ty and difobedience. God, when he made them, placed them in a paradife, which confifted of all earthly happiness, furnished and accommodated to all uses and purposes. Only God prohibited them the use of one tree; whether to exprefs God's fovereignty, and to try their obedience and gratitude whom he had newly rais'd out of nothing to such a height and excellency of being, that he became head, and lord of all other creatures in this vifiblworld, who all became fubject to him, and owned his authority; which in all reason, should have engaged him unto all obfervance of God; I fay, whether it was for the trial of his loyalty and obedience, or whether it was (as fome do imagine, and that not without reafon) by way of notice and admoni tion to him, as a thing that would prove hurtful to him. For that which may be good for one purpose, may not be good for another. All things were not made for food, nor all food for every conftituti

on.

And if fo, it was rather a caution, than prohibition; which doth yet aggravate the unreasonableness of those persons, who seemed by their action, to quarrel with God for impofing upon them, and abridging them of their liberty; if there was no neceffity upon a moral account. But I will not ftand to determine, whether of these two be true. The words do plainly fhew God's offence and dif pleafure, upon occafion of Adam's mifcarriage and are in themselves, partly declaratory and con victive, partly minatory and instructive.

Ift. They are declaratory and convictive. What! Thou that art but duft, that fo lately received thy

being from God, not to liften to him; but to follow thy own will, and rebel against the law of thy fovereign? So they are declaratory and convictive.

2dly, They are minatory, and confequently inftructive. For when God threatens, his meaning is, that we fhould repent, and turn to him; as is plain from Jer. xviii. 7. When I fhall speak concerning a nation or a people, that I would pluck them up and destroy them, &c. If that nation against whom I have threatned fuch things, turn from their evil ways, I will repent of the evil I have threatned, &c. For God prefers the conversion of a finner, before his deftruction; and does most readily commiferate every compaffionable cafe. And if a creature do repent, revoke, and condemn himself for what he hath done amifs, and deprecates God's displeasure, his cafe is compaffionable, and God will fhew mer

cy.

But to come to the words themselves, duft thou art. Of this I fhall give you an account in two particulars.

I. The meanness of this bodily state.

II. The weakness of it.

1. The meanness of it. For duft is a thing of little or no perfection, nor of any esteem, account and value. And therefore, when the prophet Ifaiah would reprefent God's great majefty, he faith, that all the nations of the earth before him, are but as the drop of a bucket, and the small duft of the ballance, If. xl. 15. Duft we are, every day fweeping away, as the refuse, as that of which there is no ufe. Dust,

the

the ultimate term of all corruption and putrefaction. Duft, you cannot resolve a thing into any thing of less entity and being. Yet all of man is not here to be understood; but only his worfer part. For the text faith, that God breathed into him the breath of life, and he became a living foul and also, that God made man in his own image and this is

fpoken for man's honour, and to represent him a valuable, incomparable and admirable creature. And for this reason it was, that God appointed, that he which shed man's blood, by man should his blood be fhed: because in the image of God made he man, Gen ix. 6. Seneca faith, Ep. 31. and Ep. 93. That man's foul is a blaft of God's mouth. So that though he be in refpect of his body, of the earth earthy; yet as partaking of the image of God he is heavenly, whereunto alfo he is appointed, I Cor. xv. 47, 49. When this earthly house shall be diffolved, we have a building of God, an houfe not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, 2 Cor. v. 1. Though God laid his foundation very low, in refpect of our body, yet he will raise and advance it fo, that of a natural body, it fhall be raised a spiritual body which is a contradiction, in the ears of a philofopher but this is to fhew the transcendent excellency of the body, when it shall be glorified. It is foum in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. We are, body and foul, bought with a price (of greater value than the world is worth) and therefore we must glorify God with our bodies, and with bur fpirits, which are God's, 1 Cor. vi. 20. Now we fee but as in a glafs darkly, 1 Cor. xiii. 12. but the time

will come in which we shall behold the glory of God, as it were face to face. Because we shall be like him, and because we fhall fee him as he is as the apoftle, 1 John iii. 2. faith. This I add, that God may be honoured in his creation; though we must be humble, in respect of the baseness and vilenefs of our bodies, which afford fo much matter for diseases; and are fubject to fo many weakneffes and infirmities. This is the first particular, duft thou art which refpects the meanness of our bodily estate.

2. Duft thou art, which refpects the weakness of this bodily eftate; for duft can make no resistance, It may offend us, but it is of itself fo light and empty, that it is scattered up and down of every wind, as it is faid, Pfal. xviii. 42. True indeed, it is said, that man's body was curiously wrought in the womb. And it may be from hence, the fooner diftempered; nature is every body's beft phyfician, and doth often that for us, that the physician's art cannot do ; yet how is the virtue thereof vitiated and spoiled by a difeafe? How is nature with all her powers run down by a fever? and none of us knows what matter for diseases may be now breeding in these vile bodies of ours, which though we feel them not ta day, we may to morrow; and what refiftance can we make? Who can defend himself against the arrow that flieth by day, or the peftilence that walketh in darkness, or the plague that destroyeth by noon-day? Neither is this all; but we have a principle that tends to corruption and putrefaction, within us. To which alfo let us add, the violence

that

For we are fo

and the laws, For all that

that we are expofed to from abroad, either by the contagion of others, or from the force and violence of thofe that can overpower us. weak, that if any man despise God, he may foon be master of our lives. they can do, is but to inflict punishment upon the tranfgreffor: but that will make no fatisfaction nor restitution. When we are assaulted by any fickness, then we are fenfible of this our weakness, and we cry out with Job, What, is my ftrength the ftrength of a stone, or my flesh of brass? Job xxi. 23. Though when our bones are full of marrow, we put the thoughts of fickness far from us, yet fo it often falleth out, that one dieth in his full ftrength, being in all eafe and profperity; as Job speaketh, chap. xxi. 23.

Furthermore, what are we when bodily pains approach? as pain of the ftone or gout, or inwardly burnt up with a burning fever or ague, as Mofes expreffeth it, Deut. xxviii. 22. Time paffeth away then very flowly, and we are weary of life it felf. So weak and frail are we, that we are not able to hold up our heads: and if to all this, we fhall have the sense of guilt upon our confciences, our condition will be intolerable. See how the Pfalmift expreffeth himself upon this account, Pfal. li. 8. Make me to hear the voice of joy and gladness, that the bones which thou haft broken may rejoice.

Thus have I given you an account of the words, duft thou art, in respect of the meanness and weakness of our bodily eftate, being not able to make the leaft refiftance, or defence.

Now