(5.) It was a compend of the law of nature. Love to God and one's neighbour was wrapt up in it; and all the ten commands were eminently comprehended therein. For in not eating thereof he would have testified his supreme love to God, and his due love to his posterity; and in eating thereof he cast off both, and so broke all the ten commandments.*

The nature of the Obedience due by man to the Law.

Secondly, Let us consider what kind of obedience to the law Adam was, by this covenant, obliged to yield, as the condition of it. To this twofold law he was to yield,

1. Perfect obedience. Imperfect obedience could not have been accepted under this covenant; neither for justification, for it would have condemned man, Gal. iii. 10, formerly cited; nor under the covenant of grace could it be accepted for that end neither, Matth. iii. 15; as it became the second Adam to fulfil all righteousness; nor yet could it be accepted in point of justification under that covenant, though under the covenant of grace it is. The reason

is, because under the first covenant the work must be accepted for its conformity to the law, and then the person for the work's sake; but imperfect obedience could never be accepted of God for its own sake; for God is "of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity," Hab. i. 13. But under the second covenant the persons of believers are first accepted for Christ's sake, Eph. i. 6; and then their works for the same Christ's sake, Heb. xi. 4. So then the condition of this covenant was perfect obedience, and that,

(1.) Perfect in respect of the principle of it. His nature, soul, and heart behoved always to be kept pure and untainted, as the principle of action. So the law is explained, Luke x. 25-28, "And behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? and he answering, said, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbour as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou has answered right; this do, and thou shalt live." Where the least blemish is in the soul, mind, will, or affections, it must needs make the actions sinful; "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ?" Job xiv. 4 ; "A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit," Matth. vii.

* How Adam, by eating the forbidden fruit, broke all the ten commandments, see proved in the Fourfold State, state 2, Head 1; under the title, "How man's nature was corrupted."

18. Where there is any indisposition for, or reluctancy to duty, there is a blemish in the frame of the soul. Therefore of necessity man behoved to retain a perfect purity in his soul, as the condition of that covenant. God gave man a heart perfectly pure, and commanded him to keep it from being in the least tainted; put on him a fair white garment of habitual inherent righteousness, and commanded it to be kept free from the least spot, under the pain of death.

(2.) Perfect in parts, nowise defective or lame, wanting any part necessary to its integrity; James i. 4. And it behoved to be thus perfect. [1] In respect of the parts of the law, Gal. iii. 10. His obedience behoved to be as broad as the whole law, natural and positive; extending to all the commands thereof laid on him; nothing committed that the law forbade, nothing omitted that the law required. One link of this chain being broken, all was broke together; "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all," James ii. 10; [2.] in respect of the parts of the man, Luke x. 27, 28, forecited. His mind, will, and affections, his soul and his body, all of them behoved to be employed in obedience to the law; and it behoved to be the obedience, as of the whole law, so of the whole man. Thus was he bound to internal and external obedience in the whole compass of both, according to the law. [3.] In respect of the parts of every human action, Gal. iii. 10. The law requires in every such action, a goodness of the matter, manner, and end: a failure in any of these in any one action broke this covenant. So in every action what he did behoved to be good, well done; and all to the glory of God, as the chief end. The least mismanagement in any of these, the least squint look, would have marred all.

(3.) Perfect in degrees, Luke x. 27, 28, above cited. His obedience, as the condition of the covenant, was to be not only of equal breadth with the law, but of equal height with it, in every point. Every part of every action behoved to be screwed up to that pitch determined by the law; all that was lower than it was to be rejected as sinful.

2. Adam was obliged to perpetual obedience, Gal. iii. 10. Not that he was for ever to have been upon his trial; for that would have rendered the promise of life vain and fruitless, since he could never at that rate have attained the reward of his obedience. But it behoved to be perpetual, as a condition of the covenant, during the time set by God himself for the trial; which time God has not discovered in his word. The time of this life is now the time of trial.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the room of the elect, obeyed the

law about the space of thirty-three years; for so long he lived. Whatever was the time appointed for man's trial, according to the covenant; his obedience behoved to be perpetual during that time, without interruption of the course of it, without defection and apostasy from it; till that time had expired in a course of continued obedience, he could not have claimed the final reward of his work. But that time being so expired, he would have been confirmed in goodness, so that he could no more fall away, as a part of the life promised. And the covenant of works would have for ever remained as man's eternal security for, and ground of his eternal life; but no longer as a rule of his obedience, for that would have been to reduce him to the state of trial he was in before, and to have set him anew to work as a title to what he already possessed, by virtue of his supposed keeping of that covenant. Yet man could be in no state, wherein he should not owe obedience to his Creator, no not in the state of glory; and if he owed obedience still, he behoved still to have a rule; and for that effect, the law of nature, which is perpetual, would have returned to its primitive constitution, the form of the covenant of works being done away from it; and so have been man's rule in the state of confirmation. Hence it follows,

