Adam

The 1656 book has its own review, Men before Adam.

The imputing of sin began when Adam broke the law of God, and it ended in Christ.

Adam and Christ are set against each other.

But death reigned from Adam until Moses, even upon those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one to come.

The common interpreters explain that phrase, until the law, in the thirteenth verse, of that stretch of time which came between, from Adam until Moses.

They lay it down, I say, that sin began to be imputed from Moses, and not from Adam.

That one is Adam.

That one is the first Adam.

This one is the second Adam.

He meant, further, that through the violation of that first law of God by that first man, Adam, all men had become enemies and foes of God, that through the transgression of that law all men had sinned, that through the stubborn disobedience of that man all men had been made sinners, and that through that sin, which is the transgression of that law, death had passed into all men, and death had reigned.

The point is that it should stand settled for us that the imputation of sin began from the transgression of the law given to Adam, and not from the law given to Moses.

It began from Adam, and it ended in Christ.

The one type, or antitype, of Christ, Saint Paul sets up in this chapter as Adam.

The law of God given to Adam was that law whose transgression, as I said before, made Adam, and in him all men, enemies to God.

That law of God was the law which made Adam, and in him all men, sinners, guilty, and rebellious.

For the law of Adam, or the law given to Adam, was the chief of all laws.

By Jews in this place I understand not only the sons of Abraham, who are called the seed of Abraham, but also all the fathers of Abraham himself, the descendants of Adam.

And indeed various forms of the worship of God were instituted, from Adam until Enos the son of Seth, from Enos the son of Seth until Abraham, and from Abraham until Moses.

Surely the Lord was called upon by some name, by Adam and by Seth, before Enos.

But Enos began to call upon the Lord by another name, different from that by which Adam and Seth had called upon him.

But it is written most expressly and most exactly that sin entered into the world through the law broken by Adam, that the transgression of that law was imputed to all men, and that through the transgression of that law death passed into all men.

From this let it be known that the law given to Adam, as the most general law, and the law of laws, ought in this place to have been called, and heard as, simply the Law.

They seem to me to be wandering who count the time of the law from Moses, a time which ought to have been fixed from Adam.

These things agree entirely with the law given to Adam, and with Adam himself, but in no way with the law of Moses, nor with Moses himself.

The matter did not stand so with Adam.

All men sinned in the breaking of that law which Adam went out from.

That sin which Adam seemed to have sinned for himself alone passed into all men, who sinned in Adam as he sinned.

That law, given to Adam, was carried for all men.

And at the very moment when God addressed Adam, as he was giving him that law of his, he addressed all men.

So God dealt justly and according to law with all men, when death passed into them from the sin of Adam, and from the breaking of that law which Adam violated.

For that law was held to have been given to all men, who were wrapped in and bound fast by that agreement and that covenant which God had covenanted and struck with all men in Adam, as the syndic and defender of all men.

Since these things are so, and so certain that it would be against religion to doubt them, I confess that I do not understand by what reasoning that time of the law which we are seeking ought not to have been assigned from Adam.

For the law first given to Adam plainly marks that the law first began from Adam.

That imputation began to be from Adam, from whom the reign of the law also began to be.

But the reign of death began to be from Adam, by the Apostle himself in this place.

Death reigned from Adam until Moses.

The reign of the law, therefore, must of necessity have begun much more from Adam himself, by the same Apostle in the same place.

The law given to all men in Adam reigned from Adam himself.

The law, I say, reigned from Adam until Moses, or until Jesus Christ.

In him, that is, every law, the law of Adam and the law of Moses, and the very time of both laws, came to an end.

It is fitting, therefore, that we define and mark the bounds of the time of the Law, from Adam to Christ.

But neither can I reach this, however hard I strain in meditation: by what reasoning it can be proved that sin was not imputed through that whole time which flowed from Adam until Moses.

I will begin from Adam himself.

Why, then, was sin imputed to Adam himself?

Why was Adam driven out, and why, in Adam, were all men poured out of Paradise?

Why was the earth cursed because of the sin of Adam, unless it was imputed to the earth, and to the whole world?

Why, then, from Adam until Moses, were sacrifices instituted, which were expiations of sins, unless through that time there were imputations of sins?

But if at last it is permitted to us, as is right, to pass judgment upon the guilts and the imputations of sin by the punishments which follow the guilts and the imputations of sin, certainly no sin was equally imputed, from Moses until us, of the kind that were imputed from Adam until Moses.

For the floodgates of heaven are not said to have been poured out, or furnaces from above to have come down and crackled, to the destruction of men who were sinning, from Moses until us, of the kind that are read concerning the flood, and concerning the burning of the Sodomites, from Adam until Moses.

Why did the Apostle say that sin entered into the world through Adam, and death through sin?

For what is that bursting of sin into the world, if it is not the imputation of sin, which from Adam wrapped the world under the condemnation of death, out of the sin of Adam?

But the Apostle asserted in this very place, in his very own words, that death reigned, from Adam until Moses.

For death would have reigned against the order of things, through that time which came between from Adam until Moses, unless through that time also sin had been imputed.

Death reigned from Adam.

It will rightly be concluded: Therefore sin was imputed from Adam.

But if the Apostle had meant that sin was not imputed from Adam until Moses, but that it began to be imputed from Moses, he ought not to have said that death reigned from Adam.

The interpreters themselves, translating these words of verse 18 of this chapter, [Latin unreadable], rendered them in this way: As by one offense (they understand the offense of Adam) guilt came upon all men unto condemnation.

What is that guilt from the offense of Adam, if it is not imputation from the offense of Adam?

It is plain, therefore, even through the interpreters themselves, that sin was imputed from Adam, through that whole time which is set in between from him until Moses.

Hence it came about that the interpreters, who refused to have it that sin was imputed from Adam until Moses, when they came to that part of the fourteenth verse of this chapter in which it is said that death reigned, even upon those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, thought of a dissimilarity between the sins of adults and the sins of infants, and between actual sins and original sins.

The interpreters meant, that is, that the Apostle had understood in this place that infants had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, because they had not sinned actually, in the way that Adam had sinned.

Yet death had reigned upon them just as upon adults, who had sinned actually, in the way that (as they claim) Adam had sinned, and therefore (as they would have it) according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam.

By what reasoning could death have reigned actually upon infants, in the way that the same death had reigned upon Adam, unless infants had sinned actually, in the way that Adam had sinned?

By what reasoning, I say, could infants have died in reality and actually, according to the likeness of the death which was inflicted from the sin of Adam, and yet not have sinned in reality and actually, according to the likeness of the transgression and of the sin of Adam himself?

I would ask again: Who would those adults have been, or who would those infants have been, begotten before Adam, who would have sinned, or would not have sinned, according to the likeness of the Adamic sin?

For the Apostle said most expressly that death reigned from Adam, even upon those who had not sinned.

But, these things set aside, I go on further, and I prove that the Apostle understood that infants also, the descendants of Adam, had sinned according to the likeness of his transgression.

He said, I say, that all had sinned in Adam.

But if infants sinned in Adam, then much more did they sin according to the likeness of his transgression.

For he is held, as it were, to have struck upon the same transgression of Adam, who sinned in the transgression of Adam.

Indeed, as many adults as there were, they were, as infants, grafted from the very cradle into Adam, and into the root of the Adamic transgression.

Again, sin could be committed according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, either by a spiritual likeness, or by a natural likeness.

