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CHAPTER II.

Of the Contracting Parties in The Covenant of Works.

of works de

scribed.

I. WE begin with the consideration of the covenant The covenant of works, otherwise called, of the law and of nature; because prescribed by the law, requiring works as the condition, and founded upon and coeval with nature. This covenant is an agreement between God and Adam, formed after the image of God, as the head and root, or representative of the whole human race; by which God promised eternal life and happiness to him, if he yielded obedience to all his commands; threatening him with death if he failed but in the least point and Adam accepted this condition. To this purpose are these two sentences, afterwards inculcated, on the repetition of the law, Lev. xviii. 5, and Deut. xxvii. 26.

In which four things considerable.

II. The better to understand this subject, these four things are to be explained: 1st. The contracting parties. 2dly. The condition prescribed. 3dly. The promises. 4thly. The threatening.

ing parties

Adam.

III. The contracting parties here, are God and The contract- Adan. God, as a Sovereign and supreme Lord, preare God and scribing with absolute power, what he judges equitable: as goodness itself, or the chief good, promising communion with himself, in which man's principal happiness lies, while obeying and doing what is well-pleasing to him as justice itself, or sovereignly just, threatening death to the rebel. Adam sustained a two-fold relation: 1st. As man. 2dly. As head and root, or representative of mankind. In the former relation, he was a rational creature, and under the law to God, innocent, created after the divine image, and endued with sufficient powers to fulfil all righteousness. All these things are presupposed in man, to render him a fit object for God to enter into covenant with.

Who was

made up

IV. Man, therefore, just from the hands of his Maker, had a soul, shining with rays of a divine light, right. and adorned with the brightest wisdom; whereby he was not only perfectly master of the nature of created things, but was delighted with the contemplation of the supreme and uncreated truth, the eyes of his understanding being constantly fixed on the perfections of his God; from the consideration of which he gathered, by the justest reasoning, what was equitable and just, what worthy of God and of himself. He also had the purest holiness of will, acquiescing in God as the supreme

truth, revering him as the most dread majesty, loving him as the chief and only good; and, for the sake of God, holding dear whatever his mind, divinely taught, conceived as pleasing to Him, and like to, and expressive of his perfections; in fine, whatever contributed to the acquiring an intimate and immediate union with him; delighting in the communion of his God, which was now allowed him; panting after further communion, raising himself thereto by the creatures, as so many scales or steps; and finally setting forth the praises of his most unspotted holiness as the most perfect pattern, according to which he was to frame both himself and his actions to the uttermost. This is, as Elihu significantly expresses it, Job xxxiv. 9, "delighting himself with God." This rectitude of the soul was accompanied with a most regular temperature of the whole body, all whose members, as instruments of righteousness, presented themselves ready and active at the first intimation of his holy will. Nor was it becoming God to form a rational creature for any other purpose than his own glory; which such a creature, unless wise and holy, could neither perceive nor celebrate, as shining forth in the other works of God; destitute of this light, and deprived of this endowment, what could he be but the reproach of his Creator, and every way unfit to answer the end of his creation? All these particulars the wisest of kings, Eccl. vii. 29, has thrown together with a striking simplicity, when he says: "Lo! this only have I found, that God hath made man upright."

Neither was

tery of the

state.

V. What I have just said of the wisdom of the first man, ought, I think, to be extended so far, as not to he ignorant suppose him, in the state of innocence, ignorant of the of the mys mystery of the Trinity. For it is necessary above all trinity in this things, for the perfection of the human understanding, to be well acquainted with what it ought to know and believe concerning its God. And it may justly be doubted, whether he does not worship a God entirely unknown, nay, whether he at all worships the true God, who does not know and worship him, as subsisting in three persons. Whoever represents God to himself, in any other light, represents not God, but an empty phantom, and an idol of his own brain. Epiphanius seems to have had this argument in view, when in his Panarius, p. 9, he thus writes of Adam: "He was no idolater, for he knew God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: and he was a prophet, and knew that the Father said to the Son, 'Let us make man.' VI. These last words furnish a new argument: for Knowing that since God, in the work of the creation, manifested himself a Trinity, "the Father made the worlds by the Son," Heb. i. 2, the Holy Ghost cherished the waters by brooding upon them, and the whole Trinity ad

the Creator himself to be work of cre

had shown

three in the

ation.

,ישראל בעשין

dressed themselves, by mutual consultation, to the creation of man, it is not therefore credible that this mystery should be entirely unknown to the Protoplast or first parent; unless we can suppose Adam ignorant of his Creator, who was likewise the Son and the Holy Ghost. It cannot certainly be without design, that the Scripture, when speaking of man's Creator, so often uses the plural number: as Isa. liv. 5, TT, which literally signifies," thy husbands, thy makers;" Ps. cxlix. 2, now、 "Let Israel rejoice in his makers;" nay, requires man to attend to this, and engrave it on his mind, Eccl. xii. 1, 7877 ♫8 71, "Remember thy creators." It is criminal when man neglects it; and says not, Job xxxv. 10, w mbem, "Where is God my makers?" Which phrases, unless referred to a Trinity of persons, might appear to be dangerous. But it is impossible to suppose Adam ignorant concerning his Creator, of that which God does not suffer his posterity to be ignorant of at this time especially as God created man to be the herald of his being and perfections in the new world. But it certainly tends to display the glory of God, that he should particularly celebrate, not only the divine perfections, but likewise how they subsist in the distinct persons of the Deity, and the manner and order of their operation. Admirably to this purpose speaks Bazil of Seleucia, Sermon II. "Take particular notice of that expression, 'Let us make man.' Again, this word used plurally, hints at the persons of the Godhead, and presents a trinity to our knowledge. This knowledge, therefore, is coeval with the creation. Nor should it seem strange, that afterwards it should be taught: since it is one of those things, of which mention is made in the very first creation."

