lies in a more grovelling nature than that of the other land animals. This appears in its going on its belly and eating the dust. Other animals have at least feet to elevate them above the dust; the serpent tribe has not even feet. Other animals elevate the head in their natural position above the soil: the serpent lays its head naturally on the sod, and therefore may be said to eat the dust, as the wounded warrior bites the dust in death. The earthworm is probably included in the description here given of the serpent group. It goes upon its belly, and actually does eat the dust. Eating the dust, like feeding upon ashes, is an expression for signal defeat in every aim. The enmity, the mode of its display, and the issue are also singularly characteristic of the literal serpent.
It is the custom of Scripture jurisprudence to visit brute animals with certain judicial consequences of injuries they have been instrumental in doing to man, especially if this has arisen through the design or neglect of the owner, or other responsible agent (Gen. 9:5; Exod. 21:28–36). In the present case the injury done was of a moral, not a physical nature. Hence the penalty consists in a curse; that is, a state of greater degradation below man than the other land animals. The serpent in the extraordinary event here recorded exercised the powers of human speech and reasoning. And it is natural to suppose that these exhibitions of intelligence were accompanied with an attitude and a gesture above its natural rank in the scale of creation. The effect of the judicial sentence would be to remand it to its original grovelling condition, and give rise to that enmity which was to end in its destruction by man.
But as an evil spirit must have employed the serpent, as the animal whose organs and instincts were most adapted to its purpose, and has accordingly derived its name from it as presenting the animal type most analogous to its own spiritual nature, so the whole of this sentence has its higher application to the real tempter. Upon thy belly shalt thou go. This is expressive of the lowest stage of degradation to which a spiritual creature can be sunk. Dust shalt thou eat. This is indicative of disappointment in all the aims of being. I will put enmity. This is still more strictly applicable to the spiritual enemy of mankind. It intimates a hereditary feud between their respective races, which is to terminate, after some temporary suffering on the part of the woman’s seed, in the destruction of the serpent’s power against man. The spiritual agent in the temptation of man cannot have literally any seed. But the seed of the serpent is that portion of the human family that continues to be his moral offspring, and follows the first transgression without repentance or refuge in the mercy of God. The seed of the woman, on the other hand, must denote the remnant who are born from above, and hence turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.
Let us now mark the lessons conveyed in the sentence of the serpent to our first parents, who were listening and looking on. 1st. The serpent is styled a mere brute animal. All, then, that seemed to indicate reason as inherent in its nature or acquired by some strange event in its history is thus at once contradicted. 2d. It is declared to be lower than any of the other land animals; as being destitute of any members corresponding to feet or hands. 3d. It is not interrogated as a rational and accountable being, but treated as a mere dumb brute. 4th. It is degraded from the airs and attitudes which may have been assumed, when it was possessed by a serpent-like evil spirit, and falls back without a struggle to that place of debasement in the animal kingdom for which it was designed. 5th. It is fated to be disappointed in its aims at usurpation. It shall bite the dust. 6th. It is doomed to ultimate and utter discomfiture in its hostile assaults on the seed of the woman.
All this must have made a deep impression on our first parents. But two things must have struck them with peculiar force. First, it was now evident how vain and hollow were its pretensions to superior wisdom, and how miserably deluded they had been when they listened to its false insinuations. If, indeed, they had possessed maturity of reflection, and taken time to apply it, they would have been strangely bewildered with the whole scene, now that it was past. How the serpent, from the brute instinct it displayed to Adam when he named the animals, suddenly rose to the temporary exercise of reason and speech, and as suddenly relapsed into its former bestiality, is, to the mere observer of nature, an inexplicable phenomenon. But to Adam, who had as yet too limited an experience to distinguish between natural and preternatural events, and too little development of the reflective power to detect the inconsistency in the appearance of things, the sole object of attention was the shameless presumption of the serpent, and the overwhelming retribution which had fallen upon it; and, consequently, the deplorable folly and wickedness of having been misguided by its suggestions.
A second thing, however, was still more striking to the mind of man in the sentence of the serpent; namely, the enmity that was to be put between the serpent and the woman. Up to a certain point there had been concord and alliance between these two parties. But, on the very opening of the heavenly court, we learn that the friendly connection had been broken. For the woman said, “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.” This expression indicates that the woman was no longer at one with the serpent. She was now sensible that its part had been that, not of friendship, but of guile, and therefore of the deepest and darkest hostility. When God, therefore, said, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman,” this revulsion of feeling on her part, in which Adam no doubt joined, was acknowledged and approved. Enmity with the enemy of God indicated a return to friendship with God, and presupposed incipient feelings of repentance towards him, and reviving confidence in his word. The perpetuation of this enmity is here affirmed, in regard not only to the woman, but to her seed. This prospect of seed, and of a godly seed, at enmity with evil, became a fountain of hope to our first parents, and confirmed every feeling of returning reverence for God which was beginning to spring up in their breast. The word heard from the mouth of God begat faith in their hearts, and we shall find that this faith was not slow to manifest itself in acts.
We cannot pass over this part of the sentence without noticing the expression, “the seed of the woman.” Does it not mean, in the first instance, the whole human race? Was not this race at enmity with the serpent? And though that part only of the seed of the woman which eventually shared in her present feelings could be said to be at enmity with the serpent spirit, yet, if all had gone well in Adam’s family, might not the whole race have been at enmity with the spirit of disobedience? Was not the avenue to mercy here hinted at as wide as the offer of any other time? And was not this universality of invitation at some time to have a response in the human family? Does not the language of the passage constrain us to look forward to the time when the great mass, or the whole of the human race then alive on the earth, will have actually turned from the power of Satan unto God? This could not be seen by Adam. But was it not the plain import of the language, that, unless there was some new revolt after the present reconciliation, the whole race would, even from this new beginning, be at enmity with the spirit of evil? Such was the dread lesson of experience with which Adam now entered upon the career of life, that it was to be expected he would warn his children against departing from the living God, with a clearness and earnestness which would be both understood and felt.
But, still further, do we not pass from the general to the particular in the sentence, “He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel?” Is not the seed of the woman here individualized and matched in deadly conflict with the individual tempter? Does not this phraseology point to some preëminent descendant of the woman, who is, with the bruising of his lower nature in the encounter, to gain a signal and final victory over the adversary of man? There is some reason to believe from the expression, “I have gotten a man from the Lord” (Gen. 4:1), that Eve herself had caught a glimpse of this meaning, though she applied it to the wrong party. The Vulgate also, in what was probably the genuine reading, ipse (he himself) points to the same meaning. The reading ipsa (she herself) is inconsistent with the gender of the Hebrew verb, and with that of the corresponding pronoun in the second clause (his), and is therefore clearly an error of the transcriber.