Let it be enough here to have set down again what is written in Genesis 5, that Adam begot a son, Seth, in his own image and likeness, as a thing to the point, and as expressly signifying that likeness which there is between infant sons and the adult fathers who begot them.

It is certain that infants sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, by that spiritual likeness by which the transgression of Adam is understood to have been imputed to all men, to infants as to adults.

And all men are likewise represented as having sinned the same sin that Adam sinned, by reason of the likeness which is expressed in the imputation of the Adamic sin.

It is proved, I say, by the same example which I set forward, of the infant Seth, whom Adam begot in his own image and likeness.

That is, whom he begot in the image of all the organs, and of all the functions, of body and of mind, which were in the adult Adam.

The infant Seth therefore had an intellect in the image of the intellect which was in the adult Adam.

He had reason in the image of the reason which was in the adult Adam.

He had a will in the image of the will which was in the adult Adam, a will that sinned, that is, and was inclined to sin.

Therefore the infant Seth understood in the image of the intellect of the adult Adam.

Therefore the infant Seth reasoned in the image of the reason which was in the adult Adam.

Therefore the infant Seth willed and sinned, in the image of the will and of the sin, or of the transgression, of the adult Adam.

The infant Seth therefore sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of the adult Adam.

By that proportion, namely, the infant Seth was begotten according to the likeness of the adult Adam.

That is, he was proportional with the adult Adam, if the same account is taken of the whole infant to the whole adult as of the parts of that infant to the parts of that adult.

Seth therefore had all the organs of the body similar and proportional, and all the functions of the mind similar and proportional, with all the organs and all the functions, of body and of mind, which were in the adult Adam.

The infant Seth therefore understood according to the likeness of the intellect of the adult Adam.

Therefore the infant Seth reasoned according to the likeness of the reason which was in the adult Adam.

Therefore the infant Seth willed and sinned, according to the likeness of the will and of the sin, or of the transgression, of the adult Adam.

Infants are therefore to be judged to have sinned according to that likeness, or that proportion, of the transgression of the adult Adam.

To hold that the first men were created before Adam goes against neither the Christian teaching nor the history of Genesis.

For they were pressed hard on every side in the explanation of this place, the words "until the Law." For that Law was either to be understood of the law given to Moses, or of the law given to Adam.

If that law was understood of the law given to Adam, it had to be held that sin had been in the world before Adam, and until Adam, but that sin before Adam had not been imputed.

Other men before Adam had therefore to be set down, men who had indeed sinned, but who had not sinned by imputation, because before the law sins were not imputed.

But because it appeared a less heavy thing to assert that sins had not been imputed before Moses and until Moses, than to hold that other men had either been created or begotten before Adam, they set that second inconvenience below the first.

The interpreters rejected those men of fable, who were to be believed to have gone before Adam, and they called in for themselves other men, who would not have sinned by imputation before Moses.

But if it is permitted me by my lords and my masters, the orthodox doctors, in whose hands is the highest right of inquiring and of determining in theological matters, and to whose judgment I devote myself, and all that is mine, with obedient and blind reverence, I will try whether an easier explanation may be fitted to these verses, if we say that the phrase "until the Law" is to be understood of the law given to Adam.

I do not deny that, at the first look, to hold that the first men were formed before Adam, beyond the common opinion of all theologians, seems to trouble consciences, and not to set them in a quiet place.

First, then, and with no ill omen, I will say that I turned my mind the more gladly to the search for other men created before Adam, because I thought that no inconvenience could arise from this for the faith which is from the Gospel.

With the like result, whether we believe that Adam was created alone, and the first of all men, or we set it down that other men were begotten before Adam, the whole Christian religion will always stand in its own place, and with its own mysteries.

For the sum and the foundation of our redemption, which is the Christian religion, consists in this, that we believe all men to have been condemned in Adam, and approved as innocent in Christ.

But just as it was not necessary that Jesus Christ should have been the last of all men, the one who should take down the curtains of the world, in order that he might absolve the world and all men, so neither was it necessary that Adam should have been the first of all men, the one who should enter upon the stage of the world, in order that he might condemn the world and all men.

The first Adam and the second Adam therefore remain in their own places.

That holy type between Adam and Christ always remains, the type around which our redemption, and the whole Christian teaching, answer back and forth to one another, even if we say that the first men were created before Adam.

Indeed, certainly, so that the antitype between Adam and Christ may be set up more perfectly, it will be much more fitting to assert that Adam was not the first of all men, in the same way as Christ was not the last of all men.

It will be more fitting, I say, to assert that the imputation which comes from the sin of Adam (according to which we have been made guilty of Adam's fault) was carried back upon those men who went before Adam, in the same way as the imputation of the absolution which is in Christ (according to which we are washed clean of the stain of the sin of Adam) has been carried back upon those men who went before Christ.

Adam would therefore be set up less perfectly as the antitype of Christ, if he were set down as the first of all men.

Nor would the reciprocity of the imputation from the sin of Adam be turned about in the same way with the imputation of absolution in Christ, unless the sin of Adam were carried back upon the earliest men before Adam, just as the absolution of Christ from that sin has been carried back upon the earliest men before Christ.

By opinion, as often happens, and by the more common consent, rather than by exact truth, it seems to be believed that Adam was the first of all men who came forth into the shores of light.

On the contrary, it is gathered from those same pages, a thing which it will be easy to prove, that other men went before Adam.

Add this, that by this exposition, which holds that the first men were created before Adam, the history of Genesis appears much clearer.

It is probable that all of these, just as also those men of the first and most ancient creation of things, which is narrated in chapter 1 of Genesis, were created together with the earth itself, in all lands, and were not propagated from Adam.

But death reigned from Adam until Moses, even upon those also who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam.

Through Adam, who transgressed the law of God, or through the transgression of the law which Adam violated.

It received its origin, or, which is the same thing, it entered into the world, from the transgression of the law which God had given to Adam.

For Adam sinned from the time when he violated the forbidden tree, and from the time when he transgressed the law which God had given to him.

Death entered into the world through sin, by the same account on which sin entered into the world, through the law violated by that one man, Adam.

The law is here to be understood as given to Adam.

Until the law: understand the law of God given to that one man, Adam, through the things which have already been said, and the things which will be said below.

The Apostle meant, that is, that sin and death had been in the world until the law of God, or until the transgression of that divine law which that one man, Adam, violated, but that they had had no right in the world, so as to invade the dominion and the possession of it, and to seize a tyranny in it.

Before the law of God, or until that law of God which that man Adam violated, sin and death were in the world.

Of the reign of death from Adam until Moses.

The Apostle adds, in the fourteenth verse, But death reigned from Adam until Moses.

Before the law of God, and before Adam had violated the law of God, sin was in the world, but it was not imputed.

Before Adam, and before the law of God, death was in the world, but it did not reign.

In the verse above and in this verse, as is plain, they are taken without distinction, and they are the same as to time, the Law and Adam.

For the law of God was given first, and to Adam the first of all men, and death reigned from Adam only by that account on which the law of God was violated by Adam.

Death reigned from Adam, that is, from that moment in which Adam transgressed the law of God, until Moses, that is, until the law of God given to Moses, and for as long as that law of God given to Moses was in force.

For Moses is taken, in this place, for the law given to Moses, just as Adam has been taken for the law given to Adam.

But the Apostle meant that death had reigned from Adam, or from the law of Adam, until Moses, or until the law of Moses.

Or, more clearly, until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose death was the completion of each law, both of the law given to Adam and of the law given to Moses.

