But not as the Son of God in our Nature as was before set out in the Life of Righteousness Christ is the Lord of Life and Glory the Resurrection and the Life which Adam could not be but when that Life God Gave Him was Lost as He 〈◊〉 not keep it so He could not restore it but in Adam All Dye All in Christ are made Alive 1 Cor. 15. 21 22. But that we may … ther Understand the Great Wiâ—â—â—m of God in making such a Head as Adam was at first who thereby became a Figure of Him that was to Be and that It was to the Great Good of Mankind considered in it self will thus Appear 1. God who certainly Knows what was Best for his own Creation and particularly for the Humane Creation dispos'd it thus as most secure for it under a Common Head and Mediator therein Fore-shewing the Lasting Happiness of Mankind in Christ For thus no single Person would be in danger to be Lost but the whole secur'd in One viz. in one Common Head Answering for All. 2. This One was the Common Parent of all Mankind and so had a Parental Love and Care ingrafted into Him by God for his Posterity the Remains of which we see now how strongly It Acts among Men. 3. He was Accomplish'd with All Powers of Standing so that nothing lay upon Him but to Hold what He Had and to Live in the Constant Exercise and display of it 4. It was but One Instance or Act of Obedience upon which the whole Righteousness and Happiness of Man was suspended viz. His not Eating the Forbidden Fruit the singular Test and proof God put upon Him of his Love and Fidelity to Himself and in which All his Holy and Excellent State as by one unlooseable Knot if not Cut by Sin was kept strait and entire of which the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a Sacrament and standing Admonition 5. It is most Reasonable to believe there was a certain determinate Time and that but short wherein Adam's Obedience was to be Try'd and if He had stood that Shock and Resisted the Temptation He and his Posterity had been confirm'd for ever In him therefore Humane Nature had the fullest and fairest View It could have and the most ample Advantages for it self to be Happy for ever Adam therefore was thus every way Fit and most Advantageously and by the Infinite Goodness of the Creator plac'd as the Common Head of Mankind as a Type of Christ The Application and Use of this first Proposition is 1. The Consideration of Humane Nature Enstated at first in its Common Parent as its Head and Mediator Furnish'd with the Life of Righteousness and Holiness in a State of Favor with God and in the Assurance of a Blessed Immortality and yet so wofully Fallen by our First Parent should exceedingly Humble and Abase us before God in a just Sense of our Fallen Condition as being the effect of our own disloyalty in Adam our Representative and in whom we may see our own Falseness and the great Faithfulness of God to us 2. It Teaches us to Adore the Grace of God in Jesus Christ so Blessed a Mediator who cannot fail us to fly to Him as our onely security both from the Ruine we are fallen into by Adam and also from our own False Righteousness that seems to remain to us and from the Treachery and Falseness of our own Hearts and Resolutions in Holiness All our Security is in Christ alone and in dependency on Him 3. We should therefore look most diligently to this that we are Found in the Second Adam the Head of our Recovery who so much excells the First Adam though he had not fallen how much more when he is Fallen and become the Head of Ruine and Apostacy For he onely who by being in the Son hath the Son He only hath Life but who hath not the Son hath not 1 John â— 12. John 3. 〈◊〉 Life but the Wrath of God abides upon Him I have under the foregoing Proposition given a Sum of the whole Context and laid the Foundation I shall now go on to give the Sum of every Proposition arising from it Propos 2. ADAM hath conveyed a Law of Righteousness to All his Posterity engrafted into their Hearts and It is so inseparable from Humane Nature that one cannot pass without the other but he hath not conveyed a Nature answerable and agreeable to that Law but sunk down from it into Sin which is the truest Account of Original Sin however It cannot be search'd in all the particulars in so short a summary but thus he hath conveyed Sin and Death to all his Posterity and thus the Rom. 5. 13 14. Apostle proves the Common Headship of Adam There cannot be Death without Sin there cannot be Sin without a Law there cannot be a Law without the giving that Law there was no universal Law till Moses There was universal Death of all Mankind even of Infants before Moses there must be therefore universal Sin and therefore also there must have been an universal Law given Such a Law being no way so Given till Moses but by that Law written in Mens Hearts Hereby it necessarily arises Adam must be a Head conveying an Vniversal Law But not conveying an universal Nature suitable to it as Righteous Holy and Good as Rom. 7. 