PART III. THE INTRODUCTION OF MAN INTO THE GARDEN, THE COMMAND GOD

GAVE HIM AND THE THREATENING GOD ATTACHED TO IT.

I. V. 15. _And Jehovah God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it._

After God had created and variously adorned the universe of heaven and earth, he next prepared the garden of Eden, which he willed to be the habitation and royal seat of man, to whom he had committed the government over all other living creatures of the earth, the heaven and the sea. And now God places man in that garden as in a citadel and a temple, from which he had liberty to go out and to walk abroad in any other part of the earth, which also was most fruitful and most delightful; and there to amuse and delight himself with the beasts and other animals when and as he wished.

And God gives to Adam a two-fold charge that he should work or till this garden, and also that he should guard and defend it. Some faint vestiges of this original command yet remain in these miserable remnants of primitive things, which we still possess. For even to this day these two things must ever be joined together: not only that the earth should be tilled but also that the productions of that cultivation should be defended. But both these great principles are corrupted and marred in an infinite number of forms. For not the tillage of the earth itself only but the defense of it also are filled with every kind of misery and trouble. And what the cause of all this sorrow is will be fully clear to us shortly in the following chapter of this book. For we shall there see that this working or tillage of the earth is defiled and embarrassed by thorns, by thistles, by the sweat of the brow and by various and unending misery. For, to say nothing about the labor and sorrow of procuring necessary food, what difficulty, what labor attend even the bringing up a child from its birth!

If Adam therefore had remained in his innocency he would have cultivated the earth and planted his beds of spices, not only without toil or trouble but as an amusement, attended with exquisite pleasure. His children when born would not long have needed the breast of their mother, but in all probability would have started on their feet, as we now see chickens do by nature, and would have sought their own food from the fruits of the earth, without the helplessness or weakness and without any labor or sorrow of their parents! But now how great do we behold to be the pain and misery of our birth, our infancy and our growth!

If we speak of food and the misery attending it, not only have beasts the same general produce of the earth, now no longer an Eden, which we have; but men defraud men of the same and rob them of it by theft and plunder. Hence hedges and walls and other strong defences are found necessary for the protection of property; and even by these the produce, we have obtained by the labor and sweat of cultivation, can scarcely be preserved in safety. Thus we have indeed a remnant of the labor of cultivation, but very far different from the employ of the original tillage. Not merely because it is attended with the greatest toil and distress, but because the ground itself, being as it were unwilling, yields sparingly; whereas to Adam it yielded as it were with the greatest joy and with the richest abundance, whether he sowed his seed within Eden itself or in any other part of the earth. There was then no danger from plunderers and murderers. All was in perfect peace and safety.

In all these respects therefore we can form an idea of the mighty evil of sin; when we behold the thorns, the briers, the sweat of the brow, etc., which are before us. Whichever way we turn the magnitude of that evil is ever present. Hence man did not fall by sin in soul only, but in body also; and both participate in the punishment. For labor is a punishment, which in the state of innocence was an amusement and a pleasure. Even as now, in the present state of the misery of nature, if any one has a productive garden, neither digging nor sowing nor planting is a labor, but a certain devoted employment and a delight. What then must have been this employment and delight in the garden of Eden in the state of original innocence! How much more pleasurable and perfect!

And here also we may reflect with profit that man was not created to idleness, but to labor; no, not even in the state of primitive innocence. Wherefore every state of an idle or indolent life is condemnable; such for instance as the life of monks and nuns.

As the original labor and employment of man were unattended with sorrow or distress, as we have shown, so also this guarding and protecting of that which he possessed was full of pleasure and delight; whereas now all such protection is full of labor and peril. Adam could have stopped or driven away even bears and lions by one single word. We have now indeed our means of defense, but they are truly horrible; for we cannot do without swords and spears, and cannon, and walls, and ramparts, and castle-fosses, etc.; and even with all these we and our loved ones scarcely abide in safety. Hence we have scarcely the feeblest traces remaining either of the original work or the original protection.

Others expound this passage differently, making it to mean, "that God might till and keep it." But the text speaks of human "tilling" and human "keeping" absolutely. So Cain just below, Gen. 4:2, is said to have been "a tiller of the ground." And in Job and Ecclesiastes kings are called tillers of the earth or husbandmen; not merely on account of their labor itself in tillage, but on account of their guardianship and protection. But as I have all along said, labor and protection are now hard and difficult terms? But originally they were terms denoting a certain delightful employment and exquisite pleasure.

