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of the affections. And thus the apoftle. 1 Tim. ii. 8. will have men to pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting becaufe, 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 giorify and enjoy him; and for this end to ufe his good creatures in fubordination to himfelf: it is plain that man was naturally inclined both to spiritual and fenfible good; yet to Spiritual good, the chief good as his ultimate end.

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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 fhould 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 fou! inclined to the creatures as the chief end in the inferior part thereof, as they call it which is impoffible; for man at the fame inftant, cannot have two chief ends. Man's affec tions then, in his primitive state, were pure from all defilement, free from all diforder and distemper, because in all their motions they were duly fubjected to his clear reason, and his holy will. He had alfo an executive power aufwerable 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, Mit. xxv. 24, 25

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 respect to the subject of it the whole man; and the object of it, the whole law. Univerfal I fay, with respect to the fubject of it; for this righteousness was diffufed through the whole man; it was a blefied leaven that leaveneth the whole lump. There was not one wrong pin in the tabernacle of human nature, when

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God fet it up: however fhattered it is now. ther holy in foul, body, and fpirit: while the foul remained untainted, its lodging was kept pure and undefiled: the members of the body were confecrated veffels, and inftruments of righteoufnefs. A combat betwixt Beth and spirit, reafon and appetite; nay the left inclination to fin, laft of the flesh in the inferior part of the foul, was utterly inconfiftent with this uprightnefs, in which man was created : and has been invented to vail the corruption of man's nature, and to obfcure the grace of God in Jefus Chrift: it looks very like the language of fallen Adam, laying his own Gn at his Maker's door, Gen. i 12. The woman whom thou gavefi to be with me, he gave me of the tree, and I did cat. But as this righteoufnefs was univerfal in refpect of the fubject, because it spread through the whole man: fo alfo it was univertai, in refpect 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: tho' fin bath 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 righteoufheis was not only perfect in parts, but in degrees.

Secondly, As it was univerfal, fo it was natural to him, and not fupernatural in that ftate. Not that it was effential 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 conftitute him in a state of integrity. Yet.

Thirdly, It was mutable: it was a righteousness 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 fo fix and confirm its inclinations, that it could not alter. No, it was moveable to evil: and that only by man himself. God having given him ર fufficient power to stand in this integrity, if he had pleafed. Let no man quarrel God's works in this: for if ddam had been unchangeably righteous, he behoved to have been fo either by nature, or by free gift: 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 lica, in with holding of what he could not crave, Confiimation in a

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righteous flate, is a reward of grace, given upon contin slag righteous, thro' the ftate of trial; and would have been gi ven to Adam, if he had flood out the time appointed for probation by the Creator; and accordingly is given to the faints, upon the account of the merits of Chrill, whe was obedient even to the death. And herein believers have the advantage of Adam, that they can never totally noi finally fall away from grace.

Thus was man made originally righteous, being eroated in God's 's own image, Cen, i, 27 which confifls in the pofitive qualities of knowledge, rightccufnejs and holineți, Cel, ni, 10. Ephef. iv. 24. All that God made was verygoid, accord. ing to their feveral natures, Gen. i. 31. Andio was men morally good, being made after the inge of him, who is good and upright, Plal, xxv. 8 Without this, he could not have anfwered the great end of bis creation, which was fo know, dove, and feive his God, according to bis will Nay, he could not be created otherwife: for he behoved either to be conform to the law, in his powers, principals and in clinations, or not: if he was, then he was righteous; and if not he was a finner, which is abfurd and horrible to image.

Of MAN's Original Happiness,

SECONDLY, I fhall lay before you fome of those things, which did accompany or flow from the righteoufnels of man's primitive fate. Happiness is the refult of holiness; and as it was an holy, fo it was an happy flate.

Firft, Man was then a very glorious creature. We have reafon to fuppofe, that as Mofer's face thone when he came down from the mount; fo man had a very lightfone and pleafant countenance, and beautiful body, while as yet there was no darknefs of fia in him at all. But feeing God hìntfelfis glorious in holiness, (Exod. xv. 11.) furcly that spintual comeliness, the Lord put upon man at his creation, made him a very glorious creature. O how did light thine 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 gloriaus, 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, after any unclean thing; the tongue spoke 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 fhone brightly in the image of God, who cannot but love his owa image, where ever it appears. While he was alone in the

world, he was not alone, for God was with him. His com. munion and fellowhip 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; fecing 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, 7 he 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 promised, and death the penalty. As for the condition, one great branch of the natural law was, that man believe whatfoever God fhall reveal, and do whatsoever he fhall command: accordingly God ma king 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 thefe terms toh im, who had the natural law written on his heart; and that inclining him to obey this pofitive law, revealed to him, as it seems, by an audible voice. (Gen. ii. 16.) the matter whereof was fo very cafy? And indeed it was highly reasonable that the rule and matter of his covenant obedience should 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 plaine evidence of true obedience, and it being in an external thing, wherein his obedience or disobedience would be most clear and confpicuous.

Now, upon this condition, God promifed him life, the continuance of natural life in the union of foul and boły ; and of fpiritual life in the favour of his Creator: he promife him alfo eternal life in heaven, to have been entered into, when he should have paffed the time of his trial upon

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earth, and the Lord should fee meet to tranfport him into the upper paradise. This promife of life was included in the threatning of death mentioned, Gen. ii. 17 For while God fays. In the day thou eateft thereof, the shalt furely die, it is in effect, If thou do not eat of it, thou halt furely 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. There ́ore 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, Curfedis every one that continueth not in all hings, which are written in the book of the larw to do them. That of the forbidden fruit, was a revealed part of Adam's religion; and to behoved exprefly to be laid be fore him: but as to the natural law; he naturally knew death to be the reward of difobedience; for the very Hea. thens 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 promife 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; so that he needed nothing to be ex preffed 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 threatning was of eternal death in bell; to which when man had made himself liable, Chrift was promifed, by his death to purchase eternal life: and Chrift himself expounds the promife of the covenant of works of eternal life, while he promifeth the condition of that covenant, to a proud young man, who tho' he had not Adam's flock, 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 shalt furely die. The death threatned was fuch, as the life promifed was; and that moft juftly,

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