find the hearts of our hearers more deeply affected under a sense of their depravity; the truths of the gofpel more cordially embraced, and the Lord Jefus Chrift in the chariot of his gofpel, would meet with a much more hearty welcome amongst his wretched and indigent creatures.

Is it not for want of this, that many think themselves to be rich, and increafed with goods, while in reality they are wretched, poor, miferable, blind and naked? Will any but the diseased come to Chrift for a cure? If we would be able minifters of the new teftament, we muft labour to make the people fenfible, of what was tranfacted in the garden of Eden, and stands upon facred record in the old. That you who hear me this day, may be reminded of your fallen condition; and from thence be led to look for fuccour and falvation to the great repairer of the breach; I must beg the favour of you to take a walk with me into yonder garden; it is indeed a place, a garden of pleafure; to compare with which, all that art improved, or nature now can boast, would be mean and contemptible; it is a garden planted by God himself, it is Eden. We have here prefented to our view, Adam in his perfect ftate, and the adorable creator of all things covenanting with his new made creature; his grant was large, and loudly declared the goodness of his God; of every tree of the garden thou mayeft freely eat; his prohibition was small, by which he might understand, that obedience was all the creator fought from his creature; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt furely die.

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From these words, I propose to prove to you the following things:

First, That corporal death, or the death of Adam's body was a confequence of his fin.

Second, That the death threatened in the text, was corporal, fpiritual, and eternal.

Third, That the penalty was inflicted according to threatening that day.

Fourth, That all the pofterity of Adam, are guilty through his tranfgreffion.

Fifth, That there can be no falvation or deliverance from this curfe, but by Christ.

I am ashamed to amufe you, and obtrude upon your attention this firft head of my difcourfe; which would feem to me altogether as unneceffary, and affronting to your natural understandings, as if I fhould go about to demonftrate to you that the whole is greater than any of it's parts, or that it is day-light when the mid-day fun shines full in your face; did not the Socinians with an air of boldnefs peculiar to themfelves, and an art of perverfion never practifed but by men of thefe principles, deny the fubftance of it. Should they deny that many children die in their infancy, and who could not be guilty of actual fins; matter of fact would every day rife up in judgment against them, and condemn their affertion as falfe in the face of the world; and to allow that fuch infants die in confequence of Adam's fin, would clafh with their favourite notion of original purity, before which Diana, nothing must ftand, that force or fraud can overturn; therefore it must be maintained at all events, that death is common to us,

not

not as finners, but as men, and that infants die, not because they are the children of a fallen parent, but a perfect.

When the all-wife creator, is reprefented in the facred account of this affair, as covenanting with his creature, this was appointed as the test of his obedience, of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; and the penalty to be inflicted in confequence of disobedience, was fet before him in these words, for in the day thou eateft thereof, thou shalt furely die, (Moth tamuth): dying, thou shalt die; the ingemination, or repetition of the word in the original, indicates the certainty of dying; and wherein this did confist, muft either be known to Adam, or the fanction would lofe its force. But the fuppofition cannot be admitted without abfurdity, that, because Adam had not seen any image of death amongst any of the creatures, (death as yet not having entered into the world) therefore, he must be a ftranger to what it meant; feeing, Adam was now in honor, ftood upright and fearless in the prefence of his maker, and poffeffed a penetration of judgment (I think it is undoubted) far fuperior to any of his pofterity. In the preceding chapter, ver. 29th, 30th, we find the munificent creator conferring upon the beloved image of himself, a right and title to every herb of the field, and every plant of the ground; and God faid, behold I have given you every herb bearing feed, which is upon the face of all the earth; and every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding feed; to you it shall be for meat. This grant, Adam had in common with the beasts of the earth; and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to A 4

every

every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is LIFE, I have given every green herb for meat. Now to fuppofe that Adam was a ftranger to death, as confifting in a negation, or deprivation of that life he faw the beafts of the earth enjoy in common with himfelf; must be to fuppofe him wanting of that understanding, whereby he could difcern betwixt a beaft and a tree, or himfelf and an herb of the field.

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It cannot be fuppofed, that whatever conceptions Adam had of fpiritual death, as contained in the threatening; that he did not comprehend in his idea, the death of the body alío, would neceffarily underftand and fuppofe his crea tor as fpeaking to him in words to this import, "For my own glory and pleasure I have created "thee, and called thee into being by the word "of my power; I have formed for thee a body, "from the duft of the ground, and have ani"mated it with a living foul. I have endued thee "with a fuperior faculty, by which thou ftandest

diftinguisht from all earth-born creatures, and "art capable of contemplating thy own happi"nefs, and the bounteous liberality of thy bene"factor. I have planted this garden for thine "abode, and have plenteously provided for thy "table, every thing neceffary to fupport thy

'

earthly frame, and render thy being intirely "comfortable; freely take of every herb and tree, eat, live, and enjoy the bleffing of thy being, as the reward of thy obedience, and "commenfurate unto it. But know affuredly, "that if thou art disobedient, thou fhalt forfeit thy title to all thefe favours; the herb of the "field which I have now appointed, and endued

"" with

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with a power to perpetuate thy existence; shall, deprived of this life-giving quality, minifter mortality to thy dying body; while the com"municated rays of my fpirit, intercepted and cut off, fhall leave thy beclouded foul in dark"nefs and diftrefs." Now in this reprefentation of the paffage, (which feems to me natural and eafy) it appears impoffible that Adam fhould overlook the circumftance of corporal death, as contained in this threatening; in my opinion it would be far lefs abfurd to fuppofe, that he had an eye to nothing else.

2d. That bodily death, was a confequence of man's difobedience, appears from the execution of the fentence, chap. 3d, ver. 19th, with which is closed the folemn trial of the unhappy offenders, now doomed to the death they had deferved (except in hope of a deliverer.) The whole of this tranfaction begun at ver. 8th. carries fomething in it ftupendiously folemn, and ftrikingly awful. Satan had now betrayed them into fin, and fin had plunged them into ruin; fearful and amazed they flee, when none purfues, and would be glad to find an afylum in the thickeft gloom of impenetrable darkness, to hide their guilty heads from their offended God. But where fhall a finner flee from his prefence, or whither fhall the guilty go from his fpirit? The voice of the Lord God fummons them to the bar; to which, though with the greatest reluctance, they are constrained to come. The fact appears too full against them to be denied, and the evidence too firm and strong, to be baffled in the inquifition; but mark the effect of fin; what they cannot deny, they attempt to extenuate and leffen, and instead of taking to

them