is upon the Sons of Adam from the day that they goe out of their Mothers womb till the day that they return to the Mother of all things would not be so grievous or so unequal to their apprehensions But they would soon be convinc'd to lay their hands upon their mouths yea would be content to say every man for himself This is my Yoak the image of the earthy and I will bear it I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him which is never to be brought to passe if we once go about to unyoak our selves of the Sin But whether we will do so or no God will be true when all men are found Lyers his ways will be proved equal when our ways are reproved for unequal and wisdom will be justified and cleared when she is judged though no flesh living can be justified in her sight The very punishment and infliction from God is sufficient to argue the sin and guilt in us For Death reigned by one not only by one man in the Masculine as he spake immediately before but by one in the Neuter one Sin for death could never so have reigned by the one Man had it not been by the one sin Yet see how he would labour to bring the Original punishment on our heads that will not admit us to bring the Original Sin so much as upon our Shoulders For so he supposes it If the sin of Adam alone could bring death upon the world who by imitation of his transgression on the stock of their own natural choice did sin against God though not after the similitude of Adams transgression How says he no Sin but in imitation no punishment but for imitation he knows full well whose exploded heresie that was and therefore shall do very well to renounce both name and thing at once But how agree his own words to themselves sinning by imitation and yet not after the similitude of Adams transgression which cannot genuinely no nor conveniently be interpreted but of sinning actually and by imitation yea let it be understood of sinning less than he did yet so it is by imitation Again Sinning on the stock of their own natural choice and yet not sinning after the similitude of Adams transgression Why how sinned Adam but out of the stock of his own natural choice And how sinned we in him but out of the stock of his natural choice for indeed he was our natural stock and we were the branches thereof And it was he that received the whole stock of Natures choice liberty Free will and consent for himself and likewise for us all and out of this stock of natural choice and liberty it was that we sinned not only by him but in him and with him wherefore I heartily wish him to be wary how he exempts sinning after the similitude of Adams transgression and sinning on the stock of our own natural choice each from other lest he impâ—ir that stock and overthrow that Rock of liberty and Free will which against both Supralapsarians and Sublapsarians he laboured ere while so earnestly to establish and so prove to strike upon them and himself and the Divine Attributes all at once But to remedy all this here it is not only by one Man who had his personal choice but by one sin wherein was our natural choice and therefore let us go on to see what the Apostle inferrs and preferrs in such a case How much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousnesse shall reign in life by one Iosus Christ sc. Though Death reigned much both by one man and by one sin yet by one Christ they shall reign much more But then they must be duely qualified for it is They which receive and that argues no capacity no ability in them notwithstanding the blemish of Orginal sin for thereby they were under Death's reign which was spiritual and not corporal only and held under the power and utter slavery of Sin as well as Death rather it convinces them of their privation and impotence as not having but as they receive yet notwithstanding such emptiness and unaptness being prepared and embled by Christs abundance they must receive that is rightly apply Grace sc. the grace of justification by Faith and likewise the Gift of Righteousness sc. the sanctification of the Spirit to holy walking And both these they shall have both in their kinds and measures sc. abundance namely for sufficiency but not to supererogation And so they shall reign in life sc. from Vassals under Sin and Death become Free-men nay Kings in life both of Grace and Glory And all this not of themselves nor for any worthiness of their own but by the sole merits and mediation of one Iesus Christ who is God all-sufficient and besides whom there is no Saviour All these Excellencies of Remedy put together serve but to set forth the destituteness and desperateness of the Disease Verse 18. Therefore as by the offence of one Iudgement came upon all men to condemnation even so by the righteousness of one the Free gift came upon all men unto justification of life THerefore as by the offence of one man judgement came upon all men c. This 18 verse by the illative seems to me rather to refer to the 16 verse than to any of the rest and may thence more expresly and peculiarly be supplyed Howbeit the Comparison was there with more precise respect to the Things huâ— here to the persons Therefore then the illative is a reduplicate and concludes so much the stronger as by the offence of