trimmed garden, and most full of delight and pleasantness, every where abounding with all delightful things that might be wished. Herein the Lord God, for a certain singular good will, placed man, and allowed him the use of all things, only he forbad him the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, threatening him with death if he once tasted of it. For reason it was that man having received so many benefits, should, in so far obeying, shew himself willingly obedient to the commandment of God, and that, being contented with his own estate, he should not, being himself a creature, advance himself higher against the will of his Creator.

Mast. What then followed?

Scho. The woman, deceived by the devil, persuaded the man to taste the forbidden fruit, which thing made them both forthwith subject to death. And that heavenly image, according to which he was first created, being defaced, in place of wisdom, strength, holiness, truth, and righteousness, the jewels wherewith God had adorned him, there succeeded the most horrible plagues, blindness, weakness, vain-lying, and unrighteousness, in which evils and miseries he also wrapped and overwhelmed his issue and all his posterity.

Mast. But may it not seem that God did too rigorously punish the tasting of one apple ?

Scho. Let no man extenuate the most heinous offence of man as a small trespass, and weigh the deed by the apple and the only excess of gluttony. For he with his wife, catched and snared

with the guileful allurements of Satan, by infidelity, revolted from the truth of God to a lie: he gave credit to the false suggestions of the serpent, wherein he accused God of untruth, of envy, and of malicious withdrawing of some goodness: having received so many benefits, he became most unthankful toward the giver of them: he, the issue of the earth, not contented that he was made according to the image of God, with intolerable ambition and pride sought to make himself equal with the majesty of God. Finally, he withdrew himself from allegiance to his Creator, yea, and malapertly shook off his yoke. Vain, therefore, is it to extenuate the sin of Adam.

Mast. But how can it seem but unrighteous, that for the parents' fault all the posterity should be deprived of sovereign felicity, and burdened with extreme evils and miseries?

Scho. Adam was the first parent of mankind: therefore God endued him with those ornaments, to have them or lose them for him and his, that is, for all mankind. So soon as he therefore was spoiled of them, his whole nature was left naked, in penury, and destitute of all good things. So soon as he was defiled with that spot of sin, out of the root and stock corrupted, there sprung forth corrupted branches, that conveyed also their corruption into the other twigs springing out of them. Thence it came that so short, small, and uncertain race of life is limited unto us. Thence came the infirmity of our flesh, the feebleness of

PART II.

CHAPTER I.

Of the Covenant of Grace.

SECTION 1.

WHEN Adam and Eve had broken the first Covenant, into which it had pleased their good and wise Creator to admit them, by Sin, which is the transgression of the law; had fallen from their state of innocence and blessedness; and had themselves incurred and entailed upon all mankind, who were to spring from them by natural propagation, the wrath of God, and the punishment due to their disobedience; when placed in this hopeless situation, unable to effect by any means in their power a reconciliation with their offended Maker, or to obtain a mitigation of the doom which they had wilfully and knowingly drawn down upon themselves;-when in the very act of adding to the enormity of their guilt by false excuses and insinuations :-then did the Almighty manifest his tender mercy and providential grace, even before he pronounced sentence on his

upon the instrument of their ruin, with a solemn promise of restoration to divine favour, and of acceptance through that seed of the woman,-to be born in the human nature but supernaturally,-who had been "pre-ordained before the foundation of the world" to bruise the serpent's head,-to destroy the dominion of that mortal enemy, the "murderer from the beginning," who had succeeded in defacing the bright image of original righteousness, and introducing sin and death into this lower world; and who should still be permitted to bruise the heel of man, to tempt and injure him in a less degree.

§ 2. In order to satisfy the justice of God, and to deliver mankind from that lost estate, whence the general terms of the first Covenant could not raise them by reason of the depravation of their nature, which now rendered an entire compliance with such terms utterly impossible; it was necessary that a new and better Covenant should be established. It was not in the power of the sinner to make satisfaction for his own sin, either by contrition for the past, or amendment for the future:-implicit obedience was required of Adam; repentance was not so much as named. No other creature was qualified to expiate the sin of man : "for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin," and God spared not the Angels that sinned. Man therefore must have endured the full execution of his sentence, had not his benevolent Creator provided an all-sufficient sacrifice for sin, even that of his only-begotten Son, who, in the union of the divine and human natures, should become the meritorious and accepted Mediator; by whom it was mercifully proposed, in