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The form of the words.

Matter of faith.

Ironie.

nant of the Lord their God, because they went and ferved other Gods and worshipped them, even Gods which they knew not: And here because Adam obeyed the Serpent whom he knew not and disobeyed God whom he knew, because he would be as God and know good and evil, he tafted the deferved punishment of Gods wrath.

Now for the matter conteined herein, the ancient Fathers doe gather hence, firft matter of faith, quafi unus ex nobis, Adam is like one of us hereby is taken a certain apprehenfion of the Trinity, to refute the Jews, that God fpeaketh not as Princes doe,and like Emperors, We charge you, It is our pleasure,&c. that though he be one that Ipeaketh, yet he ufeth the plurall number: but this doth refute them; for what Prince or Monarch faith Like one of me, to shew the unity of Godhead and trinity of perfons; he said not like unto Angells, but like one of Ia which words he fheweth both a re membrance or token of the unity and the Trinity, in the fourth of Fohn the twenty third verfe, she perfon of the Father in the twenty feventh verfe there following the perfon of the Sonne faith, I am he So that in one is the Godhead, in is the perfons. So much of the character.

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Secondly, It may feem God fpeaketh this as an Ironje, in a fcorning fort, for furely it cannot be fpoken directly, for he is not be come like God that knoweth all things, but rather like she brute beaft without understanding, he is become by his disobedience liker the Serpent that feduced him, than God that made him.Some take them as pm. Ironicall, or which is more, as a Sarcasms or biting fpeech, Behold, they are as God, they would have a quaternity inftead of a trinity,they know both good and evill: in the first of the Kings the eighteenth and the twenty feventh, Eliah mocketh the Priests of Baal, saying, Cry aloud, for he is a God, it may be he fleepeth, and must be awaked: furely this was a fcoffing fpeech Hitherto apply the firft to the Corinthi ans the twelfth chapter the thirty firft verle. Salomon, in the first of his Proverbs the twenty fecond verfe, faith the Scorner takesh pleasure in fcorning, fo doth not God yet in the twenty fixt verfe of the fame chapter, Because you have despised my counsell and not regarded my correction, I will laugh at your deftruction, and mock when your fear com mesh: and yet furely this speech is not altogether without an Ironic, though it be not altogether Ironicall; for according to that of the Proverbs before cited, God fcorneth them that fcerne and defpife him but it is unusual, and not to be fhewed in any one part of the Scriptures, that God ufeth fcorning to the penitent finner,though to the obftinate, whom neither love of mercy nor fear of punishment can draw to repentance. So then this fpeech is not a triumphing over them in miferic, or a derifion of their fimplicitie, but rather a publishing or laying open of their finne by Ecce, behold. Facob, in the thirty fecond of Genefis the thirty fecond verfe, though he wreftled with the Angell and had a bleffing, yet the finew of Jacobs thigh. fhrank. This fpeech of God here is with an affection, it is the fpeech of affection, an unperfed fpeech without a period, it

A fpeech of affockinde

breaketh,

breaketh off before it be full, like that fpeech of our Saviour Christ, the nineteenth of Luke the fourty fecond verle, oh if thou haddeft known, at the least in this thy day, those things which belong unto thy peace, but now are they hid from thee; affection ftayeth the course of the fpeech, it is a fpeech of commiferation,ecce homo: pitie breaketh off the period. In the nineteenth of John the fift verse, when Chrift was thewed to the People crowned with a crown of thornes Pilate faid, Ecce homo, Behold the man: And Auftin, upon that place, faith they are words of commderation, and why are not the very fame words here allo? So much for the character or form of the words.:

Now of the matter of the fame. It was concupifcence, defire of The matter in honor, beleef of error, that they should be as God, that made them them. finne. The Serpent promised them that they should not dye at all, and that they should be as Gods, eritus ficat Dei: they heard the voice of the Devill and obeyed him. Now remember that promife of the Devill is falfe; hereafter beleeve me and be not deluded by the Devil: So that God giveth them an audible word to ring in their cares in this, and a leffon to continue in their heart for ever, that fo he may say with David Pfalm 43. Deliver me O God from the deceitfull and wicked man; for he lyeth in wait for blood, and lurketh for their lives, the first of the Proverbs the eighteenth verfe; and fo deteft him that mislead them from life to death, from the fight of God to the heavie indignation of the Lord. This must work compunction, to fee the loffe of Paradife and the feparation from Gods prefence, and that through the illufion of Satan they had fallen from fo great bleffedneffe to fo great miferie. So much shall fuffice for the matter of the publication of his fall.

