Chapter 101 of 144

Notes: SECTION II. — OF THE PROMISE.

Our author positively asserts this here, and afterwards he confirms it. And there is plain evidence for it from the Holy Scriptures, which determines the time of our Lord’s calling our guilty first parents before him, at which time he gave them the promise. Gen. 3.8, “And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day;” (Heb, “At the wind of that day,” as Junius and Tremellius, Piscator and Picherellus, read it), which, as soon as it began to blow, might convince them that their aprons of fig-leaves were not fit covers for their nakedness.

Our author is far from being singular in this opinion. The learned Gataker [Thomas Gataker (1574-1654) English clergyman and theologian who served at the Westminster Assembly in 1642] (apud Pol. Synop. Crit. in Gen. 3.23) admits it as the common opinion, though he himself is of another mind, “That man fell and was cast out of paradise the same day in which he was created.” And he tells us (Ibid, in Psalm 49.13) that “Broughton most confidently asserts that Adam did not stand in his integrity so much as one day; and he says out of Maimonides [Moshe ben Maimon c. 1135-1204 – renowned Jewish scholar], that this is held by all the Jews, and also by the Greek fathers.” If I am not mistaken, this opinion is now less received than formerly, not a little owing to the cavils of the Deists who, to weaken the credit of the inspired history, allege it to be incredible that the events recorded in Gen. 1.24-26, and 2.7, 18, to the end of the third chapter, could all be crowded into one day (see Nichol’s Conference with a Theist). The reasons to support it, taken from the learned Sharp [John Sharp (c. 1572-1648) professor of Divinity in Edinburgh], one of the six ministers banished in the year 1606. (Curs. Theol. Loc. de Peccato.) 1. “Because of the devil’s envy who, it is likely, could not long endure to see man in a happy state. 2. If man had stood more days, the blessing of marriage would have taken place, Adam would have known his wife, and begotten a child without original sin. 3. The Sabbath was not so much appointed for meditating on the works of creation, as on the work of redemption. 4. It appears from the words of the serpent, and of the woman, that she had not yet tasted any fruit. 5. When the Holy Ghost speaks of the sixth day, Gen. 1, and of the day of the fall, it is with the emphatic (compare Gen. 1. ult. and 3.8.) 6. He fell so soon, that the work of redemption might be more illustrious, since man could not stand one day without the Mediator’s help.” How the Sabbath was broken by Adam’s sin, though committed the day before, may be learned from the Larger Catechism, on the fourth commandment, which teaches that “The Sabbath is to be sanctified — and to that end we are to prepare our hearts — that we may be more fit for the duties of that day;” and that “the sins forbidden in the fourth commandment, are all omissions of the duties required,” etc.

In this promise was revealed, 1. That Man’s restoration to the favour of God, and his salvation, were not to be effected by man himself and his own works, but by another. For our first parents, standing condemned for breaking the Covenant of Works, are not sent back to it, to assess mending the matter which they had marred before; but a new covenant is purposed — a Saviour promised as their only hope. 2. That this Saviour was to be incarnate, to become man, “the seed of the woman.” 3. That he needed to suffer; his heel — namely his humanity — was to be bruised to death. 4. That by his death he would make a full conquest over the devil, and destroy his works, who had now overcome and destroyed mankind; and so he would recover the captives out of his hand: “he shall bruise your head, namely: while you bruise his heel.” This encounter was on the cross: there, Christ treading on the serpent, his heel was bruised, but he bruised its head. 5. That he could not be held by death, but Satan’s power would be broken irrecoverably: the Saviour being only bruised in the heel, but the serpent in the head. 6. That the saving interest in him and his salvation, is by faith alone, believing the promise with particular application to one’s self, and so receiving him, in as much as these things are revealed by way of a simple promise.

Henry Ainsworth (1571-1622?) – Nonconformist theologian, Hebrew scholar, and a leader of the English Separatist colony in Amsterdam. At first a Puritan, Ainsworth joined the Separatists who broke entirely with the Church of England. Driven abroad in the persecution of 1593, he settled in Amsterdam (Ency. Brit.).