Lastly, the retributive character of the divine administration is remarkably illustrated in the phrase. The serpent, in a wily but dastardly spirit, makes the weaker sex the object of his attack. It is the seed of the woman especially that is to bruise his head. It is singular to find that this simple phrase, coming in naturally and incidentally in a sentence uttered four thousand years, and penned at least fifteen hundred years, before the Christian era, describes exactly and literally Him who was made of woman without the intervention of man, that he might destroy the works of the devil. This clause in the sentence of the tempter is the first dawn of hope for the human family after the fall. We cannot tell whether to admire more the simplicity of its terms, the breadth and comprehensiveness of its meaning, or the minuteness of its application to the far-distant event which it mainly contemplates.
The doom here pronounced upon the tempter must be regarded as special and secondary. It refers to the malignant attack upon man, and foretells what will be the issue of this attempt to spread disaffection among the intelligent creation. And it is pronounced without any examination of the offender, or investigation of his motives. If this had been the first offence against the majesty of heaven, we humbly conceive a solemn precognition of the case would have taken place, and a penalty would have been adjudicated adequate to the magnitude of the crime and analagous to the punishment of death in the case of man. The primary act of defiance and apostasy from the Creator must have been perpetrated without a tempter, and was, therefore incomparably more heinous than the secondary act of yielding to temptation. Whether the presence of the tempter on earth intimates that it was the place of his abode in a state of innocence, or that he visited it because he had heard of the creation of man, or that he was there from some altogether different reason, is a vain and unprofitable inquiry.
16. The sentence of the woman consists of three parts: the former two regard her as a mother, the last as a wife. Sorrow is to be multiplied in her pregnancy, and is also to accompany the bearing of children. This sorrow seems to extend to all the mother’s pains and anxieties concerning her offspring. With what solicitude she would long for a manifestation of right feeling toward the merciful God in her children, similar to that which she had experienced in her own breast! What unutterable bitterness of spirit would she feel when the fruits of disobedience would discover themselves in her little ones, and in some of them, perhaps, gather strength from year to year!
The promise of children is implicitly given in these two clauses. It came out also incidentally in the sentence of the serpent. What a wonderful conception is here presented to the minds of the primeval pair! Even to ourselves at this day the subject of race is involved in a great deal of mystery. We have already noticed the unity of the race in its head. But the personality and responsibility of individuals involve great and perplexing difficulties. The descent of a soul from a soul is a secret too deep for our comprehension. The first man was potentially the race, and, so long as he stands alone, actually the whole race for the time. His acts, then, are those not merely of the individual, but of the race. If a single angel fall, he falls alone. If the last of a race were to fall, he would in like manner involve no other in his descent. But if the first of a race fall, before he has any offspring, the race is fallen. The guilt, the depravity, the penalty, all belong to the race. This is a great mystery. But it seems to follow inevitably from the constitution of a race, and it has clear evidences of its truth both in the facts and the doctrines of the Bible.
When we come to view the sin of our first parents in this light, it is seen to entail tremendous consequences to every individual of the race. The single transgression has involved the guilt, the depravity, and the death, not only of Adam, but of that whole race which was in him, and thus has changed the whole character and condition of mankind throughout all time.
In the instructions going before and coming after are found the means of training up these children for God. The woman has learned that God is not only a righteous judge, but a forbearing and merciful Father. This was enough for her at present. It enabled her to enter upon the journey of life with some gleams of hope amidst the sorrows of the family. And in the experience of life it is amazing what a large proportion of the agreeable is mingled with the troubles of our fallen race. The forbearance and goodness of God ought in all reason and conscience to lead us back to a better feeling towards him.
The third part of her sentence refers to her husband,—Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. This is evidently a piece of that retributive justice which meets us constantly in the administration of God. The woman had taken the lead in the transgression. In the fallen state, she is to be subject to the will of her husband. “Desire” does not refer to sexual desire in particular. (Gen. 4:7). It means, in general, turn, determination of the will. “The determination of thy will shall be yielded to thy husband, and accordingly he shall rule over thee.” The second clause, according to the parallel structure of the sentence, is a climax or emphatic reiteration of the first, and therefore serves to determine its meaning. Under fallen man, woman has been more or less a slave. In fact, under the rule of selfishness, the weaker must serve the stronger. A spiritual resurrection only will restore her to her true place, as the helpmeet for man.
17–19. The key-word in the sentence of the man is the soil. The curse (Gen. 9:25, n.) of the soil is the want of the fruit trees with which the garden was planted, and of that spontaneous growth which would have rendered the toil of man unnecessary. The rank growth of thorns and thistles was also a part of the curse which it occasioned to man when fallen. His sorrow was to arise from the labor and sweat with which he was to draw from the ground the means of subsistence. Instead of the spontaneous fruits of the garden, the herb of the field, which required diligent cultivation, was henceforth to constitute a principal part of his support. And he had the dreary prospect before him of returning at length to the ground whence he was taken. He had an element of dust in him, and this organic frame was eventually to work out its own decay, when apart from the tree of life.
It is to be observed that here is the first allusion to that death which was the essential part of the sentence pronounced on the fallen race. The reasons of this are obvious. The sentence of death on those who should eat of the forbidden fruit had been already pronounced, and was well known to our first parents. Death consisted in the privation of that life which lay in the light of the divine countenance, shining with approving love on an innocent child, and therefore was begun on the first act of disobedience, in the shame and fear of a guilty conscience. The few traits of earthly discomfort which the sentences disclose, are merely the workings of the death here spoken of in the present stage of our existence. And the execution of the sentence, which comes to view in the following passage, is the formal accomplishment of the warning given to the transgressor of the divine will.
In this narrative the language is so simple as to present no critical difficulty. And, on reviewing the passage, the first thing we have to observe is, that the event here recorded is a turning-point of transcendent import in the history of man. It is no less than turning from confidence in God to confidence in his creature when contradicting him, and, moreover, from obedience to his express and well-remembered command to obedience to the dictates of misguided self-interest. It is obvious that, to the moral character of the transaction, it is of no consequence who the third party was who dared to contradict and malign his Maker. The guilt of man consists simply in disobeying the sole command of his beneficent Creator. The only mitigating circumstance is the suggestion of evil by an external party. But the more insignificant the only ostensible source of temptation, the more inexcusable the guilt of man in giving way to it.
This act altered fundamentally the position and character of man. He thereby descended from innocence to guilt in point of law, and at the same time from holiness to sin in point of character. Tremendous was the change, and equally tremendous the consequence. Death is, like most scriptural terms, a pregnant word, and here to be understood in the full compass of its meaning. It is the privation, not of existence, as is often confusedly supposed, but of life, in all its plenitude of meaning. As life includes all the gratifications of which our human susceptibilities are capable, so death is the privation of all the sources of human enjoyment, and among them of the physical life itself, while the craving for ease and the sense of pain retain all their force in the spiritual part of our nature. These poignant emotions reach their highest pitch of intensity when they touch the conscience, the tenderest part of our being, and forebode the meeting of the soul, in its guilty state, with a just and holy God.
