3. We have a farther account of the provision that providence made for man’s subsistence; the great variety of fruits, which the earth produced, were given him for food, the tree of knowledge of good and evil only excepted. From whence we may observe, the difference between the condition of man in paradise, and that of the saints in heaven, in which the bodies of men shall be supported, without food, when changed and adapted to such a way of living, as is inconsistent with this present state; which seems to be the meaning of that expression of the apostle, _Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats; but God shall destroy both it and them_, 1 Cor. vi. 13. Here we may take occasion to enquire, whether the fruits of the earth were the only food which man lived on, not only before the fall, but in several following ages? or, whether flesh was eaten before the flood? It seems most agreeable to the dictates of nature, to suppose, that he would never have found out such an expedient, as killing the beasts, and eating their flesh to subsist him, had he not received an express direction to do it from God, which rendered it a duty. And we have a particular intimation of this grant given to Noah, after the deluge, when God says, _Every moving thing that liveth_, namely, every clean beast, _shall be meat for you_, Gen. ix. 3. from whence some conclude, that there was no flesh eaten before this; and that the distinction, which we read of, concerning clean and unclean beasts, which Noah brought with him into the ark, respected either such as were fit or unfit for sacrifice; or the clean beasts were such as God afterwards designed for food; and therefore there is a kind of prolepsis in their being called clean at that time.