sinned he was happy in circumstances, surrounded with testimonies and fruits of God's favour. This is implicitly owned by Dr. T. when he says, (p. 252.) "That in the dispensation our first parents were under before the fall, they were placed in a condition proper to engage their gratitude, love, and obedience." But it will follow on our author's principles, that Adam, while in innocency, was placed in far worse circumstances than he was in after his disobedience, and infinitely worse than his posterity are in; under unspeakably greater disadvantages for avoiding sin, and the performance of duty. For by this doctrine, Adam's posterity come into the world with their hearts as free from any propensity to sin as he, and he was made as destitute of any propensity to righteousness as they And yet God, in favour to them, does great things to restrain them from sin and excite them to virtue, which he never did for Adam in innocency, but laid him, in the highest degree, under contrary disadvantages. God, as an instance of his great favour and fatherly love to man since the fall, has denied him the ease and pleasures of paradise, which gratified and allured his senses and bodily appetites; that he might diminish his temptations to sin. And as a still greater means to restrain from sin and promote virtue, has subjected him to labour, toil, and sorrow in the world: And not only so, but as a means to promote his spiritual and eternal good far beyond this, has doomed him to death. When all this was found insufficient, he, in further prosecution of the designs of his love, shortened men's lives exceedingly, made them twelve or thirteen times shorter than in the first ages. And yet this, with all the innumerable calamities which God, in great favour to mankind, has brought on the world-whereby their temptations are so vastly cut short, and the inducements to virtue heaped one upon another to so great a degree-have proved insufficient, now for so many thousand years together, to restrain from wickedness in any considerable degree; while innocent human nature, all along, comes into the world with the same purity and harmless dispositions that our first parents had in paradise. What vast disadvantages indeed then must Adam and Eve be in, who had no more in their nature to keep them from sin, or incline them to virtue, than their posterity, and yet were without all those additional and extraordinary means! They were not only without such exceeding great means as we now have, when our lives are made so very short, but had vastly less advantages than their antediluvian posterity, who to prevent their being wicked, and to make them good, had so much labour and toil, sweat and sorrow, briars and thorns, with a body gradually decaying and returning to the dust. Our first parents had the extreme disadvantage of being placed amongst many and exceeding great temptations-not only without toil or sorrow, pain or disease, to humble and mortify them, and a sentence of death to wean them from the world, but-in the midst of the most exquisite and alluring sensitive delights; the reverse in every respect, and the highest degree, of that most gracious state of requisite means and great advantages, which mankind now enjoy! If mankind now under these vast restraints and great advantages, are not restrained from general, and as it were universal wickedness, how could it be expected that Adam and Eve, created with no better hearts than men bring into the world now, and destitute of all these advantages, and in the midst of all contrary disadvantages should escape it? These things are not agreeable to Moses's account. That represents a happy state of peculiar favours and blessings before the fall, and the curse coming afterwards; but according to this scheme, the curse was before the fall, and the great favours and testimonies of love followed the apostacy. And the curse before the fall must be a curse with a witness, being to so high a degree the reverse of such means, means so necessary for such a creature as innocent man, and in all their multitude and fulness proving too little. Paradise therefore must be a mere delusion! There was indeed a great shew of favour in placing man in the midst of such delights. But this delightful garden, it seems, with all its beauty and sweetness, was in its real tendency worse than the apples of Sodom. It was but a mere bait, (God forbid the blasphemy) the more effectually enticing by its beauty and deliciousness to Adam's eternal ruin. Which might be the more expected to be fatal to him, seeing he was the first man, having no capacity superior to his posterity, and wholly without the advantage of their observations, experiences, and improvements. I proceed now to take notice of an additional proof of the doctrine we are upon, from another part of the holy scripture. A very clear text for original right ousness, we have in Eccles. vii. 29. Lo, this only have I found, that God made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions. It is an observation of no weight which Dr. T. makes on this text, that the word man is commonly used to signify mankind in general, or mankind collectively taken. It is true it often signifies the species of mankind; but then it is used to signify the species with regard to its duration and succession from its beginning, as well as with regard to its extent. The English word mankind is used to signify the species: But what then? Would it be an improper way of speaking to say, that when God first made mankind he placed them in a pleasant paradise, (meaning in their first parents) but now they live in the midst of briars and thorns? And it is certain that to speak thus of God making mankind--his giving the species an existence in their first parents, at the creation--is agrecable to the scripture use of such an expression. As in Deut. iv. 32. Since the day that God CREATED MAN upon the earth. Job xx. 4. Knowest thou not this of old, since MAN was placed upon the earth. Isai. xlv. 12. I have made the earth and CREATED MAN upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens. Jer. xxvii. 