see meet to transport him into the upper paradise. This promise of life was included in the threatening of death mentioned, Gen. ii. 17. For while God says, "In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die:" it is in effect, If thou do not eat of it, thou shalt surely live. And this was sacramentally confirmed by another tree in the garden, called, therefore, the tree of life, which he was debarred from when he had sinned, Gen. iii, 22, 23. "Lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden." Yet it is not to be thought, that man's life and death hung only on this matter of the forbidden fruit, but on the whole law: for so says the apostle, Gal. iii. 10." It is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things, which are written in the book of the law, to do them." That of the forbidden fruit was a revealed part of Adam's religion; and so behoved expressly to be laid before him: but as to the natural law; he naturally knew death to be the reward of disobedience; for the very heathens were not ignorant of this, "knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death," Rom. i. 32. And moreover the promise included in the threatening secured Adam's life, according to the covenant, as long as he obeyed the natural law, with the addition of that positive command, so that he needed nothing to be expressed to him in the covenant, but what concerned the eating of the forbidden fruit. That eternal life in heaven was promised in this covenant, is plain from this, that the threatening was of eternal death in hell; to which when man had made himself liable, Christ was promised, by his death to purchase eternal life.---And Christ himself expounds the promise of the covenant of works of eternal life, while he proposeth the condition of that covenant to a proud young man, who, though he had not Adam's stock, yet would needs enter into life in the way of working, as Adam was to have done under this covenant, Matt. xix. 17. "If thou wilt enter into life," (viz. eternal life by doing, ver. 16.) "keep the commandments."

The penalty was death, Gen. ii. 17. "In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." The death threatened was such, as the life promised was, and that most justly, to wit, temporal, spiritual, and eternal death. The event is a commentary on this: for that very day he did eat thereof, he was a dead man in law; but the execution was stopped, because of his posterity then in his loins; and another covenant was prepared.---However, that day his body got its death-wounds, and became mortal. Death also seized his soul. He lost his original righteousness, and the favour of God; witness the terrors of conscience, which made him hide himself from God. And he became liable to eternal death, which would have actually followed of course, if a Mediator had not been provided, who found him bound with the cords of death, as a malefactor ready to be led to execution. Thus you have a short description of the covenant inte which the Lord brought man in the state of innocence.

And seemeth it a small thing unto you that earth was thus confederate with heaven? This could have been done to none but him, whom the King of heaven delighted to honour. It is an act of grace, worthy of the gracious God, whose favourite he was; for there was grace, and free favour in the first covenant, though "the exceeding riches of grace," as the apostle calls it, Eph. ii. 7. was reserved for the second. It was certainly an act of grace, favour, and admirable condescension in God, to enter into a covenant; and such a covenant with his own creature. Man was not at his own, but at God's disposal. Nor had he any thing to work with, but what he had received from God. There was no proportion between the work and the promised reward. Before that covenant, man was bound to perfect obedience, in virtue of his natural dependance on God. And death was naturally the wages of sin; God.--And which the justice of God could and would have required, though there had never been any covenant betwixt God and man; but God was free; man could never have required eternal life as the reward of his work, if there had not been such a covenant. God was free to

have disposed of his creatures as he saw meet; and if he had stood in his integrity as long as the world should stand, and there had been no covenant, promising eternal life unto him upon his obedience; God might have withdrawn his supporting hand at last, and so made him creep back into the womb of nothing, whence almighty power had drawn him out. And what wrong could there have been in this, while God should have taken back what he freely gave? But now the covenant being made, God becomes debtor to his own faithfulness. If man will work, he may crave the reward on the ground of the covenant. Well might the angels then, upon his being raised to this dignity, have given him that salutation, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee.

