To deliver him from this state was the great end for which our Lord and Saviour came into the world —
[He came to cast out every idol from our hearts, and to bring us back to God. Not that he grudges us the enjoyment of earthly things; for "he has given us all things richly to enjoyb ;" but he cannot endure that God should have a rival in our hearts. By contemplating man in Paradise, we may form an idea what that state is to which the Lord Jesus Christ seeks to restore us. Before sin had defiled the soul of Adam, he had as rich an enjoyment of earthly things as a creature could possess. But he enjoyed God in them: and it was this which rendered them so sweet to his taste. God was the first and last in all his thoughts. He " dressed, in- deed, and kept" the garden in which he was placed; but it caused him no anxious care ; nor excited any idolatrous at- tachment in his mind ; nor alienated his soul from God, even for a moment. It never unfitted him for communion with God, or deadened the ardour of his affections towards God : no; he walked as before God, every day and all the day long : he walked with God, as a man walketh with his friend. Now, to bring us back to this, is the true end of redemption, and the proper scope of all that God has ever done for our souls.]
Let us now proceed to consider,
II. How great an object this is —
It is the one object aimed at both by the Father and the Son —
[For this the Lord Jesus " Christ gave up himself." For this he left the bosom of his Father : for this he vacated his throne of glory : for this he assumed our nature : for this he lived : for this he died : for this he rose again, and ascended into heaven, and took upon him the government of the world. This is the end he ever keeps in view, in the chastisements he inflicts, and in the blessings he bestows. In all this, the Father also concurred with him. The very proposal, so to speak, originated with the Father; as the Son himself testifies: " Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not : but a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come, (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O Godc." The Father, as is here said, "prepared him a body," and sent him into the world ; and " gave him a commandment, what he should say, and what he should dod." The Father
b 1 Tim. vi. 17. c Ps. xl. 6—8. with Heb. x. 5—7.
d John vi. 38. and xiv. 31.
b2