CHAPTER L 335 placed him under the first dispensation, that is, that of innocen- cy : wherein Adam, considered as the father and common head of mankind, being formed in the image of God innocent and holy, and standing in his favour, was bound to a perfect per- formance of all the duties of the moral, or law of naturewhich related to God, or to himself or to his fellow-creatures ; and he had powers given him by the God of nature, sufficient for the. performance of them*. II. This dispensation is commonly called the covenant of works, because the work done by man would have fully answer- ed the demands of the law of God, it would have been his jus- tifying righteousness, and have entitled him to the reward, Do this and thou shalt live, are the terms of that covenant ; Rom. x. 5. This was his religion. III. And God seems to have engaged himself to bestow im- mortality or eternal life ou Adam, uponcondition of his perse- vering in the perfect obedience,- by the emblem, sign or seal of this covenant, which was the treeof life planted in the garden of Eden, of which if man eat he should live for ever; Gen. iii. 22. There was a virtual promise in this emblem, sign or pledge. But, besides this intimation of a reward by the tree of life, it may be almost inferred by the light of reason, that where God is a commander of any self-denying virtue, or of any difficult duty, he will also be a rewarder of it ; for he will make it appear, he is goodas well asjust, in all his commands, and designs the hap-. piness of his creatures in case of their obedience. And, in this view of things, it is most highly probable, that if mankind had stood innocent, and there had been no death through all genera- tions, they would have been after some state of trial and obedi. encet, translated by degrees to some advanced state of happi- ness, in some heavenly paradise ; for earth itself could not have contained them in all their increase and multiplications under the prolific blessing of heaven. IV. There was also a threateningof death upon man's diso- bedience in express words ; and the emblem or sign of it, was the tree of knowledge of good and evil ; and innocent man was commandedto abstain from eating of the fruit of this tree, as a special pledge and test of his obedience to God. Gen. ii. 17. * Note here. Whatsoever particular precepts or prohibitions the great God might give to his creature in a way of special revelation, man was bound to obey them all, by that general law of nature, which requires the creature to obey its Creator in all things. t it is not certain that the posterity of Adam, if their father had stood inno- cent, and passed his trial well, would have had any dangerous state of trial, in their own persons, whether they should be happy or miserable : One would ra- ther suppose they would only have had 'a proper state of probation, as to greater or lesser happiness, according to their dcgreea of labour and duty. But this matter is not plainly revealed.
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