§ 2. The Promise.

The reward promised to Adam on condition of his obedience, was life. (1.) This is involved in the threatening: “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” It is plain that this involved the assurance that he should not die, if he did not eat. (2.) This is confirmed by innumerable passages and by the general drift of Scripture, in which it is so plainly and so variously taught, that life was, by the ordinance of God, connected with obedience. “This do and thou shalt live.” “The man that doeth them shall live by them.” This is the uniform mode in which the Bible speaks of that law or covenant under which man by the constitution of his nature and by the ordinance of God, was placed. (3.) As the Scriptures everywhere present God as a judge or moral ruler, it follows of necessity from that representation, that his rational creatures will be dealt with according to the principles of justice. If there be no transgression there will be no punishment. And those who continue holy thereby continue in the favour and fellowship of him whose favour is life, and whose loving kindness is better than life. (4.) And finally, holiness, or as the Apostle expresses it, to be spiritually minded, is life. There can therefore be no doubt, that had Adam continued in holiness, he would have enjoyed that life which flows from the favour of God.

The life thus promised included the happy, holy, and immortal existence of the soul and body. This is plain. (1.) Because time life promised was that suited to the being to whom the promise was made. But the life suited to man as a moral and intelligent being, 119composed of soul and body, includes tile happy, holy, and immortal existence of his whole nature. (2.) The life of which the Scriptures everywhere speak as connected with obedience, is that which, as just stated, flows from the favour and fellowship of God, and includes glory, honour, and immortality, as the Apostle teaches us in Romans ii. 7. (3.) The life secured by Christ for his people was the life forfeited by sin. But the life which the believer derives from Christ is spiritual and eternal life, the exaltation and complete blessedness of his whole nature, both soul and body.