First, The punishment that was threatened unto and inflicted on the disobedience of Adam. Whatever there is of disorder, darkness, or confusion, in the nature of things here below; whatever is uncer- tain, irregular, horrid, unequal, destructive, in the universe; what- ever is penal unto man, or may be so, in this life or unto eternity; whatever the wrath of the holy, righteous God, revealing itself from heaven, hath brought, or shall ever bring, on the works of his hands, —are to be referred unto this head. Other original of them can no man assign.
Secondly, The moral corruption of the nature of man, the spring of all sin, the other head of evil, proceeded hence also; for by this
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146 MESSIAH, THE DELIVERER FROM EVIL, [EXERC. VIII
means, that which before was good and upright is become an inex- haustible treasure of sin. And this was the state of things im the world immediately upon the sin and fall of Adam.
Now, the work which we assign unto the Messiah is the deliver- ance of mankind from this state and condition. Upon the supposi- tion, and revelation, of this entrance of sin, and the evil that ensued thereon, is the whole doctrine of his office founded, as shall after- wards more largely be declared. And because we contend against the Jews that he was promised and exhibited for a relief, in the wis- dom, grace, and righteousness of God, against this sin and misery of mankind, as our apostle also expressly proveth, chap. i. of his Epistle unto them; this being denied by them, as that which would overthrow all their fond imaginations about his person and office, we must consider what is their sense and apprehension about these things, with what may be thence educed for their own conviction; and then confirm the truth of our assertion from those testimonies of Scripture which themselves own and receive.
6. The First effect and consequent of the sin of Adam, was the punishment wherewith it was attended. What is written hereof nrg in the Scripture, the Jews neither do nor can deny. Death was in the commination given to deter him from his transgression: non ni, Gen. ii. 17 ;—“ Dying, thou shalt die.” Neither can it be reasonably pretended to be singly death unto his own person which is intended in that expression; the event sufficiently evinceth the contrary. Whatever is or might be evel unto himself and his whole posterity, with the residue of the creation, so far-as he or they might be any way concerned therein, hath grown out of this com- mination. And this is sufficiently manifested in the first execution of it, Gen. iii, 16-19. The malediction was but the execution of the commination. It was not consistent with the justice of God to increase the penalty after the sin was committed. The threaten- ung, therefore, was the rule and measure of the curse. But this is here extended by God himself, not only to all the miseries of man (Adam and his whole posterity) in this life, in labour, disappoint- ment, sweat, and sorrow, with death under, and by virtue of, the curse, but to the whole earth also, and consequently unto those superior regions and orbs of heaven by whose influence the earth is as it were governed and disposed unto the use of man, Hos. ii. 21, 22.
It may be yet further inquired, what was to be the duration and continuance of the punishment to be inflicted in the pur- suit of this commination and malediction. Now, there is not any thing in the least to intimate that it should have a term prefixed unto it wherein it should expire, or that it should not be commen- surate unto the existence or being of the sinner. God lays the cwrse on man, and there he leaves him, and that for ever. <A miserable
SECT. 6.] PROMISED OF OLD. 147
life he was to spend, and then to die under the curse of God, with- out hope of emerging into a better condition. About his subsist- ence after this life we have no controversy with the Jews. They all acknowledge the «immortality of the soul; for the sect ot the Saddu- cees is long since extinct, neither are they followed by the Karaites in their atheistical opinions, as hath been declared. Some of them, indeed, incline unto the Pythagorean metempsychosis, but all ac- knowledge the soul’s perpetuity.
Supposing, then, Adam to die penally under the curse of God,— as without extraordinary relief he must have done, the righteousness and truth of God being engaged for the execution of the threatening against him,—I desire to know what should have been the state and condition of his soul? Doth either revelation or reason intimate that he should not have continued for ever under the same penalty and curse, in a state of death or separation from God? And if he should have done so, then was death eternal in the commination. This is that which, with respect unto the present effects in this life, and the punishment due to sin, is termed by our apostle 4 épyq épycouévn, 1 Thess. 1. 10, “ the wrath to come,” from whence the Mes- siah is the deliverer.
Nor will the Jews themselves contend that the guilt of any sin respects only temporal punishment. The event of sin unto them- selves they take to be that only; imagining their observation of the law of Moses, such as it is, to be a sufficient expiation of punishment eternal: but unto all strangers from the law, all that have not a re- lief provided, they make every sin mortal; and Adam, as I suppose, had not the privilege of the present Jews, to observe Moses’ law. Wherefore they all agree that by his repentance he delivered him- self from death eternal: which if it were not due unto his sin, he could not do; for no man can by any means escape that whereof he is in no danger. And this repentance of his they affirm to have been attended with severe discipline and self-maceration ; intimating the greatness of his sin and the difficulty of his escape from the punishment due thereunto. So Rabbi Eliezer, in Pirke Aboth, cap. XX: }POYT PAN YA OWN DID) Nawa Inxa;—“On the first day of the week Adam entered into the waters of the upper Gihon, until the waters came unto his neck; and he afflicted himself seven weeks, until his body became like a sieve. And Adam said before the holy, blessed God, ‘ Lord of the whole world, let my sins, I pray thee, be done away from me, and accept of my repentance ; that all ages may know that