And these words are very consonant to those of our apostle, Rom. v. 12, “ As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; so death passed upon all men, for that” (or “ because in him”) “ all have sinned.” ‘To the same purpose speaks the Targum on Eccles. vii. 29,in the copies followed bythe Jayan[ Paris Polyglot]and London Bibles (for so the words are not in those of Buxtorf, nor the Biblia Regia): “ God made the first man upright and innocent before him ; but the serpent and Eve seduced him, 53) smo oy iby xapnoxd yon, SIN II—and gave cause why the day of death should come on him* and all the inhabitants of the earth.” And we can have no more authentic testimony of the apprehensions of their ancient doctors than what their Targums afford us. And therefore Joseph Albo, in Seher Itharim, expressly concludes, lib. 1. cap. xi, that “all the punish- ments relating unto Adam and Eve for their first sin belong unto all mankind.” And whereas they fancy that some persons spent their days without actual sin, at least any such as should deserve death, they charge their death on the guilt of the sin of Adam. So
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the Targum on the last chapter of Ruth: “ And Hobed begat Jesse, who was called Nachash; and there was no iniquity or corruption in him, for which he should be delivered into the hand of the angel of death to take his soul from him: and he lived many days, until the counsel that the serpent gave to Eve abode before the Lord; and upon that counsel were all the inhabitants of the earth made guilty of death; and upon the account of that sin died Jesse the righteous.” Lud. Cappellus, in his annotations on John iii., hath an observation on this passage in the Targum not unworthy consideration. The Jews call Jesus %, without y, which differs little from , and so he may be here intended; for he may be called wn, both because he was prefigured. by the brazen serpent, and because the names of wn) and mv are the same by gematry, or in their numeral letters,—
a great occasion amongst them to change the names of persons and things. And this they might have from some tradition, which they understood not, The like testimony we have in Siphre: ‘Dy "8 sd) wy syn ;—“ Rabbi Jose the Galilean said, ‘Go forth and learn the merit of Messiah the king, and the reward of that righteous one above the first Adam, who had only negative precepts given unto him, which he transgressed. Behold how many deaths ‘befell him and his generations, and the generations of his generations, unto the end of all generations!’” Answerable unto that of the apostle, Rom. v. 18, “Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men unto condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.”
And this punishment of the sin of Adam and Eve they grant to haye been so terrible, that they say that in the day they were cast out of paradise God lamented overthem: \DNNN) AN) DIS WINNT ADD pandy siody 1 WADN pT Nmw;— Even as Adam and Eve, when they were judged and cast out of the garden of Eden, and the Lord of the world lamented over them,” Targum on Lamenta., chap. i. 1. And to show also that the whole creation was made subject unto
vanity upon the sin of our first parents, Moses Haddarshan in Bereshith Rabba, on Gen. iii, 6, informs us that Eve gave of the fruit of the tree which she took unto all the beasts of the field and birds of the air, Sn only (which they interpret “the pheonix”) exeepted. The truth, indeed, in these expressions is clouded with fables and trifles; but they who are offended at them may do well to direct us unto Judaical writers that are free from such follies. And yet on these things do innumerable poor souls venture their eternal condi- tion, in an opposition to the blessed gospel of the glorious God.
9, The later masters, I acknowledge, are in this whole matter lubricous and uncertain; and they have been so in an especial manner ever since they began to understand the plea of Christians, for the necessity of satisfaction to be made by the sufferings of the Messiah,
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from the doctrine of the sin and fall of man. Hence Abarbanel, in his commentary on Isa. liii., expressly argues against those sufferings of the Messiah, from the non-necessity of them with reference unto the sin of Adam. They contend also, some of them, that it was not so sorely revenged’ as we plead it to have been. “ Ask a heretic” (a Christian), saith Lipman in his Nizzachon, “ how it can enter into their hearts to think that God should use so great severity against the sin of Adam, that he should hold him bound for so small a matter, namely, for the eating of an apple, that he should destroy him in this world and that to come; and that not him only, but all his posterity.”
But the blind Pharisee disputes not so much against us as against God himself. Who was it that denounced death in case he so transgressed? who was it that pronounced him miserable, and the world accursed, on the account thereof? Are we to blame, if the Jews are not pleased with the ways of God? Besides, although to eat an apple be in itself but a small thing, yet to disobey the com- mand of the great God is no such small matter as the Jew sup- poseth; especially that command which set boundaries unto that ex- cellent condition wherein Adam, in the right of all his posterity, was placed. But these exceptions owe their original unto a discovery of the tendency of that truth, which otherwise, as we have showed, they are convinced of, and which we have sufficiently cleared from the Scripture.