“From this text the Hebrew doctors, also in Bereshit Rabba, gather that the glory of the first man did not night with him [i.e. stay the night], and that in the beginning of the Sabbath his splendour was taken away from him, and he was driven out of Eden.”— (Cartwright apud Pol. Synops. Crit. in Loc.) The learned Leigh (in his Crit. Sacr. in voc. Lun) citing this text, says, “Adam did not lodge one night in honour, for so are the words, if they are properly translated.” He repeats the same in his annotations on the book of Psalms, and points his reader to Ainsworth, whose version evidently favours this opinion, and he is faithfully cited here by our author, though without the marks of composition — “lodge a night,” there being no such marks in my copy of Ainsworth’s version or annotations, printed at London, 1639. However the word lun may signify to abide or continue; it is certain the proper and primary signification of it is tonight (at, in, or with). I must be allowed the use of this word to express the true import of the original one.” Thus we have it rendered, Gen. 28.11, “tarried all night.” — Judges 19.9, 10, 13, “Tarry all night — tarry that night — lodged all night.” And since this is the proper and primary signification of the word, it is not to be receded from without necessity, which I cannot discover here. The text seems to me to stand thus, word for word, the propriety of the tenses also observed: “Yet Adam in honour could not night [stay the night]; he became like as the beasts, they were alike.” Compare the Septuagint, and the vulgar Latin; with which, according to Pool (in Synop. Crit.) the Ethiopic, Syriac, and Arabic agree, though unhappy in not observing the difference between this and the last verse of the Psalm. Nothing can be more agreeable to the scope and context. Worldly men boast themselves in the multitude of their riches, Psa 49.6, as if their houses should continue forever, verse 11; and yet Adam, as happy as he was in paradise, did not continue one night in his honour; it quickly left him; indeed, he died, and in that respect he became like the beasts; compare Psa 49.14, “Like sheep they are laid in the grave, death shall feed on them.” And after showing that the worldly man shall die, notwithstanding his worldly wealth and honour, verse 19, this suitable memorial for Adam’s sons is repeated with a very small variation, verses 20, 21 [Douay-Rheims], “Adam was in honour, but could not understand; he became,” etc.

That the promise was given the same day that Adam sinned, was evinced before: and from the history in Gen. 3, and the nature of the thing itself, one may reasonably conclude, that the sacrifices were annexed to the promise. And since the hour of Christ’s death was all along, the time of the evening sacrifice, it is very natural to reckon that it was also the hour of the first sacrifice; even as the place on which the temple stood was at first designed by an extraordinary sacrifice on that spot, 1Chron. 21.18-28 and 22.1. “At three o’clock in the afternoon, Christ yielded up the Ghost (Mark 15.34) the very time when Adam had received the promise of this passion for his redemption.”— Lightfoot on Acts 2.1.

This word might well have been spared here; notwithstanding that we so read in the title of the book of the Revelation in our English Bibles; and in like manner, in the titles of other books in the New Testament, St. (i.e. Saint) Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, etc., it is evident that there is not such a word to be found in the titles of these books in the original Greek; and the Dutch translators have justly discarded it out of their translations. If it is to be retained, because John, Matthew, Mark, Luke, etc., were without controversy, saints, then why not on the same ground have Saint Moses, Saint Aaron (expressly called “the Saint of the Lord,” Psalm 106.16.) etc.? No reason can be given for the difference made in this point, except that it pleased Antichrist to canonize these New Testament saints, but not the Old Testament ones. Canonizing is an act or sentence of the Pope, decreeing religious worship and honours to such departed men or women as he sees fit to confer the honour of saintship. These honours are seven, and the first of them is, “That they are enrolled in the catalogue of saints, and must be accounted and called saints by all.”— Bellarmin Disp. tom. 1. Col. 1496.

The benefits of this (namely: of Christ’s redemption) “were communicated to the elect from the beginning of the world in and by those promises, types, and sacrifices in which he was revealed and signified to be the Seed of the woman who would bruise the serpent’s head, and the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world.” — Westm. Confess., chap. 8, art. 6.

So the Septuagint expounds it. Others, an enlivener, not doubting that Adam, in giving her this name, had the promised life-giving Seed, our Lord Jesus Christ, particularly in view, among the “all living “she was to be mother of.

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