II. Ver. 16, 17a. _And Jehovah God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it._

Here we have the institution of the church before there was any domestic government (_oeconomia_) or civil government (_politia_). For Eve was not yet created. And the church is here instituted without any walls or any pomp; in a place all open and most delightful. After the church was instituted domestic government (_oeconomia_) is established, when Eve is brought to Adam as his life-companion. Thus we have at God's hand a church before a private house; the former of which indeed is greater and better than the latter.

And as to civil government (_politia_); before sin there was none; nor was it needed. For civil government is a necessary remedy for corrupt nature. Because the lust of men must be curbed by the chains and penalties of the laws, that it transgress not all bounds. Wherefore we may properly term polity, or civil government, the established "kingdom over sin," just as Paul also calls Moses the minister and the law the "ministration of sin and of death," 2 Cor. 3:7, 8; Rom. 8:2. For the one and special object of civil government is to prevent sin. Hence Paul says, "that the power beareth the sword" and is "the avenger of evil doings," Rom. 13:4. If therefore, men had not become evil by sin there would have been no need of civil government; but Adam would have lived with his posterity in the greatest joy, peace and safety, and would have done more by the motion of one of his fingers than can now be effected by all the magistrates, all the swords and all the gallows of a kingdom. There would then have been no ravisher, no murderer, no thief, no slanderer, no liar. And therefore what need would there have been of civil government, which is as it were the sword, the caustic and the terrible medicine, which are necessary to cut off and burn out noxious members of the state, that its other members may be saved and preserved.

After the establishment of the church therefore in paradise is committed unto Adam the government of his family. The church is thus first instituted by God, that he might show by this as a sign that man was created to another and a higher end than any of the other living creatures. And as the church is thus instituted by the Word of God, it is certain that Adam was created by an immortal and spiritual life to which he would assuredly have been translated and conveyed without death after he had lived in Eden and the other parts of the earth to his full satiety of life, yet without trouble or distress. And in that life there would have been none of that impure lust which now prevails. The love of sex for sex would have been uncontaminated and pure. Generation would have proceeded without any sin or impurity, in a holy obedience unto God. Mothers would have brought forth children without pain, and children themselves would have been brought up without any of that misery and labor and distress with which they are now always reared.

But who can find language capable of describing the glory of that state of innocency, which we have lost? There certainly still remains in nature a desire of the male for the female. There also proceed the fruits of generation. But the whole is attended with a horrible impurity of lust, and with overwhelming pains of parturition. To all this are added turpitude, shame and confusion even between man and wife when they would enjoy their lawful embrace. In a word, even here and in all things else, is present the unspeakable awfulness of original sin. Creation indeed is "good." The blessing of fruitfulness upon creation is "good." But all these things are corrupted and spoiled, by sin. So that even man and wife cannot enjoy them without shame and confusion of face. Whereas none of these things would have had existence if the innocency of Adam had continued. But as husbands and wives eat and drink together without any shame; so there would have been a singular and heavenly purity without any shame or confusion of feeling, either in generation or in parturition. But I return to Moses.

The church was originally instituted, as I have observed, before there was any house or family or domestic government. For the Lord, we here find, preaches to Adam and sets before him the Word. On that Word, though so short, it highly becomes us here to pause awhile and dwell. For this sermon of God to Adam would have been to him and to us all, his posterity, had we continued in the original innocence, a whole Bible as it were. And did we, or could we, possess that sermon now we should have no need of paper, ink and pens, nor of that infinite multitude of books, which we now require to teach us knowledge and wisdom. The whole contents of these books put together, could we grasp them in our minds, would not put us in possession of one-thousandth part of that wisdom, which Adam possessed in paradise. Could we attain to the sum of all the wisdom in all the world, this short sermon would swallow up and overflow the whole. It would show us in all plainness and fullness, as if painted on a tablet, that infinite goodness of God which created this nature of ours pure, holy and perfect; and it would show us with equal plainness all those impurities, calamities and sorrows, which have since overwhelmed us by the inbursting of sin.