This event is real. The narrative expresses in its strongest terms its reality. The event is one of the two alternatives which must follow from the preceding statements concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and affords an explanation of their nature. It is no less essential to account for that which follows. The problem of the history and condition of man can only be solved by this primeval fact. Conscience still remains an imperishable monument, on the one hand, of his having been formed after a perfect model; and, on the other, of his having fallen from his high estate. And all the facts of his history carry up his fall as far as the traditions of human memory reach.
And the narrative here is a literal record of the details of this great event. So far as regards God and man, the literality has never been questioned by those who acknowledge the event to be real. Some, however, have taken the serpent to be, not a literal, but a figurative serpent; not an animal, but a spiritual being. The great dragon, indeed, is identified with “the ancient serpent called the devil and Satan.” And hence we know that a being of a higher nature than the mere animal was present and active on this occasion. And this spiritual being was with great propriety called the serpent, both from its serpentine qualities and from choosing the serpent as the most suitable mask under which to tempt our first parents. But we cannot thence infer that a literal serpent was not employed in the temptation. The serpent is said to be “more subtle than any beast of the field.” 1st. The obvious meaning of this is, that it was itself a beast of the field. Thus Joseph, whom Israel loved more than all his children, was one of his children (Gen. 37:8). He that was higher than any of the people, was himself one of the people (2 Sam. 9:2). 2d. If the serpent be here figurative, and denote a spirit, the statement that it was subtle above all the beasts of the field is feeble and inadequate to the occasion. It is not so, that man is distinguished from the other animals. In much more forcible language ought the old serpent to be distinguished from the unreasoning brute. 3d. We have seen a meetness in a being of flesh, and that not superior, or even equal to man, being permitted to be employed as the medium of temptation. Man was thereby put at no disadvantage. His senses were not confounded by a supersensible manifestation. His presence of mind was not disturbed by an unusual appearance. 4th. The actions ascribed to the tempter agree with the literal serpent. Wounding the heel, creeping on the belly, and biting the dust, are suitable to a mere animal, and especially to the serpent. The only exception is the speaking, and, what is implied in this, the reasoning. These, however, do not disprove the presence of the literal serpent when accompanied with a plain statement of its presence. They only indicate, and that to more experienced observers than our first parents, the presence of a lurking spirit, expressing its thoughts by the organs of the serpent.
It may be thought strange that the presence of this higher being is not explicitly noticed by the sacred writer. But it is the manner of Scripture not to distinguish and explain all the realities which it relates, but to describe the obvious phenomena as they present themselves to the senses; especially when the scope of the narrative does not require; more, and a future revelation or the exercise of a sanctified experience will in due time bring out their interpretation. Thus the doings of the magicians in Egypt are not distinguished from those of Moses by any disparaging epithet (Ex. 7:10–12). Only those of Moses are greater, and indicate thereby a higher power. The witch of Endor is consulted, and Samuel appears; but the narrative is not careful to distinguish then and there whether by the means of witchcraft or by the very power of God. It was not necessary for the moral training of our first parents at that early stage of their existence to know who the real tempter was. It would not have altered the essential nature of the temptation, of the sentence pronounced on any of the parties, or of the hopes held out to those who were beguiled.
This brings into view a system of analogy and mutual relation pervading the whole of Scripture as well as nature, according to which the lower order of things is a natural type of the higher, and the nearer of the more remote. This law displays itself in the history of creation, which, in the creative work of the six days, figures to our minds, and, as it were, lays out in the distance those other antecedent processes of creative power that have intervened since the first and absolute creation; in the nature of man, which presents on the surface the animal operations in wonderful harmony with the spiritual functions of his complex being; in the history of man, where the nearer in history, in prophecy, in space, in time, in quality, matter, life, vegetative and animate, shadow forth the more remote. All these examples of the scriptural method of standing on and starting from the near to the far are founded upon the simple fact that nature is a rational system of things, every part of which has its counterpart in every other. Hence the history of one thing is, in a certain form, the history of all things of the same kind.
The serpent is of a crafty instinct, and finds, accordingly, its legitimate place at the lowest step of the animal system. Satan seeks the opportunity of tempting Adam, and, in the fitness of things, turns to the serpent as the ready medium of his assault upon human integrity. He was limited to such a medium. He was not permitted to have any intercourse with man, except through the senses and in the way of speech. He was also necessitated to have recourse to the serpent, as the only creature suited to his purpose.
The place of the serpent in the scale of animals was in keeping with the crookedness of its instinct. It was cursed above all cattle, as it was inferior to them in the want of those limbs which serve for rising, moving, and holding; such as legs and arms. This meaning of cursed is familiar to Scripture. “Cursed is the ground for thy seed” (Gen. 3:17). It needed the toil of man to repress thorns and thistles, and cultivate plants more useful and needful to man. “This people who knoweth not the law are cursed” (John 7:49). This is a relative use of the word, by which a thing is said to be cursed in respect of its failing to serve a particular end. Hence the serpent’s condition was a fit emblem of the spiritual serpent’s punishment for its evil doings regarding man.
Through the inscrutable wisdom of the divine providence, however, it was not necessary, or may not have been necessary, to change in the main the state of the natural serpent or the natural earth in order to carry out the ends of justice. The former symbolized in a very striking manner the helplessness and disappointment of the enemy of man. The latter exacted that labor of man which was the just consequence of his disobedience. This consequence would have been avoided if he had continued to be entitled to the tree of life, which could no doubt have been propagated beyond its original bounds. But a change in the moral relation of the heart towards God brings along with it in the unsearchable ways of divine wisdom a change as great in the bearing of the events of time on the destiny of man. While the heart is with God, all things work together for good to us. When the heart is estranged from him, all things as inevitably work together for evil, without any material alteration in the system of nature.
We may even ascend a step higher into the mysteries of providence; for a disobedient heart, that forms the undeserving object of the divine compassion, may be for a time the unconscious slave of a train of circumstances, which is working out its recovery from the curse as well as the power of sin through the teaching of the Divine Spirit. The series of events may be the same in which another is floating down the stream of perdition. But to the former these events are the turning-points of a wondrous moral training, which is to end in reconciliation to God and restoration to his likeness.
A race, in like manner, that has fallen from communion with God, may be the subject of a purpose of mercy, which works out, in the providence of God, the return of some to his home and love, and the wandering of others away further and further into the darkness and misery of enmity with God.