The law given to Adam, as the most general law, and the first of the divine laws, a law laid upon every race of human beings, was that law by whose transgression sin, and through sin death, entered into the world, and passed upon all men, and by which sin began to be imputed, and death began to reign, upon all men.

So that only from the death of Christ did that reign of death cease, which had begun from the sin of Adam.

Or, which is the same thing, one from Adam, the other before Adam.

Likewise, Death reigned from Adam.

But that that first time, in which sin first began to be imputed, and death began to reign, was that time which began from Adam, from the law, and from the transgression of that law which Adam violated, or from the sin of Adam, is plain from the very words of the Apostle, and it is plainer than the light at noon.

For that sin of Adam was, so to speak, the most imputed of all sins.

That sin lived the first of all, and it has rightly been called original, because it, the first of all, entered into the world through Adam.

Those words, it entered into the world, signify sin as it were being born, and Adam as it were bringing it to birth.

But, so as to cut down the man who denies it, sin was imputed from Adam, because death reigned from Adam.

That sin of Adam reigned the first of all, because it threatened death to all men.

For this cause the Apostle used this word, reigned, where he said, Death reigned from Adam.

And he signified that sin and death began to be imputed, began to live, and began to reign, from Adam, or from that moment in which Adam passed beyond the law of God.

Until the law: understand the law of God given to Adam, which law could be called the law of the world, and the Law, simply and alone, inasmuch as it was the law through whose transgression alone sin could be imputed, and death could reign, over the whole world.

Other men will therefore have to be sought before Adam, not before Moses, men whose sins would not have been imputed, and over whom death would not have been reigning, since from Adam, not from Moses, sin began to be imputed, and death began to reign.

Men created before Adam had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam.

Death reigned from Adam, and so on, even upon those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam.

Preceding, I say, that defined time from Adam, from which sin entered into the world.

It denotes men who had sinned before Adam, but not according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam.

Those first men, created before Adam, had indeed sinned, but they were guilty of no fraud committed against the law of God, after the likeness of Adam, who committed the first fraud against the law of God.

For no law of God had been promulgated before Adam, and therefore, since the law of God did not exist, there was no sin of those men, because it was not imputed, of the kind that the sin of Adam was.

So that the common sense would become this, that death had reigned from Adam upon the posterity of Adam, who sinned in him, and from him, whether they had sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, or had not sinned according to that likeness.

For who does not know that death has reigned from Adam upon all the posterity of Adam who sinned in him?

But the interpreters say: the Apostle brought nothing common or meager here, when he said that death had reigned from Adam until Moses, even upon those who did not sin according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam.

For he understood that death had reigned upon infants, who did not sin according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, because they did not sin actually, in the way that Adam sinned.

But so that not even the least scruple may afterwards remain in those matters, it must be proved that to have sinned actually in the things which Adam sinned was not to sin according to this likeness of the sin, or of the transgression, of Adam, of which the Apostle has treated here.

And this too must be fully established, that infants, the posterity of Adam, sinned actually according to this true likeness of the transgression of Adam.

The likeness of the transgression of Adam is placed in the imputation, not in the act, of his transgression.

From the time, therefore, that Adam transgressed that law, in that capacity in which he bore the person of the whole human race, sin, which of itself and materially, apart from the law of God, was not imputed, began from the law of God, or from the transgression of that law, to be formally imputed.

And this is the true formal sin which Adam sinned, the sin which all men sinned in Adam.

From this it plainly stands clear that before Adam men could sin actually as to the matter, in the same way as Adam sinned, but not as to the form and the imputation of sin, which is the true likeness of the transgression of Adam, of which the matter is treated here.

To have sinned actually, therefore, in the way that Adam sinned, was not to have sinned according to that likeness of the transgression of Adam of which the Apostle speaks here.

For the sin of Adam was actually imputed to infants as to adults, and infants have actually died as adults have died, on account of that sin of Adam, which was imputed to them.

And this is the true likeness of the transgression of Adam, of which the matter is treated here.

Infants must therefore be judged to have sinned actually, according to that likeness of the transgression of Adam which the Apostle understood in this place.

But with all logical distinctions set aside, let us see most manifestly what that likeness of the sin of Adam was, through Hosea the prophet, in chapter 6, verse 7.

This is the only place that occurs in the sacred scriptures where it is explained precisely and clearly what it was to sin according to the likeness of the sin, or of the transgression, of Adam.

God, rebuking the Jews in that place because they had broken his covenant, or because they had gone out from the law which the Lord had given to Moses, says this: "But they, like Adam, have transgressed my covenant." Which is the same thing as if God had said: The Jews sinned as Adam sinned.

Or, what comes to the same thing, the Jews sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam.

Because the Jews transgressed my covenant, or my law, just as, or by the same likeness by which, Adam transgressed my covenant, or my law.

Because the Jews transgressed my covenant, which I had made in Moses with the Jews, or my law, which I had given to the Jews in Moses, just as, or by the same likeness by which, Adam transgressed my covenant, which I had made in Adam with all men, or my law, which I had given to all men in Adam.

From this it is clearly plain that, long before Moses, a covenant of God had been agreed with Adam, or that the first law of God had been imposed upon Adam.

That covenant, or that law of God, Adam, the first of all men, broke and overthrew.

Whatever men have transgressed other covenants, or other laws of God, those men have been said to have sinned as Adam sinned.

Or, what is the same thing, they have been said to have sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam.

From this it is at last concluded that to have sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam was to transgress the covenant, to transgress the law of God, just as Adam transgressed the covenant and transgressed the law of God.

Therefore, not to have sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam was to have broken no covenant of God, and to have broken through no law of God.

Such were those men who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, of whom St.

Before that law, I say, which God gave to Adam, from whom sin began to be imputed, because the law began to exist from him.

No mortal man whatever, not even an adult, was ever able, properly speaking, to sin by an act as Adam sinned.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil vanished from the eyes of all men from the time that Adam was cast out of Paradise.

So it was impossible for any mortal man whatever, even an adult, ever to pluck that forbidden fruit which Adam ate.

But men are not to be believed to have sinned in Adam by any other account than that account by which all are reckoned to have eaten that forbidden fruit which Adam ate.

Therefore, if they are not to be believed to have eaten that forbidden fruit by an act, as Adam ate it, neither are they to be reckoned to have sinned by an act as Adam sinned.

It remains, then, that all men who sinned in Adam are to be believed to have sinned according to the likeness of the sin of Adam.

By that imputation they are reckoned to have sinned, not by the act, but by the likeness of the forbidden fruit that was eaten, and thus of the law violated by Adam.

First, in so far as the transgression of Adam was imputed to them, equally as to the Gentiles.

Second, in so far as they themselves also transgressed the law of God which they knew, just as Adam, their first father, transgressed the law of God which he himself also knew.

And this is properly what Hosea meant in this place, that the Jews had sinned as Adam, their first father, had sinned.

Paul falls again into ashes, where they maintained that adults had sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, because they had sinned by an act in the same way as Adam had sinned.

For from the point at which adults are reckoned to have sinned by an act the sin of Adam, they could no longer be reckoned to have sinned according to the likeness of that sin.

Indeed, according to the Interpreters, infants would have to be reckoned more truly to have sinned according to the likeness of the sin of Adam than adults.

For it is most certain that infants sinned in Adam.

But in no other way could anyone sin in Adam than either by the act, that which Adam sinned, and which adults, according to the Interpreters, sinned, or according to the likeness of that sin.

But infants did not sin by the act the sin of Adam, according to the Interpreters.