one man or by one offence whether the primordial Act of his person or the original stain of our Nature judgement of the Divine Decree so wise so just came upon all men all common men and born after the ordinary way of Nature not the blessed Virgin none but Christ himself excepted unto condemnation at least from his sentence and according to our desert even so by the righteousnesse of his person natures offices the Free gift of grace and salvation came upon all men sufficiently yea and effectually too upon all the faithfull For he is the Saviour of all men especially of those that beleeve unto justification of life sc. that life which only the justified or which by justification only all men attain unto And here I have only those words of his to except against The proportion and comparison lies in the mayn emanation of death from one and life from the other That certainly it does not if we look at the Comparison no further than as it lies in the present verse for here the main proportion and comparison is betwixt the offence of one and the righteousness of one both here and throughout the whole Comparison Sin and Grace the offence and the free-gift these are the main opposites as being the principal causes The other two Death and Life are but secondarily set opposite as being but the consequents
and effects only that an internal cause then should be put for an external effect must needs be most unusual Entred into the World We may understand this Entrance of Sin in divers senses and that very Orthodoxally 1. Sin was not in the beginning for it had no being before the Entring and therefore was no eternal evil principle but only the issue of some inordinate and irregular Act. 2. It entered not as a creature or substance that had some existence in it self but as a vicious accident that could not subsist without a Subject in which it must inhere And therefore though it entred into our Nature and substance yet our nature and Substance it was not 3. It entered not of it self but by means by one man by a second cause Therefore himself grants Sin had its beginning and thence let the fault and guilt be fetcht causally what need is there to seek further than the beginning why then is there such prying into the first cause such disputing such labouring to entitle hereunto his Decreeing his ordaining and permitting disposing dispensing c. For so indeed the most we do is bus to disparage and dishonour him in his glorious Titles and Attribut It is enough for us to beleeve him to be just wise good c. in all things because he cannot possibly be otherwise although in some dispensations it is not possible for us to comprehend him 4 If entred into Loe the Apostle speaks plainly of an ingression not as of an accession of a thing inward and not outward only doubtless then it must needs be something inherent and not imputed only 5. It entred into the World {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} it came into even the reduplicated praeposition is a note of more intimate and peculiar manner of introduction namely by way of Generation and Propagation not by Temptation nor by Imitation not by Temptation for so it came from the Devil to Eve not by Imitation for so it came from Eve to Adam but by Propagation for so it came from Adam to us all Had it been otherwise than so Sin could not in any adaptness or propriety have been said to have Entred into the world but the world must then have caused it and called it and sought it and brought it and taught it to it self And death by Sin that is to say by the same Sin which came into the world by one Man namely the Original So then death it is that cannot be denied But now men must be Judges and take upon them to determine what kind of death albeit the Apostle speak it never so indefinitely He must mean temporal death says he well and thus he may inferr it because St. Paul speaks of such a Death as entred into this world and that 's but temporal But then he ought to observe withall that St. Paul speaks here not only of Deaths first Entrance but of Deaths through passage now such a passage is out of the world and beyond it and so must be eternal But he objects eternal death did not pass upon all men That 's easie to be answered from some of his own words The Sentence did though the Execution did not in the one was the Divine Justice to be magnified and his Mercy in the other Thus the Divine Attributes know how to save and to exalt themselves on either side if men would not seek to make them seem to clash by humbling those high things to their low and weak apprehensions And so Death passed upon all men sc. Death entred by Sin and so by Sin Death passed So that whether we consider the terminus a quo or ad quem we may directly hence collect that Death even the coporal as well as the eternal was not the sequel or necessity of Nature but even the penalty and wages of Sin because death is a separation quite contrary to the natural union especially to that of Nature in her integrity and original perfection But say that because of a composition and that of contrary Elements there might be nevertheless some kind of mutation migration melioration yet this was far from separation dissolution confusion and that dolorous and