WORKS, or a reciprocal covenant, between God and Adam, together
may see what is the nature of a covenant in general, and what things
are thereunto required; as, first, every true covenant presupposes a
division or separation; secondly, it comprehends in it a mutual
promising and binding between two distinct parties.
Thirdly, there must be faithful dealing, without fraud, or dissembling
on both sides.
Fourthly, this must be between choice persons.
Fifthly, it must be about choice matters and upon choice conditions,
agreed upon by both.
Sixthly and lastly, it must tend to the well-ordering and composing of
things between them.
Now all these are manifest by the several significations of the words
from which Berith and Diatheke are derived. And thus much for the
word covenant according to the originals of the Old and New
Testament.
5. Fifthly, Premise this with me, that there was a covenant of
WORKS, or a reciprocal covenant, between God and Adam, together
with all his posterity. Before Adam fell from his primitive holiness,
beauty, glory, and excellency—God made a covenant with Adam as a
public person, in which he represented all mankind. The covenant of
works was made with all men in Adam, who was made and stood as a
public person, head and root, in a common and comprehensive
capacity. I say, it was made with him as such, and we all in him; he
and all stood and fell together.
(1.) Witness the imputation of Adam's sin to all mankind. Romans
5:12, "In whom," or forasmuch as, "all have sinned;" they sinned not
all in themselves, therefore they sinned in Adam; see ver. 14, "In him
all died."
(2.) Witness the curse of the covenant that all mankind are directly
under. Consult these scriptures. [1 Cor, 15:47; Deut. 29:21; Romans
8:20,21; Gal. 3:10, 13.] Those on whom the curse of the covenant
comes, those are under the bond and precept of the covenant. But all
mankind are under the curse of the covenant, and therefore all
mankind are under the bond and precept of the covenant. Adam did
understand the terms of the covenant, and did consent to the terms
of the covenant; for God dealt with him in a rational way, and
expected from him a reasonable service. The end of this covenant
was the upholding of the creation, and of all the creatures in their
pure natural estate, for the comfort of man continually, and for the
special manifestation of God's free grace; and that he might put the
greater obligation upon Adam to obey his Creator and to sweeten his
authority to man; and that he might draw out Adam to an exercise of
his faith, love, and hope in his Creator; and that he might leave Adam
the more inexcusable in case he should sin; and that so a clear way
might be made for God's justification and man's conviction. Upon
these grounds God dealt with Adam, not only in a way of sovereignty,
but in a way of covenant.
QUESTION. But how may it be evidenced that God entered into a
covenant of works with the first Adam before his fall, there being no
mention of such a covenant in the Scripture that we read of?
ANSWER. Though the name is not in the Scripture, yet the principal
and thing itself are in the Scripture, as will evidently appear by
comparing scripture with scripture. [Socinians call for the word
"Satisfaction," others call for the word "Sacrament," others call for
the word "Trinity," and others call for the word "Sabbath," for Lord's
day, etc.; and thence conclude against any Satisfaction, Sacraments,
Trinity, Sabbath, for lack of express words, when the things
themselves are plainly and lively set down, in other words, in the
blessed Scriptures. So it is in this case of God's covenant with Adam.
The vanity and folly of such ways of reasoning is sufficiently
demonstrated by all writers upon those subjects, who are sound in
the faith, etc.]
Though it be not positively and plainly said in the blessed Scripture
that God made a covenant of works with Adam before his fall, yet,
upon sundry scripture grounds and considerations, it may be
sufficiently evidenced that God did make such a covenant with Adam
before his fall. Therefore it is a fancy cavil, and a foolish vanity, for
any to make such a noise about the word covenant—for lack of the
word covenant, boldly to conclude that there was no such covenant
made with Adam, when the thing is lively set down in other words,
though the word covenant be not expressed. This I shall make
evident by an induction of particulars, thus—
[1.] First, God, to declare his sovereignty and man's subjection, gave
Adam, though innocent, a law. God's express prescription of a
positive law unto Adam in his innocent state, is clearly and fully laid
down in Gen. 2:16-17, "And the Lord God commanded the man,
saying, Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it: for in the
day that you eat thereof you shall surely die!" Hebrew, "dying you
shall die." Mark how God bounds man's obedience with a double
fence:
First, He fenced him with a free indulgence to eat of every tree in the
garden but one, which gave him less cause to be desiring after the
one forbidden fruit. But "stolen waters are sweet."
Secondly, By an explanatory prohibition, upon pain of death. By the
first, the Lord woos him by love; by the second, he frightens him by
the terror of his justice, and bids him touch and taste—if he dared.
The two PARTIES were God and Adam; God the Creator, and man,
the creature, made "after God's image and likeness." At this time,
Adam was not contrary to God, nor at enmity with him; but he was in
some measure like unto God, though far different and inferior to God
in nature and substance.
Here are also TERMS agreed on, and matters covenanted
reciprocally, by these parties.
Adam, on his part, was to be obedient to God, in forbearing to eat of
the tree of knowledge only. God's charge to our first parents was only
negative—not to eat of the tree of knowledge; the other, to eat of the
trees, was left unto their choice. Eve confesses that God spoke unto
them both, and said, "You shall not eat of it," Gen. 3:2; and God
speaks unto both of them together in these words, "Behold, I have
given unto you every herb, and every tree," etc., Gen. 1:19. At which
time also it is very likely that he gave them the other prohibition of
not eating of that one tree; for if God had made that exception
before, he would not have given a general permission after; or if this
general grant had gone before, the exception coming should seem to
abrogate the former grant. The Septuagint seems to be of this mind,
that this precept was given both to Adam and Eve, reading thus in
the plural number, "In what day you both shall eat thereof you both
shall die." And though, in the original, the precept be given in the
name of Adam only, that is only:
(1.) Because Adam was the more principal, and he had the charge of
the woman; and
(2.) Because that the greatest danger was in his transgression, which
was the cause of the ruin of his posterity;
(3.) Because, as Mercerus well observes, Adam was the common
name both of the man and woman, Gen. 5:2, and so is taken, ver. 15.
