are the effects redounding from them to those who are respectively affected by them. The former makes men sinners, the latter makes men righteous. It is the former that concerns our present purpose; "By one man's disobedience many were made sinners." Where consider, 1. The malignant cause to which all evil among men is owing; one man's disobedience." This is the impure fountain of all, the original of all evils. Here two things must be cleared, (1.) Who that one man was. Who but Adam, the first man; him the apostle had expressly named, ver. 14, as the great transgressor, the head of the rebellion, the fountain of sin, opposed to Christ Jesus as the fountain of righteousness; and unto him our text in the Greek expressly points, which saith not simply, di èvò; áveρwπov, By one man, &c., but did τns Tαрaкойs тоν Evos áveρúπov, by that one man's disobedience, that man Adam whom he had mentioned before. (2.) What that disobedience was. No question but Adam was guilty of many acts of disobedience through the whole course of his life after his fall; but the text speaks of this disobedience emphatically, and as such by way of eminency, that disobedience, plainly referring to the first sin of Adam, that was the sin which first broke into the world, and opened the sluice to death, ver. 12; the transgression of Adam, ǹ πaρaßáσiç Adàμ, ver. 14; that offence or fall, ver. 15. So then this disobedience is Adam's breaking of the covenant of works, by his eating of the forbidden fruit. The transgression of Adam was his transgressing of the covenant, which set him the bounds he was to keep within, on pain of death, Rom. v. 14, compared with Hosea vi. 7. He set off in a course of covenant obedience running for the prize; but he stumbled and fell in breaking the covenant. Though he was a son by creation, he was God's hired servant by covenant; but by disobedience to his master he broke the covenant. 2. The answerable effect; "Many were made sinners." The poisonous fountain being opened, the waters kill wherever they come. Here also two things are to be cleared. (2.) Who these many are. Even the all mentioned ver. 12. All Adam's natural seed comprehended with him in the first covenant, as the many made righteous are all Christ's spiritual seed comprehended with him in the second covenant, but the apostle uses the term many here, though all are meant, not only because all are many, but because one man, viz., the man Christ, is excepted; so, in strict propriety of speech, Adam's disobedience did not touch all men simply, but many, there being one man excepted; and also because the scope of the apostle here is to shew that many shall be made righteous by the obedience of one; to prove which, proceeding on that principle. That the deed of one may be imputed to many, he instanceth in Adam's disobedience, who being one man, yet his deed was imputed to many; and he being a type or figure of Christ in that respect, it plainly follows, that as by his disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of Christ shall many be made righteous. (2.) How by Adam's disobedience they were made sinners. There are but three ways how by the sin of another we may be made sinners. [1.] By adopting it through consent and approbation; so Ahab was the murderer of Naboth, though not he, but the magistrates of Jezreel did the deed, 1 Kings xxi. 19. But this is not the way we are made sinners by Adam's disobedience; for infants, and many in the world who never heard of Adam or his sin, and therefore are incapable of adopting it at that rate, are yet made sinners by it. Or, [2.] By imitation, as Pelagians would have it. So indeed one may be made a sinner by imitating sinners. But this cannot be it neither in this case; (1.) Because infants who are not capable of imitation, are involved here as well as others, Rom. v. 14, where death is said to "reign over those who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression." So also are Pagans included here, who know nothing of the copy that Adam cast us. (2.) Because we are made sinners by Adam's disobedience, as we are made righteous by Christ's obedience. But it is not by imitation, but by imputation of Christ's obedience we are made righteous; therefore it cannot be that we are made sinners by imitation of Adam's sin. (3.) All men of all ages, sexes, conditions, &c., are made sinners. But it is incredible, that, if imitation were the way, there should never have been so much as one mere man to refuse to imitate the ruining example. Therefore, (3.) It necessarily follows that we are thereby made sinners by imputation; even as we are made righteous by Christ's obedience, the same being reckoned our obedience, though not done by us in our own persons. We are not only made liable to punishment by this disobedience, but we are made sinners by it. Not only is the guilt ours, but the fault is ours; we not only die in Adam, 1 Cor. xv. 22, but we sinned in him as our federal head, Rom. v. 12; we broke the covenant in him; that breach in law-reckoning is ours, and is reckoned ours because it is ours by virtue of our being one with him, in his loins, as our natural and federal head. The text affords the following doctrine, plainly founded upon it. Adam's Sin in Breaking the Covenant of Works, is the Sin DOCTRINE. Adam's breaking of the covenant of works, by his eating of the forbidden fruit; is our sin, our breaking of it, as well as his. For the illustration of this doctrine, I shall, I. Consider the extent of this sin which is ours. II. Shew how Adam's sin of breaking the covenant of works is our sin, our breaking it. III. Evince the truth of the doctrine, and prove the imputation of Adam's first sin, the sin of breaking the covenant of works, by eating the forbidden fruit, to his posterity. IV. Shew the ground and reason why this first sin is ours. Of the Extent of the first Sin, which is ours. I. I shall consider the extent of this sin which is ours. There is a twofold breaking of the covenant of works. 