offended,) from him. Hence, all these things ensue and follow of themselves. And there was no preventing it by any ordinary methods, unless God would annihilate him, unless he would throw his creature back again into nothing. But that became not the wisdom and greatness of God to do. It had been too much trifling to raise his creature into being, and put him under such an equitable, and so righteous a law, and, he offending, presently to nullify his own work. That had not been becoming God, not suitable to the divine wisdom and greatness.

And therefore, now to give some brief notes of Use upon the two last mentioned heads.

1. You may learn, hence, that the act of eating the forbidden fruit, is not to be considered too abstractly, as the first sin of man; that is the thing wherein the most do foolishly impose upon themselves, and so speak and think diminishingly of this whole matter. What! was it so great a matter? was it so great a thing to eat the fruit of a tree that was forbidden? This, abstractly considered, was not the first sin. Not abstractly considered; take it comprehensively, and take it in all that was belonging to it, and it was the first sin. But the act of eating alone, considered by itself, was not the first; there were a great many mental evils (as we have shewn in opening the sin) which did precede the act of eating, and that altogether, make it a most horrid wickedness; distrust of the truth of God's word, and trusting a creature that he might easily apprehend to be an apostate, fallen creature, by opposing the word of God; trusting him against him that made him, and gave him breath. He trusted against God, one, he knew not whom but he might suppose it one that was not in his original integrity, that was fallen and gone off from God; otherwise he could never have counselled against God. There was great ingratitude for goodness, shewn and exhibited; for mercy received mercy, indeed, as yet it could not properly be called, he not being as yet a miserable creature, or in a miserable state. There was opposing his will to the Supreme Will. There was exalting the sensitive nature against the rational, against the law of the mind; and so confounding the order of things, in that part of God's creation; to wit, himself breaking the order and dependance of the faculties in reference to one another, with many more.

2. And you may further learn, hence, how nearly sin and misery, sin and death, do border upon one another. They are things very near to each other. These two spheres of life and death; that lightsome, glorious sphere, all full of vitality,

pleasure and bliss; and that sphere of darkness and death, that comprehended every thing of horror in it, you see how nearly they do touch, and how nearly they did touch; so that we might suppose, but even a moment between the one and the other. This moment, an innocent creature, standing in delight, and favour, and acceptance; and the next moment, an accomplice of hell, associated with apostate spirits against God. How nearly do the spheres of light, and life, and bliss; and of death, and horror, and hell, touch! How near did they touch one another! How immediate was the transitus, the passage from the one to the other! And,

3. You see, not only the nearness in point of time; but the natural connexion that is between sin and misery; that the one doth in so great a measure involve the other, as I have shewn they do. Sin carries death in it; "To be carnally minded is death." And we may further see,

4. What occasion we should take, hence, to admire the grace of the gospel, that it should so soon intervene; and when it so doth, here is place for repentance by the constitution of a new covenant, the evangelical one, which the covenant and law of works could not give upon any terms: for it could represent God no otherwise than as an unappeasable enemy. "Cursed

is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.”

LECTURE XXIV.*

Rom. 5. 12.

And so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.

scripture, we have insisted "By one man sin entered his fall, by sin, into death.

FROM the former part of this upon the fall of the first man; into the world, and death by sin;" And so you have seen the entrance of both these, sin and death, into the world, in the fall of that one man. Now we come in the next place;

II. To speak, from the latter words, of the fallen state of man, generally considered. And you see the ground of that, too, lies as fully in the latter words of the text, that "death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." I read the words according to our translation, though some would have them to be otherwise read, and the letter of the text doth admit of another reading: instead of "for that," they read "in whom," all have sinned. But of that there will be more occasion to speak hereafter.