ignominious execrable and damnable This makes me I cannot so well brook or digest those passages of his His Sin left him to his Nature we returned to the state of meer nature of our prime creation thrust back to the form of Nature was remanded to his mortal natural State means he to a corrupt state of Nature that was not the former or from the prime Creation or means he by the form of Nature that of Natures first forming why that was after the Divine Image and similitude or means he by meer Nature those they call Pure Naturals which indeed are nothing because Nature cannot be so abstractly considered but either in the state of Integrity or in the state of Corruption a third state before between of after those two never was and therefore is not to be imagined Ever since the Fall and Original Sin we aptly conceive that there is a difference still to be made betwixt the substance of Nature and the corruption of Nature But that this Nature and this corruption was ever separated in any Christ only excepted we beleeve not or that there shall be a State of pure Naturals again till the Resurrection of the Dead We all know and beleeve Adam by his disobedience defected and fell from what he was before sc. from the Image and Original Righteousness but that by his Sin he fell into a Nature or state which he had before or without original righteousness that we understand not not yet of any remanding obtruding or returning thither Indeed we read God said Dust thou art and to Dust thou shalt return Gen. 3. 19. but that noted only some materials in part but no certain state neither had that dust returned to the dust but that the Image and righteousness was forfeited and lost For we see it was so not by a natural propensity so much as by a provoked Commination Besides this methinks he says something to oppose himself in this part when he says our Nature is of Gods making and consequently is good or Nature is almost the same c. What good and yet punished nay and we remanded to it for a punishment What almost the same in goodness and yet nothing the same in immortality and the blessing Thus here again Gods Justice is brought upon the Stage nay and upon the rack too especially by our scanning betwixt the two Terms of Death entring by one man and Death passing upon all men For we cry why the punishment and how of all for one so forth Mean while it is not considered by us Nay not believed how we were all in the lump loyns of that one which remains hereafter to be demonstrated only thus much is now to be said That while the Divine Attributes are pretended for saved harmless by us either
verse only there was the Disparity and excess betwixt the Sin and the Grace here betwixt the Gift and the person sinning There it was said to be more plentifully abounding here more powerfully effecting There by what Authors here to what Ends There the Free gift was opposed to the Sin but here to the Judgement For the Iudgement was by one to condemnation By the Judgement we understand not only the Decree on God's part but also the desert on our own In as much as the word in Scripture notes both the Act and the power of Judgement as likewise the cause and thing judged And if we did but truly consider this then durst we not be so bold in questioning the Divine Attributes in regard we are taught to apprehend it as a thing not only of his severity but of our own impiety also So by Condemnation we understand both the Sentence and Execution the threatning against as well as the inflicting on likewise we take the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in the Neuter as wee doe the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in the Masculine yea and from the diverse preposition we note some distinction namely of the matter and subject as well as of the cause and instrument and thereupon we doe not confound them as he doth by One Man sinning one sin but somewhat more distinctly by one sinning or that sinned we understand the Act with relation to Adams person but by the one sin we understand the thing it self with relation to our whole Nature even Original sin it self to note that one sin original sin in us is under the same judgement unto condemnation as was that one sinning in Adam and that in the very Act of his sinning we sinned as he seems to grant veâ—y much And moreover to that sinned which he grants not as bad as he that not only because of the likeness of Nature and of sin as he says but because of the very identity and sameness thereof in the main substance though not according to every circumstance For we Descendents from Adam were perfectly like him in nature his own real natural production and so we sinned as himself says well and now if he himself thinks there is so great a parity of reason that the evil he means this judgement unto condemnation should descend upon us then in all reason he ought to yeeld not only a likeness but also a parity of Sin Yet whereas he says the evil was threatned to Adam and not to his Children Then was it not judgement unto condemnation for judgement implies the Sentence and Commination as Condemnation does the Execution or effect But what not threatned and yet descending will the Lord strike before he warns I say no more but