12. that Law is He hath conveyed Sin and Death Universally 1. Adam was entrusted with a Nature perfectly agreeable to this Law but falling from it under the Justice of God He conveys this Law with the disagreeable Nature on which follows Sin and Condemnation He was in the best Circumstances any Man could be to have preserved the one with the other and as the Common Father of All the most obliged to look well to it and much stronger then if every single man had been to preserve it only for himself seeing the Care of an Universal Parent must needs be in Nature the highest Care and our daily Unfaithfulness to our selves in what is in our Power shews how little Reason there is to complain as if we would have done better each man for himself then Adam for us All. Herein how does Christ excell Adam as a Common Head or Mediator For He conveys a Law indeed but it is a Law of the Spirit of Life as to Justification and that carries with it an Efficacious Law to Sanctification as shall be shown Adam conveying a Law but not conveying a Fountain of Action agreeable hath convey'd a Law of Sin and Death because the Law condemns the Nature but Christ conveys nothing but Grace Righteousness and Life to All in Him Thus different a Head he is from Adam both ways who was a Figure and not a Figure of Christ who is to be that Head a Figure in conveying but not a Figure in conveying Sin and Death instead of Life and Righteousness as he was at first appointed 2. What Adam conveys he
Psal 51. 5. Ephes 2. 〈◊〉 c. 4. 22. conveys by Natural Generation and so especially by the Body as all evidence of Scripture assure us too many to need pointing to Hence Children of Wrath by Nature by Conception in Sin the Natural States call'd the Old Man a Body and Members of Sin The Soul coming with a Law of Righteousness engraven upon it immediately by Gods Creation into such a Body and sinking into its Corruption as descending from Adam and not keeping up to its Law of Creation sinks into Sin and Death But Christs Regeneration by his Spirit dwells as a higher 1 Cor. 6. 19. Rom. 8. 10 11. Spirit in the Regenerated Spirit and from thence making a Temple of the Body gives present Life to that Spirit by Righteousness when ever it separates from the Body and a Resurrection to the Body after Death 3. The Law of conveyance of Sin and Death is unrepealable upon All that is of Apostate Adam The Spirit or highest Soul of all the Children of Adam cemented with the Body is till recover'd by Christ under Condemnation notwithstanding It was given by Creation from God It cannot be renewed perfectly so as to be Life till separated from the Body by the Death of the Body The Body till it be a Body of the Resurrection is under Death and All this by vertue of that Decree upon Adam the Head But in Christ the head of recovery All is in its own order recovered into the Reign of Life the Spirit beginningly now perfectly at Death becomes Life The Body as the Temple of the Holy Ghost dwelling in the Soul shall be certainly rais'd by the Spirit of Christ dwelling in the Soul and by it in the Body also Vse All which teaches us to look to this that we be found in the Second Adam out of whom there is in from the First Adam as a Common Head nothing but Sin Death and Condemnation Proposition 3. Adam by his Fall and Observe the whole Context from verse to verse Conveyance of a Law of Holiness and of a Nature not agreeable to that Law of Holiness hath been a Head Common Person or Mediator of abundance of Sin Disobedience Offence Transgression Condemnation Death and the Reign of Death to the Posterity of Mankind The Law of Righteousness published in a fairer fuller clearer Edition in Scripture then as it is in the Heart of Man since the Fall hath made the Offence and the Death upon it much more to abound and Reign by the clearer Knowledge and more manifest Discoveries of them 1. Adam notwithstanding his Fall ceased not to be the prolifick and fruitful Head of millions of Mankind that have been and are yet to be 2. To All these He conveys the Nature of Men in all its vigour of Thoughts Words and Actions according to the variety of Degrees of Action whereunto the several Tempers Educations Stations and Ages of Men give them Opportunity 3. He hath no less conveyed that Law of Righteousness to be the Rule of the numberless Persons of Mankind and their far more numerous Actions of which the Fiery Law of God in Scripture now gives the clearest Beams 4. Hereupon by Reason of the unanswerableness of their Natures and Powers of Action and so of their Actions themselves to this Law a kind of Infinity of Actual Sin hath flown in upon the World much more discovered and aggravated by that Fiery Law 5. From thence Death in all its various shapes in this present World and the unsheathing Rev. 20. 