Thirdly, God made him lord of the world, prince of the inferior creatures, universal lord and emperor of the whole earth. His Creator gave him dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, over all the earth, yea, and every living thing that moveth on the earth: "he put all things under his feet, Psal. vii. 6, 7, 8. He gave him a power soberly to use and dispose of the creatures in the earth, sea, and air. Thus man was God's depute-governor in the lower world; and this his dominion was an image of God's sovereignty. This was common to the man and the woman; but the man had one thing peculiar to him, to wit, that he had dominion over the woman also, 1 Cor. xi. 7. Behold how the creatures came to him, to own their subjection, and to do him homage as their Lord; and quietly stood before him, till he put names on them as his own, Gen. ii. 19. Man's face struck an awe upon them: the stoutest creature stood astonished, tamely and quietly adoring him as their lord and ruler. Thus man was "crowned with glory and honour," Psal. viii. 5. The Lord dealt most Tiberally and bountifully with him," put all things under his feet." Only he kept one thing, one tree in the garden out of his hands, even the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

But you may say, And did he grudge him this? I

answer, No: but when he had made him thus holy and happy, he graciously gave him this restriction, which was, in its own nature, a prop and stay to keep him from falling. And this I say, upon these three grounds. (1.) As it was most proper for the honour of God, who had made man lord of the lower world, to assert his sovereign dominion over all, by some particular visible sign; so it was most proper for man's safety. Man being set down in a beautiful paradise, it was an act of infinite wisdom, and of grace too, to keep from him one single tree, as a visible testimony that he must hold all of his Creator as his great landlord; that so, while he saw himself lord of the creatures, he might not forget that he was still God's subject. (2.) This was a memorial of his mutable state given in to him from heaven, to be laid up by him, for his greater caution. For man was created with a free-will to good, which the tree of life was an evidence of: but his will was also free to evil, and the forbidden tree was to him a memorial thereof. It was, in a manner, a continual watch-word to him against evil, a beacon set up before him, to bid him beware of dashing himself to pieces on the rock of sin. (3.) God made man upright, directed towards God as his chief end. He set him like Moses, on the top of the hill, holding up his hands to heaven. And as Aaron and Hur stayed up Moses' hands, (Exod. xvii. 10, 11, 12.) so God gave man an erect figure of body, and forbid him the eating of this tree, to keep him in that posture of uprightness wherein he was created. God made the beasts looking down towards the earth, to shew that their satisfac tion might be brought from thence; and accordingly it does afford them what is commensurable to their appetite. But the erect figure of man's body, which looketh upward, shewed him, that his happiness lay above him in God; and that he was to expect it from heaven, and not from earth. Now this fair tree of which he was forbidden to eat, taught him the same. lesson, that his happiness lay not in enjoyment of the creatures, for there was a want even in paradise. So that the forbidden tree was, in effect, the hand of all

the creatures, pointing man away from themselves to God for happiness. It was a sign of emptiness hung before the door of the creation, with that inscription, This is not your rest.

Fourthly, As he had a perfect tranquillity within his own breast, so he had a perfect calm without. His heart had nothing to reproach him with; conscience then had nothing to do, but to direct, approve, and feast him; and without, there was nothing to annoy him. The happy pair lived in perfect amity; and though their knowledge was vast, true, and clear, they knew no shame. Though they were naked, there were no blushes in their faces; for sin, the seed of shame, was not yet sown, Gen. ii. 25. And their beautiful bodies were not capable of injuries from the air; so they had no need of clothes, which are originally the badges of our shame. They were liable to no diseases nor pains: and, though they were not to live idle; yet toil, weariness, and sweat of the brows, were not known in this state.

Fifthly, Man had a life of pure delight, and unmixed pleasure, in this state. Rivers of pure pleasure run through it. The earth, with the product thereof, was now in its glory; nothing had yet come in to mar the beauty of the creatures. God set him down, not in a common place of the earth, but in Eden, a place eminent for pleasantness, as the name of it imports; nay, not only in Eden, but in the garden of Eden; the most pleasant spot of that pleasant place: a garden planted by God himself, to be the mansion-house of this his favourite. As, when God made the other living crea tures, he said, "Let the water bring forth the moving creature," Gen. i. 20. And, "let the earth bring forth the living creature," ver. 24. But when man was to be made, he said, "Let us make man," ver. 26. So when the rest of the earth was to be furnished with herbs and trees, God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass,and the fruit-tree," &c. Gen. i. 11. But of paradise it is said, "God planted it," chap. ii. 8. which cannot but denote a singular excellency in that garden, beyond all other parts of the then beautiful