And though this system of things is simple and uniform in the eyes of the only wise God, yet to human view parts of it appear only as special arrangements and retributions, exactly meeting the case of man and serving for his moral education. No doubt they are so. But they are also parts of a constant course of nature, pursued with undeviating regularity, yet ordered with such infallible wisdom as to accomplish at the same time both general and special ends. Hence, without any essential change in the serpent’s natural instincts, it serves for a striking monument of the defeat and destruction of the devil and his works. The ground, without any change in its inherent nature, but merely by the removal, it may be, of the tree of life, is cursed to man, as it demands that toil which is the mark of a fallen race.
The question of miracles, or special interpositions of the divine will and power which cross the laws of nature, is not now before us. By the very definition of miracles they transcend the laws of nature; that is, of that system of events which is known to us by observation. But it does not follow that they transcend a higher law of the divine plan, which may, partly by revelation and partly even by a deeper study of ourselves and things around us, be brought to light. By the investigations of geology we seem compelled to acknowledge a succession of creations at great intervals of time, as a law of the divine procedure on our globe. But, thousands of years before geology was conceived, one such creation, subsequent to the great primal act by which the universe was called into existence, was made known to us by divine revelation. And beside periodical miracle, we find recorded in the book of revelation a series of miracles, which were performed in pursuance of the divine purpose of grace toward the fallen race of man. These are certainly above nature, according to the largest view of it which has ever been current among our philosophers. But let us not therefore imagine that they are above reason or grace,—above the resources and determinations of the divine mind and will concerning the development of the universe.
20, 21. These verses record two very significant acts consequent upon the judgment: one on the part of Adam, and another on the part of God.
20. The man here no doubt refers to two expressions in the sentences he had heard pronounced on the serpent and the woman. “He,” the seed of the woman, “shall bruise thy head.” Here it is the woman who is to bear the seed. And this seed is to bruise the serpent’s head; that is, in some way to undo what had been done for the death of man, and so reinvest him with life. This life was therefore to come by the woman. Again, in the address of the judge to the woman he had heard the words, “Thou shalt bear children.” These children are the seed, among whom is to be the bruiser of the serpent’s head, and the author of life. And in an humbler, nearer sense, the woman is to be the mother of children, who are the living, and perpetuate the life of the race amid the ravages which death is daily committing on its individual members. These glimmerings of hope for the future make a deep impression upon the father of mankind. He perceives and believes that through the woman in some way is to come salvation for the race. He gives permanent expression to his hope in the significant name which he gives to his wife. Here we see to our unspeakable satisfaction the dawn of faith,—a faith indicating a new beginning of spiritual life, and exercising a salutary influence on the will, faintly illuminating the dark bosom of our first parent. The mother of mankind has also come to a better mind. The high and holy Spirit has in mercy withdrawn the cloud of misconception from the minds of both, and faith in the Lord and repentance have sprung up in their new-born souls.
21. As the preceding verse records an instance of humble, apprehending faith in the divine word, so here we have a manifest act of mercy on the part of God, indicating the pardon and acceptance of confessing, believing man, rejoicing in anticipation of that future victory over the serpent which was to be accomplished by the seed of the woman. This act is also suitable to the present circumstances of man, and at the same time strikingly significant of the higher blessings connected with restoration to the divine favor. He had discovered his nakedness, and God provides him with a suitable covering. He was to be exposed to the variations of climate, and here was a durable protection against the weather. But far more than this. He had become morally naked, destitute of that peace of conscience which is an impenetrable shield against the shame of being blamed and the fear of being punished; and the coats of skin were a faithful emblem and a manifest guarantee of those robes of righteousness which were hereafter to be provided for the penitent in default of that original righteousness which he had lost by transgression. And, finally, there is something remarkable in the material out of which the coats were made. They were most likely obtained by the death of animals; and as they do not appear yet to have been slain for food, some have been led to conjecture that they were offered in sacrifice,—slain in prefiguration of that subsequent availing sacrifice which was to take away sin. It is the safer course, however, to leave the origin of sacrifice an open question. Scripture does not intimate that the skins were obtained in consequence of sacrifice; and apart from the presumption derived from these skins, it seems to trace the origin of sacrifice to the act of Habel recorded in the next chapter.
This leads us to a law, which we find frequently exhibited in Sacred Scripture, that some events are recorded without any connection or significance apparent on the surface of the narrative, while at the same time they betoken a greater amount of spiritual knowledge than we are wont to ascribe to the age in which they occurred. The bare fact which the writer states, being looked at with our eyes, may have no significance. But regarded, as it ought to be, with the eyes of the narrator, cognizant of all that he has to record up to his own time, it becomes pregnant with a new meaning, which would not otherwise have been discovered. Even this, however, may not exhaust the import of a passage contained in an inspired writing. To arrive at the full sense it may need to be contemplated with the eyes of the Holy Spirit, conscious of all that is to become matter of revelation to the end of time. It will then stand forth in all the comprehensiveness of meaning which its relation to the whole body of revealed truth imparts, and under the guise of an every-day matter-of-fact will convey some of the sublimest aspects of divine truth. Hence the subsequent scripture, which is the language of the Holy Spirit, may aid us in penetrating the hidden meaning of an earlier part of revelation.
God is the prime mover in this matter. The mercy of God alone is the source of pardon, of the mode in which he may pardon and yet be just, and of the power by which the sinner may be led to accept it with penitence and gratitude. In the brevity of the narrative the results only are noted; namely, the intimation and the earnest of pardon on the side of God, and the feelings and doings of faith and repentance on the side of the parents of mankind. What indications God may have given by the impressive figure of sacrifice or otherwise of the penalty being paid by another for the sinner, as a necessary condition of forgiveness, we are not here informed, simply because those for whom a written record was necessary would learn it more fully at a subsequent stage of the narrative. This suggests two remarks important for interpretation: 1st. This document is written by one who omits many things done and said to primeval man, because they are unnecessary for those for whom he writes, or because the principles they involve will come forward in a more distinct form in a future part of his work. This practice speaks for Moses being not the mere collector, but the composer of the documents contained in Genesis, out of such preëxistent materials as may have come to his hand or his mind. 2d. We are not to import into the narrative a doctrine or institution in all the development it may have received at the latest period of revelation. This would be contrary to the manner in which God was wont to teach man. That concrete form of a great principle, which comported with the infantile state of the early mind, is first presented. The germ planted in the opening, fertile mind, springs forth and grows. The revelations and institutions of God grow with it in compass and grandeur. The germ was truth fitted for babes; the full-grown tree is only the same truth expanded in the advancing development of men and things. They equally err who stretch the past to the measure of the present, and who judge either the past or the future by the standard of the present. Well-meaning but inconsiderate critics have gone to both extremes.

