goodness as God was invited to exercise by the consideration of man's obedience. And as the neglect of his duty had discharged the obligation on God's part, so the performance gave him a claim by right of the promise to everlasting life.

2. As the first part of the alliance was most reasonable, so was the second, that death should be the wages of sin. It is not conceivable that God should continue his favour to man, if he turned rebel against him: for this were to disarm the law, and expose the authority of the lawgiver to contempt, and would reflect upon the wisdom of God. Besides, if the reasonable creature violates the law, it necessarily contracts an obligation to punishment. So that if the sinner who deserves death, should enjoy life, without satisfaction for the offence, or repentance to qualify him for pardon, (both which were without the compass of the first covenant) this would infringe the unchangeable rights of justice, and disparage the divine purity.

In the first covenant there was a special clause, which respected man as the inhabitant of paradise, that he should "not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil" upon pain of death, Gen. 2. 17. And this prohibition was upon the most wise and just reasons.

1. To declare God's sovereign right in all things. In the quality of Creator he is supreme Lord. Man enjoyed nothing but by a derived title from his bounty and allowance, and with an obligation to render to him the homage of all. As princes, when they give estates to their subjects, still retain the royalty, and receive a small rent, which, though inconsiderable in its value, is an acknowledgment of dependance upon them: so when God placed Adam in paradise, he reserved this mark of his sovereignty, that in the free use of all other things, man should abstain from the forbidden tree.

2. To make trial of man's obedience in a matter very congruous to discover it. If the prohibition had been grounded on any moral internal evil in the nature of the thing itself, there had not been so clear a testimony of God's dominion, nor of Adam's subjection to it. But when that which in itself was in

* In minimis obedientiæ periculum faciunt legislatores, quia legislatoris ad obedientiam obligantis potius habenda est ratio, quam rei de qua lex lata est.

different, became unlawful merely by the will of God, and when the command had no other excellency but to make his authority more sacred; this was a confining of man's liberty, and to abstain was pure obedience.

Besides, the restraint was from that which was very grateful, an alluring to both the parts of man's compounded nature. The sensitive appetite is strongly excited by the lust of the eye; and this fruit being beautiful to the sight, (Gen. 3. 6.) the forbearance was an excellent exercise of virtue in keeping the lower appetite in obedience. Again, the desire of knowledge is extremely quick and earnest, and, in appearance, most worthy of the rational nature; nullus animo suavior cibus. Lactant. It is the most high and luscious food of the soul. Now the tree of knowledge was forbidden; so that the observance of the law was the more eminent, in keeping the intellectual appetite in mediocrity. In short, God required obedience as a sacrifice. For the prohibition being in a matter of natural pleasure, * and a curb to curiosity, which is the lust and concupiscence of the mind after things concealed; by a reverend regard to it, man presented his soul and body to God as a living sacrifice, which was his reasonable service. Rom. 12. 1.

* Obsequii gloria est in eo major, quod quis minus velit. Plin.

CHAP. II.

Man's natural state was mutable. The devil, moved by hatred and envy, attempts to seduce him. The temptation was suitable to man's compounded nature. The woman being deceived, persuades her husband. The quality of the first sin. Many were combined in it. It was perfectly voluntary. Man had power to stand. The devil could only allure, not compel him. His understanding and will the causes of his fall. The pu nishment was of the same date with his sin. He forfeited his righteousness and felicity. The loss of original righteousness, as it signifies the purity and liberty of the soul. The torment of conscience that was consequent to sin. A whole army of evils enter with it into the world.

MAN

AN was created perfectly holy, but in a natural, therefore mutable state. He was invested with power to prevent his falling, yet under a possibility of it. He was complete in his own order, but receptive of sinful impressions. An invincible perseverance in holiness belongs to a supernatural state; it is the privilege of grace, and exceeds the design of the first creation.

The rebellious spirits, who by a furious ambition had raised a war in heaven, and were fallen from their obedience and glory, designed to corrupt man, and to make him a companion with them in their revolt. The most subtile amongst them sets about this work, urged by two strong passions, hatred and envy.

1. By hatred. For being under a final and irrevocable doom, he looked on God as an irreconcilable enemy: and not being able to injure his essence, he struck at his image: as the fury of some beasts discharges itself upon the picture of a man. He singled out Adam as the mark of his malice, that by seducing him from his duty, he might defeat God's design, which was to be honoured by man's free obedience, and so obscure his glory

as if he had made man in vain.

