Chapter 2: Propositions Touching Adam's Covenant-State

The Apostle, (1 Corinthians 15:47) says: The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven — speaking of the two eminently public persons, the noble heads of great families — makes the condition of the first Adam to be animal and earthly, and that of the second Adam to be spiritual and heavenly. And without doubt, to be born of the house and seed of the second Adam (John 1:12-13) must darken the glory of the first birth, so as there is no great ground to boast of the skin and empty luster of nobility and good blood. Although when the creature called "I" and "self" do creep in to lodge in a poor feeble piece of clay, that clay so lustred must be some God.

The flower and choicest of Adam's paradise-state is an earthly condition, as is evidenced by his eating (Genesis 2:9, 16), sleeping (Genesis 2:21), his being placed in a garden to dress it (Genesis 2:8, 16-17), his marriage (Genesis 2:23-24), his lordship over birds, beasts, and fishes (Genesis 1:28). But in the second Adam, besides all these, we are gifted with a life of more worth than many acres of vineyards. They declare therefore that there is much of the first Adam in them, little of the second — who would reconquer again the many lands that our first father Adam sold, and join house to house, and lay field to field, till there be no place, and disinherit all others, as if they were bastard heirs, and themselves the only righteous heirs of Adam, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth (Isaiah 5:8). And the more spiritual any be, the more are they above the nothing world.

Mortality may be called supernatural to the earthy part of Adam, since it is not naturally due to a body of earth to claim life forever. Though immortality be due to whole Adam consisting of soul and body and endued with the image of God. For the soul cannot die.

But if we speak of such a life — to wit, of a heavenly communion with God, as Adam was a comprehensor or one who is supposed now to have run well, and won the gold and the crown — such a life was due to Adam, not by nature, but by promise.

Adam in his first state was not predestined to a law glory, and to influences of God to carry him on to persevere. Nor could he bless God that he was chosen before the foundation of the world to be law-holy, as (Ephesians 1:3). What? Was not then Adam predestined to life eternal, through Jesus Christ? He was: but not as a public person representing all his sons, but as another single person, as Abraham, or Jacob. For gospel predestination is not of the nature, but of this or that person. Therefore were we not predestined to life eternal in him, but in Christ (Romans 8:29-30).

Therefore Adam fell from the state of law-life both totally and finally, but not from the state of gospel election to glory. For the Lord [reconstructed: had] in the law-dispensation a love design, to set up a theater and stage of free grace. And that the way of works should be a time-dispensation, like a summer-house to be demolished again — as if the Lord had an aim that works and nature should be a transient, but no standing court for righteousness. Hence it is now the relics of an old standing court, and the law is a day of assize for condemning of malefactors, who will acknowledge no tribunal of grace, but only of works. And it is a just court to terrify robbers, to awe borderers and loose men, but to believers it is now a court for a far other end.