innocence, was given in a covenant form. From the very origin of his
existence, Adam was placed under law to God, both as an individual, and
as the representative head of the human family. Under both aspects of
his condition he was, accordingly, amenable to that law; nay, more, to
that law in a covenant form.

To him, as an individual, it was promulgated, not merely as a law but as
a covenant. It could not have been proclaimed to him as the federal head
of others, had it not conferred obligation upon him as a moral agent,
responsible for his own actions. Now, the law that was given to him in
his twofold character was, in reality, a condition of a covenant. Both
the positive precept and the statutes of the decalogue unfolded what was
designed as a covenant claim. The command to obey, implying the command
to agree to obey, is an injunction to enter into covenant, and,
therefore, itself the condition of a covenant, to be constituted in the
acquiescence of the creature addressed. The giving of any command to
man, therefore, in a state of innocence, was a recognition of him as a
creature on his constitution designed, and, in the providence of God, to
be called, to enter into covenant with him. But this conclusion is
corroborated by the very matter of the moral law itself. We have seen
that several of the precepts of that law require the observance of
entering into covenant. These commands could not have been obeyed as the
dictates of God's laws, had the duty of Covenanting not been performed.
And that duty could not have been performed otherwise than in the
recognition of the commands of the law as the conditions of a Covenant.
From other considerations this also appears. We are warranted to
maintain that the covenant of God dispensed to men is in reality a
covenant. But the positive precept forbidding man to eat of the tree of
knowledge of good and evil, is inculcated in the very same terms in
which the Covenant of God is enjoined. Both are spoken of as commanded.
"And the Lord God commanded ([Hebrew: yetzav]) the man, saying, Of every
tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it."[458] "He hath
commanded ([Hebrew: tzivah]) his covenant for ever."[459] A law, when
promulgated, cannot but be commanded. A covenant when revealed, as we
here see, is commanded. We should, therefore, take an unwarrantably
circumscribed view of the law given to man at first,