Since therefore, as the text shows, Adam alone heard this sermon from God, it must have been preached to him on the sixth day, and Adam must have afterwards communicated it to Eve on the same day. And if they had not sinned Adam would have set this remarkable sermon or precept before his whole posterity also; and by it they would have become the most profound divines, the most learned lawyers and the most experienced physicians. Now there exists an infinite number of books by which men are trained to be theologians, lawyers and physicians. But all the knowledge we can obtain by the help of all these books together can scarcely be called the dregs of science, if compared with that fund of wisdom which Adam drew from this one sermon of God. So utterly corrupted are all things by original sin.

This "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," therefore, or this place in which a number of trees like unto it were planted, would have been, as we have said, a church, where Adam and his posterity, had he and they continued in their innocency, would have assembled on the Sabbath day; and Adam, after refreshment derived from the "tree of life," would have preached God to those assembled, and would have praised him for the dominion which he had given them over all other creatures he had made. The 148th and 149th Psalms set forth a certain form of such praise and thanksgiving, where the sun, the moon, the stars, the fishes and the dragons are called upon to praise the Lord. But there is no one psalm so beautiful, but that any one of us might compose one far more excellent and more perfect, if we had been born of the seed of Adam in his state of original innocence. Adam would have preached that highest of all blessings, that he had been created in and that his posterity bore the image and the similitude of God. He would have exhorted them all to live a holy life without sin, to till the garden in which God had placed them with all industry, to keep it with all diligence, and to guard with all caution against tasting the fruit of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil." This external place, form, worship and preaching of the Word, man would most certainly have observed on the Sabbath. Afterwards he would have returned to his duties of laboring and guarding until the time appointed of God had been fulfilled, in which he should be translated without any death and with all sweetness to heaven.

We must now speak of all these blessings however as a lost treasure, and we are deservedly left to sigh for that day, when all these things shall be restored. It is nevertheless most profitable to remember the blessings we have lost, and to feel the evils we suffer and in the midst of which we live, in so much wretchedness that we may be thereby stirred to look for that redemption of our bodies, of which the apostle speaks, Rom. 8:23. For as to our souls we are already freed and delivered by Christ; and we hold that deliverance in faith until the "end of our faith" shall be revealed, 1 Pet. 1:19.

It is moreover very profitable to consider from this text that God gave unto Adam a Word, a worship and a religion, the most simple, most pure and most disencumbered of all laborious forms and sumptuous appearance. For God did not command the sacrificing of oxen, nor the burning of incense, nor long and loud prayers, nor any other afflictions or wearyings of the body. All that he willed was, that Adam should praise him, should give him thanks, and should rejoice in him as the Lord his God; obeying him in this one great thing that he ate not the fruit of the forbidden tree.

Of this worship we have indeed some remnants restored to us in a certain measure by Christ, even amidst all this infirmity of our flesh. We also are enabled to praise God and to give him thanks for every blessing of the soul and of the body. But too true it is, that these are but very remnants of the original worship of Eden. But when, after this miserable life, we shall come among the company of angels, we shall then offer unto God a purer and holier worship. And there are also other remnants of this original felicity still vouchsafed unto us; that by the blessing of marriage we avoid and prevent adulteries; that this corporeal life has not only food, though procured with infinite labor, but a protection and a defense of that which we possess, secured unto us against all the evils and dangers which surround us on every side. These are indeed merciful remnants, still they are but miserable remnants if compared with the original blessedness and security.

Moreover, brethren, ye are here to be admonished against false prophets, through whom Satan endeavors by various means to corrupt sound doctrine. I will give you an example of this in my own case, and just show you how I was tormented by a fanatical spirit when I first began to preach this doctrine, which I am now setting forth in my Comments on the passage before us. The text indeed uses a Hebrew verb signifying "to command;" "And Jehovah God commanded the man." Yet this agent of Satan argued, and drew his conclusion thus:--"The Law is not made for a righteous man." Adam was a righteous man; therefore, the Law was not made for Adam; because, he was a righteous man. Upon this argument he immediately pinned another; that this sermon of God therefore was not a law but an admonition only; and that, consequently, "where there was no law there was, as Paul affirms, no transgression." And from this argument, that "where there is no law there is no transgression," he crept on to the conclusion, therefore, there was no original sin; the truth of which doctrine he consequently denied. By thus connecting together these two passages of Scripture he gained, as he considered, a marvelous victory, and he publicly displayed his triumph as if he had discovered a treasure hitherto unknown to the world. Now it is profitable thus to mark the mighty attempts of Satan, that we may learn to meet them with wisdom and skill.