And God, on his part, for the present, permits Adam to eat of all
other trees of the garden; and for the future, in his explicit
threatening of death in case of disobedience; implicitly promises life
in case of obedience herein.
[2.] Secondly, The promises of this covenant on God's part were very
glorious—
First, That heaven, and earth, and all creatures should continue in
their natural course and order wherein God had created and placed
them, serving always for man's use, and that man should have the
benefit and lordship of them all.
Secondly, As for natural life, in respect of the body, Adam should
have had perfection without defect, beauty without deformity, labor
without weariness.
Thirdly, As for spiritual life, Adam would never have known what it
was to be under terrors and horrors of conscience, nor what a
wounded spirit means, Proverbs 18:14. He would never have found
"the arrows of the Almighty sticking fast in him, nor the poison
thereof drinking up his spirits, nor the terrors of God to set
themselves in array against him," Job 6:4. Nor would he ever have
tasted of death. Death is a fall that came in by a fall. Had Adam never
sinned, Adam would have never died; had Adam stood fast in
innocency, he would have been translated to glory without
dissolution. Death came in by sin, and sin goes out by death. As the
worm kills the worm that bred it, so death kills sin that bred it.
Now where there are parties covenanting, promising, and agreeing
upon terms, and terms mutually agreed upon by those parties, as
here, there is the substance of an express covenant, though it be not
formally and in express words called a covenant. This was the first
covenant which God made with man, and this is called by the name
Berith, Jer. 33:20, where God says, "If you can break my covenant of
the day and night, and that there shall not be day and night in their
season," ver. 21, "then may also my covenant with David be broken."
In these words he speaks plainly of the promise in the creation, that
day and night should keep their course, and the sun, moon, and
stars, and all creatures, should serve for man's use, Gen. 1:14-16.
Now though man did break the covenant on his part, yet God, being
immutable, could not break covenant on his part, neither did he
allow his promise to fail; but, by virtue of Christ promised to man in
the new covenant, he will keep touch with man so long as mankind
has a being on the earth.
In this first covenant, God promised unto man life and happiness,
lordship over all the creatures, liberty to use them, and all other
blessings which his heart could desire, to keep him in that happy
estate wherein he was created. And man was bound to God to walk in
perfect righteousness, to observe and keep God's commandments,
and to obey his will in all things which were within the reach of his
nature, and so far as was revealed to him. In the first covenant, God
revealed himself to man as one God, Creator, and Governor of all
things, infinite in power, wisdom, goodness, nature, and substance.
God was man's good Lord, and man was God's good servant; God
dearly loved man, and man greatly loved God with all his heart.
There was not the least shadow or occasion of hatred or enmity
between them; there was nothing but mutual love, mutual delight,
mutual contentment, and mutual satisfaction between God and man.
Man, in his primitive glory, needed no mediator to come between
God and him. Man was perfect, pure, upright, and good, created after
God's own image; and the nearer he came to God, the greater was his
joy and comfort. God's presence now was man's great delight, and it
was man's heaven on earth to walk with God. But,
[3.] Thirdly, Consider the intention and use of the two eminent trees
in the garden, which are mentioned in a more peculiar manner—
namely, the tree of life and the tree of knowledge. The intended use
of these two trees in paradise was sacramental. Hence they are called
symbolical trees, and sacramental trees, by learned writers, both
ancient and modern. By these the Lord did signify and seal to our
first parents that they should always enjoy that happy state of life in
which they were made, upon condition of obedience to his
commandments; that is, in eating of the tree of life, and not eating of
the tree of knowledge. [The tree of life was the sign and seal which
God gave to man for confirmation of this first covenant; and it was to
man a sacrament and pledge of eternal life on earth and of all
blessings needful to keep man in life.]
The tree of life is so called, not because of any native property and
peculiar virtue it had in itself to convey life, but symbolically,
morally, and sacramentally. It was a sign and obligation to them of
life, natural and spiritual, to be continued to them as long as they
continued in obedience to God. The seal of the first covenant was the
tree of life, which if Adam had received by taking and eating of it,
while he stood in the state of innocency before his fall, he had
certainly been established in that estate forever; and the covenant
being sealed and confirmed between God and him on both parts, he
could not have been seduced and supplanted by Satan, as some
learned men do think, and as God's own words seem to imply, Gen.
3:22, "And now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree
of life, and eat, and live forever."
"The tree of knowledge of good and evil" was spoken from the sad
event and experience they had of it, as Samson had of God's
departing from him when he lost his Nazaritish hair by Delilah. "The
tree of life" was a sacrament of life; the "tree of knowledge" a
sacrament of death. "The tree of life" was for confirmation of man's
obedience, and "the tree of knowledge" was for caution against
disobedience. Now if those two trees were two sacraments, the one
assuring of life in case of obedience, the other assuring of death in
case of disobedience, then hence we may collect that God not only
entered into a covenant of works with the first Adam, but also gave
him this covenant under sacramental signs and seals. But,
[4.] Fourthly, Seriously consider that a covenant of works lay clear,
in that commandment, Gen. 2:16-17, which may thus be made
evident: