: Apostle, r Tim. ii. 8. will have men to pray, "Lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting:" because, as troubled water is unfit to receive the image of the fun, fo the heart, filled with impure and diforderly affections, is not fit for divine communications. Man's fenfitive appetite was indeed naturally carried out towards objects grateful to the fenfes. For feeing man was made up of body and foul, and God made this man to glorify and enjoy him; and for this end to use his good creatures in fubordination to himself it is plain that man was naturally inclined both to spiritual and fenfible good; yet to fpiritual good. the chief good as his ultimate end And therefore his fenfitive motions and inclinations, were fubordinate to his reafon and will, which lay ftraight with the will of God, and were not, in the leaft, contrary to the fame. Otherwife he should have been made up of contradictions; his foul being naturally inclined to God as the chief end, in the fuperior part thereof; and the fame foul inclined to the creature as the chief end in the inferior part thereof, as they call it which is impoffible; for man, at the fame instant, cannot have two chief ends. Man's affections then, in his primitive state, were pure from all defilement, free from all diforder and distemper, becaufe in all their motions they were duly fubjected to his clear reason, and his holy will. He had alfo an executive power anfwerable to his will; a power to do the good which he knew fhould be done, and which he inclined to do, even to fulfil the whole law of God. If it had not been fo, God would not have required of him perfect obedience; for to fay that "The Lord gathereth where he hath not ftrawed," is but the blafphemy of a wicked heart, against a good and bountiful God, Mat. xxv. 24. From what has been faid, it may be gathered, that the original righteoufnefs explained, was univerfal and natural; yet mutable. FIRST, It was univerfal; both with refpect to the fubject of it, the whole man: and the object of it, the whole law. Univerfal I fay, with refpect to the fubject of it; for this righteousness was diffufed through the whole man; it was a bleffed leaven that · leavened the whole lump. There was not one wrong pin in the tabernacle of human nature, when God fet it up, however thattered it is now. Man was then holy in foul, body, and fpirit: while the foul remained untainted, it's lodging was kept pure and undefiled: the members of the body were confecrated veffels, and inftruments of righteoufnefs. A combat betwixt flesh and spirit, reason and appetite; nay, the least inclination to fin, luft of the flesh in the inferior part of the foul, was utterly inconfiftent with this uprightness, in which man was created: and has been invented to vail the corruption of man's nature, and to obfcure the grace grace of God in Jefus Chrift: it looks very like the language of fallen Adam, laying his own fin at his Maker's door, Gen. iii. 12. The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, fhe gave me of the tree, and I did eat." But as this righteousness was univerfal in refpect of the fubje&t, because it fpread through the whole man, fo alfo it was univerfal, in respect of the object, the holy law: There was nothing in the law, but what was agreeable to his reafon and will, as God made him: the fun hath now fet him at odds with it: his foul was fhapen out, in length and breadth to the commandment, tho' exceeding broad: fo that this original' righteoufnefs was not only perfect in parts, but in degrees. SECONDLY, As it was universal, so it was natural to him, and not fupernatural in that fate. Not that it was effentiai to man, as man; for then he could not have loft it, without the lofs of his very being; but it was con-natural to him: He was created - with it, and it was neceffary to the perfection of man, as he came out of the hand of God: neceffary to constitúte him in a state of integrity. Yet, THIRDLY, It was mutable; it was a righteoufnefs that might be loft, as is manifefted by the doleful event: His will was not abfolutely indifferent to good or evil; God fet it towards good only; yet he did not fix and confirm it's inclinations, that it could not alter. No, it was moveable to evil and that only by man bimfelf. God having given him a fufficient power to stand in this integrity, if he had pleafed: Let no man quarrel God's wo..s in this; for if Adam had been unchangeably righteous, be behoved to have been fo either by nature, or by free gifts by nature he could not be fo, for that is proper to God, and incommunicable to any creature: if by free gift, then no wrong was done him, in with holding of what he could not crave. Confirmation in a righteous ftate, is a reward of grace, given upon continuing righteous thro' the ftate of trial; and would have been given to Adam, if he had ftood out the time appointed for probation by the Creator; and accordingly is given to the faints, upon the account of the merits of Chrift, who was obedient even to the death. And herein believers have the advantage of Adam, that they can never totally nor finally fall away from grace. Thus was man made originally righteous, being created in God's own image, Gen. i. 27. which confifts in the pofitive qualities of knowledge, righteoufnefs and holiness, Col. iii. 10. Ephef. iv. 24. All that God made was very good, according to their feveral natures, Gen. i. 31. And fo was man morally good, being made after the image of Him who is "good and upright," Pfal. xxv. 8. Without this, he could not have answered the great end of his creation, which was to know, love, and ferve his God, according to his will. Nay, he could not be created otherwife: for he behoved either to be conform to the law, in his powers, principles, and inclinations, or not: if he was, then he was righteous; and if not, he was a finner, which is abfurd and horrible to imagine. Of Man's Original Happiness. SECONDLY, 1 fhall lay before you fome of thofe things which did accompany or flow from the righteoufnefs of man's primitive ftate: Happiness is the refult of holiness; and as it was an holy, fo it was an happy state. Fifft, Man was then a very glorious creature. We have reafon to fuppofe, that as Mofes's face fhone when he came down from the mount; fo man had a very lightfome and pleasant