Murphy, J. G. (1873). Notes on the Old Testament: Genesis (pp. 119–135). Boston: Estes and Lauriate.

George Somsel · October 2013

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531270#Comment_531270

David Paul said:
Murphy, J. G. (1873). Notes on the Old Testament: Genesis (pp. 113–119). Boston: Estes and Lauriate.

It appears that Albert wasn't the actual author of the Genesis commentary, btw.

Had you read what I quoted rather than being concerned to correct what you consider to be my incorrect punctuation, you would have noted that it specifically references his commentary on Romans, not Genesis. Thanks, anyway, for taking the time to reply.

David Paul · October 2013

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531273#Comment_531273

I noticed that...or rather noticed Mr. Barnes's reply. LIke I said, it was a general statement, not specifically directed toward you. I was taught that as a kid, too. It was always an "ear" rule, but it causes more problems than it supposedly solves. Even those who use the s' rather than the s's often pronounce it as if they had written s's. There's just no reason to not always pronounce it as s's.

Milford Charles Murray · October 2013

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531275#Comment_531275

Peace to all! *smile*

Wasn't it the old New England Puritans who taught .... "In Adam's Fall --- we sinned all!" *smile*

The New England Primer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Title page, New-England Primer Enlarged, printed and sold at Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin, 1764

The New England Primer was the first reading primer designed for the American Colonies. It became the most successful educational textbook published in 18th century America and it became the foundation of most schooling before the 1790s.

