which was added being a thing in itself indifferent, where his obedience was to turn upon the precise point of the will of God, the plainest evidence of true obedience, and it being in an external thing, wherein his obedience or disobedience would be most clear and conspicuous.

Now, upon this condition God promised him life: the continuance of natural life, in the union of soul and body; and of spiritual life, in the favour of his Creator. 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: "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 did hang only on this matter of the forbidden fruit, but on the whole law; for so says the apostle, "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 behooved 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." 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: "If thou wilt enter into life, (namely, eternal life, by doing,) keep the commandments."

The penalty was death. "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, namely, 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's-wound, and became mortal. Death also seized his soul: he lost his original righteousness and the favour of God ;-witness the fears 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.

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 was 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" was reserved for the second. It was certainly an act of grace, favour, and admirable condescension in God, to enter into 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 betwixt the work and the promised reward. Before that covenant, man was bound to perfect obedience, in virtue of his natural dependence on God; and death was naturally the wages of sin; 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 creature 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 to him upon his obedience, God might have withdrawn his supporting hand at last, and so made him sink back into the womb of nothing, whence almighty power had drawn him forth. And what wrong could there have been in this, while God would 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 this salutation, "Hail! thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee."

3. 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 fowls of the air, over all the earth, yea, and every living thing that moveth upon the earth: he "put all things under his feet." He gave him a power soberly to use and dispose of the creatures in the earth, sea, and air. Thus man

was God's deputy-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, namely, that he had dominion over the woman also. Behold how the creatures came unto 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 Man's face struck an awe upon them; the stoutest creatures stood astonished, tamely and quietly owning him as their lord and ruler.

own.

"crowned with glory and honour."

Thus was man The Lord dealt

most liberally 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, Nay; but when he had made him thus holy and happy, he graciously gave him this restric

tion, 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 him from 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 to him from heaven, 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 watchword to him against evil; a beacon set up before him, to bid him beware of dashing himself to pieces on the rock of sin. God made man upright, directed towards God as the chief end. God made the beasts looking down towards the earth, to show that their satisfaction might be brought from thence; and, accordingly, it does afford them what is suited to their appetite : but the erect figure of man's body, which looketh upward, showed 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:

3.