14 15. of Death in the Second and Eternal Death of which the present Death is but the sheath or Scabbard hath had and must have a wonderful and triumphant Reign on the World of which all the Threats in the Word of God are a notorious Evidence 6. Besides the Evidence of the Word of God all the Experience all the Laws all the Writings all the common and ordinary Discourse in the World are the most known and familiar Assurances of the Abundance of Sin and Death 7. The close Attendance of Reason and its Enquiries will necessarily lead us to the First man as the original of both but the unquestionable Demonstration of it is this Word of God which best knows how Mankind began which hath given the most convictive Accounts of Sin and Death and which our own Sentiments of Mind most conspire with and so is most to be believ'd in the Original of them 8. In all this so abundant Communication of Sin and Death of which Adam by the accident of his own Sin is become a Head He is by that accident also yet the Figure of him who is to be the Second Adam in regard of the Exuberancies of Communication though not in regard of the Things Communicated as contrary and opposite one to another as Sin and Death are contrary to Righteousness and Life But to All that are in Christ Observe the much more along the Context Christ is a Mediator as much excelling Adam in the Power and Triumph of Communication of Righteousness Life and the Reign of it as the Antitype excells the Type as was before said and that not only in the Excellency of the Things Communicated but in the Richness and Plenty of the Communication Vse How Necessary is it we should All behold our selves in the First Adam in whom we certainly are by Natural Generation and that thereupon we should be filled with the Shame Horror Sorrow and Humiliation flowing from such a lost Nature and our innumerable Actual Transgressions upon it And that thereupon we should hasten into the Second Adam by Faith and Regeneration who is the Head of Life and Recovery Proposition 4. Jesus Christ is brought in One Man One Jesus Christ is oppos'd to One Man Adam throughout the Context by God the Second Last perfect Adam the most Excellent One Man the Common Head and Mediator of Humane Nature the Antitype to the Type the First Adam The First man Adam was before his Fall a Person of Great Value of Great Sufficiency when He was appointed a Mediator by God But by his own Sin He sunk and Fell and is become to all his Posterity a Head of Ruine Christ therefore comes as a Person of infinitely Greater value into the Humane Nature and into Adams Station to Raise Recover and Boy it up He came into the Nature so as to embrace the whole Nature in Himself without a Humane Person and so was more perfectly a Man then Adam not a Great Man but The Man 1 Tim. 2. 5. Christ Jesus As the Son of God He was Creator and Lord of the Nature and so had Right to Recover it as his own As the Phil. 2. v. 6. 8. Son of Man He bore the abstracted Humane Nature not limited to a Humane but united to the Divine Person and so was incomparably beyond Adam fit to be the Common Head because he had all the Nature so abstracted not bounded as in
A BRIEF VIEW OF THE STATE OF Mankind IN THE First ADAM and in the Second ADAM Being the Sum of many larger Discourses upon that Great Context of the Redemption and Mediation of Jesus Christ Rom. 5. 12. to the end By T Beverley Rom. c. 5. v. 12. to the End To you my Honoured and Truly Loved Hearers I propose to present the Mediatorship and Redemption of Jesus Christ in this Context in a Summary view of each particular whereof I have discoursed at large that you may have it always in Remembrance NOW the Apostle had in his foregoing Discourse set out the absolute Necessity All Mankind have of a Mediator of Righteousness and Acceptance with God to Eternal Life by way of Reconciliation Propitiation Attonement and Redemption to Reprize and Recover them For All have sinned and fallen short of that Glory of God and are run into Sin Judgment Death and Condemnation so as to have their Mouths stop'd and to become Guilty before God He had with all express'd at large the absolutely perfect and sufficient Mediation of Jesus Christ to all those purposes of Life and shewn that the best of men such as Abraham and David had trusted wholly to it And upon good Reason for