to wit, temporal, fpiritual, and eternal death. The event is a commentary on this; for that very day he did cat 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 deaths-wound, and became mortal. Death alfo feized his foul: he loft bis original righteoufnels and the favour of God; witness the gripes and throws of confcience, 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 fhort defcription of the covenant, into which the Lord brought man, in the fate of innocence.

And fermeth it a fmall 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 firft covenant, tho' the exceeding riches of graces (as the apoẞle calls it, Epb. ii 7.) was referved for the fecond. It was certainly an act of grace, favour, and admirable condefcenfion in God, to enter into a covenant: and fuch 2 covenant with his own creature. Man was not at his own, bar 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 promifed reward. Before that covenant, man was bound to perfect obedience, in virque of his natural dependence on God: and death was naturally the wages of fin; which the juftice of God could and would have required, tho' there had never been any cove. mant 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 fuch a covenant God was free to have difpofed of his creature as he faw meet: and if he had tood in his integrity as long as the world fhould fand, and there had been no covenant promifing eternal life to him on hisobedience; God might have withdrawn his fupporting hand at left, and fo made him creep back into the womb of nothing, whence Almighty power had drawn him out.

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And what wrong could there have been in this, while God' fhould 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 railed to his dignity, have given bir that falutation, Hail thou that art hights favoured, the Lord is with thee

Thirdly, God made him lord of the world, prince of the inferior creatures, univerial lord and emperor of the whole earth. His Creator gave him dominion over the fith of the fea, and over the fowls of the air, over all the earth, yea, and every living thing that liveth upon the earth: he put ail things under his feet, Pfal. viii. 6, 7,8. He gave him a power foberly to use and difpofe of the creatures in the earth, fea, and air. Thus man was God's depute governor in the lower world; and this his dominion was an image of God's fovereignty. This was commen to the man and the woman; but the man had one thing peculiar to him, to wit, that he had dominion over the woman alfo, 1 Cor. xi, 7. Behold how the creatures came to hi, to own their fubjection, and to do him homage as their lord, and quietə ly stood before him, till he put names on thein as his own, Gen. ii. 19. Man's face ftruck an awe upon them; the ftouteft creatures flood aftonished, tamely and quictly ad}< ring him as their lord and ruler. Thus was man crowned with glory and honour, Pfal. viii. 5. The Lord dealt turit liberally and bountifully with him, put all things under bia 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 fay, And did he grudge him this " { aufwer, nay; but when he had made him thus holy and happy, he graciously gave him this reftriction, which was in its own nature, a prop and Ray to keep him from falling. And this Ãa fay, upon these three grounds (1.) As it was molt proper for the honour of God, who hath made man lord of the lower world, to affert, his fovereign dominion over all, by forme particula; vifible fign; fo it was moft proper for man's fafety. Man being fet down in a beautiful paradife, it was an act of infinite wildom, and of grace tuo, to keep from bits ond Angle tree, as a vifible telimony, that he oft hold doghis

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Creator, as his great Landlord; that fo while he faw him felf lord of the creatures, he might not forget that he was fill God's fubject. (2) This was a memorial of his mu table ftate given in to him from heaven, to be laid up by him, for his great caution. For man was created with a free will to good, which the tree of life was an evidence of : but his will, was alfo 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 fet up before him, to bid him beware of dafhing himself to pieces, on the rock of fin. (3.) God made man upright, directed towards God as the chief end. He fet him like Mofes, on the top of the hill, holding up his hands to heaven: and as Aaron and Hur ftayed up Mafes's hands, Exod. xvii. 10, II, 12.) fo God gave man an erect figure of body, and forbid him the eating of this tree: to keep him in that posture of uprightnefs, wherein he was created. God made the beafs looking down towards the earth, to fhew that their fatisfaction, might be brought from thence; and accordingly it does afford them what is commenfurable to their appetite: but the erect figure of man's body, which looketh upward, fhewed 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 fame leffon; that his happiness lay not in enjoyment of the creatures, for there was a want even in paradife: fo that the forbidden tree was in eff-ct, the hand of all the creatures, pointing man away from themselves to God for happiness. It was a fign of emptinels hung before the door of the creation, with that infeription. This is not your refl

