Chapter IV
Containing a short view of the happiness of Adam s condition.
ADAM S best estate was but a type and shadow of that which Christ was
to bring in, and according to the law and proportion of that type, an excel
ling difference must needs be in the latter above the former.
Let us but consider the height and true elevation of his state, simply and plainly, what it was in itself, without considering it as a shadow or
type of the state of grace by Christ, and it will appear how short, and
low, and mean his condition was, in comparison of what even the state of
grace, now under the gospel, brings us into, and makes us the subjects of.
Many things are written concerning the image of God in Adam, both
internal, in holiness and righteousness, and in knowledge, &c., as also
external, in dominion over the works of God s hands. My scope is only so to speak of these things, as may serve to the illustration of Christ, and our estate of grace and glory by him.
The blessed condition that Adam was created in, and estated into in
paradise, is, in the general apprehensions of all men, made the object of
their envy, and conceived to have been such, as their hearts know not how
: and ordinarily we can still scarce think of it as lost, but with a secret kind of regret, that it did so unhappily fall out that Adam, and we in him, should fall from it, and, like great men s heirs, be
to desire a happier
disinherited for their father s treason ; we use to say within ourselves, Oh, what men should we have been, if Adam had not sinned ! To give, therefore, a small taste of this happiness of Adam : No sooner did he open his eyes, but he saw himself most happy. He had a world about him new made, and in its freshness and best hue, and furnished with all sorts of creatures, and all of them suited to his body
(the epitome of them all), and to his senses, as well inward as outward, so
to estate him in the fulness of all contentment. And he was made the
centre of all the goodness that was in those creatures ; unto whom each of
them, as unto their Lord, was fitted to pay a tribute of comfort : so suited was this little and great world together. There was not a desire could
arise in him, but something or other he might find to satisfy it ; nor was
OF THE CREATURES, AND THE CONDITION [BOOK II.
there a creature in the universe towards which he might not find some
thing in himself to be well pleased in it ; God having placed the world in man s heart, as man in the world. And for this first man, God seated him in a garden planted by himself, in the richest and most pleasant soil in the
world, Eden, near Babylon, as the court and royal seat of the king of this
great world a garden, of all nature s pleasures the most delightful (and therefore affected so by Solomon, Eccles. ii. 5), planted by God himself, the best gardener for skill that ever was (and therefore often called in Ezekiel the garden of God ), and so furnished with all the choicest rari
ties and glories of the whole earth brought thither together (which in all other places were but thinly sprinkled), seated in a soil fertile and pleasant beyond expression, and therefore called Paradise, nar t^oyjhv, as being the garden of gardens. And the greatest monarch of Assyria is compared but to one of the trees of this garden, as other princes that envied him are compared to other trees, Ezek. xxxi. 6-8. And then God gave him a soul, able to search into, and so to know the natures of all creatures (for he gave names to them all), which, as Plato said of him who first did this, argued him to be sapientissimus ; and much more able than Solomon was he to discern of all things, and so to see God clearly in each of them ; whom,
then, looking into his heart, he found by the covenant of works (as before he had tasted his favour in all the creatures) to be his God ; from whence issued an unmixed peace and joy, such as fully satisfied his heart in fel
lowship with him, as thus known to be his chiefest good, joined with a promise of having this God to be for ever his, whilst he should thus con tinue to obej
7 him. The promise to him was, that he should live by doing ; by which was meant, not only not to die, but to live to a life made up of
nothing but of comforts and contentments. His heart did live, as the
phrase is, Ps. Ixix. 32. And besides this, he seeing and tasting God s love and goodness in and by all the creatures, he was made capable of a superadded fellowship with God, which at times he was pleased to vouchsafe him by revelations, in visions and apparitions, wherein God
* talked with him (as he did with the patriarchs after him), as appeareth in his story, Gen. 2d and 3d chapters
: by which he was refreshed and cheered, and also instructed further, than simply by God enjoyed in and by the creatures. And surely we have now taken the height of that his happiness. Now this condition of his infinitely surpassed the best state that since the fall ever was, or can be supposed to be, on earth. Since sin subjected both the creature to vanity, and us to vexation of spirit, there never was the like enjoyed (by any son of man. Yea, take but the contentment he took in the creatures, and his pleasures must needs as much exceed these which now men have, as the pleasures of a man, sound and in perfect health, do exceed those of a desperately sick man, who wants all relish, as we now are said to be, Eccles. v. 17, by reason of lusts within us (as Solomon compares it). But, besides, the creatures now are but a husk, as they were to the prodigal, who was the type of sinners, Luke xv., whereas then God was as the kernel of them, and with his favour tasted in them, filled them with a transcendent sweetness. Neither was there then any gross accident added to this emptiness
: no stings of conscience to cause any sadness in the midst of mirth ; no contrary passions to allay the plea sures then enjoyed ; but all in man was subjected unto reason, and that unto God. He enjoyed a perfect peace and security, and a condition so happy, that God delighted himself therein when accomplished, and kept a day of rest in memory thereof, which estate of his the fallen angels did
CHAP. IV.] OF THEIK STATE BY CREATION. 43
envy and malign. And man himself could not but think this world, and
his condition in it, good enough ; nor knew he how any thing could be
beyond it.