therein Conscience may forever sit down in Peace with God and rest in hope of his Glory and by no other way can they so do In this Context He doth both remove an Objection incident to what He had said and exceedingly amplifies the Mediatorship of Christ The Objection He removes is That it may seem strange to be justified before God and accepted with Him by the Righteousness of Another To this the Apostle supplies an Answer That it was always so intended by God to justifie and accept Humane Nature by a Common Head or Mediator of it standing Righteous before Him while it is always to be understood that an Inward Real and Inherent Righteousness and Active Obedience should be conveyed from the Righteousness of that Common Head or Mediator This the Apostle proves by strong interwoven Assertions that Adam was at first such a Common Head and Mediator in whose Continuance to stand Righteous before God this whole Posterity of Humane Nature should have also stood Righteous and in Grace and Favour with God and have maintained an inward Righteousness and active Obedience to Him to Eternal Life And therefore when by Sin He fell He became by the force of that Constitution an unhappy Mediator of Sin Judgment Condemnation and Death and also of inward Vnrighteousness and Disobedience to an innumerable Train of actual Transgressions Therefore it follows the Conveyance of Righteousness to Justification and of the Power of Sanctification to the Reign of and in Eternal Life by Jesus Christ is much stronger then the Conveyance of Righteousness by Adam as if he had stood was intended or of Sin and Death by his Fall of which there is so long and sad Experience But then further the Apostle Aggrandizes and Amplifieâ— the Redemption Headship and Communication of Christ above that of Adam in that He calls Adam but a Type or Figure of Him that was to come or more significantly of Him that was to be viz. the Common Head or Mediator whom God design'd in the foresight at least of Adams Fall to be that Common Head or Mediator of Righteousness though by way of Rescue and Recovery to Humane Nature and that unchangeably and irreversably As therefore the Antitype or Person Figured excells the Type or Person Figuring so Christ excells Adam as a Head or Mediator of Righteousness And when Adam came to be a Head of Sin and of Apostacy the Communication of Life and Righteousness from Christ surmounts not only in the Quality and Dignity of Things communicated viz. Of Grace Righteousness and Life above Sin Wrath Death and Condemnation but in the Abundancy and Efficacy of the Communication as is by the Apostle most magnificently display'd both in the Grand Proposition v. 18. and in the attending Parallels or Comparisons double on each side of the Proposition as shall be seen in their just Order and Places The only Limitation and Restraint for the Right Understanding of the whole is That those to whom Christ is a Head of Communication of what is in Him must be in Him as All Mankind was and is descendingly from Adam else there can be no Communication And yet Though All men are universally none excepted in Adam and none but the truly Regenerate or Born again are in Christ which are alas in Comparison but the Few of Mankind Yet this does not prejudice or lessen the Headship of Christ or make it run lower in its surmount of Communicativeness above the Communicativeness of Adams Sin and Guilt and Death and Condemnation upon it This is the prospect of the whole to which every particular shall answer in its due Time and Place Proposit 1. The First point I begin with is upon the Center of the Comparison betwixt Adam and Christ viz. That the First Adam is the Figure or Type of Him who is to be the Second and Last Adam for beyond Him there can be none The First Adam Created by God in a Righteous and Holy Estate and in a direct Line to Life was ordain'd by God a Common Head and Mediator of Humane Nature and was if He had stood to have Remained so and to have conveyed indefeisably his Excellent State to his Posterity But because of his Fall fore-seen by God He was but a Figure or Type of Jesus Christ the onely perfect Adam For in that He is the Second and the Last It argues He is the onely perfect For if the First had not been Found Fault with There had been no place Found for a Second and if there could any Fault have been Found with the Second He might not have been the Last The Great Proof of this Proposition and of the whole Train that here Follows upon it Lyes in the Word of God It is True indeed we must by the Line of Reason Ascend to some First Father of Mankind who will in the very Nature of the Thing be a Trustee or Common Person for his Posterity and when we must