5. I HAVE MADE the earth, the MAN and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power. All these texts speak of God making man, signifying the species of mankind; and yet they all plainly have respect to God making man at first, when he made the earth and stretched out the heavens. In all these places the same word, Adam, is used as in Ecclesiastes; and in the last of them, used with (HE emphaticum) the emphatic sign, as here; though Dr. T. omits it, when he tells us he gives us a catalogue of all the places in scripture where the word is used. And it argues nothing to the doctor's purpose that the pronoun they is used ;THEY have sought out many inventions. This is properly applied to the species, which God made at first upright; the species begun with more than one, and continued in a multitude. As Christ speaks of the two sexes, in the relation of man and wife, continued in successive generations; Mat. xix. 4. He that MADE THEM in the beginning, made them male and female; having reference to Adam and Eve. No less impertinent, and also very unfair, is his criticism on the word () translated upright. Because the word sometimes signifies right, he would from thence infer, that it does not properly signify moral rectitude, even when used to express the character of moral agents. He might as well insist that the English word upright, sometimes, and in its most original meaning, signifies right up, or in an erect posture, therefore it does not properly signify any moral character, when applied to moral agents. And indeed less unreasonably; for it is known that in the Hebrew language, in a peculiar manner, most words used to signify moral and spiritual things, are taken from external and natural objects. The word ( Jashar) is used, as applied to moral agents, or to the words and actions of such, (if I have not mis-reckoned*) about an hundred and ten times in scripture; and about an hundred of them, without all dispute, to signify virtue, or moral rectitude, (though Dr. T. is pleased to say, the word does not generally signify a moral character) and for the most part it signifies true virtue, or virtue in such a sense, as distinguishes it from all false appearances of virtue, or what is only virtue in some respects, but not truly so in the sight of God. It is used at least eighty times in this sense: And scarce any word can be found in the Hebrew language more significant of this. It is thus used constantly in Solomon's * Making use of Buxtorf's Concordance, which, according to the author's professed design, directs to all the places where the word is used. writings, (where it is often found) when used to express a character or property of moral agents. And it is beyond all controversy, that he uses it in this place, (the viith of Eccles.) to signify moral rectitude, or a character of real virtue and integrity. For the wise man is speaking of persons with respect to their moral character, inquiring into the corruption and depravity of mankind, (as is confessed p. 184.) and he here declares, he had not found more than one among a thousand of the right stamp, truly and thoroughly virtuous and upright: Which appeared a strange thing! But in this text he clears God, and lays the blame on man: Man was not made thus at first. He was made of the right stamp, altogether good in his kind, (as all other things were) truly and thoroughly virtuous as he ought to be; but they have sought out many inventions. Which last expression signifies things sinful, or morally evil; (as is confessed, p. 185.) And this expression, used to signify those moral evils he found in man, which he sets in opposition to the uprightness man was made in, shews, that by uprightness he means the most true and sincere goodness. The word rendered inventions, most naturally and aptly signifies the subtile devices and crooked deceitful ways of hypocrites, wherein they are of a character contrary to men of simplicity and godly sincerity; who, though wise in that which is good, are simple concerning evil. Thus the same wise man, in Prov. xii. 2. sets a truly good man in opposition to a man of wicked devices, whom God will condemn. Solomon had occasion to observe many who put on an artful disguise and fair shew of goodness; but on searching thoroughly, he found very few truly upright. As he says, Prov. xx. 6. Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness: But a faithful man who can find? So that it is exceeding plain that by uprightness, in this place, (Eccles. vii.) Solomon means true moral goodness. What our author urges concerning many inventions, whereas Adam's eating of the forbidden fruit was but one invention, is of as little weight as the rest of what he says on this text. For the many lusts and corruptions of mankind, appearing in innumerable ways of sinning, are all the consequence of that sin. The great corruption men are fallen into by the original apostacy, appears in the multitude of the wicked ways to which they are inclined. And therefore these are properly mentioned as the fruits and evidences of the greatness of that apostacy and corruption. SECT. II. Concerning the Kind of Death threatened to our first Parents, if they should eat of the forbidden Fruit. Dr. T. in his observations on the three first chapters of Genesis, says, (p. 7.) "The threatening to man in case of transgression was, that he should surely die.-Death is the losing of life. Death is opposed to life, and must be understood according to the nature of that life, to which it is opposed. Now the death here threatened can, with any certainty, be opposed only to the life God gave Adam, when he created him, (ver. 7.) Any thing besides this must be pure conjecture, without solid foundation." : To this I would say it is true, Death is opposed to life, and must be understood according to the nature of that life, to which it is opposed. But does it therefore follow that nothing can be meant by it but the loss of life? Misery is opposed to happiness, and sorrow is in scripture often opposed to joy; but can we conclude from thence, that nothing is meant in scripture by sorrow, but the loss of joy? Or that there is no more in misery than the loss or absence of happiness? And if the death threatened to Adam can, with certainty, be opposed only to the life given to Adam, when God created him; I think a state of perfect, perpetual, and hopeless misery is properly opposed to that state Adam was in when God created him. For I suppose it will not be denied, that the life Adam had was truly a happy life; happy in perfect innocency, in the favour of his Maker, surrounded with the happy fruits and testimonies of his love. And I think it has been proved, that he also was happy in a state of perfect righteousness. Nothing is more manifest, than that it is agreeable to a very common acceptation of the word life, in scripture, that it be understood as signifying a state of excellent and happy existence. Now that which is most opposite to that life and state in which Adam was created, is a state of total, confirmed wickedness, and perfect hopeless misery, under the divine displeasure and curse; not excluding temporal death, or the destruction of the body, as an introduction to it. Besides, that which is much more evident than any thing Dr. T. says on this head, is, that the death which was to come on Adam as the punishment of his disobedience, was opposed to that life which he would have had as the reward of his obedience in case he had not sinned. Obedience and disobedience are con |