306 RUIN AND RECOVERY, &C. and fell from his innocent state, he should propagate his kind iar his own sinful image, which may probably be implied in those words ; Gen. i. 20-28. " God said let us make man in our image, and let them have dominion over fish and fowl, &c." " And God created man male and female, and blessed them, and said, be fruitful and multiply, and have dominion over the fish and the fowl, &c." that is, when you are multiplied, let your seed maintain this sovereignty, this dominion, which is a part of my image, in your several succeeding generations.. And Gen. v. 1 -3. " In the clay that God created man, in the likeness of God he made him ; male and female created he them, and blessed them, and called their nameAdam or man." And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, that is, after his sin and his loss of the holy image of God,* and begat a son in his own like- ness, after his image, verse5. that is, his own sinful and mortal image, and called his name Seth. And Adam died, verse 0 -8. And Seth also lived, and begat sons and daughters in this mortal - and sinful state, and he died also as Adam his father did before him, and his children after him. It is not to be supposed that Moses in this brief history of the first generations of men, should make sucha particular repetition of the image or likeness of' God in which Adam was created, in this place, unless he had design- ed to set the comparison in a fair light, between Adam's begetting his son in hisown sinful and mortal image or likeness, whereas he himself was created in God's holy and immortal image : And more especially when the design of the chapter is to shew how every generation of the sons of Adam died, it is obvious that Moses designed also to shew how this course and custom of dying came into the world, that is, by Adam's bringing his posterity into the world inhis own image, as fallen from God and liable to death. IV. God was pleased to put the man whom he had made upon a trial of his obedience for a season, he placed him in a gardenof Eden or pleasure, he gave him á free use of the crea. tures for his comfort, but forbid him to eat of the fruit of one tree even the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ; for said he, in the day that thou eatest ofit, thoushalt surely die ; Gen. ii. 17. that is, thou shalt from that time be liable to death : Inwhich threatening were doubtless included all the infirmities, pains and miseries of this life which tend towards death and destruction, together with death and destruction at the end of them. And it is not at all improbable, that God should reveal to Adam, that he should bethe representative of his posterity, and that thecon- aequences of his obedience, or of his sin, should fall upon them * That Adam lost this moral image of God by sin, is plainly implied, Eph. iv. 24. where we are said to be renewed after Mi., moral image, viz. holiness.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=