needs Believe That First Parent came perfect out of the Creatours Hand and when we find the Remains and mentions of such a Perfection in our selves in the Law written in our Hearts we must therefore conclude He by his Transgression lost that Perfection into a State of Sin and Death wherein we Find our selves so far ingulph'd And when so Great a Second Adam as the Son of God in our Nature is Reveal'd to us by the Gospel Reason must needs Assent that It is a Recovery of Humane Nature both most proper and most Illustrious of which Grace of God Nature hath some Light But the Greatest Proof I say is the Word of God which we have strongest Reason to Believe seeing we find those most Intimate Principles ingraven on our Hearts so Fairly written in
that Word of God And when we Find the Highest Accounts of Sin and Death so sensibly and experimentally Known in the World to be most Rationably and Credibly Trac'd to their Original in the same Word far beyond all in the World that is written of them We must needs have Greatest force of Conviction of its Truth Now that the First Adam was Intended by God to be such a Figure of Him that is to Be Besides that the Assertion is Seated here in the midst of this weighty Discourse of Redemption It is also made the Center of as great a Discourse of the Resurrection These Two 1 Cor. 15. 45. 47. Adams call'd also Two Men the First and Second Man as if there had been but those Two Men at any Time in the World and indeed there were never Any Two such Men Men each Comprehending whole Humane Nature within Themselves Heads each of the Nature Communicating to it All in Themselves Two Perfect Men at the Full dimensions Men as Adam before the Fall and Jesus Christ for Ever These Two are made One the Head of Death the other of the Resurrection These Two Men then I say had the whole Nature of Man in them Adam Created the onely Man in the World and Eve One Adam with Him comprizing All the Nature to descend from Him Jesus Christ hath this Nature whole and entire in Him He as the Son of God of an Eternal Personage in Himself Embrac'd and Assum'd not a Humane Person but the Abstract Humane Nature by the Immediate Operation of the Divine Spirit not deriving it from Adam in the way of ordinary Generation and so not under Him as a Head And yet the First of these Two Common Heads Adam passes under Headship of Jesus Christ which peculiarity of so doing is nothing to Any of Those to whom He Communicates as such a Common Head Humane Nature For Adam by Faith came under Christ as the Head of Recovery of which none of Humane Nature descending from Him receive any Thing more than from any other man For He did not that as a Common Head but as one private man For in that Act He forsook his own Apostate Headship chusing rather to be under the saving Headship of Christ But Jesus Christ by the infinitely wise Counsel of God though He took the same common Nature of the Sons of Adam yet he took it on a new Title not from Adam as a Head but as the Son of God from the Holy Spirit and not under Adam's Covenant so that while He derived his substance his Nature as man from Him so as to be called the Son of Adam and the Seed of the Woman He was yet by the prerogative of his Immediate Conception from the Divine Spirit the Son of God in a Higher Sense then Adam was the Son of God even in regard of his Humane Nature Christ was so the Son of God And while the Seed that are in Him Receives nothing from him of the old Humane Nature but from Adam only They yet receive from him a new Humane Nature parallel by Regeneration to his miraculous Generation in the Renovation of their Nature And as Eve was taken out of Adam so they are his Spouse taken as Ephes 5. 32. out of him by mystical Communication from him They are from him also as Children from the second Adam Father of the World to come They are conform'd to him as the First born among many Brethren so Esay 9. 6. Rom. 8. 29. that all Types all Relations meet in him Let us then settle this First point That Adam was made by God a common Person a Head a Root a Mediator of Humane Nature not of Intercession but of Communication so that if he had stood He had held up Humane Nature and herein he was primarily a Type of Christ Arguments of this 1. Whatever Adam was made at first In that he was made a Type of Him that was to be viz. Christ But God Gen. 1. 27. Eccl. 7. 