In the 17th century, the schoolbooks in use had been brought over from England. By 1690, Boston publishers were reprinting the English Protestant Tutor under the title of The New England Primer. The Primer included additional material that made it widely popular with colonial schools until it was supplanted by Noah Webster's Blue Back Speller after 1790.

History[edit]

The New England Primer was first published between 1687 and 1690 by English printer Benjamin Harris, who had come to Boston Massachusetts in 1686 to escape the brief Catholic ascendancy under James II. Based largely upon The Protestant Tutor, which he had published in England,^[1]The New-England Primer was the first reading primer designed for the American Colonies.

While the selections in the New England Primer varied somewhat across time, there was standard content for beginning reading instruction. Included were the alphabet, vowels, consonants, double letters and syllabariums of two letters to six letter syllables. The 90-page work contained religious maxims, woodcuts, alphabetical assistants, acronyms, catechisms, and moral lessons. It was made with a thin sheet of horn or paper shellacked to a wooden board. The board was transfixed with a handle.

The primer remained in print well into the 19th century and was even used until the 20th century. A reported 2 million copies were sold in the 18th century. No copies of editions before 1727 are known to survive; earlier editions are known only from publishers' and booksellers' advertisements.

Theology[edit]

Many of its selections were drawn from the King James Bible and others were original. It embodied the dominant Puritan attitude and worldview of the day. Among the topics discussed are respect to parental figures, sin, and salvation. Some versions contained the Westminster Shorter Catechism; others contained John Cotton's shorter catechism, known as Milk for Babes; and some contained both.

Watters argues the Primer was built on rote memorization, the Puritans' distrust of uncontrolled speech and their preoccupation with childhood depravity. By simplifying Calvinist theology the Primer enabled the Puritan child to define the "self" by relating his life to the authority of God and his parents.^[2] Elliott argues the Primer was part of the transformation that turned Puritans away from an angry and wrathful God-the-Father to the embrace of the gentle and loving Jesus Christ.^[3]

Contents of the Primer[edit]

Two of the most famous example verses are as follows

Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep;

If I should die before I wake,

I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take.

—1784 ed.

In Adam's Fall,

we sinned all.

The text for L is alluded to in Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: . . . "like the lion bold, which whilom so magnanimously the lamb did hold" . . .

Bobby Terhune · October 2013

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531317#Comment_531317

From the preface to the commentary on Romans.

Publishers’ Preface

The republication, in this country, of Barnes’ Notes on the Romans, will sustain and extend the author’s well-earned reputation. Those who have been delighted with the perspicuity and elegance of his Notes on the Evangelists and Acts of the Apostles, will admire the same excellencies in the present volume. Regarding the meaning of certain passages in the Epistle to the Romans, many, indeed, will differ from our author. Nor is this difference of opinion surprising. The Epistle is confessedly the most difficult in the New Testament, and has given occasion to much theological controversy.

The principal point, in which Barnes is supposed to differ from orthodox divines, in this country, is the doctrine of imputation; which occupies so conspicuous a place in the opening chapters of the Romans, and is argued at great length in the fifth chapter. In some other points also, of less moment, he may be accused of using inaccurate or unguarded language. To remedy these defects, supplementary Notes have been added in several places throughout the volume; these, however, are invariably printed in a smaller type, to distinguish them from those of the author.

But whatever may be said of the author’s views on imputation and other points connected with it; the most ardent lovers of orthodoxy will be unable to challenge the accuracy of his Notes on predestination and election. In his illustration of chapters 8 and 9, he maintains unconditional election against the Arminian view, and establishes the Calvinistic doctrine of the saints’ perseverance, ch. 8:29; 9:11–15, 20.

Bill Coley · October 2013

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531270#Comment_531270

David Paul said:
You are referring to the Barnes's Notes Barnes, right? (General statement: It should be Barnes's, not Barnes'...your grade school teacher was wrong if she taught you otherwise; hence, Thomas's doubt & Jesus's resurrection, not Thomas' doubt and Jesus' resurrection.)

Actually, if your grade school teacher taught you to use Jesus' rather than Jesus's, he or she was correct...as was your teacher if she or he taught Jesus's. But don't take my word for it. A two minute Google search produces dozens of authorities (e.g. William Strunk in his classic "Elements of Style") who offer the same counsel: The possessive case of nouns ending in "s" is usually, but not always formed by adding 's to the end of the noun. Exceptions to that general rule include nouns whose possessive case an 's makes hard to pronounce, and nouns such as Jesus and Moses whose possessive by tradition has ended in an apostrophe. The final part of the clear consensus among authorities is that writers are free to use either approach to the possessive case of s-ending words, but they should adopt a consistent style in the matter.

Josh · October 2013

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531354#Comment_531354

Bill Coley said:

David Paul said:
You are referring to the Barnes's Notes Barnes, right? (General statement: It should be Barnes's, not Barnes'...your grade school teacher was wrong if she taught you otherwise; hence, Thomas's doubt & Jesus's resurrection, not Thomas' doubt and Jesus' resurrection.)

Actually, if your grade school teacher taught you to use Jesus' rather than Jesus's, he or she was correct...as was your teacher if she or he taught Jesus's. But don't take my word for it. A two minute Google search produces dozens of authorities (e.g. William Strunk in his classic "Elements of Style") who offer the same counsel: The possessive case of nouns ending in "s" is usually, but not always formed by adding 's to the end of the noun. Exceptions to that general rule include nouns whose possessive case an 's makes hard to pronounce, and nouns such as Jesus and Moses whose possessive by tradition has ended in an apostrophe. The final part of the clear consensus among authorities is that writers are free to use either approach to the possessive case of s-ending words, but they should adopt a consistent style in the matter.

s's looks awkward.

s' looks unfinished.

