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Christ is not the first-fruits of the damned. Yea, though it be true that all and every one died in Adam, yet that it is here asserted (the apostle speaking of none but believers) is not true; and yet, if it were so to be taken here, it could not prove the thing intended, because of the express limitation of the sense in the clause following. Lastly; granting all that can be desired, — namely, the universality of the word all in both places, — yet I am no way able to discern a medium that may serve for an argument to prove the general ransom.
6. Rom. v. 18 is the last place urged in this kind, and by some most insisted on : " As by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation ; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." It might suffice us briefly to declare that by all men in the latter place can none be understood but those whom the free gift actually comes upon unto justification of life; who are said, verse 17, to "receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness," and so to " reign in life by one, Jesus Christ;" and by his obedience to 'be "made righteous," verse 19 ; which certainly, if any thing be true and certain in the truth of God, all are not. Some believe not, — "all men have not faith;" on some "the wrath of God abideth," John iii. 36; upon whom, surely, grace doth not reign through righteousness to eternal life by Jesus Christ, as it doth upon all those on whom the free gift comes to justification, verse 17. We might, I say, thus answer only; but seeing some, contrary to the clear, manifest intention of the apostle, comparing Adam and Christ, in the efficacy of the sin of the one unto condemnation, and of the righteousness of the other unto justi- fication and life, in respect of those who are the natural seed of the one by propagation, and the spiritual seed of the other by regenera- tion, have laboured to wrest this place to the maintenance of the error we oppose with more than ordinary endeavours and confi- dence of success, it may not be unnecessary to consider what is brought by them to this end and purpose : —
Verse 14. Adam is called TV'xog, the type and " figure of him that was to come;" not that he was an instituted type, ordained for that only end and purpose, but only that in what he was, and what he did, with what followed thereupon, there was a resemblance be- tween him and Jesus Christ. Hence by him and what he did, by reason of the resemblance, many things, by way of opposition, concerning the obedience of Christ and the efficacy of his death, may be well represented. That which the apostle here prosecuteth this resemblance in (with the showing of many diversities, in all which he exalteth Christ above his type) is this, that an alike though not an equal efficacy (for there is more merit and efficacy required to save one than to lose ten thousand) of the demerit, sin,
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354 THE DEATH OF DEATH. [BOOK IV.
disobedience, guilt, transgression of the one, to condemn, or bring the guilt of condemnation upon all them in whose room he was a public person (being the head and natural fountain of them all, they all being wrapped up in the same condition with him by divine institution), and the righteousness, obedience, and death of the other, for the absolution, justification, and salvation of all them to whom he was a spiritual head by divine institution, and in whose room he was a public person, is by him in divers particulars asserted. That these last were all and every one of the first, there is not the least mention. The comparison is solely to be considered intensively, in respect of efficacy, not extensively, in respect of object ; though the all of Adam be called his many, and the many of Christ be called his all, as indeed they are, even all the seed which is given unto him.
Thomas More, in his "Universality of Free Grace," chap. viii. p. 41, lays down this comparison, instituted by the apostle, between Adam and Christ, as one of the main foundations of his universal re- demption; and this (after some strange mixtures of truth and errors premised, which, to avoid tediousness, we let pass) he affirmeth to consist in four things: —
First, "That Adam, in his first sin and transgression, was a public person, in the room and place of all mankind, by virtue of the cove- nant between God and him; so that whatever he did therein, all were alike sharers with him. So also was Christ a public person in his obedience and death, in tlie room and place of all mankind, repre- sented by him, even every one of the posterity of Adam."
Ans. To that which concerueth Adam, we grant he was a public person in respect of all his that were to proceed from him by natural propagation ; that Christ also was a public person in the room of his, and herein prefigured by Adam. But that Christ, in his obedience, death, and sacrifice, was a public person, and stood in the room and stead of all and every one in the world, of all ages and times (that is, not only of his elect and those who were given unto him of God, but also of reprobate persons, hated of God irom eternity; of those whom he never knew, concerning whom, in the days of liis fiesh, he thanked his Father that he had hid from them the mysteries of sal- vation; wliom he refused to pray for; who were, the greatest part of them, already damned in hell, and irrevocably gone beyond the limits of redemption, before he actually yielded any obedience), is to us such a monstrous assertion as cannot once be apprehended or thought on without horror or detestation. That any should perish in whose room or stead the Son of God appeared before his Father with his perfect obedience ; that any of those for whom he is a medi- ator and advocate, to whom he is a king, priest, and prophet (for all these he is, as he was a public pei-son, a sponsor, a surety, and under-