29. Created him in his own Image at first in Knowledge Righteousness and True Holiness He made him upright Now if Adam in this State had not been a Type of Him that was to be It had been too late as I may so say when he had sinned and fallen to be made such a Type for that had been to enchain his Posterity in Sin and Death without any prevention which can never be supposed to be done by God He was then at first a Head of Life and Righteousness And this is the first Sense of his being a Type of Christ who is to be viz. in Communication of Life and Righteousness And by his Fall only a Head of Sin and Death else he had been not a Type but a Counter Head only But in being such a Head he is infinitely out-done by Christ For the First Adam was made a living Soul He had the Breath of Life breathed into him Gen. 2. v. 7. Adam might as a Vessel of Gold have held that Life given him by God But He was not a Spring that could still supply it that it could not be lost nor spring it again if lost He could not Rise from the Dead nor Raise the Dead This Christ can do as the Last Adam the Lord from Heaven 1 Cor. 15. 45. a quickning Spirit For as the Father hath life in himself So John 5. 25 26. hath he given to the Son to have life in himself They therefore that are dead shall hear the Voice of the Son of God and Live He is a Well of water c. 4. 14. springing up to Eternal Life Adam might Fall because he had not the Spring of Life Christ cannot Fail and can recover the Fallen because he is the Life it self Here is our own Hope 2. Adam was in state of Favor and Acceptance with God As a Prince He went near unto Him and declared to Him concerning the Creatures Genes 2. 19. 23. concerning Eve he was not afraid of God till he sinn'd This he was to have convey'd For to convey the Wrath and Displeasure of God so as that his Children should be Children of Wrath by Nature Ephes 2. and not to have convey'd the Favor of God had not been according to either the Justice or Goodness of God But being fallen into Displeasure he cannot as the only begotten Son of the Father Maâ— 3. 17. 〈◊〉 higher than the Heavens â—he 〈◊〉 in whom he is well pleas'â— I … ede or Mediate for Hiâ— self or his Posterity It is Christ onely who by his Spirit even the Spirit of the Galat. 4. 6. Son sent into their Hearts restores his to the Crying Abba Father 3. Adam was in his Creation and the Covenant made with Him upon it to be a Head of Life and of a Blessed Immortality and to have conveyed it to All in Him Of this the Tree of Life in the midst of Paradise Genes 2. c. was a Sacrament
Adam by a Humane Person that must look to it self as well as to the Nature So All he did and suffer'd ran out wholly to the Nature but He is the Head most properly especially to the Renewed Humane Nature entire in Him being conceived into it by the Holy Spirit Adam therefore left his publick Station and privately as a private Person retired into this Head looking as I said to Himself and not to the Nature in this Action The Ends of Gods Constituting this One Man as a Common Head even his Son our Lord Jesus Christ are 1. That He might have in Humane Nature an Adoption of many Sons to Glory in this Great Son of God and Son of Man Heb. 2. 10. 2. There is a Redundancy of Benefit Common Grace and other Advantages upon all parts of Humane Nature in preserving so much of the Remains of Conformity to the Law of Righteousness in the World which would only condemn as in Hell and not guide to any Thing Good but turn the World into a Hell were it not for Christ in whom also so much of Patience and Bounty is vouchsafed to men in outward Blessings essaying their Return to God by Repentance Rom. 2. 4. 2 Pet. 3. 9. in hopes of his Mercy to which this Patience and Bounty give so Great Encouragements Vse This shews the admirable Congruity to our Case to have our Help laid upon so mighty and near a Mediator as Emmanuel God with us Proposition 5. Jesus Christ is a Mediator of Compare v. 15. and v. 19. the double parallel lying on each side the Proposition v. 18. the Grace of God and of the Free Gift of Righteousness by Grace in its Great Abundance even as Adam was of the Offence and its Abundance yet so as that He is a Mediator of Righteousness in his own Obedience also The Grace of God is the Highest Manifestation of the Divine Glory and Goodness to us How High therefore is the Honour of Christ to be the Mediator of it Adam was at first intended to be the Mediator of Righteousness and of the Benignity of the Creator to his Creatures according to a Covenant of Works and Debt and proportionably Rom. 4. 4. by his Fall He becomes a Mediator of the Justice of God upon Sin and Sinners For Sin were it not for that Justice were only the Impotency and weakness and defect of a Creature made to be so Righteous not bearing up to Righteousness that Justice makes Sin so strong 1 Cor. 15. 56. Christ as a Mediator of Free Grace hath infinite Advantages in regard of us above a Mediator of Righteousness only for Righteousness walks by severe Rules and exact Steps Psal 145. 