Sacred and common biography are not the same. In the holy volume, the faults even of the best of men are impartially set down, and there we are informed how even such faults were graciously overruled to bring about good. But memoirs written by uninspired men, are apt to dwell chiefly upon the good qualities and actions of their worthies; notwithstanding there are times when the whole character of both the one and the other looks very critical.
Scripture places the origin of evil just where our own sad experience finds it; namely, in the appetency to "know good and evil"; to know what pleasure is to be found by one thing and another, and how it relishes. The secret of our monstrous lust of knowledge is unbelief, or distrust of God; as if he bad omitted to give us every good, because he grudged us something; as if he had some design to withhold or forbid what might yield us further enjoyment.