Place Of Adams Eternity If He Had Not Sinned, The Terrestrial Paradise
And first we find, that Adam was created in such a condition of life, as had he not broken the commandement of God, he had enjoyed it in the Paradise of Eden Everlastingly. For there was the Tree of Life; whereof he was so long allowed to eat, as he should forbear to eat of the tree of Knowledge of Good an Evill; which was not allowed him. And therefore as soon as he had eaten of it, God thrust him out of Paradise, “lest he should put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and live for ever.” (Gen. 3. 22.) By which it seemeth to me, (with submission neverthelesse both in this, and in all questions, whereof the determination dependeth on the Scriptures, to the interpretation of the Bible authorized by the Common-wealth, whose Subject I am,) that Adam if he had not sinned, had had an Eternall Life on Earth: and that Mortality entred upon himself, and his posterity, by his first Sin. Not that actuall Death then entred; for Adam then could never have had children; whereas he lived long after, and saw a numerous posterity ere he dyed. But where it is said, “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die,” it must needs bee meant of his Mortality, and certitude of death. Seeing then Eternall life was lost by Adams forfeiture, in committing sin, he that should cancell that forfeiture was to recover thereby, that Life again. Now Jesus Christ hath satisfied for the sins of all that beleeve in him; and therefore recovered to all beleevers, that ETERNALL LIFE, which was lost by the sin of Adam. And in this sense it is, that the comparison of St. Paul holdeth (Rom. 5.18, 19.) “As by the offence of one, Judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousnesse of one, the free gift came upon all men to Justification of Life.” Which is again (1 Cor. 15.21,22) more perspicuously delivered in these words, “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”
Texts Concerning The Place Of Life Eternall For Beleevers
Concerning the place wherein men shall enjoy that Eternall Life, which Christ hath obtained for them, the texts next before alledged seem to make it on Earth. For if as in Adam, all die, that is, have forfeited Paradise, and Eternall Life on Earth; even so in Christ all shall be made alive; then all men shall be made to live on Earth; for else the comparison were not proper. Hereunto seemeth to agree that of the Psalmist, (Psal. 133.3.) “Upon Zion God commanded the blessing, even Life for evermore;” for Zion, is in Jerusalem, upon Earth: as also that of S. Joh. (Rev. 2.7.) “To him that overcommeth I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.” This was the tree of Adams Eternall life; but his life was to have been on Earth. The same seemeth to be confirmed again by St. Joh. (Rev. 21.2.) where he saith, “I John saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a Bride adorned for her husband:” and again v. 10. to the same effect: As if he should say, the new Jerusalem, the Paradise of God, at the coming again of Christ, should come down to Gods people from Heaven, and not they goe up to it from Earth. And this differs nothing from that, which the two men in white clothing (that is, the two Angels) said to the Apostles, that were looking upon Christ ascending (Acts 1.11.) “This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into Heaven, shall so come, as you have seen him go up into Heaven.” Which soundeth as if they had said, he should come down to govern them under his Father, Eternally here; and not take them up to govern them in Heaven; and is conformable to the Restauration of the Kingdom of God, instituted under Moses; which was a Political government of the Jews on Earth. Again, that saying of our Saviour (Mat. 22.30.) “that in the Resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the Angels of God in heaven,” is a description of an Eternall Life, resembling that which we lost in Adam in the point of Marriage. For seeing Adam, and Eve, if they had not sinned, had lived on Earth Eternally, in their individuall persons; it is manifest, they should not continually have procreated their kind. For if Immortals should have generated, as Mankind doth now; the Earth in a small time, would not have been able to afford them a place to stand on. The Jews that asked our Saviour the question, whose wife the woman that had married many brothers, should be, in the resurrection, knew not what were the consequences of Immortality; that there shal be no Generation, and consequently no marriage, no more than there is Marriage, or generation among the Angels. The comparison between that Eternall life which Adam lost, and our Saviour by his Victory over death hath recovered; holdeth also in this, that as Adam lost Eternall Life by his sin, and yet lived after it for a time; so the faithful Christian hath recovered Eternal Life by Christs passion, though he die a natural death, and remaine dead for a time; namely, till the Resurrection. For as Death is reckoned from the Condemnation of Adam, not from the Execution; so life is reckoned from the Absolution, not from the Resurrection of them that are elected in Christ.
Ascension Into Heaven
That the place wherein men are to live Eternally, after the Resurrection, is the Heavens, meaning by Heaven, those parts of the world, which are the most remote from Earth, as where the stars are, or above the stars, in another Higher Heaven, called Caelum Empyreum, (whereof there is no mention in Scripture, nor ground in Reason) is not easily to be drawn from any text that I can find. By the Kingdome of Heaven, is meant the Kingdome of the King that dwelleth in Heaven; and his Kingdome was the people of Israel, whom he ruled by the Prophets his Lieutenants, first Moses, and after him Eleazar, and the Soveraign Priests, till in the days of Samuel they rebelled, and would have a mortall man for their King, after the manner of other Nations. And when our Saviour Christ, by the preaching of his Ministers, shall have perswaded the Jews to return, and called the Gentiles to his obedience, then shall there be a new Kingdome of Heaven, because our King shall then be God, whose Throne is Heaven; without any necessity evident in the Scripture, that man shall ascend to his happinesse any higher than Gods Footstool the Earth. On the contrary, we find written (Joh. 3.13.) that “no man hath ascended into Heaven, but he that came down from Heaven, even the Son of man, that is in Heaven.” Where I observe by the way, that these words are not, as those which go immediately before, the words of our Saviour, but of St. John himself; for Christ was then not in Heaven, but upon the Earth. The like is said of David (Acts 2.34.) where St. Peter, to prove the Ascension of Christ, using the words of the Psalmist, (Psal. 16.10.) “Thou wilt not leave my soule in Hell, nor suffer thine Holy one to see corruption,” saith, they were spoken (not of David, but) of Christ; and to prove it, addeth this Reason, “For David is not ascended into Heaven.” But to this a man may easily answer, and say, that though their bodies were not to ascend till the generall day of Judgment, yet their souls were in Heaven as soon as they were departed from their bodies; which also seemeth to be confirmed by the words of our Saviour (Luke 20.37,38.) who proving the Resurrection out of the word of Moses, saith thus, “That the dead are raised, even Moses shewed, at the bush, when he calleth the Lord, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For he is not a God of the Dead, but of the Living; for they all live to him.” But if these words be to be understood only of the Immortality of the Soul, they prove not at all that which our Saviour intended to prove, which was the Resurrection of the Body, that
