truth is, it is a flower of the imperial crown of heaven, due to him only who is absolutely supreme, to stamp mere will into a law binding men.

2. His abundant goodness, in annexing such a great reward to man's service, which it could never merit; Heb. xi. 6, "He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." Here was a full fountain of goodness opened afresh, after he had let out signal goodness to man in his creation and settlement in the world, after all appears a method how to make him eternally happy in another and better world.

3. His admirable condescension, in stooping to make a covenant with his own creature. It is true he was a holy creature, yet he was but a creature. What God might have exacted of him by mere authority, he is pleased to require by compact, so making himself debtor to man upon man's obedience, which without a covenant he could not have been.

Adam, as a public person, the other party in the Covenant. Secondly, On the other hand was Adam, the father of all mankind. He must be considered here under a twofold notion.

1. As a righteous man, morally perfect, endued with sufficient power and abilities to believe and do whatever God should reveal to or require of him, fully able to keep the law. That Adam was thus furnished when the covenant was made with him,

1st, Appears from plain scripture; Eccl. vii. 29, " God hath made man upright." There was an agreeableness of the powers of his soul to the holy law of God, which is habitual righteousness, here asserted; and likewise, Gen. i. 31, "God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good." Not only were all things made good, but very good. Everything had the goodness agreeable to its nature; it was fit for the end God made it for; and so man, being made to serve God, was fitted for that service. So man was very good morally; for that is agreeable to his rational nature, without which he could not be reckoned very good.

2dly, Man was created in the image of God, Gen. i. 27. And so, (1.) His mind was endowed with knowledge; for that is a part of the image of God in man, Col. iii. 10, where believers are said to "have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." We have a most ample testimony of this, Gen. iii. 22, (Heb.), "Behold the man that was one of us, to know good and evil." He was sufficiently able to know good and evil; good, to follow it; and evil, to avoid it. He had a light of knowledge within him, which, rightly improved, might have

directed his way, through all dangers, during the time of his trial. (2.) His will was endowed with righteousness, Eph. iv. 24, where "the new man" is said to be "after God created in righteousness." It was, by its natural set received in creation, straight to the will of God. The holy law was not only written in his mind by the knowledge of it; but in his heart, by the inclinations of his will towards it. No contrary bent was in him, nor propensity to evil; that was inconsistent with the image of God in perfection, and would have been sin in him.

(3.) His affections were holy; hence, Eph. iv. 24, forecited, "the new man" is also said to be "after God created in true holiness." This speaks out the purity and orderliness of his affections. He was not created without passions and affections, as love, joy, delight, &c., for these belong to man's nature; Acts xiv. 15, where the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, said to the people at Lystra, "We are men of like passions with you." These affections are like winds to the ship at sea; but there were no poisonous blasts to be found among them; and no violent and impetuous blasts neither, as is the case since the fall. But there was a pleasant, regular gale of them, whereby he might have made way through all dangers.*

(4.) He had an executive power, whereby he was capable to do what he knew to be his duty, and inclined to do. He was made very good, Gen. i. 31, forecited; which implies not only a power to do good, but a facility in doing it free from all clogs and hinderances. Now, the spirit may be willing, but the flesh is weak. But there was no such thing with Adam; there was no mixture of corruption in his soul, and nothing from the body to hinder his course of obedience.

3dly, and Lastly, If he had not been so, that covenant could not have been made with him. It was inconsistent with the justice and goodness of God to have required that of his creature, which he had not ability to perform given him by his Creator. Wherefore before Adam could be obliged to perfect obedience, he behoved to have ability competent for it; otherwise that saying of the wicked and slothful servant had been true; Matth. xxv. 24, "Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed." The case now is not the same with us, Adam having received and lost that power for himself and us. For although one cannot demand payment of a debt which he never lent or gave any manner of way; yet having

* The reader may see all the three preceding particulars more especially illustrated in our author's work, entitled, "Human Nature in its Fourfold State," State i., under the title, "Of man's original righteousness."

once lent the sum, he may require it of the debtor and his heirs, though they be not able to pay.

Thus was man perfectly furnished and fitted to enter into this covenant. Let me therefore improve this point in a very few words, before I proceed further.

USE 1. How low is man now brought, how unlike to what he was at his creation! Alas! man is now ruined, and sin is the cause of that fatal ruin.

2. What madness is it for men to look to that covenant for salvation, when they are nowise fit for the way of it, having lost all the furniture and ability proper for the observation thereof.

3. Lastly, See how ye stand with respect to this covenant; whether ye are discharged from it, and brought within the bond of the new covenant in Christ or not. But I proceed,

2. Adam, in the covenant of works, is to be considered as the first man, 1 Cor. xv, 47, in whom all mankind was included. And he

was,

1st, The natural root of mankind, from which all the generations of men on the face of the earth spring. This is evident from Acts xvii. 26, "God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth;" which determines all men to be of one stock, one original, or common parentage. And this also appears from Gen. iii. 20, “ Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living;" which determines that to be only Adam's family. And of him was also Eve, who was not only formed for him but of him, Gen. ii. 21, 22, 23. Thus Adam was the compend of the whole world.

