fome, would have deterred others from following their example. But every one knows, that there is no tie which more powerfully reftrains man than a regard to his offspring; that this will influence, when every other confideration is ineffectual. And furely, there never was a parent who felt the force of this obligation fo powerfully as Adam. He felt it in all its finlefs purity, and in all its poffible extent. His individual intereft was not merely at flake. He faw countlefs millions of his pofterity looking up to him as the trustee of their happiness, or as the caufe of their misery, not for time only, but for eternity. He knew that every one of thefe, in their fucceffive generations, would either rife up and call him bleffed, or accufe him as the murderer of his offspring.

But although we have abundant reafon to admire the grace of God in this tranfaction, it alfo bears a ftriking imprefs of fovereignty. It flowed from the nature of God, that, when he formed a rational creature, he fhould give him a law. But his entering into covenant with man was the refult of his pleafure. He might have made a covenant with Adam, without the idea of repre fentation; or he might have extended it to all, fo that the condition fhould have refpected every one in an individual capacity. He doth not afk the confent of all whom this covenant concerns. As the Lord of all, he fubjects them to it in their common parent. He doth not even require the formal confent of the common reprefentative. As

a fovereign, he promulgates the covenant in the form of a command: "The LORD God command"ed the man." He denies liberty to his creature to dispute his authority. He knew that an innocent creature could not do fo. The time, limited for probation, depended alfo entirely on his will. He might either make this known to Adam, or conceal it from him, as he pleased.

6. He fignally difplayed his fovereignty in immediately fufpending the happiness of man on obedience to a pofitive precept. "The LORD God "commanded the man, faying, Of every tree of "the garden thou mayeft freely eat; but of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou "shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou "eatest thereof, thou fhalt furely die "." Had man tranfgreffed any precept of the moral law, his fall would have been no lefs certain. But why make a regard to this pofitive injunction the turning hinge of his obedience? Why not rather rest it on a moral precept, the reasonableness of which would have been more evident to man, as flowing from the nature of his Creator; while the idea of difobedience might have affected his mind with greater horror? Here God manifefted his abfolute authority. Had he fixed on a moral, rather than on a pofitive precept, the reasonablenefs of the thing itself might have seemed to be the origin of the obligation. But God would teach his creature, that his will was the formal reafon of obedience; and that man was equally bound

.

t Gen. ii. 16.

u Gen. ii. 16, 17.

to

to obey, where he faw no abftract reafon for the duty, as where he did. Whence we may obferve by the way, that moral obligation is not founded on what fome call "the fitness of things," but on the will of the Supreme Lawgiver; and that this can be known to us only in confequence of his being pleased to reveal it. God makes man lord of the lower creation. But he must know, that his dominion is limited, and that abfolute fovereignty is the prerogative of his Maker alone. He gives him power over all things in this world, but one. A fingle tree fhows the limitation of his authority. The more paltry the object, the more ftriking the difplay of divine dominion. This is a tree, not without Eden, or in an obscure corner of it, but "in the midst of the garden." It must be ftill in his eye, or in his way, while he is engaged about his work; that it may ftill remind him of the fovereignty of God, and of his own dependence. The authority of the Lawgiver muft be no less the reafon of his faith, than of his obedience. Nothing in the appearance of the tree could indicate that fatal tendency afcribed to it; but every thing quite the contrary. For "it was "good for food, and pleafant to the eyes." Yet man is bound to believe that the tafte of this tree is mortal, because God hath faid it. He muft rather difcredit the evidence of his own fenfes, than that of God. His understanding must refuse to hear their teftimony, however plaufible, in contradiction to the divine.

7. The divine conduct with refpect to angels contains a striking difplay of fovereignty. God, in his eternal purpose, chofe some angels, and rejected others. We accordingly read of elect angels. Thus Paul addreffes Timothy; "I charge "thee before God, and the Lord Jefus Chrift, and "the elect angels w." On them he determined to confer an eternity of holiness and felicity; while he decreed to permit the fall of myriads of others, and to leave them in their state of guilt and mifery. Thefe, whom he suffered to fall, and whom he caft off for ever, were by nature as pure and perfect as thofe who " kept their first estate." Hence it is evident, that they were chofen, not because of any fuperior excellency, but merely from diftinguishing love. Their standing, while others fell, must be ultimately refolved into the purpose of God, pre-ordaining that they should ftand. For nothing takes place in time, but in confequence of an unalterable decree from eternity.

It pleafed God to display the fovereignty of his will, not merely with respect to his creatures as fallen, but with refpect to them as innocent. He willed to fhow, not only that, as tranfgreffors, they could not make themselves to differ; but that, as finless creatures, their standing primarily depended on an act of his fovereign pleasure. We are bound, indeed, to believe, that both those angels who apoftatized, and man, had abstractedly a fufficiency of grace for obedience, if they inclined

to

W I Tim. v. 28.

to exercise it. But they could not continue in the proper exercise of their freedom of will, unless God willed that they should do fo. For "in him

66

we are moved ." As the creature cannot refift the divine will, as little can he effectually will any thing, unless it be the pleasure of God that the event fhall certainly take place.

It therefore appears, that God abfolutely decreed the permiffion of fin, in order to illuftrate the glory of his own fovereignty and independence, as contrafted with the mere dependence of his most exalted creatures; to fhew that, in their moft perfect state, they are indebted to him, not only for their faculties, but for the proper exercife of them in every inftance; and that even when they have happiness in their own hands, they cannot keep it, except the Supreme Lord efficacioufly will that this fhall be the cafe. He fuffered his most holy creatures to manifeft their comparative imperfection, for the illuftration of his own abfolute and immutable perfection. " Be"hold, he put no trust in his fervants, and his an"gels he charged with folly y." Thus he makes it evident, that the greatest glory of the creature confists, not in his will being independent of God's, but in its being fo determined and influenced by his, that the creature cannot poffibly choose what is evil. For furely, an elect angel, who cannot fin, is in a state of higher perfection than one, who, although free from fin, might be a devil the next moment. The creature is never fo like his Maker,

O 2

x Acts xvii. 28.

y Job iv. 18.