(1.) That forasmuch as the Lord Jesus Christ has mended and perfected that work, which Adam marred; believers being united to him, are so confirmed in a state of grace, that they cannot but persevere, and that for ever. Hence it is observable, that the just by faith are declared to be entitled to that very benefit which Adam was by his obedience to have been entitled to; Hab. ii. 4, "The just shall live by his faith;" namely, a life which shall persevere and endure for ever. And therefore the apostle useth that scripture to prove the perseverance of believers, and the certainty of their eternal salvation; Heb. x. 38, 39, "Now the just shall live by faith; but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul." And believers are declared actually to have eternal life, though that life is not yet come unto its full vigour, which is reserved for heaven, John xvii. 3, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." 1 John v. 13, "These things have I written unto you, that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life."

(2.) As it is in vain for Christless sinners, utterly impotent for any good, to pretend to work that they may procure to themselves life; so believers ought not to work for life, or that they may, by their holiness and obedience, gain life. For believers in Christ have life

already in him, by virtue of his working perfectly and perpetually in their room and stead; and for them to pretend so to work for it, is to cast dishonour on Christ's perfect and perpetual obedience. The truth is, holiness is a main part of that life and salvation we have by Jesus Christ. "Of him [i. e. God] are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us-sanctification," 1 Cor. i. 30. "Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;" Tit. iii. 5, "Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works," Tit. ii. 14. And were there more pressing of faith to obtain holiness, and less dividing of holiness from life and salvation, making the former the means to procure to ourselves the latter, there would be more true holiness in these dregs of time.

(3.) They that are not holy have no saving interest in Jesus Christ; and while they continue so, shall never see the face of God in peace; Heb. xii. 14, “Follow-holiness," says the apostle, "without which no man shall see the Lord." Where is the man that pretends to be in Christ, and to have faith, and yet makes no conscience of a holy life, of the duties of piety towards God, righteousness and mercy towards his neighbour; but tramples on any of the ten commandments; I say to him with confidence, as the apostle Peter said to Simon Magus, Acts viii. 21, "Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter; for thy heart is not right in the sight of God." Has Christ fulfilled the covenant which Adam broke; and are not all that are united to him made thereupon partakers of life? How can it be otherwise according to the faithfulness of God? Surely, then, thou who art living in sin, and so art dead while thou livest, hast no saving interest in him.

(4.) Though the believer is under the law of the ten commandments as a rule of life, he is not under the law as a covenant of works in any sense; neither does the law he is under adjudge him to eternal life upon his obedience, nor lay him under the curse, and adjudge him to eternal death for his sins. But the law as to him is stript of its promise of eternal life to obedience, and of its threatening of eternal death to his sins. This is the apostle Paul's doctrine; "Ye are become dead to the law by the body of Christ," Rom. vii. 4; "Ye are not under the law, but under grace," chap. vi. 14; "There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus," Rom. viii. 1 ; "That no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, the just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith; but the man that doth them, shall live in

them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us," Gal. iii. 11, 12, 13. And how can it be otherwise, unless one will say that Christ, by his perfect and perpetual obedience, has not set his people beyond the reach of the curse, nor secured their life?

3. Adam was obliged to personal obedience. Hence says the Lord, “Ye shall keep my statutes and my judgments; which if a man do, he shall live in them," Lev. xviii. 5, which words the apostle Paul quotes; Rom. x. 5, "Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doth these things shall live by them." It behoved to be personal obedience. Not that every person of Adam's race, according to the original constitution, behoved to yield this obedience for himself, in order to obtain the life promised. It is true, indeed, that all Adam's children, who should have been born and grown up, before the time of his trial was expired, would have been obliged, (it would seem) to that obedience for that end, in their own persons; and if they had failed in it, the loss would have been to themselves, and to themselves only. This may be learned from the case of Eve, noticed before. But that in case Adam had stood out the whole time of his trial, every one of his posterity after that should yet have been obliged to yield obedience for life in their own persons is what I cannot comprehend. For then, to what purpose was the representation of mankind by Adam? for what end was he constituted their federal head? It is plain, that by Adam's breaking of the covenant, death has come on them, who had no being in the world in Adam's time; and how this can be consistent with the goodness of God, and the equity of his proceedings, unless they were to have had the promised life upon running the set course of his obedience, I see not; and therefore must conclude, that after Adam's standing out the set time, all mankind then standing with him, would have been confirmed; and those who should afterwards have come into the world, would not only have had original righteousness conveyed to them from him, but have been confirmed too in holiness and happiness, so that they could not have fallen.

It is true, the covenant of works now proposes the same condition to every man under it, that it did to Adam, to be performed in his own person for himself, if he will have life by it. The reason is plain, Adam sinning is no more the representative in that covenant, to act for them; so they must take the same way every one for themselves, that he was to have taken for himself and all his posterity. While the pilot manages the ship carefully and skilfully, so as she makes her way towards the port, the passengers have no