again, being not in a condition to study, and bear intense thinking. But were I able to do what you desire, the consideration of serving you would make the pains my greatest pleasure. But under the disability I now am, I am sure, sir, your candour and tender regard for me will oblige you to accept the good-will for the deed, and the desire to serve you for the performance, from Your much obliged and humble servant, GEO. HICKes. and sub stance of the fifth discourse. LXXXV. The sum and substance of the fifth The sum discourse is, that there was a covenant of life made with man in his state of innocency, and not, as some pretend, a law imposed upon him, established only by a threatening. For the prohibition given to Adam concerning the not eating of the tree of knowledge, is ushered in with this express donation or grant of God, that he might freely eat of all the rest of the trees in paradise, the tree of life not excepted. Now it is certain, the tree of life was so called, because it was either a sacrament and divine sign, or else a natural means of immortality. And the very commination itself, in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die, manifestly implies a promise; this consequence being most firm, God threateneth death to man if he eat of the forbidden fruit; therefore he promiseth life if he do not eat. A full state and resolution of this matter is given by our author from Grotius, in his approved book, de Satisfactione, &c. The foundation being thus laid in the proof that Adam should never have died if he had not sinned, and that if he had continued obedient, he should have enjoyed an everlasting life; he thinks it easy to collect from thence, that this life should not, nay could not, in any congruity, be perpetuated in the earthly paradise, and that therefore the man was in the design of God, after a certain period of time, to have been translated to a higher state, that is, a celestial bliss; and that it farther readily follows, that man, being thus designed for such a supernatural end, must be supposed gradually at least to have been furnished by God with means proportioned thereunto, which were certain supernatural gifts and powers which we commonly call original righteousness. The sense of the church of God upon this subject he reduceth to two propositions, which, he says, were constantly asserted and believed by the primitive Fathers. I. "That paradise was to Adam a type of heaven ; " and that the never-ending life of happiness which "was promised to our first parents, if they had con❝tinued obedient, and had grown up to perfection "under that economy wherein they were placed, "should not have continued in the earthly paradise, "but only have commenced there, and been perpetuated in a higher state; that is to say, after "such a trial of their obedience, as should seem "sufficient to the divine wisdom, they should have "been translated from earth to heaven." 66 II. "That our first parents, besides the seeds of "natural virtue and religion sown in their minds "in their very creation, and besides the natural "innocence and rectitude wherein also they were "created, were endowed with certain gifts and “powers supernatural, infused by the Spirit of 66 God, and that in these gifts their perfection con"sisted." Now because these two theses seemed to him the two main pillars of the catholic doctrine concerning original sin, he giveth an ample demonstration of them out of the writings of the ancients. The first thesis is confirmed by the testimonies of Justin Martyr, Tatian, Irenæus, Theophilus bishop of Antioch, Clemens of Alexandria, Tertullian, Methodius, St. Athanasius, St. Basil, all which authors lived before the rise of Pelagianism, which makes their testimonies the more considerable. Nay, the ancient primitive church was so certain of this truth, that she inserted the article into her public offices and prayers, as appeareth from the prayer of consecration of the eucharist, in the Liturgy of Clemens, in these words concerning Adam: When thou broughtest him into the paradise of pleasure, thou gavest him free leave to eat of all the other trees, and forbadest him to taste of one only FOR THE HOPE OF BETTER THINGS; that, he kept the commandments, he might receive IMMORTALITY, as the reward of his obedience. This Liturgy is the most ancient now extant, and certainly older than the Pelagian heresy, by one whole age at least. It is confessed, that the doctors of the church, who flourished after the Pelagian heresy was broached, all maintained the same hypothesis; yet, for fuller satisfaction, testimonies are produced from St. Austin, Prosper, Fulgentius, and Petrus Diaconus, who are known to have been the chiefest antagonists of Pelagius. These allegations are brought forth, not only upon the account of their authority, but for the sake of those evident reasons, which those ancient writers urged for the demonstration of the point asserted. m Const. Apost. lib. viii. cap. 12. The second thesis he advanceth as a consequent of the former, for the means ought to be proportioned and suited to the end. If therefore our first parents had been designed only for an earthly felicity, a supernatural gift would have been useless, or at least unnecessary to them; and so on the contrary, if they were designed for a celestial bliss, it necessarily followeth, that they were furnished with powers suited to the obtaining of such a supernatural end. But because this latter thesis is chiefly questioned by learned men, he proveth this assertion from the writings of the ancients, and that somewhat more copiously than he had done the former. The testimonies he useth to this purpose are those of Justin Martyr, Tatian, Irenæus, the author of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, Tertullian, Cyprian, Origen, the author of the five dialogues among the works of Athanasius, St. Athanasius himself, the great Basil, St. Cyril, St. Ambrose, St. Hierom, St. Austin, Prosper, and, lastly, Fulgentius. After this, he fully answers an objection made by the Socinians, in order to weaken the credit and authority of these testimonies; for they placing the likeness and image of God, after which the first man is said to be created, only in his dominion over the other creatures in this visible world, do endeavour effectually to destroy that notion of God's image, which runs through all the testimonies that are produced, and which those Fathers made to consist especially in those supernatural powers, gifts, or graces, wherewith they suppose him to be furnished in his creation. And that these supernatural perfections were a chief part of the image of God, after which the first man is said to be created, is not the fancy of Christian writers, but was a notion received and acknowledged in the Jewish church many years before our Saviour's appearance in the flesh; as is manifest from the author of the Book of Wisdom, and from Philo the Jew, who bordered upon the very age of our Saviour's incarnation. Though if we should lay aside that reverence which is due to so consentient a judgment of the church of God, both before and after Christ, yet the apostle St. Paul hath evidence sufficient, if well considered, to set us right in this point. Moreover farther, he answereth an objection made by Grotius, against this doctrine of the primitive Fathers; and in vindication of them, he proposes himself some arguments taken from the history of the primitive state of the first man, as it is delivered by Moses himself, which, if not demonstrative, are yet far more considerable than any thing that hath been produced in defence of the contrary novel opinion. He then proceeds to shew the great use of this doctrine, in three considerable instances, viz. First, In determining the nature of that original righteousness, which was the happy portion of the protoplast. Secondly, In evincing the absolute necessity of divine grace in man fallen, in order to the performance of that righteousness which is required unto his salvation. Thirdly, In assuring us how unjust that charge is which some bold men have fastened on all the Christian writers before Pelagius, especially on those who flourished within the three first centuries; namely, that they held the same doctrine which was afterwards condemned by the church as heretical in Pelagius, asserting a sufficiency of man's natural powers in his lapsed estate, without the grace of God, to perform those things which |