A29699:188
Paradise opened, or, The secrets, mysteries, and rarities of divine love, of infinite wisdom,…Paradice opened, or, The secreets, mysteries, and rarities of divine love, of infinite wisdom,…
Paradise opened, or, The secrets, mysteries, and rarities of divine love, of infinite wisdom, and of wonderful counsel laid open to public view also, the covenant of grace, and the high and glorious transactions of the Father and the Son in the covenant of redemption opened and improved at large, with the resolution of divers important questions and cases concerning both covenants ... : being the second and last part of The golden key / by Thomas Brooks ...Paradice opened, or, The secreets, mysteries, and rarities of divine love, of infinite wisdom, and of wonderful counsel laid open to publick view also, the covenant of grace, and the high and glorious transactions of the Father and the Son in the covenant of redemption opened and improved at large, with the resolution of divers important questions and cases concerning both covenants ... : being the second and last part of The golden key / by Thomas Brooks ...
London: printed for Dorman Newman, 1675
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
First, God, to declare his sovereignty and man's subjection, gave Adam, though innocent, a Law. God's express prescription of a positive Law, unto Adam, in his innocent state, is clearly and fully laid down, in that Gen. 2. 16, 17. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die: Hebrew, Dying, thou shalt die. Mark how God bounds man's obedience with a double fence: First, he fenced him with a free indulgence, to eat of every tree in the Garden, but one; the less cause he had to be liquorish after forbidden fruit; but, stolen waters are sweet. Secondly, by an exploratory prohibition upon pain of death: by the first, the Lord woos him by love; by the second, he frights him by the terror of his justice; and bids him touch and taste, if he durst. The Faederati were God and Adam; God the Creator, and man the creature, made after Gods image and likeness; and so not contrary to God, nor at enmity with him, but like unto God, though far different and inferior to God in nature and substance. Here are also terms agreed on, and matters covenanted reciprocally, by these parties: Adam, on his part, was to be obedient to God, in forbearing to eat of the tree of knowledge only. God's charge to our first parents was only negative, not to eat of the tree of knowledge; the other, to eat of the trees, was left unto their choice. Eve confesseth that God spake unto them both, and said, ye shall not eat of it: And God speaks unto both of them1 together in these words; Behold I have given unto you every 2herb, and every tree, &c. At which time, also, it is very like, that he gave them the other prohibition of not eating of that one tree; for if God had made that exception before, he would not have given a general permission after; or if this general grant had gone before, the exception coming, should seem to abrogate the former ⟨p. 13⟩grant. The Septuagint seem to be of this mind, that this precept was given both to Adam and Eve, reading thus3