Both the above passages, that the "Law is not made for a righteous man;" and that "where there is no law there is no transgression" are found in the Epistles of Paul, 1 Tim. 1:9, and Rom. 4:15. And it is the business of a sound and skillful logician in divine things, to mark carefully the aims and the devices of the devil; because our sophistical reasoners, his miserable slaves, use them after him. They pretend indeed to found their arguments on Scripture. For they know that it would appear perfectly ridiculous to thrust upon men's minds nothing but their own dreams. But they do not cite Scripture wholly and honestly; they seize upon those parts of it only which seem at first to make for them; but those portions which stand against them, they either craftily pass over or corrupt by cunningly devised interpretations.

Thus when Satan found that Christ trusted in the mercy of God under his great hunger, he attempted to draw him into a forbidden confidence, Math. 4:3, 4. And again, in the matter of his standing on the pinnacle of the Temple, the devil tried to make him tempt God; by quoting to him a passage seemingly adopted for his purpose, Ps. 91:11-12, "He shall give his angels charge concerning thee; and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone."

Now that portion of the passage in the psalm, which was contrary to his purpose, Satan craftily passed over, "to keep thee, in all thy ways." Here lies the whole force of this Scripture, that this guardianship of angels is promised to us "in all our ways" or "in our lawful calling" only. Christ in all divine wisdom sets before Satan this as the true meaning of the sacred text, when he replies to his face in this precept, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." By this Christ signifies that the "way" of man is not in the air, but that was the "way" of the flying fowls; but that the "way" of man was the steps which led from the roof of the temple to the ground; and which were made for the end that there might be a descent from the top of the temple to the bottom, easy and without peril. When therefore we are in our lawful calling and duty, whether that duty be commanded of God or of men, which latter have a right to prescribe the duty of our calling, while we are thus "in our ways," then we may assuredly believe the guardianship of angels will not fail us.

The above example therefore will furnish a very useful rule to be observed in our disputations with these fanatical tools of Satan. For those who are not on their guard are often deceived when crafty men transfer their arguments, after their own manner, from connected to unconnected portions of the Scripture; or adopt dishonest connections or divisions of the sacred text; but adduce not passages in their integral state as they stand in the Word. Now this is the very method adopted in the present case by my adversary, when he argues as above from these two detached portions, "That law is not made for a righteous man," and "Where there is no law, there is no transgression." He who is not on the watch-tower of wisdom and caution here is entangled before he is aware of it, and drawn into the horrible conclusion, that there was no real sin in eating the first apple; because, as our crafty opponents would argue, there was no law; and, as they further argue, which is indeed true in itself, because "where there is no law there is no transgression."

And I am by no means certain that some even in our day have not been deceived by this very argument of the devil. For they so speak of original sin as to make it not a sin itself, but a punishment of sin only. Hence Erasmus, discussing this point with his famous eloquence, observes, "Original sin is a punishment, inflicted on our first parents, which we their posterity are compelled to bear for another's fault, without any desert of our own. Just as the son of an harlot is forced to endure the infamy, not by his own fault but by that of his mother. For what sin could any man commit who had as yet no existence?" These sentiments flatter human reason, but they are full of impiety and blasphemy.

Wherein then is the syllogism of our crafty adversary unsound? It is because, according to Satan's common artifice, the text on which it is founded is not quoted entirely, but most perfidiously mutilated. For the whole text stands thus, "The law is not made for a righteous man, but for murderers, for adulterers," etc., etc. Wherefore nothing can be more evident, nothing else can be concluded than that the apostle Paul is here speaking of that Law which God revealed unto man after sin was in the world; not of that law, which the Lord gave unto Adam in paradise, while he was yet righteous and innocent. The Law, says Paul, "was not made for a righteous man;" wherefore it insubvertibly follows, that the Law of which Paul speaks was given to nature, when not innocent, but sinning and liable to sin.

