SERMON II.

GENESIS III. 9.

And the Lord called unto Adam, and faid unto him, where art thou?

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UR work preparatory to the Lord's-Supper, being to get our hearts affected with redeeming love, and the falvation brought us by the fecond Adam, it can't be unfeasonable to take a view of our mifery by the first; for which I have chofen thefe words.

We have here the voice of man's creator and judge, making inquifition after his creature now loft, and by his early difobedience fallen from him.

God made man upright, after his own image: but being in honour, through forgetting his maker, he continued not, but fell from his obedience and glory, into a vilenefs like that of the beasts that perish.

Our first parents harkening to the temptation of the devil, and breaking through the divine law by eating of the forbidden fruit, foon experienced a fad change in themselves. And as foon as they discovered it, like guilty criminals, they attempted to fly from juftice.

Their great Creator coming into paradise after the apoftafy, and finding his creatures fled, avoiding his prefence, and hiding themselves among the trees, he calls to one of them in these words of the text, Adam, where art thou? which words may be confider'd,

First, As an expreffion of admiration, i.e. How great and fudden a change! where! whither is the creature gone, which I fo lately made, and dearly lov'd; with whom I was fo well pleas'd, and took so much delight; who lately above all things defired my company, and rejoiced in it, placing his life in my favour and love? What a ftrange turn is made? and from whence can it proceed? Is man afraid of his God, that he thus runs from him? Is he impatient of my prefence, weary of my converfe, unwilling of farther acquaintance with me, that he now retires at my approach and feeks to hide? He was not wont to do fo. Adam, where art thou?

Secondly, As a question put to Adam for conviction, to bring him to a closer confideration, and deeper sense of his fin. Adam, where art thou? i.e. my son and off-fpring, whom I made in a very peculiar manner, made after my own image, and for my glory, the chief of my works in this lower world, and to be prince over them all. Thou, whom I have fo greatly obliged, and done fo much for, and had fuch just expectations from, and fuch great concern about. Where art thou? haft thou forfaken me, who gave thee life, and breath, and being? me who raised thee out of nothing, and took thee into the nearest relation to myself; and to whom I have subject

ed the works of my hands, and brought into a furnish'd world, and plac'd in a paradife of mine own planting, therein giving thee all things neceffary to thy felicity on earth? and I would not have accounted this to have been enough for thee, and thy all, if thou hadst continued obedient, but after a while, would have given thee even glory in heaven with myself.

Adam, where art thou? thou who wast lately in covenant with me, and then waft mine; acknowledging me thy owner, and fovereign Lord, whom thou wouldeft love, and serve, and live devoted to obey, in whatever was known to thee to be my will: why then doft thou decline my prefence, and feek to withdraw from it? What place can be defirable where I am not? And what provocation have I given, or what iniquity haft thou found in me, that should incline thee now to affect a distance from me? What more could I have done, beftown, or promifed, to engage a creature's affection? And is it not an inftance of thy perverseness that thou runneft from me, and art loth to be seen ?

Where art thou, whom I made the head of all thy kind, and upon whofe faithfulness, or difobedience, their happiness, or misery, depends?

Thirdly, God may thus fpeak, Adam, where art thou? by way of farcafm or taunt, to lay open man's folly in hearkening to the tempter and his temptation. What acquifition hast thou made by adventuring to fin against all the bars I put in thy way? Has it prov'd a fuccefsful attempt, to ftrive to become like God by cafting

away

cafting away his fear and image? Or is rebellion and difobedience the way to glory? Are the tempter's promifes fulfilled, and thy vain conceits answered, of bettering thy ftate, and rifing higher, by contradicting thy maker's will in eating of the forbidden fruit? Is knowledge of good from the lofs of it, and the experience of the contrary, so great an attainment? And what fruit is there in fin, that is not just matter of fhame? Many interpreters fuppofe those words of the 22d verfe, may be understood in an ironical sense, behold the man is become as one of us; i. e. behold how near he is arrived to an equality with his maker! He lately arrived to that eminence that he was fo loth to be seen and advanced higher in wisdom, that he fought to hide himself among the trees, from him who filleth heaven and earth; as if he that made the eye could not fee, or any thing could fkreen from his view. Behold how happy the man has made himself by his apoftacy!

But Fourthly, It is the language of divine compaffion, intimating the real fadness of Adam's ftate. God early faw and pitied the lapsed creature, and thus, as it were, lamented over him: Adam, where art thou? i. e, how low art thou funk? how vile art thou become? what happiness haft thou forfaken and caft away? what mifery haft thou chofen, and beginneft to feel, which puts thee upon flight? but where can he find a refuge that runs from God? how precious a foul haft thou defiled, destroyed, and undone? Adam, where art thou? C 4

From

From the whole, the Obfervation I shall make is this.

Man by his early tranfgreffing the law of his creator, fell from his original happiness, into a moft wretched and deplorable state. From his not continuing in his original innocence and honour, the glory is departed. The crown is fallen from our heads: wo unto us that we have finned.

In fpeaking to this, I fhall,

I. Give fome account of this primitive apoftacy, how it came to pass; that the blame may appear to lie on the finner himself.

on.

II. Confider the mifery confequent hereup

III. Clear the wifdom, goodness, and righteoufness of God in his proceedings with man with reference to it: and then briefly affift you in the application.

I. Concerning the primitive apoftacy, how it came to pass that man being in honour, fell from it.

ft. 'Tis plain from the event, that man, tho' created perfectly holy, was yet in a mutable ftate. He wanted nothing neceffary to his ftanding; but yet might fall, and lose the purity and felicity wherewith he was crowned. His rectitude, tho' natural, was not infeparable from his being, nor his happiness impoffible to be forfeited by fin. He was made little lower than the angels, and capable of the everlafting bleffedness with them; but yet, in the way to it, by turning afide or going back, he might come short of the glory of God. As a rational creature, God

governed