Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

1. This is natural to man as he is corrupted. What was the venom of the sin of Adam, is naturally derived with his nature to all his posterity. It was not the eating a forbidden Apple, or the pleasing his Palate that Adam aimed at, or was the chief object of his desire; but to live independently on his Creator, and be a God to himself, Gen. 3.5. You shall be as Gods. That which was the matter of the Devils Temptation, was the incentive of mans rebellion: A likeness to God he aspired to in the Judgment of God himself, an infallible interpreter of mans thoughts; Behold, man is become as one of us, to know good and evil, in regard of self sufficiency and being a rule to himself. The Jews understand the ambition of man to reach no further, than an equality with the Angelical nature: But Jehovah here understands it in another sense: God had ordered man by this prohibition not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil; not to attempt the knowledge of good and evil of himself, but to wait upon the dictates of God; not to trust to his own Counsels, but to depend wholly upon him for direction and guidance. Certainly he that would not hold off his hand from so small a thing as an Apple, when he had his choice of the fruit of the Garden, would not have denied himself any thing his Appetite had desired, when that principle had prevailed upon him: He would not have stuck at a greater matter to pleasure himself with the displeasing of God, when for so small a thing he would incur the anger of his Creator.

1. This is natural to man as he is corrupted. What was the venom of the sin of Adam, is naturally derived with his nature to all his posterity. It was not the eating a forbidden Apple, or the pleasing his Palate that Adam aimed at, or was the chief object of his desire; but to live independently on his Creator, and be a God to himself, Gen. 3.5. You shall be as Gods. That which was the matter of the Devils Temptation, was the incentive of mans rebellion: A likeness to God he aspired to in the Judgment of God himself, an infallible interpreter of mans thoughts; Behold, man is become as one of us, to know good and evil, in regard of self sufficiency and being a rule to himself. The Jews understand the ambition of man to reach no further, than an equality with the Angelical nature: But Jehovah here understands it in another sense: God had ordered man by this prohibition not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil; not to attempt the knowledge of good and evil of himself, but to wait upon the dictates of God; not to trust to his own Counsels, but to depend wholly upon him for direction and guidance. Certainly he that would not hold off his hand from so small a thing as an Apple, when he had his choice of the fruit of the Garden, would not have denyed himself any thing his Appetite had desired, when that principle had prevailed upon him: He would not have stuck at a greater matter to pleasure himself with the displeasing of God, when for so small a thing he would incur the anger of his Creator.