He learned much by re

velation,

did not dis

cover.

:

;

VII. I own, Adam could not, from the bare contemplation of nature, without revelation, discover this which nature mystery. But this I am fully persuaded of, that God revealed some things to man, not dictated by nature. For, whence did he know the command about the tree of knowledge, and whence the meaning of the tree of life, but by God's declaring it to him? Whence such a knowledge of his wife's creation as to pronounce her flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone, but from divine revelation? Seeing, then, God had revealed to man many things, and those indeed not of such moment, can we believe he would conceal from him a thing, the knowledge of which was so highly expedient to the perfection of man, and the glory of God? That learned man, therefore, was mistaken, who insisted, that the knowledge of the Trinity exceeded the happiness of Adam's state, which was merely natural. For it was not so merely natural, that Adam only knew what the alone consideration of nature could suggest. The contrary we have just shown. And it must be deemed

The economy of the peculiar to

Trinity is not

the state of

grace.

natural to that state, that innocent man, who had familiar intercourse with his God, should learn from his own mouth what might render him fitter to celebrate his praises. The learned Zanchius observes, in his book De Creat. Hom. 1. i. 1. § 12., that "most of the fathers were of opinion, that Adam, seeing he was such, and so great a friend of God before his fall, had sometimes seen God in a bodily appearance, and heard him speak." And adds, "But this was always the Son of God." And, a little after, "Christ, therefore, is the Jehovah, who brought_Adam, and placed him in paradise, and spoke with him." Thus the ancients believed that the Son of God did then also reveal himself to Adam, and conversed with him. VIII. And it seems rather too bold to affirm, that the economy subsisting between the three persons, is so principally taken up in procuring the salvation of mankind, that the knowledge thereof could not pertain to the state of innocence; in which there was no place either for salvation or redemption. For, Moses declares the economy of the divine persons at the very creation. And, while the gospel explains that admirable economy, as taken up in procuring the salvation of mankind, it, at the same time, carries our thoughts up to that economy as manifested in the first creation of the world. If now, it is so useful and pleasant to think, that the Son of God, our Saviour, "is the beginning of the creation of God," Rev. iii. 14, "by whom were created thrones and dominions, things visible and invisible, that he might have the pre-eminence in all things," Col. i. 16-18, both of the works of nature and of grace; and that the Holy Spirit, now fitting up a new world of grace in our hearts, did at first brood on the waters, and make them pregnant with so many noble creatures; and thus to ascend to the consideration of the same economy in the works of creation and nature, which is now revealed to us in the works of salvation and grace; who can refuse that Adam in innocence had the same knowledge of God in three persons, though ignorant what each person, in his order, was to perform in saving sinners? Add to this, that though in that state of Adam, there was no room for redemption, yet there was for salvation and life eternal. The symbol of which was the Tree of Life, which even then bore the image of the Son of God (see Rev. ii. 7)," for in him was life," John i. 4; which symbol had been in vain, if the meaning thereof had been unknown to Adam.

God consisted

IX. In this rectitude of man principally consists that The image of image of God, which the Scripture so often recom- in this rectimends; and which Paul expressly places in knowledge, tude of man. Col. iii. 10; "in righteousness and true holiness," Eph. iv. 24. In which places he so describes the image of God, which is

renewed in us by the spirit of grace, as at the same time to hint, that it is the same with which man was originally created. Neither can there be different images of God; for, as God cannot but be wise and holy, and, as such, be a pattern to the rational creature; it follows, that a creature wise and holy is, as such, the expression or resemblance of God. And it is a thing quite impossible, but God must own his own likeness to consist in this rectitude of the whole man, or that he should ever acknowledge a foolish and perverse creature to be like him; which would be an open denial of his perfections. It is finely observed by a learned man, that dσiòrns τns aλnɛaç, true holiness, is not only opposed to rη Tокρισε, hypocrisy or simulation, or to Tй TuжIkη кalaρоrnτi, typical purity, but that it denotes a holy study of truth, proceeding from the love of God; for bolos, to which answers the Hebrew, signifies in Scripture, one studious in, and eager after good. This booτNS TNS Úλndɛías, true holiness, therefore, denotes such a desire of pleasing God as is agreeable to the truth known of and in him, and loved for him.

Which is not
included in
the right-
eousness
mentioned
by Paul,
Eph. iv.

X. But I see not, why the same learned person would have the dialooúvn, righteousness, mentioned by Paul, Eph. iv. 24, to be a privilege peculiar to the covenant of grace, which we obtain in Christ, and of which Adam was destitute; meaning by the word righteousness, a title or right to eternal life; which, it is owned, Adam had not, as his state of probation was not yet at an end. In opposition to this assertion, I offer these following considerations. 1st. There is no necessity, by righteousness, to understand a right to eternal life; for that term often denotes a virtue, a constant resolution of giving every one his due: as Eph. v. 9, where the apostle, treating of sanctification, writes, "For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth." The learned person himself was aware of this, who elsewhere speaks thus (on Gen. v. § 9), "Righteousness is, first, the rectitude of actions, whether of the soul or of the members; and their agreement with sound reason: namely, that they may easily avoid condemnation or blame, and obtain commendation and praise. So Titus iii. 5, Works of righteousness.' And hence the denomination of just, or righteous, denotes a blameless or a praiseworthy person.' Since, then, that word signifies elsewhere such a rectitude, why not here too? Especially as it is indisputable that such righteousness belonged to the image of God in Adam. 2dly. It ought not to be urged, that here righteousness is joined with holiness, and therefore thus to be distinguished from it; as that the latter shall denote an inherent good quality, and the former a right to life. For, it may be answered, first, that it is no unusual thing with the

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