forth the Heinousness of his Crime, attended with Cherubims and a flaming Sword; when all that he meant was only higher Teftimonies of Favour, than he had before in a State of Innocence, and to manifeft fatherly Love and Kindness, in Promifes of great Bleffings? If this was the Cafe, God's Words to Adam must be understood thus : Because thou haft done fo wickedly, haft hearkened unto the Voice of thy Wife, and haft eaten of the Tree of which I commanded thee, faying, Thou shalt not eat of it; therefore I will be more kind to thee then I was in thy State of Innocence, and do now appoint for thee the following great Favours: Curfed be the Ground for thy Sake, &c.' And thus Adam muft understand what was faid, unlefs any will fay (and God forbid that any should be fo blafphemous) that God cloathed himself with Appearances of Difpleasure, to deceive Adam, and make him believe the contrary of what he intended, and lead him to expect a difmal Train of Evils on his Pofterity, contrary to all Reason and Justice, implying the moft horribly unrighteous Treatment of Millions of perfectly innocent Creatures. It is certain, there is not the leaft Appearance in what God faid, or the Manner of it, as Mofes gives us the Account, of any other, than that God was now teftifying Difpleafure, condemning the Subject of the Sentence he was pronouncing, as juftly expofed to Punishment for Sin, and for that Sin which he mentions.

When God was pronouncing this Sentence, Adam doubtlefs understood, that God had Refpect to his Pofterity, as well as Himself; though God fpake wholly in the second Person fingular, Because thou haft eaten,-In Sorrow shalt thou eat,-Unto the Duft halt thou return. But he had as much Reason

Sect. III.

Reason to understand God as having Respect to his Pofterity, when he directed his Speech to him in like Manner in the Threatening, Thou shalt furely die. The Sentence plainly refers to the Threatening, and refults from it. The Threatening fays, If thou eat, thou shalt die: The Sentence fays, Because thou haft eaten, thou shalt die. And Mofes, who wrote the Account, had no Reason to doubt but that the Affair would be thus understood by his Readers; for fuch a Way of fpeaking was well understood in thofe Days: The Hiftory he gives us of the Origin of Things, abounds with it. Such a Manner of fpeaking to the first of the Kind, or Heads of the Race, having Refpect to the Progeny, is not only used in almost every Thing that God faid to Adam and Eve, but even in what he said to the very Birds and Fishes, Gen. i. 22. And alfo in what he faid afterwards to Noah, Gen. ix. and to Shem, Ham and Japheth, and Canaan, Gen. ix. 25, 26, 27. So in Promifes made to Abraham, in which God directed his Speech to him, and fpake in the fecond Perfon fingular, from Time to Time, but meant chiefly his Pofterity: To thee will I give this Land. In thee shall all the Families of the Earth be bleffed, &c. &c. And in what is faid of Ishmael, as of his Perfon, but meant chiefly of his Pofterity, Gen. xvi. 12. and xvii. 20. And fo in what Ifaac faid to Efau and Jacob, in his Bleffing; in which he fpake to them in the fecond Perfon fingular; but meant chiefly their Pofterity. And fo for the most Part in the Promifes made to Ifaac and Jacob; and in Jacob's Bleffing of Ephraim and Manaffeh, and of his twelve Sons.

But I fhall take Notice of one or two Things further fhewing that Adam's Pofterity were inP 3 cluded

cluded in God's Eftablishment with him, and the Threatening denounced for his Sin; and that the Calamities which come upon them in Confequence of his Sin, are brought on them as Punishments.