Now, notwithstanding all this that hath or may be said of it, this is the
position which I shall endeavour to assert and establish :
That Adam s best knowledge and enjoyment was inferior, and of a lower
rank, than is that knowledge and fellowship with God, which we in Christ,
through faith, do here enjoy, in that estate of grace which the gospel,
putteth us into.
Than which (if well established) nothing will more tend to magnify the
grace of God in Christ, and will abundantly serve to heighten our appre hensions about heaven s glory, when we shall consider how infinitely trans
cendent that happiness must needs be, which God in the end doth beyond
all this advance us unto.
Now, to prevent mistakes, and to clear my meaning, thatj be not mis
understood in casting Adam s condition thus low, I premise these two
cautions :
3 . My meaning is not, as if his condition did not then afford him a more
sensible, constant felicity, and a more actual quiet ease and contentment,
than a believer s in any constant way doth, now under the estate of grace
which falls out so to them, because their happiness is disadvantaged by two things (whatever else there may be) by which his was not. As,
(1.) From the annoyance of outward afflictions from men and the crea
tures, and the chastisements from God for sin : in which respect our con
dition now is rendered more miserable than other men s, and much more
than Adam s, who had a fulness of contentment in God, and all the crea
tures, and a perfect freedom from all miseries whatever.
(2.) In that, even that fellowship a believer hath with God in Christ
(which should counterpoise these outward miseries), is for the degrees of
it so imperfect, and allayed with the contrary admixture of ignorance,
unbelief, guilt, and distress, and so often interrupted by these, that it can
not be supposed always to bring in that full and constant happiness, and
the enjoyment of contentment, that Adam s fellowship with God did, which
was sincere, without any such admixture or private imperfection, and was
ordained to rise to a full perfection in its own sphere, and was ever con
stant and uninterrupted, whilst he sinned not. God not having ordained
the state of grace to give us that quietness, and security, and contentment,
in a constant way here, hath left it on purpose thus imperfect, that so we
might rather breathe after that bliss to come, whereof this is to be but the
taste and earnest.
2. Yet so as, if the way and manner of Adam s knowing and enjoying God (though in its kind complete) be compared with the way and manner
of our knowing and enjoying God, thus imperfect, this of ours is unspeak
ably more divine, heavenly, glorious, and surpassing, and his more low
and earthly.
So that now, would we make a supposition (as for this purpose in hand
we may), that a believer s knowledge and enjoyment of God were but com
pleted and filled up, though but within its own sphere, without
^ the addi
tion of glory and the beatifical vision of God (so it be without this mixture
of sin and miseries which are the punishment of sin) ; and it would ren
der us infinitely more happy, and more replete with glorious contentment,
than ever entered into Adam s heart, and would make this estate of grace below a heaven in comparison of his paradise. ^
44 OF THE CREATURES, AND THE CONDITION [BOOK II.