And therefore, if the sin of the Jews is a likeness of the sin of Adam, it follows from this that the law of Moses, which furnished the cause for the sin of the Jews, was a likeness of that law which made the sin of Adam.

And so the law of Moses is to be called neither primary nor original, but secondary, expressed according to the likeness of the primary and original law of Adam.

It is to be noted last that the law of Moses is to be understood as supplied where the matter is the sin of the Jews, but that the law of Adam is to be understood where the matter is that original sin which passed into all men, Jews and Gentiles, out of the sin of Adam.

Therefore in this place he also understood the law of Adam, not the law of Moses.

Sins committed after the law given to Adam were imputed.

Sins committed before the law given to Adam were not imputed.

Sins imputed after the law given to Adam were committed according to the likeness of the sin of Adam, from whom the law began to exist.

Therefore the men who had not sinned according to the likeness of the sin of Adam were those who had sinned before the law and before Adam.

Therefore it had not been committed according to the likeness of the sin of Adam either.

For that sin of Adam was committed from the law given to Adam, and after the law given to him.

For sin lived from Adam.

For it entered into the world through Adam.

For it received its origin from Adam, and from Adam it was called Original.

From that Adam onward, whatever men sinned were said to have sinned according to the likeness of the sin of Adam, that is, of a sin that was living and original, which was from the law and after the law, and not according to the likeness of a dead sin, which was without the law and before the law.

For it is not even likely that the Apostle spoke here of himself alone, since both laws, the law of Adam and the law of Moses, were long before him, and it cannot be said that he ever lived without the law.

Therefore before Adam, since the law was given to Adam at a definite time.

Paul, bring in that same Pre-Adamite man, addressing the men who are the posterity of Adam.

And let us picture him as facing both ways, a man who had seen the times that went before Adam and the law, and who had known the ages that followed Adam and the law.

(Acts, chapter 17.) That God, who had made himself manifest to the whole of nature, and so to men, through his power and through the wonders of creation, had hidden his face from me, and his name, and had not declared himself to me such as he afterwards declared himself to Adam.

The first knowledge of that true God, the first knowledge of his will and of his law, was from Adam.

And the law of God began to exist from that man Adam, to whom, first of all men, God proved himself, and whom he was the first to address.

But I was not sinning against that law of God, the transgression of which would be imputed to me by God, as it was imputed to Adam, and the mark of which imputation was, for him and for his posterity, to die the death, a death, I say, that reigns and is double.

Not for this reason, that I was sinning, was I dying the death, as Adam afterwards died when he transgressed the law of God.

I was not dying, I, before that law of God, by that death which reigns and is double, which followed the transgression of that divine law and the imputation of the sin of Adam.

These things were thus carried on with me under the state of nature, before the law and before Adam.

But with you, who are set under the state of the law, and begotten from Adam, or after Adam, the matter stood far otherwise.

For that sin which for me was, simply and naturally, a sin under nature, before the law and before Adam, that same sin, from the law and from Adam, began for you to be imputed, and double.

Or, what comes to the same thing, it was the sin on account of which I was not dying the death, under nature, before the law and before Adam.

That same sin, from the law and from Adam, received an origin, entered into the world, and lived in you.

The death which was befalling me only in a natural way, under nature, before the law, before the transgression of the law, or before the sin of Adam, that same death, from the law and from the sin of Adam, began to reign upon you, and to be inflicted upon you by reason of imputation.

Death for me was simple before the law and before Adam.

Death for you was double from the time it began to be a reigning death, from the law and from Adam, on account of the sin of Adam.

By all of these things it is plainer than the sun itself when the sky is clear, what it was not only to sin according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, but also what it was to die according to the likeness of the death of Adam.

But the Apostle said in this place that the sin of Adam was of such a kind that it was imputed backward, and that death, or the damnation of death, out of that imputation of sin, reigned backward even upon those men who had lived under the state of nature, not under the state of the law, who had sinned before the law, and so before Adam.

For it had been necessary that those first men, who had sinned against God without punishment before the law, because they were guilty of no divine law that had been violated, should be made guilty in the guilt of Adam, so that they might be made partakers of the salvation and of the glory which is in Christ.

It had been necessary that those first men should have sinned in Adam, so that they might be sanctified in Christ.

It had been necessary that, for those men, by the reason and by the power of the mystery, the sin of Adam should be reckoned as imputed backward, and that death, or the damnation of death, out of that imputation of sin, should be reckoned to have reigned backward upon them, before the death of Christ, which was the expiation of the sin of Adam, and which works the glory of salvation, should be imputed backward to them, and before the salvation which is in Christ, and which is life itself, immortal and eternal, should reign backward in those same men, out of that imputation of the death of Christ.

It had been necessary that, to those same men to whom Jesus Christ was to be imputed, Adam should first be imputed.

It had been necessary that, to those same men to whom the death of the second Adam was to be imputed, the sin of the first Adam should first be imputed.

And at last, by that power of the mystery by which it would be given to them to live in Christ, by that same account of imputation they should be reckoned to have been first dead in Adam.

Those sins which went before the sin of Adam were the very same sins, unless my conjecture deceives me, which the Apostle above, in chapter 3 of this epistle, called foregoing sins, προγεγονότα ἁμαρτήματα, when he says that God set forth Jesus Christ as a propitiation through faith in his blood, for a demonstration of his justice, in passing over the sins which went before, διὰ τὴν πάρεσιν τῶν προγεγονότων ἁμαρτημάτων.

Which sins, to wit, null and void from the beginning, because they were committed before the law and before Adam, had gained force by the subsequent act of Adam.

And upon them had been sprinkled the stain of imputation from the sin of Adam, which the blood of Christ would wash away.

As though Jesus Christ would seem to have been set forth for this, that he might pass over and destroy only the sins committed against the law published by Moses, that he might extinguish only the law of Moses, against which the Jews alone had sinned, and not that he might above all pass over, and especially extinguish, the sins committed against the law given to Adam, and first of all repeal that law, against which not only the Jews, but all men, had sinned.

The whole of his business was with Adam.

By that account Christ is called, not a second Moses, but a second Adam.

Nor did the Apostle understand Moses, or speak of Moses, in this place, except in so far as that prince of the Jews, in the transgression of whose law the Jews alone sinned, depended upon Adam, received his origin from Adam, and was derived from Adam, not only the first parent of the Jews, but also the mystical prince of all men, namely the one in whom, or in whose transgression, all men sinned.

They were not imputed of themselves to the authors of them, but were imputed to them mystically, backward, from the sin of Adam, so that Jesus Christ, set forth as a propitiation for this end, might pass over those sins, and, in that bosom of his, the bosom of absolution and of grace, might receive the authors of them.

But you will say: How can it be reckoned, and how can it be thought, that those men who are to be understood to have gone before Adam sinned after the likeness of the transgression of Adam, and that death, out of that transgression, reigned backward upon them?

I ask, on the other side: How, by that transgression of Adam, by that original sin, is all nature reckoned and thought to be corrupted, and all creation reckoned and thought to be shaken?

How are men reckoned and thought to have sinned in the sin of Adam, I do not say infants, but men not even yet born?

For that saying, All men have sinned in Adam, denotes that all men collectively, taken in the species, and the whole species, have sinned in Adam, and therefore the men of all times and of all ages.

Death in Adam passed upon all men.

That is to say, death, from the time when it struck Adam, passed upon the whole human race.