2dly, The moral root, a public person, and representative of mankind. And as such the covenant of works was made with him. As to this representation by Adam, we may note,

(1.) That the man Christ was not included in it; Adam did not represent him, as he stood covenanting with God. This is manifest, in that Christ is opposed to Adam, as the last and second Adam to the first Adam, 1 Cor. xv. 45, one representative to another, ver. 48. And if that covenant had been kept, Christ had not come, whose work it is to repair the loss by the breach of the first covenant, by establishing another covenant for that end. Besides, Christ was not born, as all others are, by virtue of that blessing of fruitfulness given before the fall, under the covenant of works, while it yet remained unbroken; but by virtue of a special promise given after the fall, which promise was the erecting of another covenant, namely, the covenant of grace, whereof Christ was the head, Gen. iii. 15.

(2.) Whether Eve was included in this representation, is not so

clear. I find she is excepted by some. It is plain, that Adam was the original whence she came, as he and she together are of all their posterity. He was her head, Eph. v. 23, "For the husband is the head of the wife." The thread of the history, Gen. ii., gives us the making of the covenant of works with Adam before the formation of Eve. The covenant itself runs in terms as delivered to one person, ver. 16, 17, "Thou mayest-Thou shalt." From whence it seems to me that she was included. It is true, she fell by her own transgression; and so might any of Adam's posterity have fallen to themselves, as she did to herself, during the time of probation in this covenant; but the ruin of mankind was not completed till he did eat. And therefore Adam is first convicted, though Eve was first in the transgression, Gen. iii. 9.

(3.) Without question, all his posterity by ordinary generation were included in it. He stood for them all in that covenant, and was their federal head, that covenant being made with him as a public person representing them all. For,

[1.] The relation which the scripture teaches betwixt Adam and Christ evinces this. The one is called the first Adam, the other the last Adam, 1 Cor. xv. 45; the one the first man, the other the second man, ver. 47. Now, Christ is not the second man, but as he is a public person, representing all his elect seed in the covenant of grace, being their federal head; therefore Adam was a public person representing all his natural seed in the covenant of works, being their federal head; for if there be a second man there must be a first man; if a second representative there must be a first. Again, Christ is not the last Adam, but as the federal head of the elect, bringing salvation to them by his covenant keeping; therefore the first Adam was the federal head of those whom he brought death upon by his covenant-breaking, and these are all, ver. 22, "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." And therefore the apostle, Rom. v. 14, calls Adam a figure or type of Christ. Accordingly each of these representatives are held forth with their respective parties represented by them, being made like unto them, 1 Cor. xv. 48, "As is the earthly, such are they also that are earthly; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly." [2.] Adam's breaking of the covenant is in law their breaking of it; it is imputed to them by a holy God, whose judgment is according to truth, and therefore can never impute to men the sin of which they are not guilty. Rom. v. 12-" All have sinned." Now, if we enquire what is the particular sin here meant; the apostle makes it evident, that it is Adam's first sin, vers. 15, 19,-" If through the offence of one many be dead.-As by the offence of one judgment

came upon all men." And that sin was the breaking of the covenant. Now, we could never be reckoned breakers of the covenant in him, if we were not reckoned first makers of it in him; that is, that Adam was our federal head in that covenant, so that it was made with us in him.

[3.] The ruins by the breach of that covenant fall on all mankind, not excepting those who are not guilty of actual sin. Hence believers are said to have been "the children of wrath, even as others," Eph. ii. 3, and that "death hath reigned over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression," Rom. v. 14. All were excluded from paradise, and from the tree of life, in the loins of Adam; the ground was cursed to them, as well as to him. Yea, all die spiritually, and that in him, 1 Cor. xv. 22, forecited. Yet it is only "the soul that sinneth, shall die," Ezek. xviii. 4. They thus die who are not chargeable with personal sins, Rom. v. 14, also above cited. It must be by virtue of that original threatening then, Gen. iii. 17,-" Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." And if they die by virtue of that threatening, they were under that law to which it was annexed; but they could no other way be under it, than as in Adam their federal head and representative.

[4.] Lastly, The sin and death we come under by Adam, is still restrained unto that sin of his by which he brake the covenant of works, Rom. v. 15-19, "Through the offence of one many be dead. The judgment was by one to condemnation.-By one man's offence death reigned by one.-By the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation.-By one man's disobedience many were made sinners." As for Adam's after sins, the scripture takes no notice of them that way. If our communion with him in sin and death did depend merely on his natural relation to us, the conveyance of guilt from him unto us could not have ceased, till his whole guilt contracted all his life over had disburdened itself upon us ; because the natural relation ceased not, but was still the same. It depended then upon some supervenient relation, the which could be no other but that he was constituted a public person, representing us in the first covenant; the which ceased, when he went in for himself into the second covenant. The ship whereof he was made steersman being split, the covenant of grace, as another ship came up, of which Christ was the steersman; and this covenant was let out as a rope to hale the passengers to land. This Adam laid hold on, and so quitted his first post, that his after mismanagement could no more harm as formerly.

The equity of this representation.

This representation was just and equal, though we did not make