But his defcendants experience that vice produces diforder, and haftens or aggravates diffolution, or does both.

Though Adam, and all his posterity, be mortal at their first creation, yet temporal death is threatened to him, and to all his descendants, as the punishment of the perfonal iniquity of each individual. See Gen. ii. 17; ii. 3; Job xxiv. 19, 20; Prov. v. 22, 23; viii. 36; xi. 19; Jer. xxxi. 29, 30; Ezek. xviii. 20, 24. Temporal death has also been inflicted for perfonal vice: Gen. vi. 5 to 7, 11, 12, 13; xiii. 13; xviii. 20; Numb. xiv. 26 to 35; Deut. xxxii. 48 to 52; xxxiv. 4, 5.

This denunciation to Adam, and to all mankind, cannot fignify that wickednefs fhall liberate thofe who perfift in it from their natural corruptibility, in order to effect their diffolution by means of their fin alone. For this would be making vice, firft, the abolisher of mortality refpecting finners, and afterwards the cause of it to them. It muft, therefore, be confidered as an appointment of Divine Providence, that iniquity fhall fuperadd to bodies previously mortal another co-operating principle of decay, which will aggravate or accelerate the corruptibility of an earthly frame. Wickednefs, then, caufes preternatural death, or aggravates diffolution, by the fting which it adds to it, or does both thefe.

Further, when fin is finished or completed, it incurs a fecond death after the refurrection to a future ftate: Matt. x. 28; Rom. ii. 12, 16; vi. 21, 23; 2

Theff. i. 9; James i. 15; v. 20; 2 Pet. iii. 7; Rev. ii. 11; xxi. 8.

To understand the apostle Paul, then, as really afferting, in Rom. v. 12 to 19, that all men die on account of Adam's one offence, contradicts his own affertions in his firft epiftle to the Corinthians, and the original fentence denounced by God himself upon Adam, as well as the general tenor of fcripture. It becomes abfolutely neceffary, therefore, to look out for fome mode of explaining this paffage, that will reconcile the argument ufed in it with the Apostle himself, and with revelation in general.

66

First, then, let it be obferved, that the freeft fcrutiny of what this divinely-commiffioned Apoftle delivers in an argumentative way, is following the very direction which he himself gave upon other occafions. When difcourfing of eating meat facrificed to idols, to the Corinthians, ift epift. x. 15, he writes, "I fpeak "as to wife men, judge ye what I fay." In chap." x. 13, alfo, where he gives directions about women appearing with covered heads in the church, he fays, "judge among your ownfelves; is it becoming "that a woman pray to God uncovered ?" and we cannot doubt that Paul approved of the commendation which Luke beftows upon the Bereans, Acts xvii. 11, for fearching the fcriptures whether thofe things were fo as Paul had reprefented them. This research may be the more thoroughly pursued, because even the Apostle Peter declares, 2 Pet. iii. 16, that in the epiftles of Paul fome things are hard to be

understood. The Apostle Paul, alfo, in one cafe, himself speaks doubtfully concerning the juftnefs of his own opinion: 1 Cor. vii. 40. And fometimes he diftinguishes between what he says from himself, and what he speaks as from the Lord; vii. 6, 10, 12, 25, 26. Upon one occafion he even condemns his own public addrefs to the Jewish high prieft: Acts xxiii. 3, 5.

ger

Again, let it be noticed, that when even a meffen

of God enforces what he delivers by arguments, this is a virtual appeal to the understandings of those whom he addreffes. Nor does a thorough examination of what he alleges imply any derogation from his divine authority as a teacher, when he himself thus refers the ground of his inftructions to the judg ment of those who hear or read them.

In the prefent cafe alfo, it is of importance to keep in view that not the leaft doubt arifes concerning the truth of the point which the Apostle means to establish, namely, that the benefits of the death of Chrift far exceed the evils confequent upon the offence of Adam. All the remarks here made are directed, not to this, but merely to the medium of proof which is employed. The defign of them is to fhew, that, as upon other occafions the Apostle manifeftly uses arguments ad homines, or reafons upon the principles maintained by thofe whom he addreffes, without deciding about their truth or falfity, fo in this inftance he adopts the fame mode.

In the beginning of the paffage, Rom. v. 12 to 19, wσTEP, the third word, evidently refers to the common prevalence of the opinion expreffed immediately after it. It was generally maintained by the Jews, that univerfal mortality was owing to the tranfgreffion of Adam in eating the forbidden fruit. See 2 Efdras iii. 7; Wifd. ii. 23, 24; Eccluf. xxv. 24. The Chaldee paraphr. on Ruth iv. the last verfe, and on Ecclefiaftes vii. the last verse. Whitby on Rom. v. 15.

This commonly-received notion the Apostle affumes as the ground of an argument, or rather of the illustration of an argument. For he does not proceed by the regular method of deduction; he only takes up the prevailing Jewish fentiment, and by a series of antithefes, in which he contrafts, in many points of view, univerfal mortality, as the confequence of the one offence of Adam, with endless life, as ascertained by the one righteous act of Chrift, he manifefts that the benefits derived from the latter far exceed the evils derived from the former. Whether the prevalent idea, that all men die on account of the fin of their first parent, be well founded or not, he does not decide. The connection in which he uses a yap, for if, in ver. 15 and 17, is expreffive of indecifion upon this point. The Apostle Paul argues likewise from the story of Jannes and Jambres, that was current among the Jews. See fect. 5, fubd. 2, on Jude 9. So when, in order to enforce his argument to the Corinthians, he alludes to the Jewish notion, that angels

had a language fuperior to any human tongue, 1 Cor. xiii. 1, he does not fay any thing concerning the truth or falfity of the opinion.

In Rom. x. 6 to 8, the Apostle adopts a Jewish interpretation, by applying to Christ and his gospel, what Mofes, Deut. xxx. 12 to 14, appropriates to the Jewish law, but which the Targum of Jonathan, Mr. Allix fays, applies to the times of the Meffiah. Rom. x. 19, is applied to the admiffion of the Gentiles into the Christian church; whereas in Deut. xxxii. 21, the words relate to the Jews being delivered into the hands of their enemies.

Jefus Chrift reafons with the Jews upon their popular ideas that heaven is God's throne, and that the earth is his footftool. Ifai. lxvi. 1; Matt. v. 34, 35; xxiii. 22: comp. 1 Kings viii. 27; John iv. 24. Jefus alfo argues with the Jews upon their notion that Beelzebub was the prince of the dæmons; Matt. xii. 24 to 27. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Chrift adopts the language of the commonlyreceived notion among the Jews, and other nations, that immediately after death both the wicked and the righteous would be in a state or place under ground, and both upon the fame level, without faying any thing about the propriety or impropriety of the opinion upon which it is founded.

As the Jews frequently allegorized paffages from the Old Testament; fo Paul, Gal. iv. 21 to 31, allegorizes the hiftory in Gen. xvi, comp. with xvii. 19, 21; xxi. 12; and even inverts it, in order to