for Gods sake what kind of Vindication call you that to urge the evil or punishment so oft and admit so little of the fault or sin is I think verily the wrong way to a Vindication of the Divine Attributes But the Free gift is of many offences unto justification To prevent all our murmuring and censuring that judgement should be to condemnation by one man or person the Apostle bids us construe him rightly and says he means it by one Sin or offence for we shall never think Gods ways equal in this case till we can look upon it with a right Eye not only as the Sin of one man and so the Sin of another But as one sin of all men and so our own But the Sin of one and one Sin if this satisfie not yet this makes amends for all abundantly that the Free gift is of many offeuces unto justification For mark how it answers to every opposite the Free gift to the offence many to one and justification to condemnation The first shews how benignly the next how bountifully the last how beneficially the recompense is vouchsafed as it is the Free gift to the offence so it signs Grace in us not to be natural as the sin is As it is many to one so it betokens a liberal condonation of many actuals as well as that one Original As it is Iustification against condemnation so it signifies a making holy as well as happy against both the sin and the punishment Since then what God in Christ hath here done is to justifie let God in Christ be justified by all and in all Verse 14. For if by one mans offence Death reigned by one much more they who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of Righteousness shall reign in life by one Iesus Christ FOr if by one Man's offence Death reigned by one It is of no small note that a mutual construction is here to be made of one Mans offence and one offence The diverse reading shews a coincidence and however the repetition seems as the note upon their narrow conjunction nothing has done more prejudice to the truth of this point and to the Divine Attributes as they are therein concerned than a dividing separating or over-severe and too nice distinguishing between the one man and the one offence For though the natural corruption may be distinguishd from the personal Act according to some circumstances yet in substance they are to be considered as one and the same because it was for the main substance the same sin that Adam committed that entred into the world by him and well might the same sin passe from the whole or head into all the parts members though not in the particular Act yet in the universal guilt so that in his very sin we might not amiss be said to sin originally although not actually The Apostle more than once expresly intimates it to be translated indifferently either the Sin and offence of one man or one sin and offence We should do well therefore to accept it so equally as he hath been pleased to expresse it But we look askew upon it in the personal Act only as that one mans sin and no more and so we ascribe and impute all to him most presumptuously and seek in like manner to shake it off from our selves Strange it is we dare not deny that God imputes it to us and yet we dare be bold to impute it solely to him For so the Paraphrast seems to do The Sin of Adam alone whereas in truth we ought humbly to conceive and consider it as one Sin both in him and us one Sin in our Nature one Sin in our kind and so coming to be but one Sin even in the persons of us all They that goe the first way are quite out of the way to vindicate the Divine Attributes For how is it possible to make it anothers sin alone and not our own in any proper respect and yet not give occasion to murmurers and repiners at the imputation to any purpose whatsoever Whereas if instead of imposing it altogether upon another we would be convinc'd and content to take what is our own unto our selves That heavy yoak which
by him and beleeve in him shall not die by the one in whom they sinned but shall live by the other in whom they beleeved For as the First man Adam was the head and principle of Nature to us and after that of Sin so is this second Man Adam Christ the Lord the principle and head of Grace to us and after that of Glory Behold then each one the goodness and severity of God On them which fell severity But towards thee goodness if thou continue in his goodness And thus indeed are the Divine Attributes to be magnified by us on either part Verse 15. But not as the offence so also is the free gift for if through the offence of one many be dead much more the grace of God and the gift by grace which is by one Man Iesus Christ hath abounded unto many BUt not as the offence so also is the free gift The Comparison is now not interrupted but pursued with a correction For he confesses that in the Analogy there lies a great deal of disparity There may be a {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} or some resemblance between the persons as each of them being the First the Author the Head the Root the Foundation the Representative of his kind but there is a {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} an utter difference of the things as betwixt Sin and Grace Death and Life And therefore though there may be comparing of the persons