in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee: and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.' Such are the fruits of sin :-in the earth itself what an injurious change has it produced a fruitful land turned into worse than barrenness. What increased difficulty of obtaining a subsistence ! And the language, thou shalt eat the herb of the field' instead of the generous and delicious fruits of Paradise, teaches, that being obliged to subsist on inferior food, is to be reckoned among the consequences of sin; as well as all the various sorrows and miseries of human life, and death itself, which ends our mortal career. God grant, that being prepared for it, death may be the death of our sorrows, then shall we have no cause to complain, except of sin.

3. On the subject of the penal consequences of sin, we notice in the last place, the exclusion of our first parents from the garden of Eden. 'And the Lord God said, Behold the man has become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live for ever: therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden, cherubims and a flaming

sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.'-verses 22-24.

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The expressions, as one of us,' plainly allude to the Persons of the Sacred Trinity, and refer likewise to Satan's promise, 'Ye shall be as Gods; and, the language is ironical, or imports 'a holy scoff at man's vain credulity of Satan's promise. The sentiment, therefore, really conveyed, is this: that man, instead of having become more like God, by taking the Devil's advice, had become most unlike God-a truth sufficiently obvious, if we may judge of the parents by the children.

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'And now, lest he put forth his hand,' &c. This also, it is observed, is spoken in derision of any such hope or expectation: ' importing perhaps likewise, that as man had permitted himself to be duped by Satan, he was now liable to all sorts of religious imposture, even such as imply the greatest folly and weakness; and innumerable facts prove that this is another of the effects of sin. Therefore the Lord God sent him forth,' &c. verse 23. A most affecting and trying circumstance this to the first pair, to have notice to quit their splendid abode, endeared to them by so many considerations and to change such a garden, and for such a cause, for a wilderness, we presume, drenched their eyes and made their hearts to pant. Such are the pangs that sin inflicts. How reluctant Adam was to quit his garden is affectingly intimated in the words 'So he DROVE out the man.

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This event, so affecting to Adam, was likewise very instructive both to him and to us. For as the garden of Eden was to our first parents, while they stood, a sacramental pledge of heaven, so their exclusion from it may be considered as designed to teach that they had now forfeited that bliss-nay, as they never more returned to Eden, that as far as the covenant of works was concerned, they had deprived themselves of that bliss for ever. And we see not why any should refuse to admit that the transaction before us (God's ejecting man from Paradise) teaches, that now the covenant of works is broken, it must needs be abrogated, and that therefore now, as the Apostle says, 'by the deeds of the law no flesh living can be justified,' that is, made and dealt with as rightFor what is to be understood by the cherubims here mentioned ? Most likely angels. And what was the design of their being placed in such formidable array at the entrance to the garden of Eden, which like heaven, seemed to have only one way into it? As it appears to us, the design was this, viz.: to prevent Adam and Eve from ever more eating of the tree of life, or entering the garden of Eden. Now that they had sinned and forfeited heaven, they were deprived of the use of those sacraments by which it was typified and sealed.

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This was the primary design of placing the cherubims as here described; but it seems by no means probable or even credible, that this was

the only intention of their being thus stationed. Hence it has been said, that Adam's being first driven from Eden and then kept out of it by means which rendered his re-entrance absolutely impossible, prefigured the exclusion of the wicked from the heavenly Paradise. When Adam fell he became wicked, and all are wicked, who being destitute of the new birth, continue in that state into which our first parents fell. And dying in that state, we are sure they will no more be able to obtain admission into heaven than it would have been possible for our first parents to have re-entered the earthly Paradise, in spite of the cherubims and the flaming sword set on purpose to prevent their ingress. For we know it is said that the wicked shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous,' and that the ungodly shall be like the chaff which the wind driveth away.' Nay, worse than this, for it is said, the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.' No doubt, therefore, that he who dies in an an unregenerate state will be excluded heaven, and kept out of it, even as Adam from the garden of Eden. Still we are much inclined to their opinion, who think that this dispensation of God towards Adam was principally designed to teach that, as he had broken the covenant of works, that covenant was for ever abrogated, that is repealed and abolished: and so, as above remarked, that the way to heaven by the merit of our own works was for ever

closed by Adam's first sin. To teach us, in short, the very sentiment which the Apostle advances, Rom. iii. 20. And the same truth, for substance, which was taught in the manner in which the second edition of the moral law, if we may so speak, was published at mount Sinai. For thus said the Lord unto Moses, 'Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee for ever. And the Lord said unto Moses, go unto the people, and sanctify them, to-day and to-morrow, and let them wash their clothes, and be ready against the third day; for the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people, upon Mount Sinai. And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death. There shall not a hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned or shot through, whether it be beast or man, it shall not live: when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount. And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled; and Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.

And when the