[:S]

David Paul · October 2013

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531384#Comment_531384

I started a reply to Bill's post and decided not to finish it. Josh's reply inspired me to try a different angle. As a teacher, I am well aware of what Strunk, et al. say on the matter. Sometimes "they" are right...and sometimes not. There is a reason for doing these things. There is usually a bad reason for doing the wrong thing. Sometimes "they" support the wrong thing because they support the bad reason. An example is the dropping of the Oxford/Harvard comma that precedes the conjunction at the end of a series. An example is "red, white and blue" (incorrect) versus "red, white, and blue" (correct). The bad reasoning that lead to dropping the comma was "it's just not necessary--the conjunction does the job". So "style-ists" dropped it and proceeded to teach this error to kids, who have grown up doing it wrong...and you now see this error perpetuated in print everywhere you look. But there is a problem that is created by this error which belies the "it's just not necessary" assumption. By not including the O/H comma, you have essentially turned the "series" into two items: "red" & "white and blue".

Disagree? Then let's provide some other examples.

"My three favorite color combinations are black and red, green and blue and purple and yellow." Capice? Compare with...
"My three favorite color combinations are black and red, green and blue, and purple and yellow."

Let's up the stakes:

"My three favorite color combinations are black and red, green and blue and purple, green and yellow." Got that? Good thing we don't need that superfluous O/H comma since the conjunction tells us all we need to know, right? Question: would you send in an order for 30,000 shirts using this information? What would you end up with? Try this now...
"My three favorite color combinations are black and red, green and blue, and purple, green, and yellow." Much better, right? For what it's worth, purple, green, and yellow are the colors of Mardi Gras in my hometown of New Orleans. I don't celebrate it anymore, but I always liked the color scheme.

One more...

"The lunch tray included finger sandwiches of peanut butter and jelly, turkey and swiss and pimento cheese." So, is that "turkey and swiss, and pimento cheese" or "turkey, and swiss and pimento cheese"? Are you sure?

Point is..."they" told us that the Oxford/Harvard comma wasn't necessary, and "they" were wrong. Besides, just the way people say things ought to give you a clue. I was taught that the comma represents a brief pause when speaking. That is a rule of thumb, perhaps, but helpful. What do people say? Red...white and blue? Or red...white...and blue? If you chose the latter, you just reemphasized the NEED for the O/H comma.

Now, back to the the s' versus s's. Whatever is correct, it isn't just a convention for the sake of convention. The correct choice will actually serve a function and purpose. The reason given for not having a single rule--s's--across the board is supposedly because s's can sometimes be "hard to pronounce". That, in a word, is bunk.

"I have three Thomases in my fourth period class." That plural is pronounced exactly as the possessive would be. It isn't hard to pronounce.

"Six Jesuses walked into the news room to proclaim their Second Coming today." If you didn't trip over your tongue to say that sentence, then there is no reason to claim "Jesus's" is too hard to pronounce. It isn't.

There is no shibboleth here, thus there is no valid reason for altering the rule as it applies in all cases...s's.

How it looks is pretty much a matter of what one is used to. Take the process for making words ending in "o" plural. It is, simply put, haphazard. Even the "rules" don't make sense. Musical instruments just get "s", most other things are "es". Why??? The rule for "es" should ALWAYS be "you are pronouncing an 'es', as in churches". Thus pianos, banjos, heros, buffalos, potatos, etc. That's what the rule should be...because IT MAKES SENSE, and what it looks like is wholly irrelevant. Besides, buffalos looks better than buffaloes, but it is still considered wrong. It is wrong to consider it wrong.

...and it doesn't matter what Strunk or E. B. White said about it.

Wild Eagle · October 2013

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531410#Comment_531410

when I read the topic I thought of Mark Barnes' view of sin [:O]

George Somsel · October 2013

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531410#Comment_531410

David Paul said:
I started a reply to Bill's post and decided not to finish it. Josh's reply inspired me to try a different angle. As a teacher, I am well aware of what Strunk, et al. say on the matter. Sometimes "they" are right...and sometimes not. There is a reason for doing these things. There is usually a bad reason for doing the wrong thing. Sometimes "they" support the wrong thing because they support the bad reason. An example is the dropping of the Oxford/Harvard comma that precedes the conjunction at the end of a series. An example is "red, white and blue" (incorrect) versus "red, white, and blue" (correct). The bad reasoning that lead to dropping the comma was "it's just not necessary--the conjunction does the job". So "style-ists" dropped it and proceeded to teach this error to kids, who have grown up doing it wrong...and you now see this error perpetuated in print everywhere you look. But there is a problem that is created by this error which belies the "it's just not necessary" assumption. By not including the O/H comma, you have essentially turned the "series" into two items: "red" & "white and blue".

Styles change. I was also taught to use a comma to separate items in a series (of course, I'm younger than you [;)]), but I accept the new convention. We don't write in the Shakespearian manner today and would be thought strange if we should do so. There really is no ABSOLUTE right and wrong (not even Wright and wrong). It's a matter of convention in communication.

Bill Coley · October 2013

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531410#Comment_531410

David Paul said:
There is no shibboleth here, thus there is no valid reason for altering the rule as it applies in all cases...s's.

There is no rule being altered, David. The rule that applies in all cases is that you may form the possessive of certain nouns via either s's or 's, as long as you do so consistently. That's the rule. The fact that you disapprove of the rule does not rescind its status as a rule. I don't care for the speed limit on a stretch of road I travel regularly. My protests notwithstanding, that's still the speed limit.

And when it comes to matters of English language usage and grammar, what Strunk and White said does matter...in the way that what Einstein said about gravity matters.

