318 RUIN AND RECOVERuç, &C. of men, nor that threatened death, which dispeoples the earth continually. Let it be observed also, that this blessing on Noah seems directly to refer to that vast desolation which was brought on the earth, and the lives of men by the flood, as the context plainly shews ; and that God would not repeat this stroke, nor sutler the earth to be depopulated by beasts or men ; Gen. ix. 1 -7. And I add farther, though Lamach seemed to have the spirit of prophecy when he called his son Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hand, becauseof the groundwhich the Lord bath cursed ; Gen. v. 29. Yet the curse coming upon the ground abides still in a greater measure fromAdam to this day, for it brings forth thorns and thistles in abundance. Now Noah might well be said to comfort his fellow-labourers on the ground, since he began to be an hus- band man, and planted a vineyard ; Gen. ix. 20. that is, he invented, or rather greatly improved the art of husbandry and cultivation of the earth, and thereby lightened much of the toil of man and the curse. 2. To Adam was given dominion over the brutes, which carries in it more than merely the blessing of Noah, viz. That the fear of you and the dreadof you shall be upon every beast lñc. For notwithstanding this fear and dread of the human form and stature, which in many instances appears amongst the brutal creation, yet sometimes, ever since Noah's blessing, they now bite or sting men to death, and sometimes tears them to pieces, which calamitous disasters would never have befallen, innocent Adam, or his innocent seed; for it was sin only that brought death into the world. And if Noah and his sons had licence to kill and eat birds and beasts, which was not given to Adam, a very ingenious writer, Doctor Cheyne the physician, supposes that this was designed in the providence of God to shorten the lives of men after the flood, thereby to diminish or limit their great wicked- mess: And probably it had this effect to shorten life, which vege- table food would have prolonged. 3. The image of God in which Adam was made at first con- sisted eminently, if we will believe St. Paul, in righteousness and true holiness; Eph. iv. 24. for the christian is required to put al the old usan, that is, the sinful temper which he brought into the world with him, which is corrupt, and to be renewed in the spirit of their mind, to put on the new man, or holy temper, which after God, that is, in resemblance of God, is created in righteousness and true holiness. Whereas that part of the image of God, which remained after the fall was the natural image of God, viz. the spiritual faculties and immortality of the soul, or the political image of God in a degree of dominion over the
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