Author: Henry Thomas Braithwaite

Publisher: Rarebooksclub.com

Published: 2013-09

Total Pages: 68

ISBN-13: 9781230132990

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1872 edition. Excerpt: ...nor can the splendour of even Milton's genius suffice to rehabilitate the character of the legend; for while the great poet passes over the obvious fapt that evil was already present in the garden, to wit, in the tree, besides certain other awkward circumstances; he allows Satan to elude the vigilance of God in the persons of his archangelic sentinels. What then becomes of Omniscience? But to this day, do we know anything whatever of an Evil Principle, rival of God? Not a tittle, notwithstanding the stupendous price man is said to be always paying for the discovery. Even to imagine the co-existence of God and Devil is purely unreasonable; not to add that, according to the doctrine of the Trinity, the former in respect of might is not only three in one, but triune to one. Yet the equilibrium of powers assumed by belief in the Devil would demand also a trinity of Evil. 1 Fancies of this kind have no doubt much to do with the triste element in English life. But how inharmonious they are with the &vi)fnSji.oy yiAaa)j.a of nature, and even of her Lord. It was, of course, easy and safe for the composer of this singular fable, to describe death as the original penalty of disobedience, but it was assumed by him as the sole common heritage of mankind. From that bourne1 no one had ever returned, so no one could absolutely confute him. But birth and marriage are, upon the side of good, equally the general appanage, and outweigh the gloomy third liability. Moreover, Adam and Eve, were they mankind, and not already (as gods, '2 could not have been immortal. The imposition then, as a doom, of an end they could not avoid is manifestly purposeless, unless to cause mere apprehension, which were petty. And is it to be assumed that the animals were immortal...