therefore the more awful the sanctions were, the more likely they were to answer the desired end ; and the more gracious was God in annexing them to the prohibition.]
2. As a covenant —
[It is but a small thing to say concerning the covenant, that it was just : we go much further ; and affirm, that it was in the highest degree favourable and advantageous to all who were interested in it. Consider the state in which Adam was, when subjected to the temptation ; and compare with it the state in which we should meet temptation, supposing every one of us to be called forth to the trial as soon as ever we entered into the world : he was perfect ; we are imperfect : he was in full possession of all his faculties ; we should begin our conflict while all the powers of our souls were in a state of infantine weakness : he was exposed to only one temptation, and that apparently easy to be withstood, on account of his having no evil disposition to close with it; we should be assaulted with ten thousand temptations, with every one of which we have a proneness to comply : he conflicted with his enemy who was yet unskilled in the work of beguiling souls ; we should engage him after his skill has been augmented by the experience of six thousand years : he was fortified by the consideration that not his own happiness only, but that also of all his posterity, depended on him ; whereas we should have no other motive to stedfastness than a regard to our own personal welfare. Let any one compare these states, and then say, whether Adam or We were more likely to fall : and if it appear that his situation was far more conducive to sta- bility than ours, then must it be considered as a great advan- tage to us to have had such a person for our covenant-head. If it be said, that eventually we are sufferers by it ; we may well be satisfied with it ; since if he, with all his advantages, was overcome, there is no hope at all that we, under all our disadvantages, should have maintained our integrity. Nor can we doubt, but that if all the human race had been sum- moned before God at once to hear the proposal of having Adam for their covenant-head, every one of them would have accepted it, as a signal token of the divine goodness.]
Infer,
1. What folly is it to seek for happiness in sin !
[Depraved as every thing is by means of sin, yet is there all that we can wish for in this transient state, together with a liberty " richly to enjoy it." We have not a sense for which God has not provided a suitable and legitimate indulgence. Survey the number, brightness, magnitude, and order of the heavenly bodies ; or the innumerable multitude of animate vol. i. c