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themselves the shame and fault which belonged unto them, they endeavour by any means to avoid, and caft upon another. The man loft to all fenfe of gratitude reflects upon the benignity of his maker, as though in making an help meet for him, and which fhould compleat his happiness, he had given her to be a fnare and a trap unto him, to entice and draw him into fin; the woman whom thou gaveft to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat; and quite void of natural affection to her that was bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, he openly accused, and turned informer at the bar. Nor had the woman more remorfe for the crime the now ftood accused of; for instead of pleading guilty, before her judge fhe would juftify herself by impeaching the ferpent; the ferpent beguiled me, and I did eat. However, both acknowledge the fact, I did eat, and fall obnoxious to the penalty. The prifoners at the bar thus found guilty before the righteous judge of all the earth, are, as it were remanded to prifon, with this fentence, to the woman he faid, I will greatly multiply thy forrow, and thy conception; in forrow shalt thou bring forth children. And unto Adam, be faid,curfed is the ground for thy fake, in forrow falt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; in the fweat of thy face halt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken, for duft thou art, and unto duft fhalt thou return.

Now if bodily death intimated in these words, duft thou art, and unto duft shalt thou return, was. not the confequence of this tranfgreffion, but would equally and certainly have been the cafe, if man had not finned at all; then we must fuppofe the fentence paffed by the all-wife judge,

to

to have run in this ftrain, "Because thou haft "done this thing, and haft eaten of the tree, "of which I commanded thee saying, thou fhalt "not eat of it; thou fhalt furely return to "the ground, from whence I took thee, and "agreeable to my purpofe concerning thee, if "thou hadft not finned; for duft thou art, and "unto dust thou shalt return, not in confequence "of thy fin, or by way of punishment, for thy "difobedience; but according to thy nature,

which was made fubject to mortality and death, "and my unalterable defign, which was that i "thou fhouldest die." Now, if we would not be guilty of the fuppofition of a procedure fo unbecoming the omniicient Jehovah; let us admit the plain, literal and commonly received opinion of this important fact; that Adam, as the juft reward of his disobedience, and as the penal fanction of his fin, was doomed to return to his original duft, a monument of the divine difpleafure against it.

3d. That bodily death, is a punishment inflicted because of fin, appears from the divine procedure, in all ages and places of the world. Why did God bring a mighty flood of waters over the whole earth, and thereby deftroy both man and beaft? (except Noath and his family.) Was it not because all flesh bad corrupted His way upon the earth? Gen. vi. 12. His way, had violated his law, finned and come short of his glory. Rom. iii. 23. Why were the cities of the plain overthrown with fuch a marvellous deftruction? When it is faid, the Lord rained brimstone and fire from the Lord, out of heaven. Gen. xix. 24. God himself gives us the reafon, because the cry of Sadam

ambol of in

Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their fin is very grievous. Ch. xviii. 20. 19. 13. To proceed to adduce proofs of this kind, from the word of God, would oblige me to transcribe a great part of the bible. I fhall close this head with obferving to you, that while we infift upon bodily death being the punishment of fin, we are kept in countenance by having Paul the preacher for our prefident. Two paffages cited from his writings, may ferve to confirm my affertion; the one from Rom. v. 12. by one man, even Adam, fin entered into the world, and death by fin, as the wages of difobedience; for the wages of fin is death, and fo death passed upon all men, indicating that they were difeafed, having been infected with the common contagion, för that all have finned; finned in the loins of Adam; otherwise death paffed upon fome that had not finned at all, even infants and they were punished without fault, and died without disease or ficknefs. The other paffage is from 1 Cor. xv. 21. where the apoftle is proving the certainty of a refurrection of the juft. Since by man,

even the

first man, here opposed to the second man or Adam the Lord Jefus Chrift; came death, namely, bodily death, for this is alfo opposed to bodily life, or the refurrection of the body from the grave; fo that, that life the fecond Adam reftores in the refurrection, is the life that was forfeited and loft, by the first Adam in the fall ; but the life here spoken of, is that of the body, therefore fuch is the death, the confequence of fin.

I have dwelt the longer upon this head, because of it's importance; the oppofers of the doctrine of original fin, are well aware of the

infuperable difficulties that will croud in upon them on granting this point, and therefore turn all their fophiftical artillery this way.

I proceed in the fecond place to prove, that although corporal or bodily death, was contained in the threatening against disobedience; yet this was not all the penalty; but death corporal, death fpiritual, and death eternal, were comprehended

therein.

But

It is more than probable that, when God threatened Adam with death, in cafe of disobedience; the death with which he was threatened, had refpect unto the life he then enjoyed; and would if inflicted, confist in a deprivation of it. the life Adam enjoyed, was as much fuperior to that of the beafts, as the rational foul is to the fenfitive; or as a life fpent in an union with, and an enjoyment of God, is to that which is fpent without God in the world. When the Lord God formed the earth and the world, birds and beafts, fishes and creeping things, his almighty fiat went forth, and it was done, be commanded and the deep foundations of the earth stood firm; but when man must be called into being, a council is called in heaven. Not that God wanted power or wisdom, to create man more than any other creature; but to teach us to afpire to more exalted joys, than brute beasts partake of; and not to dishonour that nature by finful practices, the great creator has put fuch a distinguishing honor upon. In making the beafts, &c. a fingle fiat perfected the work; but in making man, there is a twofold act; and the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, alluding to his animal life, enjoyed in common with the beafts

of

of the field, &c. and breathed into his noftrils, the breath of life; alluding to the rational life which was peculiar to himself. Hence it is faid by the wife man, the fpirit of a beaft goeth downward, that is, the vital flame which animated it's form, becomes totally extinct when the creature dies; but the fpirit of a man goeth upward; when his body returns pursuant to the folemn fentence, to the duft, his fpirit, the inextinguishable and immortal fire that animated his earthly body, Shall return to God that gave it. Furthermore, it is obfervable, that when the Lord Ged bad formed man of the dust of the ground, that he breathed into him, (Nifhmath Hhajim,) the breath of lives, not of life, in the fingular number; because he was a compound creature, and enjoyed life, not only in common with the beast, but in a way peculiar to himfelf; but lives, the animal, and the rational. Thus Adam, when coming from the hands of his maker, and at what time he was pleased to fignify his good pleasure towards him, in entering into covenant with him, stood poffeffed of a natural and spiritual life; the latter of which, continued to him in confequence of his obedience, would have conftituted, what I here mean by life eternal. Now it cannot reasonably be fuppofed that Adam was a stranger to the dignity of his own nature; but rather that, if his benign creator had made no revelation of himself, or had given him no intimations of the excellency of that nature, fo vaftly superior to, and fo eminently diftinguished from that of all other earth-made creatures; yet his own bright and unfullyed intellectuals would have immediately led him to contemplate his own wonderful make, and to a

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