Is it not then the height of wickedness thus to confound passages of Scripture in causes of such solemn moment? Adam after his sin was not the same as he was before, when in his state of innocency. And yet these men make no difference between the law delivered to man before sin and the Law delivered to man after sin. But what the apostle says concerning the Law, which was delivered to the world after it was filled with sin, these instruments of Satan, lyingly and with the greatest blasphemy, transfer and apply to the law, delivered to Adam in paradise. Whereas, if no sin had existed the law prohibiting sin would not have existed. For as I have said above, civil government and laws, or cauteries, and the sword, and the "schoolmaster," as Paul terms "the Law," would not have been needed in a state of innocent nature. But the boy because he is now bad needs the "schoolmaster" and the rod. So the prince, because he has disobedient citizens, equally needs the crown-officer and the executioner. It is of this law that Paul is really speaking; the law which nature when corrupted by sin needed.

With respect to the need which Adam had of this commandment of God concerning the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," I have shown that need above. It was that Adam might have a settled external worship of God and a work of external obedience towards him to perform statedly. Thus the angel Gabriel is without sin, a creature most pure and innocent, and yet he received a commandment from God to inform Daniel concerning things of the utmost importance, and to announce to the virgin Mary that she was to be the mother of Christ promised to the fathers. These are positive commandments, given to a creature perfectly innocent.

In the same manner there is here a commandment given of the Lord to Adam before his sin that he should not eat of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," which commandment Adam would have fulfilled willingly and with the highest pleasure, had he not been deceived by the craft of Satan. But Paul is referring to quite another law; for he is plainly speaking of a law which was given, not to the righteous, but to the unrighteous. Who is there, then, so stupid or so insane, who will after all conclude that a law was not given to Adam because he hears us affirm that Adam was a righteous man? For no other conclusion can follow than that the law, which was made for the unrighteous, was not the law that was given to the righteous Adam; and on the converse it must follow that as a law was given to righteous Adam, that law was not the same as the law which was afterwards made for the unrighteous.

There is therefore in this syllogism or argument of our adversary, the two-fold unsoundness of unjust connection and unjust division. There is in it moreover a double equivocation. The first is in not making it plain that the law before sin is one thing, and the law after sin another. And in the second place, the equivocation lies in not making it equally plain, that the righteous man before sin and the righteous man after sin are each righteous, but in a different sense; that the one is righteous by nature the other by new-creation and justification.

It is most useful to examine thus the arguments and reasonings of our adversaries, and in this manner to apply the science of sound logic to good purpose in these momentous discussions. For the arts of logic were not seriously intended to be used in the dead disputation of the school only; but that the gravest and most sacred subjects might by them be soundly explained and taught. And it is by the very false reasoning now in question, that Satan does a great deal of business in denying original sin. Whereas to deny original sin, is to deny virtually the passion and resurrection of Christ.

Let the passage of the apostle Paul therefore, 1 Tim. 1:9, hinder us not from determining with Moses in the text now before us, that a law was here commanded of God to Adam though a righteous man, "That he should not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," in the same way as commandments were also given to angels. And because Adam transgressed this commandment he sinned, and begat and propagated his children after him also sinners.

III. V. 17b. _For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die._

This penal threat also thus expressly added proves that it was a law, not an admonition, that was given to Adam. And it moreover shows that Adam was created in a state of innocence and righteousness. For as yet there was no sin in existence because God did not create sin. If Adam therefore had obeyed this command he would never have died, for death entered into the world by sin. All the rest of the trees of paradise therefore were created to the end that they might aid and preserve unto man his animal life, sound and whole, and without the least evil or inconvenience.

Now it naturally appears wonderful to us at this day, that there should have been an animal life without any death and without any evils or accidental causes of death, which now abound, such as diseases, boils and fetid redundancies, in bodies, etc., etc. The reason is that no part of the body in the state of innocency was foul or impure. There was no unpleasantness in the evacuations or secretions. There were no impurities whatever. Everything was most beautiful and delightful. There was no offense to any of the organs or senses. And yet the life was an animal life. Adam ate, digested, performed the functions of, and managed and regulated, his body. And had he continued in his innocence he would have done all these and other things the animal life does and requires, until he had been translated to the spiritual and eternal life.

