OBJECTIONS AND TEXTS OF SCKTPTURE CONSIDERED. S55
taker for them), should be taken from him, phicked out of his arms, his satisfaction and advocation in their behalf being refused ; — I sup- pose is a doctrine that will scarce be owned among those who strive to preserve the witness and testimony of the Lord Jesus.
But let us a little consider the reasons whereby Mr More un- dertakes to maintain this strange assertion; which, as far as I can gather, are these, page 44: — First, He stood not in the room only of the elect, because Adam lost not election, being not intrusted with it. Secondly, If he stood not in the room of all, then he had come short of his figure. Thirdly, It is said he was to restore all men, lost by Adam, Heb. ii. 9. Fourthly, He took flesh, was subjected to mortality, became under the law, and bare the sins of mankind. Fifthly, He did it in the room of all mankind, once given unto him, Rom. xiv. 9; Phil. ii. 8-11. Sixthly, Because he is called the "last Adam;" — and, Seventhly, Is said to be a public person, in the room of all, ever since the "first Adam," 1 Cor. xv. 45, 47; 1 Tim. ii. 5; Rom. v.
Ans. Never, surely, was a rotten conclusion bottomed upon more loose and tottering principles, nor the word of God moi-e boldly cor- lupted for the maintenance of any error, since the name of Christian was kno'wn. A man would think it quite lost, but that it is so very easy a labour to remove such hay and stubble. I answer, then, to the first, that though Adam lost not election, and the eternal decrees of the Almighty are not committed to the keeping of the sons of men, yet in him all the elect were lost, whom Christ came to seek, whom he found, — in whose room he was a public person. To the second, Christ is nowhere compared to Adam in respect of the extent of the object of his death, but only of the efficacy of his obe- dience. The third is a false assertion; — see our foregoing considera- tion of Heb. ii. 9. Fourthly, For his taking of flesh, etc., it was necessary he should do all this for the saving of his elect. He took flesh and blood because the children were partakers of the same. Fifthly, No such thing is once afiirmed in the whole book of God, that all the sons of men Avere given unto Christ to redeem, so that he should be a public person in their room. Nay, himself plainly afiirms the contrary, John xvii. 6, 9. Some onty are given him out of the world, and those he saved ; not one of them perisheth. The places urged hold out no such thing, nor any thing like it. They will also afterward come imder farther consideration. Sixthly, He is called the " last Adam" in respect of the eflicacy of his death unto the justification of the seed promised and given unto him, as the sin of the "first Adam" was effectual to bring the guilt of condemnation on the seed propagated from him; which proves not at all that he stood in the room of all those to whom his death was never knowni, nor any ways profitable. Seventhly, That he was a public person is
S56 THE DEATH OF DEATH. [BOOK IV.
confessed : that he was so in the room of all is not proved, neither by what hath been already said, nor by the texts, that there follow, alleged, all which have been considered. This being all that is pro- duced by Mr More to justify his assertion, it may be an instance what weighty inferences he usually asserts from such weak, invalid premises. We cannot also but take notice, by the way, of one or two strange passages which he inserts into this discourse; whereof the first is, that Christ by his death brought all men out of that death whereinto they were fallen by Adam. Now, the death where- into all fell in Adam being a death in sin, Eph. ii. 1-3, and the guilt of condemnation thereupon, if Christ freed all from this death, then must all and every one be made alive with life spiritual, which only is to be had and obtained by Jesus Christ ; which, whether that be so or not, whether to live by Christ be not the peculiar privilege of believers, the gospel hath akeady declared, and God will one day determine. Another strange assertion is, his affirming the end of the death of Christ to be his presenting himself alive and just before his Father; as though it were the ultimate thing by him intended, the Holy Ghost expressly affirming that " he loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might present it to himself a glorious church," Eph. V. 25-27.
The following parallels, which he instituted between Adam and Christ, have nothing of proof in them to the business in hand, — namely, that Christ was a public person, standing, in bis obedience, in the room of all and every one that were concerned in the dis- obedience of Adam. There is, I say, nothing at all of proof in them, being a confused medley of some truths and divers unsavoury heresies. I shall only give the reader a taste of some of them, whereby he may judge of the rest, not troubling myself or others with the tran- scribing and reading of such empty vanities as no way relate to the business in hand.