The first intelligent creatures were purely spiritual, and each stood or fell for himself. He united in man the spiritual and corporeal natures; he formed his soul innocent and holy, and made ample provision for the comfort of his body; and as it would have been inconvenient to have brought all of the human family, which were to be in every generation, upon the earth at one time, and still more so, that, every one standing or falling for himself, the earth should be the common habitation of beings perfectly holy, happy, and immortal, and also of cursed perishing beings, he constituted the first man a representative of his race. “Let us make man,” the race in one. To be fruitful, multiply, fill, and subdue the earth, were directed to the race. “In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die.” He did die spiritually, he lost his innocence, became the subject of guilt, shame, and fear; and all his posterity inherit the fallen nature. Being already cursed, when afterwards arraigned and sentenced, it was only necessary to curse his enjoyments in this world. His posterity were included, for they are subjected to the same afflictions and death. If they had not been included in the sentence “dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” as they were a part of his dust, not dying, it would not have been accomplished. That he represented the race appears also from this, that the command was given to him before his wife was formed, and also because it does not appear that her eyes were opened to see her guilt, and miserable condition until he had eaten of the fruit; then “the eyes of them both were opened.”
The remedy was provided before the creation, and nothing can be shown to prove that it is not complete in every instance when there is not actual guilt. That the woman was to have a seed the first parent heard announced in the sentence against the tempter, whilst standing in suspense momently in expectation of that death which had been threatened. If the plural had been used, this could have been no intimation of the seed Christ. Why was the word woman used, which excludes the man, and not the term man, which would have embraced both, unless the Son of the virgin was intended? It is all one great whole, perfectly seen only to God himself. “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God; how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out.”
[46]. Vid. Grot. in Hos. vi. 7. Mihi latina hæc interpretatio non displicet, ut sensus hic sit; sicut Adam, quia pactum meum violavit, expulsus est ex Hedene; ita æquum est ex sua terra expelli.
[47]. When I speak of the advantages being, for substance the same, it is supposed, that there are some circumstances of glory, in which that salvation that was purchased by Christ, differs from that happiness which Adam would have been possessed of had he persisted in his integrity.
[48]. Yet it is the better opinion, that he was vulnerable only on one point.
[49]. The principal argument brought to prove this, is the application of that scripture, to this purpose, in Cant. viii. 5. I raised thee up under the apple tree; there thy mother brought thee forth, as if he should say, the church, when, fallen by our first parents eating the fruit of this tree, was raised up, when the Messiah was first promised. But, though this be a truth, yet whether it be the thing intended, by the Holy Ghost, in that scripture, is uncertain. As for the opinion of those who suppose it was a fig-tree, as Theodoret, [Vid. Quest, xxviii. in Gen.] and some other ancient writers; that has no other foundation, but what we read, concerning our first parents sewing fig leaves together, and making themselves aprons, which, they suppose, was done before they departed from the tree, their shame immediately suggesting the necessity thereof. But others think, that whatever tree it were, it certainly was not a fig-tree, because it can hardly be supposed but that our first parents, having a sense of guilt, as well as shame, would be afraid so much as to touch that tree, which had occasioned their ruin. Others conclude, that it was a vine, because our Saviour appointed that wine, which the vine produces, should be used, in commemorating his death, which removed the effects of that curse, which sin brought on the world: but this is a vain and trifling method of reasoning, and discovers what lengths some men run in their absurd glosses on scripture.
[50]. Vid. Joseph. Antiquit. Lib. I. cap. 2.
[51]. Vid. Socin. de Stat. Prim. Hom. & Smalc. de ver. & Nat. Dei. Fil.
[52]. This is beautifully described by Milton, (in his paradise lost, Book IX.) and many others have asserted the same thing for substance, as thinking it below the wisdom of the man to be imposed on; thereby insinuating, though without sufficient ground, that he had a greater degree of wisdom allotted to him than his wife.
[53]. Josephus indeed, (See Antiq. Lib. I. cap. 2.) intimates, that the serpent was, at first, endowed with speech, and that his loss of it was inflicted for his tempting man; but it is a groundless conjecture arising from a supposition, that those things spoken of in Gen. iii. which are attributed to the devil, were done without him, which is not only his opinion, but of many other Jewish writers, and several modern ones.