Now as for Barnes and sin, as a rule.... [:)]

Randall Cue · October 2013

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531445#Comment_531445

Just look how quickly this thread got hijacked!

Randy

David Paul · October 2013

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531445#Comment_531445

Strunk and White are wrong about how to use closing quotes, also. To say that their opinion is equivalent to Einstein's description of what has widely been proven to be a physical fact is to make a classic apples-to-jack hammers comparison. The missing ingredient is "reason", as in "why". (For what it's worth, if memory serves, S&W would punctuate that previous sentence as..."reason," as in "why.") Einstein had reasons for making his assertions. He may not be entirely right...but that's the point, isn't it? If he wasn't right, it will be proven eventually. I can show why S&W are wrong and have sense on my side, but for most, if I don't have my name on a book like Strunk & White do, then they must be the right ones. But their various opinions have no intrinsic worth unless they are correct. Correct is key. At times, they aren't.

Besides, I'm not the only one who thinks so.

[^o)]

George Somsel · October 2013

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531491#Comment_531491

David Paul said:
Strunk and White are wrong about how to use closing quotes, also.

On what basis do you claim Strunk and White are wrong? Are you a recognized authority on grammar and composition? [^o)]

Michael · October 2013

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531501#Comment_531501

According to the Handbook for Writers, using s' is the preferred method although either is acceptable.

Bill Coley · October 2013

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531491#Comment_531491

David Paul said:
The missing ingredient is "reason", as in "why". (For what it's worth, if memory serves, S&W would punctuate that previous sentence as..."reason," as in "why.")

David, this forum's natives will get restless if we allow this off-topic conversation to continue much longer, so I will cease and desist after this post.

With all due respect, I recommend that you consult some respected grammar guides to review basic punctuation rules because from your posts in this thread I conclude that you are either unfamiliar with them or in open rebellion of them. The latest example is your treatment of commas and quotation marks. In American usage it is *universally* accepted that commas and periods go INSIDE quotation marks. You will no doubt wish to debate this, and perhaps find outlier authorities to support your approach, but in the grammarian community, on this matter there is no debate. None.

The only exception to the absolute position I define here is in British usage, where the rules are more contextual than in American usage. If you were referring to British usage in your post, then I take back my grammar guides recommendation.

End of story.

David Paul · October 2013

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531501#Comment_531501

George Somsel said:

David Paul said:
Strunk and White are wrong about how to use closing quotes, also.

On what basis do you claim Strunk and White are wrong? Are you a recognized authority on grammar and composition?

Common (there's a misnomer!) sense, plus I taught it for 16 years and still do from time to time.

David Paul · October 2013

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531566#Comment_531566

The only valid reason for including punctuation inside the quotes is if the end mark is part of what is being quoted.

Joe retorted, "Like that's ever going to happen!"

The first example below creates a completely false sense of what happened:

Did you see Chris Farley's sketch where he talked about his "weight problem?"
Did you see Chris Farley's sketch where he talked about his "weight problem"?

The second one gives the proper sense, because the question mark wasn't part of what Farley said or how he said it. Including the mark inside the quote gives the impression that he was doubting he had a problem rather than acknowledging it.

David Paul said:
The missing ingredient is "reason", as in "why". (For what it's worth, if memory serves, S&W would punctuate that previous sentence as..."reason," as in "why.")

In my example from above, the only reason the words "reason" and "why" were in quotes was because I was referring to them AS words, i.e. they weren't to be considered in the normal flow of the sentence as one might expect if they weren't being directly referenced. There is NOTHING about "reason," that is comma-ish and there is nothing about "why." that is period-ish. To include those punctuation marks inside the quote marks takes "stupid" to an abysmal nadir--it simply makes NO sense. I don't care how many PhD's say it is correct or preferred. They are wrong.

Plus, it really isn't an issue of "sense" where they are concerned. The reason it was decided the way it was has to do with pre-word processor typewriters and monospaced fonts. It was considered "strange-looking" to have a period or comma floating out "all by itself". (<--like this) But the "deciders" for some reason weren't bothered by "...having the quotation mark floating disconnected from the material in the quotes."

As you can see, neither of the above options is cause for great alarm. In each case they serve a specific, logical function. In the first case, "all by itself" is a phrase that is being highlighted for attention, and as such it provides no reason for the end mark to be sucked into the closing quote. The second example is provided as a direct quote of what someone said, therefore it does include the end mark because what the quoted person said came to an end at that point.

LOGIC drives these decisions, not some beknighted "authoritay".

David Paul · October 2013

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531566#Comment_531566

Bill Coley said:

With all due respect, I recommend that you consult some respected grammar guides to review basic punctuation rules because from your posts in this thread I conclude that you are either unfamiliar with them or in open rebellion of them. The latest example is your treatment of commas and quotation marks. In American usage it is *universally* accepted that commas and periods go INSIDE quotation marks. You will no doubt wish to debate this, and perhaps find outlier authorities to support your approach, but in the grammarian community, on this matter there is no debate. None.

You may as well tell me I should be keeping תורה שבעל פה (the oral torah). The logic is precisely the same: "Because we say so!"

Never gonna happen.

George Somsel · October 2013

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531570#Comment_531570

David Paul said:

George Somsel said:

David Paul said:
Strunk and White are wrong about how to use closing quotes, also.

On what basis do you claim Strunk and White are wrong? Are you a recognized authority on grammar and composition?

Common (there's a misnomer!) sense, plus I taught it for 16 years and still do from time to time.

Well, I've used it for 38 yrs [:D]

David Paul · October 2013

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/531591#Comment_531591

George Somsel said:

Well, I've used it for 38 yrs

Mmmhmm...so, George, tell us. How did Shakespeare say it should be done?

[;)]

Barnes' view of sin

Comments

Categories