countenance, and beautiful body, while as yet there was no darkness of fin in him at all. But feeing God himself is glorious in holiness, (Exod. xv. 11.) furely that fpiritual comeliness the Lord put upon man at his creation, made him a very glorious creature. O how did light fhine in his holy converfation, to the glory of the Creator! while every action was but the darting forth of a ray and beam of that glorious, unmixed light, which God had fet up in his foul; while that lamp of love, lighted from heaven, continued burning in his heart, as in the holy place; and the law of the Lord, put in his inward parts by the finger of God, was kept by him there, as in the most holy: There was no impurity to be feen without; no fquint-look in the-eyes, ter any unclean thing; the tongue fpoke nothing but the language of Heaven: And, in a word, " The King's Son was all glorious within, and his clothing of wrought gold." SECONDLY, He was the favourite of Heaven: He hone brightly in the image of God, who cannot but love his own image, where-ever it appears. While he was alone in the world, he was not alone, for God was with him: His communion and fellowship was with his Creator, and that immediately for as yet there was nothing to turn away the face of God from the work of his own hands; feeing fin had not as yet entered, which alone could make the breach. : By the favour of God, he was advanced to be confederate with Heaven, in the first Covenant, called, The Covenant of Works. God reduced the Law, which he gave in his creation, into the form of a Covenant, whereof perfect obedience was the condition: life was the thing promifed, and death the penalty. As for the condition, one great branch of the natural Law was, that man elieve whatsoever God fhalt reveal, and do whatsoever he shall com command: Accordingly, God making this Covenant with man, extended his duty to the not eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; and the law thus extended, was the rule of man's Covenant-obedience. How eafy were these terms to him, who had the natural Law written on his heart; and that inclining him to obey this pofitive Law, revealed to him, it seems by an audible voice, (Gen. ii. 16.) the matter whereof was fo very easy. And indeed it was highly reafonable that the rule and matter of his Covenant-obedience fhould be thus extended: that which was added, being a thing in itself indifferent, where his obedience was to turn upon the precife point of the will of -God, the plainest evidence of true obedience, and it being in an external thing, wherein his obedience or difobedience would be moft clear and confpicuous. Now, upon this condition, God promifed him life; the conti-. nuance of natural life in the union of foul and body; and of fpiritual life in the favour of his Creator: he promised him alfo eternal life in heaven, to have been entered into, when he should have paffed the time of his trial upon earth, and the Lord thould fee meet to tranfport him into the upper Paradife. This promife of life was included in the threatning of death mentioned, Gen. ii. 17. For while God fays, "In the day thou eateft there. of, thou shalt furely die :" it is in effect, " If thou do not eat of it, thou shalt surely live:" And this was facramentally confirmed by another tree in the garden, called therefore, the Tree of Life, which he was debarred from, when he had finned, Gen. iii, 22, 23. "-Left he put forth his hand, and take alfo of the Tree of Life and eat and live for ever. Therefore the Lord God fent 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 fo fays the Apostle, Gal. iii. 10. It is written, Curfed 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-exprefly to be laid before him; but as to the natural Law, he naturally knew death to be the reward of difobedience; for the very Heathens were not ignorant of this: "Knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit fuch things are worthy of death," Rom. i. 32. And, moreover, the promise included in the threatning, fecured Adam's life according to the Covenant, as long as he obeyed the natural Law, with the addition of that pofitive command; fo that he needed nothing to be expreffed to him in the covenant but what concerned the eating of the forbidden fruit; That eternal life in C heaven heaven was promifed in this Covenant, is plain from this, that the threatening was of eternal death in hell; to which when man had made himfelf liable, Chrift was promifed, by his death to purchase eternal life and Chrift himself expounds the promise of the Covenant of Works of eternal life, while he promiseth the condition of that Covenant to a proud young man, who, tho' 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, Matth. 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 eateft thereof thou fhalt furely die." The death threatened was fuch as the life promised was; and that moft justly, to wit, temporal, fpiritual, 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 ftopped, because of his pofterity then in his loins; and another covenant was prepared; however, that day his body got its death's-wound, and became mortal. Death alfo feized his foul: he loft his original righteoufnefs and the favour of God; witnefs the gripes and throws of Confcience, which made him hide himself from God. And he bed came liable to eternal death, which would have actually followe 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, into which the Lord brought man, in the eftate of innocence. of And feemeth 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 whofe favourite he was; for there was grace and free favour in the first covenant, tho' the exceeding riches of grace," (as the Apoftle calls it, Eph. ii. 7.) was referved for the fecond. It was certainly an act grace, favour, and admirable condefcenfion in God, to enter into a Covenant; and fuch a Covenant with his own creature. Man was not at his own, but at God's difpofal: 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, it virtue of his natural dependence on God: and death was naturally the wages of fin; which the juftice of God could and would bave required, tho' there had never been any covenant betwixt God and man: but God was free; man could never have reuired eternal life as the reward of his work, if there had not been |