081. III. Favorable Probationary Trial.

III. Favorable Probationary Trial. A few words will suffice to make it clear that the testing law of the primitive probation was most favorable to obedience. We require simply a brief statement of the leading facts concerned in the question.

1. Law of Duty Open and Plain.—There was nothing occult or perplexing in the meaning of the duty enjoined. No philosophic acumen or insight was necessary to the fullest comprehension of its meaning. It was simply the duty of abstinence from the fruit of a tree definitely noted. There could be no plainer mandate of duty.

2. Complete Moral Healthfulness of Man. —As yet there was no impulse of vicious or inordinate passion; no clouding or perversion of the moral reason ; no evil habit which might fetter all endeavor toward the good. There was still the full strength of the primitive holiness, with its spontaneous disposition to the obedience of love.

3. Ample Sources of Satisfaction.—The garden which God prepared for man in the eastward of Eden was rich in beauty and plenty. There grew in it “every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food” (Genesis 2:9). There was all that could please the eye and gratify the taste, all that could nourish the physical life. Above all, there was the open presence of God and the privilege of communion with him. Surely the forbidden fruit was no necessity to the completest satisfaction of man.

4. Most Weighty Reasons for Obedience.—This law of the primitive probation was directly and openly from God, whose authority and majesty went forth with its mandate for the enforcement of obedience. Man already knew God in his presence and glory, and must have been deeply sensible to the obligation of obedience to his will. Then the issues of life and death hung on the contingency of obedience or disobedience. Such consequences were the revealed sanctions of the law, and must have been somewhat apprehended in their profound import—surely sufficiently to render them weighty reasons for obedience. With such sanctions of a divine mandate, such weighty reasons for its observance, the soul should be the stronger against the solicitations of temptation, and full and prompt obedience most easy.

If now we combine the four facts set forth in this section, and view them in their relation to the primitive probation, it must be manifest that that probation was most favorable to obedience.