For this deathless translation also we have lost by sin. And now, between this present and a future life, there exists that awful medium passage, death. That passage, in the state of innocence, would have been most delightful; and by it Adam would have been translated to the spiritual life, or as Christ calls it in the Gospel, the life "as the angels in heaven," Math. 12:25; in which state all animal actions cease. For in the resurrection we shall neither eat nor drink nor are given in marriage. So with respect to Adam, all animality would have ceased and a spiritual life in glory would have followed; even as we also believe it will be with us "in the resurrection" through Christ. So also Adam would have put off his childhood glory of innocence, if I may so term his natural life of innocency, and would have put on his heavenly glory. He would have done with all inferior actions, which however, in that childhood glory of innocency, would have been pure and unattended with that sorrow which mars all things since the fall; and would have been translated from his infantine glory of created innocence, to that manhood of glorious innocence, which angels enjoy; and which we also who believe shall enjoy in the life to come.

I call Adam's primitive, creative innocence the childhood of glorious innocency, because Adam, if I may so speak, was in a middle state, or a state of neutrality or liability; in a state where he could be deceived by Satan; and could fall into that awful calamity into which he did fall. But such a peril of falling will not exist in that state of perfect manhood of glorified innocency, which we shall enjoy in the future and spiritual life. And this indeed is that which is signified in this threat of punishment. "For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." As if the Lord had said, thou mayest remain indeed, if thou obey me, in this life, in which I have created thee; yet thou wilt not even then, be immortal, as the angels are. It is a life placed as it were in a middle, neutral or liable, state. Thou mayest remain in it by obedience, and afterwards be translated into an immortality, which cannot be lost. On the other hand if thou shalt not obey me, thou shalt fall into death and shalt lose that immortality.

There is a great difference therefore between the created spiritual state of angels and the created natural innocency of Adam. Angels as they now are cannot fall, but Adam could fall; for Adam was created in a state in which he might become immortal, that is, in which he might continue in his original innocency without death, for he was free from all sin and stood in a condition from which he might be translated out of the childhood glory of original innocency into the manhood glory of immortality, in which he could never sin afterwards. On the other hand, Adam could fall out of this childhood glory of natural innocence into sin, the curse and death, as indeed it sadly happened. Adam was in a state of natural immortality, or which might have been a natural immortality, because he had recourse to certain created trees, the virtue of whose fruits produced preservation of life. But this natural immortality was not so secured to him, as to render it impossible for him to fall into mortality.

Why God willed to create man in this middle, neutral or liable state is not for us to explain or curiously to inquire. Equally impossible is it for us to say and unlawful to ask, why man was so created that all mankind should be propagated from one man by generation, while angels were not so created. For angels generate not nor are propagated, because they live a spiritual life; but the counsel of God in the creation of man is worthy the highest admiration, in that he created him to an animal life and to corporeal actions, which also the other animals have, and gave him also a power of intellect, which indeed the angels also possess. So that man is a compound being, in whom are united the brute and the angelic natures.

Moreover, as we have here come to consider the nature of angels, we must not keep back the written opinions of some of the fathers, that there is a certain similarity between the creation of man and that of angels. This similarity however cannot be extended to the properties of generation, which in the spiritual nature has no existence, but to the imperfection that subsisted in each nature as to liability to fall. For since man, as I have shown, was created in a kind of a middle, or liable or pendent state, so also angels when first created were not so confirmed in their natural standing that they could not fall. Hence it is that Christ says concerning the devil, that he "abode not in the truth," John 8:44. On these grounds the holy fathers supposed that a battle or sedition arose between the angels, some of those beings taking the part of some very beautiful angel, who exalted himself above all the rest on account of certain superior gifts bestowed upon him. These things are very probable nor are they at variance with that which Christ here affirms by the Evangelist John, that the devil "abode not in the truth;" nor are they inconsistent with that which Jude also affirms in his epistle, that the angels "kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation," Jude 6.

In confirmation of these sentiments, the fathers adduce the passage, Is. 14:12, 13. But with reference to Isaiah, he is evidently speaking of the king of Babylon, who wished to sit in the throne of God, that is, to rule over his holy people and his temple.

Whether, therefore, there really was this dissension and war among the angels, or whether, which is more agreeable to my views, certain proud angels, filled with envy and taking offense at the humility of the Son of God, wished to exalt themselves above him, it is quite certain that the angels also like man were in such a state of innocence as could be altered. After the evil angels however had been judged and condemned, the good angels were so confirmed in their standing that they could not sin after that confirmation, for they were all elect angels, but the reprobate angels were cast out.

