It pleased God to condescend to enter into covenant with the first man, Adam, adapted to his state of innocence, and consisting of a command, a threat, and a promise. The special command, which was the pledge of his obedience, was not to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree; the threat was that, if he ate thereof, he should die. The nature of the command and the threat leads us to infer that this covenant contained a promise also of life and happiness, if man obeyed the command, in contradistinction to the death threatened as the penalty of disobedience.1 The law of our nature was all contained in this covenant, so that it was impossible to transgress the special command of the covenant without transgressing, at the same time, the entire law of our nature.2 Adam stood, in this covenant, not only as a natural root of all his offspring, but also as their covenant head and representative; so that their happiness or misery, as well as his own, depended upon his obedience or disobedience.3
1 Gen. 2:16,17; Hos. 6:7 [marginal reading]; Rom. 5:12-21; Rom. 7:10; Rom. 10:5; 1 Cor. 15:22,45-49; Matt. 19:17. 2 James 2:10. 3 Gen. 2,3; 1 Cor. 15:22; Rom. 5:12,18,19.
