THE maintenance of civil society depending on justice,and justice on the power of life and death,and other less rewards and punishments residing in them that have the sovereignty of the Commonwealth;it is impossible a Commonwealth should stand where any other than the sovereign hath a power of giving greater rewards than life,and of inflicting greater punishments than death.Now seeing eternal life is a greater reward than the life present,and eternal torment a greater punishment than the death of nature,it is a thing worthy to be well considered of all men that desire,by obeying authority,to avoid the calamities of confusion and civil war,what is meant in Holy Scripture by life eternal and torment eternal;and for what offences,and against whom committed,men are to be eternally tormented;and for what actions they are to obtain eternal life.
And first we find that Adam was created in such a condition of life as,had he not broken the commandment 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 and evil,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 forever."By which it seemeth to me (with submission nevertheless both in this,and in all questions whereof the determination dependeth on the Scriptures,to the interpretation of the Bible authorized by the Commonwealth whose subject I am)that Adam,if he had not sinned,had had an eternal life on earth;and that mortality entered upon himself,and his posterity,by his first sin.
Not that actual death then entered,for Adam then could never have had children;whereas he lived long after,and saw a numerous posterity ere he died.But where it is said,"In the day that thou eatest thereof,thou shalt surely die,"it must needs be meant of his mortality and certitude of death.Seeing then eternal life was lost by Adam's forfeiture,in committing sin,he that should cancel that forefeiture was to recover thereby that life again.Now Jesus Christ hath satisfied for the sins of all that believe in him,and therefore recovered to all believers that eternal life which was lost by the sin of Adam.And in this sense it is that the comparison of St.Paul holdeth:"As by the offence of one,judgement came upon all men to condemnation;even so by the righteousness of one,the free gift came upon all men to justification of life."Which is again 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."
Concerning the place wherein men shall enjoy that eternal life which Christ hath obtained for them,the texts next before alleged seem to make it on earth.For if,as in Adam,all die,that is,have forfeited Paradise and eternal 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,"Upon Zion God commanded the blessing,even life for evermore";for Zion is in Jerusalem upon earth:as also that of St.
John,"To him that overcometh 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 Adam's eternal life;but his life was to have been on earth.The same seemeth to be confirmed again by St.John,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,verse 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 God's people from heaven,and not they go 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:"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 restoration of the kingdom of God,instituted under Moses,which was a political government of the Jews on earth.Again,that saying of our Saviour,"that in the resurrection they neither marry,nor are given in marriage,but are as the angels of God in heaven,"is a deion of an eternal 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 individual 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 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 life eternal:and therefore our puts them in mind of this consequence of immortality;that there shall be no generation,and consequently no marriage,no more than there is marriage or generation among the angels.The comparison between that eternal life which Adam lost,and our Saviour by his victory over death hath recovered,holdeth also in this,that as Adam lost eternal life by his sin,and yet lived after it for a time,so the faithful Christian hath recovered eternal life by Christ's passion,though he die a natural death,and remain 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.