with an infinite preferring on the one part yet there can be no conferring of the things but with an utter differing both for account and effect because there may be some Typical proportion betwixt Adam and Christ with the due honour reserved to the Great Reconciler but betwixt the offence of one and the Free gift of the other remains an utter disproportion never to be reconciled For the one both is from and is the Image of the Earthly the other is from and is the Image of the Heavenly the one is naturally transmitted the other supernaturally conferred the one from Free-will the other from Free grace the one tending to Death but the other to everlasting life For if through the offence of one many be dead c. In this part of the collation this is one main instance of prelation from the disparity of power and effect as if he had thus said suppose the worst that followed Original Sin that innace offence yet forasmuch as the remedy propounded so far exceeded the propagated malady what cause is here to complain or challenge any of the Divine Attributes since wisdom herein manifests and magnifies her self so excellently so exceedingly both for substance and measure why should not her children herein seek to justifie her herein above all what if it was through the offence of one ought that to offend were we not one Nature one Species of Men both he and we In the participation of that Species all men were to be reckoned as one Man the sundry persons of men being to that one Man but as the several Members are to the same body Moreover this may be enough to satisfie all minds and stop all mouths The Grace of God and the gift of Grace both his liberal favour and our competent measure is also by one Man Iesus Christ And why then should we set our selves to wrangle so with God with our selves and one another because of the Justice and Severity which descends to us but duly from the one in one way and not rather rest our selves contented and greatly rejoyce for the Grace and Mercy that most freely and superabundantly proceeds towards us from that one man Iesus Christ another way Oh! what peevish things we are to vex our selves in thinking how we were made subject to the punishment on the one hand when we might sweetly satisfie our selves in beleeving how we are made capable of the exceeding recompence of reward on the other And grant again by the first one and through his one way many be dead understand it withall emphatically spoken {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} the many that is All for it is not many comparatively but absolutely not so spoken as to except some but to intimate All All I say collectively and inclusively and not so sparingly or seemingly as he speaks even as it were all Enoch also contrary to his mind not excepted how much less those few more of whom peradventure mention is not made The first is a fond conceit but the next a vainer crotchet For take Many as he would in the restrained way and Dead but for corporally so yet even Enoch was among that many so is dead For it is not his peculiar and abstruse way of dying that can hinder to say truly he is dead For Heb. 11. 7. though he was translated by an extraordinary power that he should not see Death after the common way yet for the verity and reality of Death it was said of him together with the rest These all died vers. 13. But taking it according to the Apostle in the largest sense I must say more All are dead namely though not effectually yet virtually though not naturally yet deservedly according to a just sentence though not according to the fearfull Execution But notwithstanding all this and all that can be said of the offences worst and Death's utmost how would it appease our consciences and comfort our spirits even in all wherein the Divine Majesty has been pleased to reveal either himself or our selves to us to conceive rightly and heartily consider the grace of God which is to be understood his good will and pleasure free goodnesse everlasting love exceeding favour with all his beloved Sons merits and Holy Spirits efficacies and the gift by Grace sc. our measures of Sanctification with the duties required the comforts promised and the benefits received And all this by One man Iesus Christ sc. by his life and actions by his death and passion by his merits and mediation alone To whom we had no natural or necessary relation as we had unto the other but as he was made Man and so freely and gratiously gave himself to us and for us And thus the grace of God hath much more abounded in pardoning all kinds and measures of sin and in preventing the same as concerning punishment But the Free gift hath abounded also we being made both more holy and more happy in Christ than in Adam we were made corrupt and miserable yea and this abounded unto Many that is All again and that in sufficiency though not in effect else the excess here spoken of should fall short inasmuch as Sin and Death passed upon All Verse 16. And not as it was by one that sinned so is the gift for the judgement was by one to condemnation but the Free gift is of many offences unto justification ANd not as it was by one that sinned so is the gift It is partly a repetition of the first words in the former