17. Adam being so and sinning could never Recover by Himself Nor any of his Posterity by any Power Receiv'd from Him who entailed Sin and Death But Grace is unlimimited Ephes 1. 6 7. 11. c. 2. 7 8 9. and unbounded in all its motions having no Cause but it self no bound but it self viz. It s own Wisdom and Holiness so is infinitely more potent then Sin It is True Justice in God is Infinite as Grace for in God They are one Grace therefore provides an infinite Satisfaction to Justice in the Obedience of Christ constituting Righteous Rom. 5. 19. of which being secure It triumphs as it pleases and Sin vanishes before it for the strength of Sin is the Justice of God in his Law That satisfied Sin is weak and is blotted out as a Cloud is sought for and not found Corruption dyes vanquished as Grace pleases That the Mediatorship of Christ may be more fully understood in its being a Mediatorship of Grace seeing Justice is infinite in God and his Grace and his Justice One in Him which Justice Judges acts and proceeds according to number weight and measure The Apostle hath joyn'd in an opposite parallel on the other side of the proposition v. 18. the Obedience of Christ so full and so perfect that he plainly asserts that even as by the Disobedience of one many were made or constituted that is judg'd and determin'd Sinners so by the Obedience of One many were not only pardoned and so accepted as Righteous but They are and shall be constituted decreed determined and justly judged to be Righteous by this Righteousness of Christ infinite in number weight and measure becoming theirs Vse This Obedience therefore is to be considered in the Mediator of it truly higher then the Heavens deeper in sufferings in their value and vertue then the lowest Hell broader then the Persons and Sins of All over whom and over which Adams Sin can extend it self in those for whom as in Christ It is accepted and longer then the whole Line of Adams Sin beginning with Time and running on for ever if not cut off by this Righteousness of Christ which is eternal or from Everlasting to Everlasting and nothing beyond it And thus was the Obedience of Jesus Christ an Obedience of infinite Purity and of unfathom'd sufferings of the Son of God a Priest for ever without beginning of Days or end of Life Eternal Propos 6. Upon this full and compleat verse 16. compared with 20. Satisfaction to Justice although the one Sin of Adam becomes Legions of Legions by Actual Transgressions and are seen in every Atom every aggravating Circumstance in the Beams of that Fiery Law yet the Free Gift of Grace in and upon this Righteousness blots them all out of this Light of Gods Countenance And this Righteousness and Obedience is as the Ark of Noah that was not overwhelm'd by the swelling of the Floods but Rode above them and the higher they were the higher the Ark was so the Soul enclos'd and ARKED in this Righteousness of Grace and the Free Gift Rides above all the surges of raging Guilt whether from just fears of Gods Righteous Judgment from the Turmoils of Conscience or the soming Accusations from Hell and stands Righteous notwithstanding All before God before Angels and to the Consternation and silence of lost Spirits For where Sin abounds Grace does much more abound and the Free Gift is of many never so many Offences to Justification Vse Behold then by way of Adoration and Holy Confidence the ample Rest of Consciences wash'd in the Blood of Jesus Proposition 7. The Great Question now arising will bee How can it be ever reconciled to Divine Justice or to Natural Conscience that the Righteousness of one should be made the Righteousness of so many To this the Apostle hath laid the Answer in the Center and even ballance of the whole Discourse As by the Offence of one Judgment came upon All to v. 18. Condemnation so to the Righteousness of one to the Justification of Life The infinite Righteousness and Truth of God hath determin'd the Case One Person may communicate to Many and to All in Him for the Many who are also the All in One Adam in whom the Man Christ Jesus was not
