Of the Signification in Scripture of Eternal Life, Hell, Salvation, the World to Come, and Redemption
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 ( Gen. 3:22), “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