The Serpent, as you remember in the chapter before, made them The Divills two promises, the one eritis tanquam Dei,the other nequaquam morie- promile. mini: God here in his Sentence fheweth that they have found the con trary of both; for he faith Pulvises & in pulvere revertêris,that is a bar Falfified. to their immortalitie, and in labore & fudore comedes canctis diebus vita tue: So they shall neither be Gods nor immortall. The tree of life was the ordinarie means to maintain him in time of innocencie; but here God deprives him of that means: he was placed in Paradife, where was the tree of life, he is deprived both of the tree and of Paradife it felf, privatur loco & indumento: He must labor and clothe himselfe, or starve and die. The tree of life, as the ancient Fathers fay well, was fymbolum or teffera vita, a feale or token whereby life was warranted them; for God gave them life, and not the tree of life; and they were excommunicated from this feal and banished from this place of Paradife: Deus eft vita, God was their life and being fevered from God, fo they were fevered from life: This was Adams bai the very first patern of civill baniment. He would needs taft of the nifhmere tree which was to him the tree of death; and would not keep the Commandement nor the Law of Paradife, wherein he was; and wherefoever one liveth under a Law and breaketh the Law where

Nejam.

he liveth, deferveth punishment: the reason why he should be banished, left he put forth bis hand and take alfo of the tree of life. And this we ice to be the general defire of all men, that they are willing to prolong their life even in miferie: rather then he would die, he would take of this tree and live in miferie eternally, for faith a Father wel' Cupidiores homines vita producenda, quàm terminanda, men doat more upon the prolonging, than upon ending their life: God faw that this defire was inconvenient to live for ever: Chrift himself died, but now being rifen from the dead, jam non moritur, mors illi ultrà non dominabitur: the fixt to the Romans the ninth verfe, Chrift hath triumphed over death, but Adam, after his fall, had lived, if he had had his own defire,in mifery perpetuall, an evil eternal: Our labour and pain is bu: temporall, till thou return to duft, but the Devils fhall be perpetual: God turned the defire of Adam of evill eternall to an evill temporal, with a donec. This alfo is another reason, why it is not expedient that he should have his defire: God before hath promifed life in the very promife of the feed of the Woman: If God have promifed a better life by another means than Adam defired, or the tree of life yeelded, that is in his Sonne our Saviour to live a Heavenly life in eternitie both in foul and bodie; for he changeth the terreftrial life of the bodie fubje&t to pain and milery, which hedefired, to a heavenly life full of joy and endleffe glorie: So that in that God debarred him to put forth his hand to the tree of life, was mercie even in judgement. St. Gregorie upon this place faith well, Materia eft mifericordia in providentia divina, God by his providence fheweth great mercy even in Judgment; it was just that he should die; but if you confider it well in this Judgement,here is not only a conjunction of mercy and juftice, but here mercie triumpheth over justice; for though God depriveth us of this tree, yet he planteth a better, the feed whereof giveth a fruit better than of that, that is, of eternal life: Zecharie, in his third chapter the eight verfe, telleth you, that the branch of this tree is his fervant: He is the green tree spoken of in the twenty third of Luke the thirty firft verle: And the right of them that doe his commandement is to be ingrafted in this tree of life, Revelations 22. 14. and in the fecond of the fame book,the feventh verle, Christ is called, that tree of life in the Paradife of God.

The ancient Fathers, our of ne jam, left now he put forth his hand, doe gather, that though he were now debarred to put forth his hand and take of that tree of life, yet God gives him comfort that yet hereafter he should not be debarred of the putting out of his hand to take hold of the other tree of life Jefus Chrift. God faith here,that Mans pride. Man would be like one of us, fuch was his pride and disobedience : to Chrifts humi- help that, the Sonne of God will be like one of us, fuch was his love and humility. The Fathers upon the fiftieth of Efay the fixth verse say, that Chrift was vir doloris, he was fmitten, icoffed, and fpit upon like one of us: He was tempted in all things ( finne excepted) like one of us, the fourth to the Hebrews the fifteenth verfe; though he were not fubje& to our infirmities, yet was he fubject to our

lity.