fall under Judgment from Him to Condemnation So the Many even the All in Christ in whom All Vnbelievers and Impenitent are not receive Righteousness to the Justification of Life All therefore who being cut out of the old stock of Apostate Adam and are engrafted into the New Second Last Adam by Humiliation Faith Repentance the New Creation are so one Spirit and one Body with Him that his Righteousness overflows them All as naturally as what is the Heads flows down on all the Members as the Root is the Branches the Husbands Glory and Riches the Wifes the Parents the Childrens or the Things of a Mans self the Things of his whole self Vse Look well then to this Implantation into Christ and Vnion with Him that it be as real as our Being in Adam Proposition 8. To the Great Difficulty that The Reign of Grace Righteousness and Life above the Reign of Sin and Death on both sides the Proposition v. 17. v. 21. may Arise to Consciences concerning the Impossibility of this Implantation to Christ by any Faculties or Powers of our own the Apostle hath insinuated Great Consolation in those two Forms of speaking As Judgment by the Offence of one to Condemnation so by the Righteousness of one to the Justification of Life signifying that as Judgment burst out from Adams Sin so from the Second Adams Righteousness Justification of Life is even in Pain and violent to break out Whoever therefore in another Expression v. 17. Receives its Abundance It flows amain upon him If we had therefore but the Heart the Mind the Soul to Receive it It could not but be ours A Heart set upon Christ and his Grace according to those Expressions c. 8. v. 6. c. of Solomons Song shall certainly have it Thus free is the way of having this free Gift It is True It must be a full and compleat desire like that to the Pearl of Great Price Matt. 13. 45. so it is fit It should be for such a Pearl Vse Oh how do we perish for want of desire to Christ for want of will to come to Him that we may have Life He justly perishes who will not desire such a Good with a desire answerable to it Proposition 9. But seeing there is a multitude of Mankind in Adam who perish How can the Grace of Christ be commensurate to and equal much less surmount Adams Offence To this it may be answered the Holy Seed are the whole Substance of Mankind All else being not of the Renewed Humane Nature of Christ are not accounted His All or any of His or for his Seed but sink down first into Earth or meer Body then into sensitive Soul a Nature more below Christs Humane Nature then the brutal below the rational Humane Nature And at last the higher Souls or Spirits of Men not Partakers of the Divine Nature by Christ and in Christ become of the kind and species of Devils or fallen Angels according to James 3. 15 16 17. and carry the whole man with them Yet is the number of the saved in Christ an incomprehensible great Number a number that no one can number and Revel 7. 9. Jesus Christ at the Head of that General Assembly with the innumerable Company of Angels makes them as far beyond the Account of the Lost as substantial Heb. 12. 23 Figures are beyond never so innumerable Cyphers These are the First Born who have the Inheritance Vse Be not therefore discouraged but strive the more Be in an Agony to enter for Luc. 13. 24. though many strive to enter and are not able yet the Truer more substantial number the Jewels the Vessels unto Honour the precious Gold and Silver the Wheat are sav'd which are also beyond number The Dross the Refuse the Chaff the Tares the Vessels to Dishonour are only the Lost And if a Man purge Himself from these He shall be a Vessel 2 Tim. 2. 21. unto Honour Sanctified Meet for the Masters Vse ready to every good Work Proposition 10. The Reign in and unto Eternal Life in Christ is so much above the Reign of Death from Adam that it infinitely surpasses and surmounts the whole Condemnation and Death by Adam The Blessedness of separate Spirits before the Resurrection The incomparable Glory of the First Resurrection and of a part in it in the Paradise of God in the New Jerusalem in the Restitution of All Things in the New Heaven and the New Earth in the Glorious Kingdom of Christ The Blessedness of Saints being with Christ and beholding the Glory he had with the Father who loved him before the World was and being so embraced into this Love that this Love is in the Saints and Christ in them in the pure and perfect Eternity when God shall John 17. 24. 26. be All in All. All these are so beyond All that Eye hath seen or Ear hath heard or that hath entred into the Heart of Man to conceive that we cannot know it For we shall be like Him and see Him as He is This swallows all Objection from the Fewness of the sav'd and shews the Reign of Grace to Life above Deaths Reign Vse But Let Him that hath this Hope purifie Himself even as He is pure And that no Man may think this a Licencious Doctrine let him consider the Doctrine of Gospel Sanctification flowing from and along with this Doctrine of Grace by Christ the Mediator in whom All Dye to Sin Rise to Righteousness in and with Him have part for part Grace for Grace answering to his Righteousness in inward Righteousness of which the Apostle treats in the following Chapters and wherein by Gods Grace my Discourse shall follow Him