Fourthly, As he had a perfect tranquillity within his own breaft, fo he had a perfect calm without His heart had nothing to reproach him with; confcience then had nothing to do, but to direct, approve and feaft him: and without, there was nothing to annoy him. The happy pair lived in pefrect amity; and tho' their knowledge was vaft, true and clear, they knew no hame. Tho' they were naked, there were no bluthes in their faces; for fin, the feed of fhame, was not yet fown. Gen. ii. 25. and their beautiful bodies were not capable of injuries from the air; fo they had

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no need of clothes, which are originally the badges of our fhame. They were liable to no diseases, nor pains: and tho' they were not to live idle; yet toil, wearinefs, and, fweat of the brows, were not known in this state.

Fifthly, Man had a life of pure delight, and undreggy pleasure in this flate. Rivers of pure pleasures 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 fet 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 moft pleafant fpot of that pleafant place a garden planted by God himfelf, to be the manfionhoufe of this his favourite. As, when God made the other living creatures, he faid, Let the water bring forth the mo-c ving creature, Gen. i. 20. And. Let the earth bring forth the living creature, ver. 24. But when man was to be made, he faid, Let us make man, ver. 26. So, when the reft of the earth was to be furnished with herbs and trees, God faid, Let the earth bring forth grafs and the fruittree, &c. Gen.i. 11. But of paradise, it is faid, God planted it, chap ii. 8. which cannot but denote a fingular excellency in that garden, beyond all other parts of the then beautiful earth, There he wanted neither for neceffity nor delight for there was every tree that is pleasant to the fight, and good for food. ver. 9. He knew not thefe delights which luxury basinvented for the gratifying of lufts: but his delights were fuch as came out of the hand of God: without paffing thro' finful hands, which readily leave marks of impurity on what they touch. So his delights were pure, his pleasures refined And yet may I shew you a more excellent way : wifdom had entered into his heart: surely then knowledge was pleafant unto his foul. What delight do fome find in their difcoveries of the works of nature, by the scrapes of knowledge they have gathered! but how much more exquifite pleasure had Adam, while his piercing eyes read the book of God's works; which God laid before him, to the end he might glorify him in the fame; and therefore he had furely fitted him for the work! but above all, his knowledge of God, and that as his God and the communion he had with sim, could not but afford him the molt refined and exquifite

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State I. pleasure in the innermoft reseffes of his heart. Great is that delight, which the faints find in thefe views of the glory of God, that their fouls are fometimes let into, while they are compaffed about with many infirmities; but much more may well be allowed to finiefs Adam; no doubt he relished thefe pleasures at another rate.

Leftly, He was immortal. He would never have died, if he had not finned; it was in cafe of fin that death was threatned, Gen. ii. 17, which fhews it to be the confequent of fin, and not of the finlefs human nature. The perfect confliturion of his body, whith came out of God's hand very good; and the righteoufnefs and holinefs of his foul, removed all inward caufes of death: nothing being prepared for the gravela devouring mouth, but the vile body, Phillip. iii, 31. And those who have finned, Job xxiv. 19. And God's (pecial care of his innocent creature, fecured him against outward violence. The apoftle's teftimony is exprofs, Rom. v. 12. By one man fin enteredinto the world, and death by fin. Behold the door by which death came in Satan wrought with his lies till he got it opened, and fo death entered; and therefore is he faid to have been a murderer from the beginning, John viii. 44.

Thus have I fhown you the bolinefs and happiness of man in this fate. If any fhall fay, What's all this to us, who ne ver tafled of that holy and happy ftate? They must know it nearly concerns us, in fo far as Adam was the root of all mankind, our common head and repréfentative; who receieid from God our inheritance and flock to keep it for himfelf and his children, and to convey it to them. The Lord put sell mankind's flock (as it were) in one fhip: and as we curfelves (hould have done, he made our common father the pilot. He put a bleffing in the root, to have been, Brightly managed, diffufed into all the branches. Accor ding to our text, making Adam upright, he made man upright; and all mankind had that uprightuefs in him; for, if the root be bely, fo are the branches. But more of this afterwards. Had Adam flood, none would have quarrelled the representation,