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
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
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