1. There is a private and personal breaking of it by such persons as are still under it. And thus it is to this day broken every day; John vii. 19, "Did not Moses give you the law," said Christ to the Jews," and yet none of you keepeth the law?" Let none imagine that the covenant of works being broken by Adam, was laid by as an useless thing, which men were no more concerned in. It is true, it is no more useful now as a way to salvation and happiness; but that is not from itself, but from man's weakness, whose weak head, heart, and legs, cannot serve him to walk in so high a way to heaven, from which he fell down headlong before in Adam, and received such a bruise as made him quite incapable for it after. But the covenant The itself stands firm still in all the parts of it. The promise of it still stands to perfect obedience, which now takes in suffering as well as doing; as appears from what passed between our Lord and a certain lawyer, Luke x. 27, 28. The lawyer had put the question to him, "Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Our Lord answered, "What is written in the law? how readest thou?" lawyer having replied, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself;" our Lord thereupon said, "Thou has answered right; this do, and thou shalt live." So that if any could answer the demands of this covenant, he should have the promised life. The threatening of it stands firm as mountains of brass, that without satisfying it by one's self or surety, none shall escape; for "without shedding of blood there is no remission," Heb. ix. 22; and “God will by no means clear the guilty," Exod. xxxiv. 7. The commands of the covenant are in as full vigour as ever; for the breaking of a law can never take away the binding force and authority of it; so that it demands perfect obedience of all that are under it, with as much authority still as ever it did of Adam, Rom iii. 19; For "what things soever the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law." And all men continue under it till they be ingrafted into Christ, be dead to it, and married to Christ, Rom. vi. 14. Wherefore all ye Christless sinners are under it, and are breaking it every day, in every thought, word, and action of yours; and so the curse of it is raining down upon you incessantly; Gal. iii. 10, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." John iii. 36, "He that believeth not-the wrath of God abideth on him." Some of you stand off from the sacrament of the Lord's supper, and from personal covenanting with God in embracing the covenant of grace, and think ye do wisely to hold your necks out of the yoke of a covenant with God. But, poor soul, thou art hard and fast under covenant to God, the covenant of works, by which thou art bound to perfect obedience, under the pain of God's curse; and every sin of thine is covenant-breaking with God, laying thee under the curse of the covenant. So all this wisdom of yours amounts to a holding fast of the covenant of death, and refusing a covenant of life. But this breaking of the covenant of works, by violating the commands of it now, is not what we aim at. 2. There was a public breaking of it by Adam, the father of all mankind, standing as the representative of his posterity. This breach was made in paradise, where Adam broke the covenant by eating the forbidden fruit. And even this is our sin, and breaking of the covenant; viz. the first breaking of it is ours, and brings us under guilt. The extent of this breach of the covenant may be considered two ways; in reference to the persons to whom the guilt of it reaches, whose sin it becomes; and in reference to the sin itself. 1st, The extent of this sin may be considered in reference to the persons to whom the guilt of it reaches, whose sin it becomes. And thus we say, (1.) It extended not to the man Christ. Adam's breaking of the covenant was not his he sinned not in Adam, as the rest of mankind did. Though he was born of a woman, he was born sinless; hence the angel said unto the virgin Mary, "That holy thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God," Luke i. 35. And Heb. vii. 26, he is said to be "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners." He came "to destroy the works of the devil," 1 John iii. 8, and "to take away sin," John i. 29, which he could not have been fit for, if he himself had been one of the sinful multitude. If he had needed a sacrifice for himself, he could not have been an atoning sacrifice for us. He was indeed a son of Adam, as appears from his genealogy brought up to Adam, Luke iii. And it was necessary he should be so, that he might be our near kinsman, to redeem us; that man's sins might be expiated by man's sufferings, and so justice might be satisfied of the same nature that sinned. But Adam was not the man Christ's federal head, nor was he comprehended with him in the covenant of works; forasmuch as he did not come of Adam in virtue of the blessing of fruitfulness given to the man and woman before the fall, but was the seed of the woman only, born by virtue of a spiritual promise made after the breach of the covenant of works. So the breach of that covenant could not be imputed to him, or counted his, by virtue of his relation to Adam. Nay, he is another public person, as the first Adam was; the federal head in the second covenant, erected to repair the ruins made by the breach of the first; and so he is called the Second Adam, and is represented as the antitype to the first Adam, Rom. v. 14, unto whom the first Adam, having mismanaged his own headship, did as a private person commit himself for salvation, being in a mystical union by faith joined to Jesus Christ, as the quickening Head in the second covenant. But, (2.) It extended to all mankind besides Christ, without exception of any one from the first son and daughter of Adam, to the last child that shall be born into the world, 1 Cor. xv. 22, " In Adam all die.” It is the common portion of all the children of our father's family, from the oldest to the youngest; the common inheritance of the whole tribe of Adam, from the least to the greatest. The mau a hundred years old may say, It is my sin; and the child at its first moving in the womb may say, It is mine. The guilt of it is removed indeed from believers upon their union with Christ; but once it lay upon them to condemnation also, as it still lies on all unregenerate persons, Rom. v. 18, "By the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation." The saints in heaven are singing glory to him who washed them from it in his own blood, and the damned in hell are lying, and will lie for ever under the weight of it. 2dly, The extent of this sin may be considered in reference to the sin itself. There is something in this sin peculiar to Adam's person, in so far as though the whole mass of mankind was concerned in it, yet there was this difference betwixt Adam and his posterity, that he was the representative, they were the party represented; he sinned this sin in his own person, they only in him; and consequently he ruined not himself only, but all the world by it; they ruined themselves only by it. Wherefore, setting aside what was in this sin peculiar to Adam, as the head of the covenant; otherwise, |