Surely those first men, created before Adam, are to be understood to have sinned in Adam, and to have undergone the condemnation of death in Adam, by the same reasoning by which men not even yet born are thought to have sinned in him, and are reckoned to have died in him.

I ask likewise: How is the sin of Adam reckoned and thought to have been imputed to those Gentile men who were born from Adam, or after Adam?

How is death reckoned to have reigned upon them out of the sin of Adam?

I ask, I say, how those Gentiles begotten after Adam are to be reckoned to have sinned after the likeness of the transgression of Adam, and how they are thought to have died after the likeness of the death that belongs to Adam.

Those Gentiles, I say, whom, on the hypothesis of the Pre-Adamites, I set down as sprung not from Adam, but from men created before Adam.

To them there never came, even by hearsay, either the God of Adam, or the law of God given to Adam, or the sin and the death of Adam, nor indeed Adam himself.

And their case, for that reason, in these imputations that belong to Adam, is altogether equal, and is the same, as the case of the Gentiles created before Adam.

To those Gentiles, certainly, neither that God of Adam, nor Adam himself, was ever made known.

It will be shown a little further down, however, that the sin of Adam was not imputed to those Gentiles begotten after Adam for this reason, that Adam begot them.

Death reigned from Adam.

Death reigned from that transgression of the law of God which Adam broke through.

Death reigned from Adam, because sin began to be imputed from Adam.

Death reigned from Adam, and passed upon all men, so that it might punish with condemnation the sin of Adam, and the sins of all the men who had sinned in him.

Death reigned from Adam until Moses.

But that imputation of the transgression of Adam had prevailed so far, that the death which followed from the condemnation of it reigned not only over those who thereafter, and after Adam, sinned after the manner of that transgression, after the manner of a sin that was imputed, but also reigned backward over those who had sinned backward, not after the likeness of the transgression of Adam, but after the likeness of a sin that was not imputed, such a sin as existed before that law which Adam violated.

But that Adam was a type, yet a type set opposite to the Adam who was to come, that is, to Jesus Christ.

That one was the first Adam.

This one is the second Adam.

Just as, through that first Adam, the sin which arose from the transgression of the law of God entered into the world, and death through sin, so also, through this second Adam, absolution from that sin entered into the world, and, through that absolution, life.

Just as death passed upon all men, in that first Adam in whom all have sinned, so also life passed upon all men, in this second Adam, in whom all came out guiltless of the sin of Adam.

And finally, just as the death which prevailed from the sin of the first Adam reigned over those men who had not sinned after the likeness of a sin that was imputed, but who had sinned after the likeness of the sins that went before, that is, of sins not imputed, such as were the sins done before the law, by the same reasoning the life which prevailed through that grace of absolution, which the second Adam procured for the human race, reigned over those same men.

Or, what comes to the same thing, Christ, set forth by God as a propitiation to this end, passed over and blotted out those sins that went before, sins stained with the guilt, and with the imputation, of the sin of Adam.

This is the complete comparison between both Adams, the first and the second.

It is objected that Adam is commonly called the first man.

But the answer will be an easy one, if we say that Adam is the first man in the same sense in which Christ is called, and is, the second man.

Adam and Christ, that is to say, are spoken of in relation to one another, and as types.

Adam and Christ have been set before men as two opposite terms of imputation.

Let us compare the roots of that tree, which are fastened down into the earth and into Tartarus itself, to those men created before Adam, from the beginning of the times, the knowledge of whom has been buried, and hidden by the ignorance of the ages.

Let us compare, finally, the trunk of that tree to those men who came in between, from Adam to Christ.

The first is Adam.

Let us set Adam as the first shoot, grafted first into that trunk, a shoot which, with its own sap of sin and of death, has infected the whole tree, from the lowest roots right up to the highest tops of the branches.

Let us set down, I say, those two plants let into that trunk, between the roots and the branches of the tree, such as we have set Adam and Christ to be, between those men who were created from the beginning, and those who shall be begotten onward right up to the end.

Let us learn thoroughly from this, at last, that just as it was not necessary that the second and the last Adam should have been the last of all men, in order that he might take in under his righteousness only the men who had gone before, so neither was it necessary that the Adam who went before, and the first Adam, should have been the first of all men, in order that he might shut up under his sin only the men who were yet to come.

Let us learn, I say, that Adam is called the first man in the same sense in which Christ is called the second man.

Nay, you will say, Adam is not called the first man on that ground only.

I answer that Adam can likewise be called the first, and the father of all men, inasmuch as all men have sinned in him, and inasmuch as he is the first, and the father, of all sinners.

By a like reasoning Abraham is called the father of all who believe, and even the father of Adam himself, inasmuch as Adam believed, and inasmuch as he was justified out of faith.

By a like argument Adam is named the first, and the father of all men, because he is the first man who sinned, because he is the father of all the men who have sinned, because sins were imputed to all men out of the sin of Adam, because all men have sinned in Adam.

Nor indeed was it necessary that all men should have drawn their origin from Adam, in order that all should be reckoned to have sinned in Adam, or in order that the sin of Adam should be imputed to them.

The natural and material vice of sin is certainly derived by transmission, that is, from the vice of human nature, and from that same matter out of which Adam himself also was formed.

But the vice of imputation, or the imputation itself of the sin of Adam, which is purely intellectual, flowed out from the transgression of the law which Adam violated, with no natural generation brought in to do it, inasmuch as the transgression of Adam is understood to have been poured out, in a mystical way, upon all those things which lay under the imputation that belongs to Adam.

But that that imputation out of the sin of Adam did not flow into all men out of the seed of Adam is shown most clearly by the example of the whole world, to which the sin of Adam was equally imputed.

For the earth was cursed on account of the sin of Adam, and the whole world received the stain of imputation out of that sin.

But no one would say that the world was sprung from Adam, or was born of Adam.

It is enough, surely, to have believed that Adam took upon himself the mystical person of the whole world and of all men.

The law of God, once it had been signified to that Adam, as to the syndic and the defender of all created things, would be reckoned as signified to the whole world and to all men.

The sin of that man, I say, would be imputed to all men, to those of the past, to those of the present, and to those of the future, in the same way in which the faith that comes from Abraham was imputed to all the faithful, to those of the past, to those of the present, and to those of the future, and in the same way, likewise, in which the obedience of Christ, by which he balanced the part of Adam, was imputed to all men, to those of the past, to those of the present, and to those of the future.

For it is not concluded from this, as is commonly received, that all men are sprung from Adam.

He did not say, Since we are the offspring of Adam.

For he was addressing not the Jews, but the Gentile Athenians, and he had in view not that particular creation of Adam, by which God, in Adam, fashioned and formed for himself, in a way peculiar to them, sons who were the Jews, but that general creation, by which God created nature itself, and all men, after his own image, and according to which image all men, without distinction, are called the offspring of God.

I have completed what I had to say upon these verses of the Apostle, concerning the imputation of sin, and concerning the reign of death, from Adam, and also concerning those men who had not sinned after the likeness of the transgression of Adam, whom I have set down as having sinned before Adam.

Yet, although I had this doubt in my mind, yet durst I not speak any thing of it, which did not rellish of that received opinion, concerning Adam created first of all men; till I met with the 12, 13, 14 verses of the 5 ch.

But so soon as I knew by these verses of the Apostle, that sin was in the world before it was imputed; and when I knew, and that certainly, that sin began from Adam to be imputed, I took heart, and found all this dispute so solid, that I passed through it with less fear.

