HERE was in the garden of Eden "'the tree of knowledge
EVIL
1. THE TREE OF Goop AND EVIL
HERE was in the garden of Eden "'the tree of knowledge of good and evil" (Gen. ii. 9), so called, not because it had any virtue in it to beget or increase useful knowledge, as then it would not have been forbidden; but because there was an express positive revelation of the will of God concerning this tree, so that by it man might know moral good and evil.
What is good? It is good not to eat of this tree. What is evil? It is evil to eat of this tree. The distinction between all other moral good and evil was written in the heart of man by nature, but this which results from a positive law was written upon this tree, because in the event it proved to give Adam an experimental knowledge of good by the love of it, and of evil by the sense of it.
As the covenant of grace has it, not only "'believe and be saved'', but also "believe not and be damned"' (Mark xvi. 16); so the covenant of innocency had it not only, 'Do this and live", which was sealed and confirmed by the tree of life, but, "fail and die', which he was assessed of by this other tree. Touch it at your peril. So in these two trees God set before Adam good and evil, the blessing and the curse (Deut. xxx. 19). These two trees were as two sacraments.
With the fall of Adam the corruption of the world began and grew apace. In Genesis vi. 4, 5 we read how God observed all the streams of sin that flowed along in men's lives, and the breadth and depth of those streams. '' He saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth." Observe the connexion of this with what goes before in this context. The oppressors were
"mighty men, and men of renown'"'; and then "' God saw that the wickedness of man was great'. The wickedness of a people is great indeed, when the most notorious sinners are men of renown among them. Things are bad when bad men are not only honoured notwithstanding their wickedness but honoured for their wickedness, and the vilest men exalted. Wickedness is great when great men are wicked.