2. He was solicited by envy, the first native of hell: for having lost the favour of God, and being cast out of heaven, the region of joy and blessedness, the sight of Adam's felicity exasperated his grief. That man, who by the condition of his nature, was below him, should be prince of the world, whilst he was a prisoner under those chains which restrained and tormented him, the power and wrath of God, this made his state more in

tolerable. His torment was incapable of allay, but by rendering man as miserable as himself. And as hatred excited his envy, so envy inflamed his hatred, and both joined in mischief. And thus pushed on, his subtilty being equal to his malice, he contrives a temptation, which might be most taking and dangerous to man in his raised and happy state. He attempts him with art, by propounding the lure of knowledge and pleasure, to inveigle the spiritual and sensitive appetites at once. And that he might the better succeed, he addresses to the woman, the weakest and most liable to seduction. He hides himself in the body of a serpent, which before sin was not terrible unto her: and by this instrument insinuates his temptation. He first allures with the hopes of impunity, "ye shall not die;" then he promiseth an universal knowledge of "good and evil." By these pretences he ruined innocence itself. For the woman deceived by those specious allectives, swallowed the poison of the serpent, and having tasted death, she persuaded her husband, by the same motives, to despise the law of their Creator. Thus sin entered, and brought confusion into the world. For the moral harmony of the world consisting in the just subordination of the several ranks of beings to one another, and of all to God; when man who was placed next to God broke the union, his fall brought a desperate disorder into God's government.

And though the matter of the offence seems small, yet the disobedience was infinitely great; it being the transgression of that command, which was given to be the instance and real proof of man's subjection to God. Totam legem violavit in illo legalis obedientiæ præcepto. Tertul. The honour and majesty of the whole law was violated in the breach of that symbolical precept. It was a direct and formal rebellion, a public renunciation of obedience, an universal apostacy from God, and change of the last end, that extinguished the habit of original righteousness. Many sins were combined in that single act.

1. Infidelity: this was the first step to ruin. It appears by the order of the temptation: it was first said by the devil, "ye shall not die," to weaken their faith; then, "ye shall be like gods," to flatter their ambition. The fear of death would have controlled the efficacy of all his arguments; till that restraint was broke, he could fasten nothing upon them. This account the apostle gives of the fall, 1 Tim. 2. 14. "The woman being deceived, was in

the transgression." As obedience is the effect of faith, so disobedience of infidelity: and as faith comes by hearing the word of God, so infidelity by listening to the words of the devil. From the deception of the mind proceeded the depravation of the will, the intemperance of the appetite, and the defection of the whole man. Thus as the natural, so the spiritual death made its first entrance by the eye. And this infidelity is extremely aggravated, as it implies an accusation of God both of envy and falsehood.

*

1. Of envy; as if he had denied them the perfections becoming the human nature, and they might ascend to a higher orb than that wherein they were placed, by eating the forbidden fruit. And what greater disparagement could there be of the divine goodness, than to suspect the Deity of such a low and base passion, which is the special character of the angels of darkness? 2. It was equally injurious to the honour of God's truth. For it is not easy to conceive, that Adam, who was so lately the effect of God's omnipotence, should presently distrust it as unable to inflict the punishment threatened, but his assent was weakened as to the truth of the threatening: he did not believe the danger to be so great or certain upon his disobedience. And he that "believes not God, makes him a liar." 1 John 5. 16. An impiety not to be thought on without horror. And that which heightens the affront, is, that when he distrusted the fountain of truth, he gave credit to the father of lies; as appears by his compliance, the real evidence of his faith. Now what viler contumely could be offered to the Creator?

2. Prodigious pride: † he was scarce out of the state of nothing, no sooner created, but he aspired to be as God. Not content with his image, he affected an equality, to be like him in his inimitable attributes. He would rob God of his eternity to live without end; of his sovereignty, to command without dependance; of his wisdom to know all things without reserve. Infinite insolence! and worthy of the most fiery indignation! That man, the son of the earth, forgetful of his original, should usurp the prerogatives which are essential to the Deity, and set up himself

* Primi in homine monentur oculi, Plin.

+ The promise of the tempter that they should not die, encouraged him to believe that he should enjoy an immortality, not depending on God's will, but absolute; which is proper to God alone.