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The fcripture account of the state of men and things after the fall, may be adduced as a farther confirmation of this awful and important truth. When Adam was created, a place of pleafure, a paradife, was prepared for his habitation; and here he continued until fin procured his expulfion from thence; this was part of the punishment inflicted upon him for his difobedience, he was driven from the garden of God, which had been wont to yield it's fruit in abundance for his fupport, to feek for food in the open uncultivated field, and to eat his bread in the fweat of his brow. Adam thus exiled from his God and King, began to propagate his race, for, he knew his wife, and The conceived, and bare Cain and his brother Abel; thefe children were not born in paradife, nor had a place affigned them there, as Adam and Eve their parents had, when in their perfect ftate; but were banished from that blifsful habitation that fuited a state of innocence, together with their offending parents. From this we may obferve, first, had they been innocent, and not confidered as guilty through the offence of their parents, it is by no means probable they would have been exposed to that toil and labour, which was the effect of their. parent's tranfgreffion; but the effect is evident, therefore the caufe cannot with a good countenance be denied. 2d. Another reason why Adam was driven from the garden, was, left he should put forth his hand, and take of the tree of life, and eat and live for ever. We do not find that Adam before he finned was prohibited the fruit of this lifegiving tree, for of every tree in the garden thou mayeft freely eat, that one excepted; and why fhould not his pofterity be as highly favoured, if

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as holy, and free from all imputation of guilt as Adam was? But it appears that all kind of fufferings that Adam brought upon himself by his fin, the like fufferings all his pofterity are fubjected to, and as the fame effects must be the produce of one and the fame caufe, fo the fufferings of Adam's fons, owe their existence to that one caufe, Adam's fin.

Mofes the man of God tells us, that Adam after his fall begat a fon in his own likeness; it would be a reflection on the great hiftorian not to be admitted, to fuppofe him intending to inform us by this declaration, what none of his readers could doubt of; namely, that a man begat a man, feeing this was no other than the natural effect of the divine institution and injunction, be fruitful and multiply. He had informed us chap. i. ver. 27. that God created man in his own image, that is, he further adds, in the image of God, this image of God in which Adam was created, was threefold, 1. In his nature and conftitution; his body was formed of the duft of the ground, and could be faid to be in the image of God no otherwise, than as the creator of all things was pleafed to mould it after the image of his great idea, and in the form in which he liked to manifeft himself when he would affume the human nature; but his foul was fpiritual in it's nature and after the image of God, for God is a spirit; his foul was immortal, therefore in the image of him who only hath immortality, as in the fource and fountain thereof. 2. He bore the image of God, in the authority given him over the creatures of this lower world, let them faid God, have dominion, &c. fo that as God rules the armies of the fky, and all the hofts

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of heaven; man fhould refemble him, being his vice-roy, and rule the inferior creatures of the earth. 3d. Man was made in God's image of purity and rectitude; righteoufnefs and holiness are faid by the apoftle to be the image of God, Eph. iv. 24. and this image fair and spotlefs, was impreffed upon the foul of man in his firft creation, and answered to the divine original, as the impreffion on the wax, anfwers to the feal that impreffed it. This is the fair and amiable picture, fo exactly correfponding to the idea of the great drafts-man, that when having drawn it he approved it, and faid, all is very good; but fin defaced, and deformed this glorious image, in Adam, and all his feed.

For Adam, as a fallen creature, began to propagate his race, and begat a fon in his own likeness, or rather, begat in his own likeness, all that he did beget both fons and daughters; for fon is not in the original; all his offspring he begat like himfelf, and after his own image, exiles from God, and fubject to mortality, forrow and fuffering. The glorious image of rectitude and holinefs was gone; integrity and innocence were intirely loft in the parent, and it was impoffible he could convey to others, what he had loft the poffeffion of in himself. His image therefore, which his pofterity: partake of, is a frail and feeble body, fubject to pain, fickness, and manifold difeafes, and laftly death itself.

A foul deftitute of God's fpirit, of divine and fpiritual light, life and comfort; averfe to every good, proud and felf-dependant, and prone to all manner of evil. Now as a creature fo far fallen from the image of the bleffed God, and fo much affimilated to that fpirit of darkness

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the devil, can by no means be the object of the divine complacency; wretchedness and difquietude mufts needs be it's portion, fo long as fuch state of alienation continues. Hence it is written, there is no peace faith my God to the wicked; for he is chafed by the terrors of his own conscience, and fleeth when no man purfueth; and as an union with the Lord, and the comforts flowing therefrom, gives light and gladness to the heart; fo a deprivation of thefe, expofes the foul to that tribulation and anguish, the offending parent of a ruined pofterity felt, when he fled from the prefence of his maker, and attempted to hide himself amidst the thickest trees of the garden. Moreover, as Adam's confeffion of his nakednefs, was a pleading guilty before his judge; fo our want of that glorious image firft impreffed on the human nature, and thofe tranfcendent robes of light and glory, with which it was adorned, befpeaks tranfgreffion, and declares us guilty. If our great Lord fhould in the rigor of his justice, and without respect to our Saviour, and furety, call us to account, as we first come into the world, for the talents committed to us in our common parent; none of us could fay fo much in our own behalf, as did the man in the gofpel, lo, here is thine own, for we have nothing to prefent, of what God first beftowed, nor can we in justice expect to meet with better treatment than he; for juftice would be glorified, in the eternal damnation of all that fpring from the loins of Adam; and the falvation of any, must be afcribed to free and fovereign grace, everlasting love, and boundless mercy, flowing through the righteoufnefs of our Lord Jefus Christ.

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We have no reason to fuppofe, thofe eminent faints whom the Holy Ghoft employed as fcribes, in penning the facred fcriptures, conceived any other of their natural ftate, even from their infancy, than a state of guiltinefs and obnoxioufnefs to wrath; feeing many of their expreffions both general and particular, clearly indicate fuch conceptions. Job, in the extremity of his fufferings, confeffed to God the feebleness of his body, and the defilement of his foul, and acknowledged that the fountain was fo exceedingly corrupt and poisoned, that nothing pure and untainted could poffibly proceed from it, for, who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? faith he, Not one. Nor did his friends however different from him in their fentiments in other refpects, diffent from his judgment in this; for Bildad the Shuhite, fuppofing Job to be felf-righteous, and forgetful of the rock from whence he was hewn, afks him in the presence of his friends, and with him, all that should hear the awful interrogation, bow can be be clean that is born of a woman? The fweet finger of Ifrael taught by the fame fpirit, harmonized in the fame fentiments, and when? fpeaking of others, fays, the wicked are eftranged from the womb, as foon as they be born fpeaking lies; and of himself, behold, I was hapen in iniquity, and in fin did my mother conceive me.

Thefe, with many other paffages expreffive of the like fentiment in holy writ, may ferve to inform us what their judgment was concerning the human nature, who were most high in the favour of heaven; and it would be abfurd to fuppose, that while they declared this to be the ftate of fallen man, they fhould at the fame time conceive

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