paffions,

paffions, he lived, he suffered, he dyed like one of us God faith here of Adam in his judgement, Ecce homo; and Pilate in Chrifts judgement faith Ecce homo, behold the man: So that God became Ecce bome. man like one of us, to meet with this, that Adam would be like God: He fuffered all miferie like one of us, And he himself bare our finnes in ·his body on the tree, that we being delivered from finne, might live in righteoufneffe,the firft Epistle of Peter the fecond chapter the fourth verle, In a word, behold the Sonne of God is become like one of us, that we may become like unto him, and hath found in himself the tryall of our infirmities. He, I faid, is become like one of us, according 10 that place in the 17.of Fohns Gospel 21. verfe, which are Chrifts own words, that as I am in the Father and the Father in me, so you all may be also one in us and in the twenty fourth verfe there following Chirft faith, Father, I will that they whom thou haft given me, be with me even where I am. This then is here the feparation of us from God, but by Chrift we are reunited into Chrift, as he is into his Father and hereby is a restitution to the place where Chrift us there fhall we be. And to conclude we fhall be restored to life, to glorie, to eternity, to be indeed like to God, by incorporating us into this tree of lite, whereby most great and pretious promifes are given unto us that by them we should be partakers of the heavenly nature, and that we fhould fly this earthly corruption, the fecond of Peters Epiftles the first chapter and the fourth verfe: And though the miseries of this lite be great, yet according to St. Pauls words, they are not to be compared to the joyes of the next life, which are eternall.

Emisit itaque eum Fehova Deus ex horto Hedenis, ad colendum Gen. 3.13. terram illam ex quâ defumptus fuerat. ¡

Hat which was left before as a broken speech Januar, 21, and unperfect, is here fupplyed and at large 1598. expreffed for in these two are conteined the execution of the former Precept: And in The execution these two are the two parts of the Execution; of Adams Judgement. In this is the first part, the fending him out of Paradife and this very verfe doth offer in it felt His fending four feveral points to be handled, First, The fending forth. Secondly, from Eden. Thirdly, Whither? To the Earth. he cof Fourthly, To what end? To till the Earth whence he was taken.

our of Paradife

Four parts

First then touching the fending. Sending, as a motion from place. His fending. to place, as an ordinarie moving, it is indifferent: The Angel, in the fixteenth of this Book the eighth verfe, asketh Hagar from. whence, and whither she goeth? and biddeth her returnback: So that we must come to the other par Whither; for the fending is known to be good or evill, by knowing whether the place whereto they are feat

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2. To the Earth.

3. From

taken.

fent be good or evill: as to be fent with the Children of Ifrael out of captivity is good, from bad to better: But when the place from whence is good, and the place whither is bad,the fending from fuch a place to a worfe is a penal punishment, as here it was to Adam and

Eve.

Secondly then, They were fent to the Earth from Paradife. To live then in the Earth, is the state of us all, yet we had no experience with Adam of this bk ffed state of Paradife; but they had tryall and experience of all the pleafures of Paradife,fo much more penall was it to them to be deprived of a garden,of a garden of Gods own planting, full of all variety and contentment, of a garden,the like whereof all the cunning and travail of man shall never make, and to come from thence to a ground untilled,barren, and full of thistles; whereof he that had lived before at cafe must now be the tiller himself, for it shall not be tilled nor dreffed to his hand. God dealt not here with Adam as he dealeth with the Children of Ifrael; He bringeth them from captivity to a Land filled with Cities which they builded not, full of goods which they brought not, of wells which they digged not, vineyards & olive trees which they planted not, Deut.6 11. There is a great difference from the fending them to a land fodreffed and provided, and to a place fhall bear naught but thistles and thornes, which with all his labor and travail he shall not recover to the leaft part of the excellencie of this garden. If Adam had been fent to a place where fruit had grown without labor, or fruitfull with labour, it had been fomewhat, but he is fent to the Earth curfed before by God in the seventeenth verfe, from a place fully bleffed, from a garden to the ground, from pleasure to labour.

Thirdly, Unto the earth whence he was taken. This is not unprofita whence he was bly added, for there is ufe of this interram de quâ fumptus. The an cient Fathers doe gather hence, first this ufe, That it is a remedy against pride and for humility, hereby they thould remember their former and present ftate, they should remember from whence they were fallen and repent, the second of the Revelations the fift verfe; or according to that of the fifty first of Efay the first verse, They should look to the rock whence they were hewed, and to the hole of the pis whence they were digged: This then planteth in them humilitie, for no queftion but only for humilitie there needed no mention of these words (whence they were taken) God had faid in the 19. verfe, out of the earth wast tbou taken, duft thou art, and to dust shalt, thou return; And Mofes in the fecond chapter before, the feventh verfe faith, Man was made of the duft of the ground; and here again, Out of the earth wert thou taken : this iteration of the fame thing in effect is not needleffe, for the holy Ghoft fetteth down nothing that is needleffe, for true is that faying, that Nunquam nimis difcutitur, quod nunquam faris : But this is iterated fo often to put us in minde of humility, left that fhould stick ftill in their ftomachs which made them firft to tranfgreffe, and to banish the thought from their mindes, that they should be as Gods, which thought were enough to cherish pride; but rather

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