the goodness of God, to give mankind being in a state of misery,
if they did not deserve the curse, they would not depend on grace and redemption for the removal of it, and for bringing them into a state of favor with God.
Another objection, which our author strenuously urges against the doctrine of original sin, is that it disparages the divine goodness in giving us our being; which we ought to receive with thankfulness, as a great gift of God's beneficence, and look upon as the first, original and fundamental fruit of the divine liberality.
To this I answer, in the following observations.
1. This argument is built on the supposed truth of a thing in dispute; and so is a begging the question. It is built on this supposition, that we are not properly looked upon as one with our first father, in the state wherein God at first created him, and in his fall from that state. If we are so, it becomes the whole race to acknowledge God's great goodness to them, in the state wherein mankind was made at first; in the happy state they were then in, and the fair opportunity they then had of obtaining confirmed and eternal happiness; and to acknowledge it as an aggravation of their apostacy; and to humble themselves, that they were so ungrateful as to rebel against their good Creator. Certainly, we may all do this with as much (yea, much more) reason, as the people of Israel in Daniel's and Nehemiah's times, did with thankfulness acknowledge God's great goodness to their fathers, many ages before, and in their confessions bewailed, and took shame to themselves for, the sins committed by their fathers, notwithstanding such great goodness. (See the 9th chapter of Daniel, and 9th of Nehemiah.)
2. If Dr. Taylor would imply in his objection, that it don't consist with the goodness of God, to give mankind being in a state of misery, whatever was done before by Adam, whether he sinned, or did not