So also, if the great dragon, or the evil angels, mentioned in Revelations, had continued in their innocence, they also would afterwards have been confirmed therein and could never have fallen. The fathers, speaking on this subject, hold that the elect angels were created in righteousness and were afterwards confirmed therein; but that those who fell, "abode not in the truth," John 8:44. But we are not to think that the angels are few in number, for Christ affirms, Luke 11:18, that Satan has a kingdom, and that he is as the chief one among robbers and governs all things in his kingdom by his authority and counsels; and it is also said, in the same chapter that the devils or evil angels have their prince Beelzebub, who was at the head of this sedition in heaven.

But there has arisen a question here, in the discussion of which the books of all the sophists are idly employed, and after all they explain nothing. The question to which I allude is, "What was original righteousness?" Some make it a certain quality, others give different definitions. We however following Moses, will define original righteousness to be so termed, because man was originally created righteous, true and upright; not in body only, but especially in soul, and because he acknowledged God; because he obeyed him with the utmost pleasure; because he understood the works of God without any instruction concerning them. This last faculty of Adam is wonderfully exemplified by the fact, that when he had been in a profound sleep and God had formed Eve out of one of his ribs, the moment he awoke he recognized Eve as the work of God, saying "This is now bone of my bones." Was not this a marvelous proof of intellect, thus at the first sight to know and comprehend the work of God?

From this same original righteousness also it arose that Adam loved God and his works with all purity of affection; that he lived among the creatures of God in peace without any fear of death or any dread of disease, and that he enjoyed a body also the most obedient to the will of God, without any evil desires and utterly free from that impure lust, which we continually feel. So that a most beautiful and most certain picture of original righteousness may be portrayed from its entire contrast to that deep corruption, which we now feel throughout our whole nature.

When human reasoners speak of original sin, they consider only its wretched and unclean lust or concupiscence. But original sin is in truth the entire fall of the whole human nature. The intellect is so darkened that we can no longer understand God and his will, nor perceive nor acknowledge the works of God. Moreover the will is so wonderfully depraved that we cannot trust in the mercy of God nor fear God, but living in security and unconcern, we disregard the Word of God and his will and follow the concupiscence and violent lusts of the flesh. The conscience also is no longer at peace and in quiet, and when it thinks of the judgments of God it sinks into despair, and seeks and follows after unlawful supports and remedies. And all these sins are so deeply rooted in our nature that they cannot be entirely eradicated through our whole life. And yet these miserable sophistical reasoners do not touch upon these deep corruptions even in word. But by taking this true view of original sin, it clearly demonstrates, according to the nature of correlative proofs, what original sin really was by its awful contrariety to that original righteousness. Thus it is evident that original sin is the essential and entire loss and deprivation and absence of original righteousness; just as blindness is the privation or absence of sight.

Yes! the divine matters of original sin and original righteousness extend much more widely and deeply than is imagined by the monks, who understand original righteousness only as it refers to sexual chastity. Whereas they ought first to look at the soul of man as the seat of all sin and corruption and then turn to the body, and view it as deriving all its defilement and pollution from the soul. With reference to the soul the great proof of its fallen state under original sin is, that we have lost the knowledge of God; that we do not always and everywhere give thanks unto him; that we do not rejoice in the works of his hands and all his doings; that we do not wholly trust in him; that we begin to hate and blaspheme him whenever he visits our sins with deserved punishments; that in our dealings with our neighbor we follow our own interests, desires and objects, and are plunderers, thieves, adulterers, murderers, cruel, unkind, unmerciful. The ragings of lust are indeed a certain part of original sin, but those sins and corruptions of the soul, unbelief, ignorance of God, despair, hatred, blasphemy, of which calamities of the soul Adam knew nothing in his state of innocence.

And in addition to these reflections, the numberless punishments of original sin are to be contemplated. For whatever is now lost of those endowments with which Adam was created and gifted, while his nature was yet unfallen, is rightly considered the consequence of original sin. Adam for instance was of a most perfect and sagacious intellect. For the moment that Eve was presented to him he understood that she was his own flesh. He had also the most minute knowledge of all the other creatures. He was not only just and upright, but of a most perfect and wonderful understanding in all things. He had moreover a most upright will, yet not a perfect will; for perfection itself was deferred from the state of the animal life to that of the spiritual and eternal life. Let these comments suffice upon the sacred text before us, Vs. 16 and 17, in which the church is constituted. Moses now proceeds to marriage and domestic government (_oeconomia_).