Sect 4. Of the fall of Adam.

The next subject of our meditation is the fall of Adam:* Adam and Eve were happy in their Creation; but alas! this happinesse is not long lasting: Man being in honour abideth not, Psal. 49.20. God made man upright, but man sought out many inventions; many compu∣tations, as one renders, Eccl. 7. ult. seeking what in him lay to mar God's workmanship, and deface his image: Eve being overcome by the Serpent, eats of the forbidden fruit; and Adam overcome with the perswasion of his Wife, takes from her hand that fatall Apple that choaketh all his posterity, which being done, he is smitten with sudden fear, seeth his nakednesse and is ashamed, and hides himself; and his eyes are now opened to see evil by ex∣perience; for before his fall, he had no experience of the evil of sin, and of the curse of God: therefore he brake the command of God and did eat of the Page  84 tree of knowledge of good and evil; he sinned because he knew not the miscry of sin; but after his fall he seeth the dif∣ference between grace and sin; what he is himself; and what he was before▪ and all the future miseries that are like to befall his posterity; and he that be¦fore treated him as a son, cannot no• look upon him but as a slave and vag•¦bond: Adam blames his Wife; E•• the Serpent; and instead of pleading guilty to their inditement, to sweeten the rigour of the Judge, they frame ex∣cuses to inflame his anger, and to ren¦der themselves more uncapable of par∣don: Ah how far more wisely had both of them done,* saith Austin, if prostrate o• the ground with tears in their eyes, o• sighs from their hearts, and humbe confe•¦sions from their mouthes, they had crie• out, Lord pity us and all our miserable p•¦sterity:* It was for this, saith Gregory, th• God called them, and his voice as it we•• sollicited them to humble them by the swee• accents of his fatherly goodnesse; but alas they are insensible; God passeth a se¦vere doom upon them; the woma• shall conceive with pain, and in sor¦row bring forth children; the ma•• Page  85 to eat his bread in the sweat of his •rows, and put his hand to the Plough, and be the companion of beasts in tilling of his ground, which though he trod •nder his feet, he could not subdue without the labour of his hand; and throughout his whole life (which is a •ife of sorrows) he is to combate with all distempers, never suffering him to be at rest, till he return into the bo∣•ome of the earth from whence he •ame; and immediately a flaming Cherubim bars up the gate of Paradise, and shuts it for ever against these mise∣•able exiles.

And now he that was the Monarch of the world; the father of all man∣kind; the first; the richest; and •reatest Lord that ever was on earth, he began the fray, whereof all his mi∣••rable posterity have felt the blows; his fall being their foil; and his punish∣ment the pattern of their pain and mi∣•ery; and now his heart is the fountain which powrs out its qualities into the substance of his childrens souls;* and •ver since this infection hath passed •rom father to son, as by hereditary •ght; and now man is naturally void Page  86 of all goodnesse and righteousnesse, and become a vassall of sin, Joh. 8.34. a slave of corruption, 2 Pet. 2.19. a slave of Satan, Eph. 2.1, 2, 3. and liable to eternall death: that we are all by na∣ture stained with sin, appeareth, Job 15.14. where Eliphaz saith,* What is man that he should be clean, and he that is born of a woman that he should be righteous▪ and the Kingly Prophet makes this dolefull ditty to a lamentable Elegy and sad plain-song, Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me; and what he saith of himself in par∣ticular, Paul affirmeth of all men in ge∣nerall, Rom. 5.12. saying, that by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; whereby he understandeth the bitter root of originall corruption which daily and hourly brings forth the cursed fruits of actuall transgressi∣ons, whereby we become culpable and liable to eternall ruine.

Sin and death are two twins born at a birth; yea howsoever sin be the elder Brother in time, because it's the cause of death, yet in nature they come ver• near each other; for as soon as eve• sin was committed, death entered, ac¦cording Page  87 to the commination of God to Adam,* Gen. 2.17. Had it not been for the sin of man, nothing had ever discomposed his quiet; the seasons had not been irregular; nor the Elements waged warre against him; the earth had been fruitfull without the labour of man; no thorns or briars had ever co∣vered the face thereof; no drowning deluges; nor scorching drought; nor raging pestilence; nor devouring sword; nor wasting famine, should ever have made any devastation upon an innocent state; the two parts that com∣pose man had not been seperated; nor the master-piece of the Creation been ruined, as Austin speaks; and the soul reigning with Angels, had not beheld her body devoured by worms: of all the strings of the worlds great Instrument, Adam's only brake, and caused a jar; and ha∣ving run from God, hath drawn all his posterity after him: the sin of Adam is the fountain of all the evils and miseries that befall his posterity; we sinned in him, because we lived in his person; and the offence of one man is become the obliquity of whole nature, because it was included in him, as the tree in Page  88 the kernell:* now that man enriched with so many graces and priviledges, should in such a place as Paradise; and in the sight of the tree of life; and having familiar con∣verse with God; and leave to eat of all other trees of the Garden; yet that he must tast of the only forbidden tree, having power from God to have resisted the temptation of the De∣vil, these are great aggravations of Adam's sin, as a judicious Divine hath well observed.