1 Socinians call for the word ' Satisfaction,' others call for the word ' Sacrament/ others call for the word ' Trinity,' and others call for the word ' Sabbath,' for Lord's day, &c. ; and thence conclude against Satisfaction, Sacraments, Trinity, Sabbath, for want of ex- press words, when the things themselves are plainly and lively set down, in other words, in the blessed Scriptures; so it is in this case of God's covenant with Adam. The vanity and folly of such ways of reasoning is sufficiently demonstrated by all writers upon thos© subjects that are sound in the faith, &c.
' Qu. * explanatory ' ? — G.
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choice. Eve confessetli that God spake unto them both, and said, ' Ye shall not eat of it,' Gen. iii. 2 ; and God speaks unto both of them to- gether in these words, ' Behold, I have given unto you every herb, and every tree,' &c., Gen. i. 19. At which time also it is very like that he gave them the other prohibition of not eating of that one tree ; for if God had made that exception before, he would not have given a general permission after ; or if this general grant had gone before, the exception coming should seem to abrogate the former grant. The Septuagint seem to be of this mind, that this precept was given both to Adam and Eve, reading thus in the plural number, ' In what day ye shall eat thereof ye shall die.' ^ And though, in the original, the precept be given in the name of Adam only, that is only (1.) Because Adam was the more principal, and he had the charge of the woman ; and (2.) Because that the greatest danger was in his transgression, which was the cause of the ruin of his posterity ; (3.) Because, as Mercerus well observes, Adam was the common name both of the man and woman, Gen. v. 2, and so is taken, ver. 15. And God, on his part, for the present, permits Adam to eat of all other trees of the garden ; and for the future, in his explicit threatening of death in case of dis- obedience, implicitly promiseth life in case of obedience herein.
[2.] Secondly, The promises of this covenant on God's part were very glorious — First, That heaven, and earth, and all creatures should continue in their natural course and order wherein God had created and placed them, serving always for man's use, and that man should have the benefit and lordship of them all. Secondly, As for natural life, in respect of the body, Adam should have had perfection without defect, beauty without deformity, labour without weariness. Thirdly, As for spiritual life, Adam should never have known what it was to be under terrors and horrors of conscience, nor what a wounded spirit means, Prov. xviii. 14 ; he should never have found ' the arrows of the Almighty sticking fast in him, nor the poison thereof drinking up his spirits, nor the terrors of God to set themselves in array against him,' Job vi. 4 ; nor he should never have tasted of death. Death is a fall that came in by a faU. Had Adam never sinned, Adam had never died ; had Adam stood fast in innocency, he should have been translated to glory without dissolution. Death came in by sin, and sin goeth out by death. As the worm kills the worm that bred it, so death kills sin that bred it. Now where there are parties covenant- ing, promising, and agreeing upon terms, and terms mutually agreed upon by those parties, as here, there is the substance of an express covenant, though it be not formally and in express words called a covenant. This was the first covenant which God made with man, and this is called by the name Berith, Jer. xxxiii. 20, where God saith, * If you can break my covenant of the day and night, and that there shall not be day and night in their season,' ver. 21, ' then may also my covenant with David be broken.' In these words he speaks plainly of the promise in the creation, that day and night should keep their course, and the sun, moon, and stars, and all creatures, should serve for man's use. Gen. i. 14-16. Now though man did break the cove- nant on his part, yet God, being immutable, could not break covenant
^ So doth Gregory read as the Septuagint does.— (?re^. Moral, lib. xxxv. cap. 10.
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on his part, neither did he suffer his promise to fail ; but, by virtue of Christ promised to man in the new covenant, he will keep touch with man so long as mankind hath a being on the earth. In this first covenant, God promised unto man life and happiness, lordship over all the creatures, liberty to use them, and all other blessings which his heart could desire, to keep him in that happy estate wherein he was created. And man was bound to God to walk in perfect righteous- ness, to observe and keep God's commandments, and to obey his will in all things which were within the reach of his nature, and so far as was revealed to him. In the first covenant, God revealed himself to man as one God, Creator, and Governor of all things, infinite in power, wisdom, goodness, nature, and substance. God was man's good Lord, and man was God's good servant ; God dearly loved man, and man greatly loved God with all his heart. There was not the least shadow or occasion of hatred or enmity between them ; there was nothing but mutual love, mutual delight, mutual content, and mutual satisfaction between God and man. Man, in his primitive glory, needed no mediator to come between God and him. Man was perfect, pure, up- right, and good, created after God's own image ; and the nearer he came to God, the greater was his joy and comfort. God's presence now was man's great dehght, and it was man's heaven on earth to walk with God. But,