In the mean while we are to consider the fallen state of men in general, according as these expressions do represent and hold forth to us. And they do represent his state to be a state of sin and death; these two complicated with one another. "Death hath passed upon all, for that all have sinned." And,

*Preached March 17, 1694,

according to that reading of the words, and the nature of the thing, that which is here last mentioned, requires to be considered first, though these are complicated with one another; sin and death run into one another, are most inseparably conjunct; yet, they are all some way distinct. And so far as they do admit of being distinguished, we shall consider and speak to them distinctly. And so,

1. Of the sinful state of men in general. Now, in speaking to this, as the letter of the text leads us, we shall-consider the nature, and-the universality, chiefly, of this sin that is thus spread through the world. We are,

(1.) To consider the nature of it. The general nature of sin is plainly expressed 1 John 3. 4. "Sin is the transgression of the law." And therefore, that we may shew you more distinctly the nature of that sin which hath so generally diffused itself among men, (as we shall afterwards shew,) it will be needful to inquire, What it is that we must take for the measure of such sin? inasmuch as the following words here do plainly tell us, in the latter part of the 13th verse, that "sin is not imputed where there is no law:" wherever any sin is, some law must be supposed to be. And what is that law, against which it can be understood that men might so generally sin?

You have heard, by what law the first sin of man was to be measured: that was partly a positive law, a particular precept, a law made by a spiritual revelation to him but much more principally a natural law, which was violated in the violation of that positive one, inasmuch as that positive law had its immediate root and foundation in the natural one: nothing being more apparently natural, than that the reasonable creature ought to comply with the will of his Maker being once known. But though it were very apparent what law that first sin did transgress, yet it is not so apparent what law it is that the common sin of mankind doth now transgress. And so that needs to be inquired into.

In the general, it may be said, that the law that doth obtain in the world now, and from age to age, doth consist of two parts, as the law at first did which was given to Adam, even in his innocency; to wit, that it is partly natural, and partly by super-. added Revelation. So it was at first, so it is still; but with great and remarkable difference. That whereas, at first, the natural law was full, perfect, intire, most comprehensive, and large, even in the discernible impressions of it; and the superadded law by special Revelation narrow, lying in a very little compass (one particular interdict only with its penalty esta

blishing it) that we read or are informed of. But now the case is very diverse and opposite: that is, the natural is diminished, not in the obligation of it, but in the impression, the discernible or discerned impression, that frame in the heart or mind of man broken into fragments, many parts very obscure and illegible, and divers, with many of the inhabitants of this earth, (as it were,) lost through inadvertency, and their not reflecting upon themselves so as to discern and find out the sculpture of what remains engraven upon their hearts. And the revealed law, (where that obtains,) that is so much the more large, and comprehensive, and full, and perfect, so as to discover every false way; and every true and right way: one and the same rule being the same measure, recti et obliqui, of that which is right and that which is wrong too.

And the exigency of the case did require that it should be so: that is, by how much the more that the natural law was erased, broken into fragments and parcels, and many of them (as to their discernibleness) lost with many; so much the more requisite was it, that the superadded law (which was to be by revelation) should be entire and complete, that there should be another impression of that original law, that should collect and gather up all that was lost of it, and rendered it obscure, from the prevailing corruption of the world. And so thus, in short, did these two cases stand in opposition to one another. At first, the natural law was most entire and full and large and comprehensive: and the revealed law narrow, and lying within a very little compass. But now the natural law, to wit, in the discernibleness of its impression, is greatly diminished; and the law that is by revelation so much the more large, comprehensive, entire, and full.

At first, that revealed law after the apostasy, must, for seve ral successive ages, be easily transmitted (by reason of the great longevity that remained before and after the flood) from hand to hand by a certain tradition. But afterwards, God provided that it should be collected and gathered up into Sacred Records, though not all written at once, but successively, according as supreme wisdom had determined concerning the different states in the future church, in point of light. And so, what we have of it now, lies entirely and fully in the sacred volumes, of which we have discoursed to you largely heretofore; but that doth actually obtain but in a small part of the world in comparison: but a very small part. That it doth obtain no further, is owing to the wickedness of the world itself, which obstructs the diffusion of it. God, in his holy wisdom not obtruding, not by extraordinary means and methods making