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Source: Church History Vol. 3 Chapter 34 Page: 655 (~1872)

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655 to pass into tedious and uninviting detail, glance rapidly through the galaxy of names which have by so common use become familiar to us.

"Adam has to some men become a myth, a thing of the brain originally, and a thing of the brain still. To others he is a type, a symbol, typifying a principle, a spiritual entity. To others again, the man, Adam, was and is the sole delinquent responsible for the woes of man through his transgression. To us, however, Adam was a reality, an entity, a being like ourselves; save only, that being created in the image of God he was in physical development the best type of what man should be. He became, like us, subject to a condition of sin and death. To him there came the offer of life, and he was thankful for the terms. He was tempted as a man, fell as a man, and was saved as a man. We must judge him from the standpoint of his own age, as to the crime of his transgression; and if he must answer according to the 'eternal judgment of God, there are no grounds for our animadversions upon the turpitude of his transgression. And although we must, by reason of our being in the line of the perpetuation of his species, partake of his condition after his transgression, we do not, nor can we answer for any part of his moral sin. Adam lived and died. It is to be our lot to live and to die. What Adam was to the generation immediately succeeding him, he ought to be to us; an exemplar rather than a hero looming up unto unattainable proportions.

"Moses, the Israelitish [Israelites] lawgiver, in his day accomplished much towards humanizing succeeding generations, having been made the instrument of laying a foundation for the enactment of nearly every law affecting human rights now known among men; yet Moses was a man similar in passions and human frailties to the men of our own age. And, if we judge from some things occurring in the sacred history of his connection with many noted events, there were many of his own compeers who did not stand in awe of him. We regard Moses both in the office of lawgiver and as a man; nor are we willing that the glory with which he was permitted to rule over Israel shall so dazzle us that

(page 655)

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