I found men, who beyond that imputation of sin, which had its original from Adam, had indeed sinned; but their sin was not imputed to them, according to the similitude of Adam, to whom first of all sin was imputed, and so imputed, that it was reputed a crime to him, and to all men, and turned to death.

A tryal of which I put forth in that Essay, which for that purpose I did compose, for the clearing of those verses of the Apostle; Nor considering the bulk of the work could I then make an end; Now I intend still by way of Essay to open the body of Divinity it self, by which the Doctrine of the Gospel, upon presupposition of men before Adam, may be laid open more at large, and that it may appear that this Tenet is no ways disadvantagious to our faith, which is in Christ; nay that it unrevelled it from a great many niceties, with which it's entangled, and does almost in every place make it clearer to our eyes and minds; Which I promise, without boasting: Whether I do it, and bring it to passe, let the courteous Reader judge.

But death reigned from Adam till Moses; likewise upon those who had not sinned according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the future.

First we must observe, that this is a singular place, where he intends to speak of that sin, commonly called original, which passed from Adam upon all men; nor is there any other observed in the whole Bible, through the whole Old and New Testament, where clearly and openly this sin of Adam is handled.

Hence it is proved, that Adam is meant by that man of whom the Apostle speaks, by whom sin entered into the world, and by sin death; by whom also death passed upon all men, as in him all men had sinned.

But for the same reason that the Apostle spoke of that sin of Adam, which brought guilt upon all men, it follows, that he likewise meant that Law in this place, the transgression of which caused the sin of Adam; as likewise that Law be understood to be the Law of Adam, which is to be thought to be given to all men: just so as all men in Adam are thought to have transgressed it.

Therefore we will banish hence the Mosaical Law, which had nothing to do with Original sin, because it was not given to Adam, nor to all men in Adam; and therefore the transgression of it could not be imputed to Adam, nor to all men in Adam.

If the Apostle meant here the Law of Adam, not the Law of Moses, sin was in the world until the Law of Adam by the same Apostle, and therefore before the Law of Adam; and it must be, that these men come to my presupposition, which sinned before the Law of Adam, or before Adam, which is the same.

Let us here leave Humane lawes, and only talk of that which God gave to Adam; And because by the mystical, not the natural dispensation of that Law, we become more than men, and are transformed into gods, Which is the end of this Systeme of Divinity and Christianity.

Likewise we shall handle that legal sin, which broke the Law of God: I say that first Law of God, which Adam the first man did transgress; And which men were reputed to have violated in Adam.

There are some persons who believe, that Warrs, Plagues, Fevers, and all the troop of natural corruptions, invaded the Earth by that imputation of the sin of Adam, which first transgressed the Law of God.

We shall therefore assert a double sin in Adam, a natural, and a legal.

A natural sin, naturally inherent in Adam, by the infirmity of his nature, and that peccant matter whereof he was made: Legal, which hapned and was imputed to Adam, by violation of the Law of God.

A natural sin, which infected the natural sense, matter, and nature of Adam: A legal, mystical, and spiritual, which broke the Law mystical & spiritual, which only in spirit and reason could be conceived.

Likewise we conceive a two-fold sin in all men, as we assert a two-fold sin in Adam, natural and legal.

A natural sin, which being innate in every person by reason of his peccant nature, is deeply and naturally rooted in their very bowels, Which proceeds from the fat of them, as is elegantly expressed in the 73 Psalm: A legal sin, which happened and was imputed to all men by the transgression of that Law which Adam did violate.

A natural sin, which had an influence upon the natural sense and corporeal matter of all men: Legal, which passed upon all men spiritually and mystically by the legal sin of Adam.

We conceive that mystical and spiritual passing of legal sin upon all men, by another sin which was Adams, to have been by imputation, by which we meant, that it was imputed to all men that Adam had sinned.

God had entered into a Covenant with Adam, and in him with all men, as being the Governour, Defender, and Prince of all men: That Covenant Adam broke, and that failing of Adam was ascribed to all men by that divine way of mysterie, by which all men are thought to be delinquents in the faults of their Governours, Defenders, or Princes.

Therefore I think not that the imputation of Adams sin did overthrow mans nature; nor do I again agree with those that will grant nothing to imputation.

The mystical imputation of the sin of Adam, is that which infected all men with the mystical stain of condemnation.

Therefore I think not from thence, because the sin of Adam was imputed to all men, that thence they came to be obnoxious to diseases; but by reason of their corrupt and rotten nature.

There came a fire out of the midst of them, to consume them; than which there is nothing more true; for it is a mans own nature which causes burnings in his heart: which that I may the more evidently prove by examples, It is not known that Adam who was the criminal, and (as they say) the first fountain of so great evils, was ever so much as troubled with the least disease all the Nine hundred and thirty years which he lived, unless you will believe him, who relates out of I do not know what Author, that Adam dyed of the Gout, with which he was troubled, and which he pretends that he had by succession from his Ancestors.

Therefore it is apparent, that neither suppositions of Law, nor intentions of mysterie could any jot indammage nature; nor that the imputation of Adams sin, which is altogether mystical and spiritual, was the cause of Plagues, Fevers, and other diseases which Nature causes in men; but that they happen by reason of vitious matter, and the frame of their creation, which is subject to corruption.

And it is the fashion of all Inconveniences, that one draws another; there are not those wanting, who affirm, That if Adam had not sinned, men should never have dyed: as if immortality, which is an eternal life, and which only a new Creation could beget, as only having the power of immortality in it, could have been bestowed upon men, by the force and vertue of the first Creation, which by its nature is subject to corruption and death, and that men should not have dyed, who (as the Schools say) are naturally corruptible, and were created mortal.

Nay, say they, God said to Adam, Eat not of the tree of good and evil: for on that day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death.

Therefore gather they, If death was given as a punnishment to Adam on that day wherein he transgressed the Law of God, Adam should have never dyed, if he had never sinned.

The same is to be thought to have happened to Adam, being condemned by the Law of God, which happened to other men condemned by the Laws of men.

Adam should have dyed a natural death, and by a cause meerly natural, since he was made up of matter corruptible and mortal.

Adam dyed likewise a legal death by the condemnation of the Law, at which time he broke the Law of God.

The natural death of Adam followed the natural sin of Adam, and the infirmity of his corruption, springing from the corruptible matter whereof he was made.

Legal sin made the legal death of Adam.

This shall be evidently proved by Adam himself; God had said to Adam, Whatsoever day then eatest, thou shalt die the death: Therefore Adam is thought to have died the very same day, the very same minute wherein he transgressed the Law of God: And yet Adam died neither naturally nor bodily that minute or that day; For we know that he lived Nine hundred years after he sinned.

Therefore we shall understand that Adam dyed when he transgressed the Law of God a legal and a spiritual death, which only could be conceived in thought.

Adam dyed a legal & spiritual death when he transgressed the Law of God.

Adam died a natural and a corporeal death when he had lived Nine hundred and thirty years, and in that set hour where the natural bounds of his life was fixed.

But we shall more easily understand that Adam dyed the death, and that a spiritual death was added to his natural, if we review other condemnations decreed by God, both against Adam and against Eve, and against the Serpent, after, and for the transgression of Adam.

This punishment was decreed for Adam after his sin, In labour shalt thou eat of the earth all the days of thy life: But God had placed Adam before he sinned in Paradise, that he might cultivate it; Therefore that he might labour and manure the ground in Paradise before he sinned, and that by his labour he might eat of it, as he did labour and manure it, and by his labour did eat of it after his sinne.

