Religion & morality > Human nature in its fourfold state

Of Matis Original Happinefs. 31
one thing, one tree in the garden, out of his hands,
even the tree of knowledge of good and evil
But, you may fay, Ahd did he grudge him this P
1 aufwer, Nay ; but when he had made him thus holy
and happy, he gracioully gave him this veltriotion,
which was in its own nature, a prop and ibiy to keep
him from falling. And this I fay, upon thefe three
grounds: (1.) As it was mod proper for the honour
of God, who had made man lord of the lower world,
to aflert his fovercign dominion over all, by feme
particular vifible fign ; fo it was mod proper for man’s
fafety. Man being fet down in a beautiful Paradife,
it was an aef of infinite wifdom, and of grace too,
to keep from him one (ingle tree, as a vifible tedimony
that he mult hold all of his Creator, as his great Land¬
lord ; that fo while he faw himfelf lord of the crea¬
tures, he might not forget that he was dill God’s
fubje£t. (2.) This was a memorial of his mutable
date given in to him from heaven, to be laid up by
him, for his great caution. For man was created
with a free will to good, which the tree of life was
an evidence of: But his will was alfo free to evil, and
the forbidden tree was to him a memorial thereof. It was
in a manner, a continual watch-word to him againil
evil • a beacon fet up before him. to bid him beware
of dafhing himfelf to pieces, on the rock of fin.
(3.) God made man upright, directed towards God,
as the chief end He fet him, like Mofes, on the top
of the hill, holding up his hands to heaven ; and as
Aaron and Hur dayed up Mofes’s hand (E\od. xvii.
10, 11, 12 ), fo God gave man an erect figure of body,
and forbade him the eating of this tree, to Keep him in
that podure of uprightnefs wherein he was created.-
God made the beads looking down towards the earth,
to (hew that their fitisfaction might be brought from
thence; and accordingly it does afford them what is
commenfurable to their appetite: But the erect figure
cf man’s body, which looketh upward, (liewed him,
that his happinefs lay above him, in God ; and that
he was to expect it from heaven,. and not from
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