This is evident from the Curfe on the Ground; which if it be any Curfe at all, comes equally on Adam's Pofterity with himfelf. And if it be a Curfe, then against whomfoever it is defigned, and on whomfoever it terminates, it comes as a Punishment, and not as a Bleffing, fo far as it comes in Confequence of that Sentence,

Dr. T. p. 19. fays, "A Curfe is pronounced upon the Ground, but no Curfe upon the Woman " and the Man." And in p. 45, 46. S. he infifis, that the Ground only was curfed, and not the Man: Juft as though a Curfe could terminate on lifelefs fenfelefs Earth! To underftand this Curfe otherwife than as terminating upon Man through the Ground, would be as fenfelefs as to fuppofe the Meaning to be, The Ground fhall be punished, and fhall be miferable for thy Sake. Our Author interprets the Curfe on the Ground, of its being incumbered with noxious Weeds: But would thefe Weeds have been any Curfe on the Ground, if there had been no Inhabitants, or if the Inh abitants had been of fuch a Nature, that thefe Weeds should not have been noxious, but useful to them? It is faid, Deut. xxviii. 17. Curfed fhall be thy Bafket, and thy Store: And would he not be thought to talk very ridiculously, who fhould fay, Here is a Curfe upon the Basket; but not a Word of any Curfe upon the Owner: And therefore we have no Reafon at all to look upon it as any Punishment upon him, or any Teftimony of • God's

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. III

God's Displeasure towards him.' How plain is it, that when lifelefs Things, which are not capable of either Benefit or Suffering, are faid to be curfed or bleffed with regard to fenfible Beings, that use or poffefs thefe Things, or have Connection with them, the Meaning muft be, that thefe fenfible Beings are curfed or bleffed in the other, or with Refpect to them! In Exod. xxiii. 25. it is faid, He shall blefs thy Bread and thy Water, And I fuppofe, never any Body yet proceeded to fuch a Degree of Subtilty in diftinguifhing, as to fay, Here is a Bleffing on the Bread and the Water, which went into the Poffeffors Mouths, but no Bleffing on them.' To make fuch a Diftinction with regard to the Curfe God pronounced on the Ground, would in fome Refpects be more unreafonable, becaufe God is exprefs in explaining the Matter, declaring that it was for Man's fake, exprefly referring this Curfe to him, as being with Refpect to him, and for the Sake of his Guilt; and as confifting in the Sorrow and Suffering he should have from it: In Sorrow fhalt THOU eat of it.-Thorns and Thistles fall it bring forth TO THEE. So that God's own Words tell us, where the Curfe terminates. The Words are parallel with thofe in Deut. xxviii. 16. but only more plain and explicit, Curfed fhalt THOU be in the Field, or in the Ground.

If this Part of the Sentence was pronounced under no Notion of any Curfe or Punishment at all upon Mankind, but on the contrary, as making an Alteration in the Ground, that should be for the better, as to them; that inftead of the fweet, but tempting, pernicious Fruits of Paradife, it might produce wholefome Fruits, more for the Health of the Soul; that it might bring forth

Thorns

Thorns and Thiftles, as excellent Medicines, to prevent or cure moral Diftempers, Difeafes which would iffue in eternal Death; I fay, if what was pronounced was under this Notion, then it was a Bleffing on the Ground, and not a Curfe; and it might more properly have been faid, ' BLESSED fball the Ground be for thy Sake.—I will make a happy Change in it, that it may be a Habitation more fit for a Creature fo infirm, and so apt to be overcome with Temptation, as thou art.'

.

The Event makes it evident, that in pronouncing this Curfe, God had as much Refpect to Adam's Pofterity, as to himfelf: And fo it was understood by his pious Pofterity before the Flood; as appears by what Lamech, the Father of Noah, fays, Gen. v. 29. And he called his Name Noah; faying, This fame fhall comfort us concerning our Work, and the Toil of our Hands, "because of the "Ground which the Lord hath curfed,"

Another Thing which argues, that Adam's Pofterity were included in the Threatening of Death, and that our first Parents understood, when fallen, that the Tempter, in perfuading them to eat the forbidden Fruit, had aimed at the Punishment and Ruin of both them and their Pofterity, and had procured it, is Adam's immediately giving his Wife that new Name, Eve, or Life, on the Promife or Intimation of the Disappointment and Overthrow of the Tempter in that Matter, by her Seed; which Adam understood to be by his procuring Life; not only for themfelves, but for many of their Pofterity, and thereby delivering them from that Death and Ruin which the Serpent had brought upon them. Those that should be thus delivered,. and obtain Life, Adam calls

the