So may we understand Adam to have dyed two manner of ways.

Therefore we shall think that there is a twofold death in all men, as we conceive to be in Adam.

Natural, which happens naturally to all men by their own imbred nature, which is corruptible and mortal: A Legal one, which smote all men that minute mystically when it was decreed against Adam.

A natural death, which followed mans natural sin: a Legal death, caused by the legal sin of men from the sin of Adam.

And truly, as the Law of creeping ordained against Serpents in the Law of Adam, did adde nothing to the reptile nature of Serpents but a condemnation meerly spiritual: so the Law of death added nothing to the mortal nature of men, except that condemnation of death which in thought and mystery is only conceived.

which the Kingly Prophet understood of natural death, the causes of which he ascribed to the substance and matter of men, not to the sin of Adam: adde to this, what St.

Of the Jews, who, without controversie, sprung from Adam: and of the Gentiles, which, according to my supposition, I hold to be created before Adam.

Of the Adamite Jews, and of the Gentiles before Adam.

But Adam is but a Type of Christ chief of the seed of Abraham, and of the Jews, I say, a type going before his prototype in order and time.

By which, the mystery of Adams finning is a presupposition of that mystery in which Christ died for the sin of Adam, and in which the mystery of election is perfected.

Therefore we must review the Original of that mystical Election according to the order and dispensation of time from Adam the first Father of the Jews.

And by the same argument, that salvation is from the Jews, salvation will appear to come from Adam the first Father of the Jews.

I say, from the very same Adam from whom likewise came condemnation.

Which salvation being propounded to all men in Adam, men never had received it, if Adam had not lost it.

Certainly, Regeneration which is the second Creation, the Salvation of men: and their Election took its Original from the Law which was given to Adam; and from that death which from the transgression of that Law did arise.

I say, from the death of Christ, which is an abolition of the first Creation, and which from Adam himself entered into force.

But by the same mystery, that the Original of Election flowed from Adam upon all Men, it was propagated by the same Adam, as from his Offspring, upon his Sons and Grand-children, all the branches of the Jews.

Therefore the Election of the Jews must be brought back to Adam, the first Father and the first head of the Jews.

And although the Jews are properly said to be the posterity of Judah, Jacob's fourth Son, yet taking the denomination largely, we shall call those Jews likewise who were begotten even from Adam unto Judah.

Therefore God elected the Jews, the Posterity of Adam and Abraham, because he was joynd to their Fathers Adam and Abraham; that is, because he formed the Jews in Adam, and blessed them in Abraham.

The promises of this mystical Election are found from Adam unto Moses, both before and after the Flood, repeated often and many wayes to the Fathers of the Jews; but confirmed more peculiarly to the Jews, in Moses by a Covenant, as Deut.

The Prophet alluded to that very clay of which Adam the first Father of the Jews was made.

In which God is said to have cast Adam out of the Paradise of pleasure, which was most choice Land, that he might till the ground of which he was made.

Ground not choice, but common, unclean, of which Adam and all other men were made; for common, and not elect, and unclean, are the same, Act.

And for the same cause for which Adam was made of common and impure clay, God is said to have found Israel, in a place of horror, and wast wilderness, Deuteronom.

And by no more distinguishing & congruous difference could the Gentiles have been noted different in stock and Original from the Jews, thby such a presupposition which grants the original of the Gentiles, or of the first men to have such a beginning as was determinable from Adam, and accounts them created many Ages before Adam; and, which again affirms, that the Jews were later, and created in their first Father Adam, from whom to us according to the vulgar account, there is no more then five thousand six hundred and seventeen yeers.

God formed the Jews in Adam, as he took them in Abraham and led them into Canaan, of whom Isaias in the 41 Chapter, And thou Israel, my servant, the seed of Abraham my friend, since I took thee from the furthest parts of the earth, and took thee from far.

God formed the Jews in Adam, when he formed Adam, the first Father of the Jews, and made him, in the fashioning of him, the first Author and Father of them.

But not by his word, but of wrought clay, the Lord made Adam, Gen.

Which Chapter peculiarly handles the creation of Adam, and the framing of the Jews in Adam.

Whose Historie Moses being about to write, began it from the dust of Adam; the first father of the Jews, as is usual amongst all Historiographers who write the Historie of their Nation, to begin from the first Authors of them.

And God made Adam of the dust of the earth, saith Gen: Chap.

He did not create Adam by his word, but made him with his hand out of the dust of the earth.

That dust of which the Lord framed Adam, was as the clay in the hand of the Potter, as Ieremiah speaks to this purpose.

Certainly Adam in the genealogie of Christ is called the first, and the Father of the Jews, where Christ is derived from Adam, in the third Chapter of the gospel according to St.

Where take good notice, that Adam the first author, the first Father of the linage of the Jews is called the son of God.

Adam then was the son of God.

For which reason all the Jews descended from Adam; that is; the sons of Adam, made by God, and the work of his hands in Adam, are calld the sons of God.

But why may I not likewise call the Jews the sons of Adam, since they are also called the sons of Jacob, the sons of Isaac, the sons of Abraham?

I say, for the same reason as Adam was the Father of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The Jews by name are called the sons of Adam, Psalm 58.

If you truly speak justice, and judge rightly, ye sons of Adam, for ye work wickedness in your heart, and your hands work injustice upon the earth.

The Kingly Prophet in this place reproves the Jews, whom according to the Hebrew text, he calls the sons of Adam, because professing justice with their mouths they judged wickedness, and in their heart and affections wrought the wickedness of the Gentiles.

Here the Jews are understood by the sons of Adam, who spake justice with their mouthes, but judged wickedly and wrought iniquities in their heart, and framed injustice in the Land holy and elect, which is as much to the Jews, as to live like Gentiles.

And David, to deterre the sons of Adam, the Jews, from such deeds of the Gentiles, shows them what the Gentiles were, and what punishment they were to expect for their wickedness in the same Psalm, and in the next words, They erre, say they, being sinners from the womb; they are sinners from their from their nativity; they have spoken false things: which read thus in that place, That he meant, they were sinners from the womb, in the same sense as St.

For theons of Adam, that is, the Jews, are here s [gap]eaking justice, and truly.

If you truly speak justice, ye sons of Adam.

Therefore the Jews who truly speak justice, are the sons of Adam, The sinners the Gentiles, who spake lyes.

which is the song of Moses, in which the Jews are prophetically restored into their Land, and are separated from all the People and Nations: but the people and the Gentiles separated from the Jews) And whom the Jews, being in the midst of them, shall sometime separate) are placed on this side and that side, bordering upon the Jews, where Moses says, The most high divided the Nations, when he separated the sons of Adam, he appointed their bounds according to the number of Israel: or, which is the same, according to the twelve Tribes of the Jews, which is the number of the sons of Israel.

That the Sons of Adam, or the Jews, were separated from the Egyptians and the Assyrians, betwixt whom being placed, they are parted from them by the Rivers Nilus and Euphraies, is briefly set down in that Geographick Table which is inserted in the third Chapter of this Book.

Therefore the Sons of Adam are set apart in the Song of Moses: The Nations divided by interposition of the Jews, are the Egyptians and Assyrians, Gentile [gap].

The Jews are called the sons of Adam upon the same account as Adam is called the father of the Jews, Isaiah 43.

Which the Prophet meant of the father of the Jews, and not of the Gentiles; for he spake only to Israel, and for that reason he said, Thy father O Israel, who was not likewise the father of the Gentiles: that first father of the Jews is without doubt Adam, because there was no sinner before him, nor none after him can be understood.

But let us hear Hosea the Interpreter of Isaiah in the sixth Chapter of his Prophesie where God layes the same reproach against the Jews, They, says he, have transgressed my Covenant as Adam did.

Adam, then as he was the Father of the Jews, so was he the Prototype of the Jews sin, according to whose example, the Jews were sinners begotten a sinful by father transgressed the Covenant of God: and as Adam is the first Father of the Jews, so the Jews are all the sons of Adam: as likewise Adam was the son of God, and derived from God, Wo be to the Nations that riseth up against my kindred.

On the contrary, The Gentiles were called strangers, who did not derive themselves from God and Adam: to which strangers and Gentiles, it was not lawful for the Jews to approach, Act.

You shall finde the species of the Jews peculiarly made and formed by God in Adam; you shall finde the species of the Gentiles promiscuously created with the rest of the creatures in the same day of Creation, which is diligently to be observed, that a day did not distinguish them whom the nature of their Creation did not distinguish.

The Jews were properly and apart from all other things created the frame and work of the second Creation in Adam: the Gentiles properly were the promiscuous buds of the first Creation, together with all things else created, and the off-spring of that earth which likewise brought forth other creatures.

David spoke palpable to the Gentiles, sons of men, the Inhabitants of all the earth, whom he likewise calls born upon the earth to distinguish them from the Jews, who were not born upon the earth, or born from the earth, as the Gentiles, who were not created in the beginning of things, but formed out of the clay in Adam.

I say, to their Fathers who were derived from Adam: Which God having a regard to, threatens the Jews, Deut.

He says thy Fathers indeterminately, in which are comprehended Adam himself, the first Father and clay of the Jews.

Therefore all Nations were not known by Adam, and the posterity of Adam, the Fathers of the Jews according to Moses himself, yea, were utterly unknown.

says he, The servant born in thy house, and bought with thy money shall be circumcised, and whatsoever of your own linage; that is to say, whatsoever is not of the stock of Adam, who was the stock of Abraham.

The strangers were sprung from another stock, then either Adams or Abrahams.

And that thou maist know, & grant thy self, that the linage of Abraham in this place is to be recalled to Adam the father of Abraham, read what is written in the end of that 17 Chap.

Abram then had domesticks his own Country people, and those which were born in his house: that is to say, of of the same stock of Adam, as he was born; as also those that were bought, who were of another stock and linage different from that of Abraham, and who had not their original from Adam, the stock of Abraham, or which is the same with Adamits, whom notwithstanding Abraham is said to have circumcised, as if they had been Adamits, and of the stock of Abraham.

For their proper and certain original and stock is in Adam, from a beginning very well known, and not very far distant, and derived by a continual line to these days, by a line as yet different from the Gentiles.

We have Josephus a Jew himself, and a most acute Writer of the affaires of the Jews, witness of this truth: where against Appion he asserts the proper original of his own Nation, which he there calls a conjunction, and which in his Jewish antiquities he likewise derives from Adam.

But the son of man simply so called, was a Jew, who is likewise called the son of Adam, and the son of Isch; that is to say, the son of Adam, the first father of the Jews, and only author of that Nation, who is called Isch, a man by way of eminence, and his Wise called Ischa, Gen.

Here observe, that the Edomites having lost their liberty by falling off from the sons of Adam, are again restored, as brethren of the Jews, and of the same descent.

All the Jews are called brethren, because likewise derived from Adam, and all begoten of Adam.

But the Gentiles were neither brethren amongst the Jews, nor thought the brethren of the Jews; for all of them were almost of divers fathers, because men innumerable were at first created, for which they were called sons of men, to distinguish them from the Jews, who were all the sons of Adam, and therefore were called sons of men.

The Gentiles were not numbred amongst the brethren of the Jews, because they were esteemed aliens, strangers of a diverse stock from the sons of Adam, Thou canst not make one King who is of another stock, but only thy brother; says God to the Jews, Deut.

This they gain, that without choice, believing every thing, no body believes them in any thing; for where reason is absolutely weakened, there Faith is quite destroyed, especially in those things where there is a natural, rational, or historical connexion: such as are related in the first Chapter of Genesis, of the Creation of the first men, of the framing of Adam, and of the framing of Eve his Wife, as also of Cain and Abel, brothers: the chief heads of which I shall only touch here.

[gap] Oenesis speaks here of the species [gap] them, and relates the individuals, Mate and Pemale: he declares, that every Male was created with the Female, for the Male and Female are taken for one man: for he manifests that without interruption and by one action and the same tenour of creation, man were created by God, Male and Female, they two being one man: but Genesis called that one man, being Male and Female, Adam: for if the Scripture at any time has occasion to mention one man indifferently, or all mankinde, it uses to express them all in the same word, by the proper name of Adam.

But if we affirm Adam to be the first and the only man by whom afterwards the colonies of men were drawn out and dispersed over the earth, to what purpose in that vast space of time in which the whole earth must needs receive its people from one man: I say, to what purpose should the Countries of Mesopotamia, the Antipodes, bring forth grass and herbs?

Certainly, if the beasts of the Land of Canaan had been so much multiplied against so many hundred thousand Jews that dwelt in't: much more should they have been multiplied against Adam and Eve, being alone upon the whole earth.

But because the nation of the Jews was separate and set apart from all the Nations of the earth, being elected by God, That it might be to him a peculiar people of all the nations upon the earth, which we proved our of the 7 of Deut Therefore the author of the Pentateuch, who was himself a Jew, whose end it was to write the original, the deduction, the Laws and Chronologie of his own Nation apart from the creation of the whole world, and of all Nations, begins the particular framing of the first Jew, from whom that peculiar and choice Nation was derived; that is, of them by whom salvation should be communicated to all Nations in Christ, as to all Nations had come perdition from Adam.

And God framed Adam, Gen.

Man, that is, Adam; But because this Narration begins with and, it is ordinarily received as a more special explanation of the creation of that man in his kind of whom Moses spake in the Ch.

Hence is it chiefly prefumed, that this framing of Adam was not that which is mentioned in the former Chapter of Gen.

Let us tell every minute in which God was pleased to declare that all his works were performed with time, though he could have done them without time, We shal find no such thing in the first creation of men, nor the action of the creation of male and female interrupted, as it is a long space betwixt the forming of Adam and Eve.

It is first said, That God created Adam of the clay of the earth: Where observe, that God, who in the first Chapter created man not simply of the earth, but of that first matter of which he made the earth; in this second Chapter framed Adam of the dust of the earth.

Observe that God, I say, who was in the first Chapter the Creator of man, was in the second the framer of Adam.

The maker of Israel, because the maker of Adam, the first Father of Israel.

Secondly, it is said, That God breathed upon the face of Adam the breath of life.

Understand by that beginning, not of that time in which God made Adam, but of that beginning long before, which is spoken from the beginning of the first Chapter of Genesis: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Certainly, if this Adam had been he who was created in the beginning, three days after the earth was created, Genesis had not spoken of this Adam whom the Lord carryed into Paradise, God had planted Paradise from the beginning: Nay rather upon the third day he made Paradise; for the third day dry land appeared, and Paradise was planted, and the sixth day man was created in his kind.

Fourthly, it is written, that God gave this Adam laws, what he should eat, what he should not eat, what he should do, what he should shun.

The tree of knowledge of good and evil was forbidden Adam, the first man of the second creation, which is mentioned in the second Chapter, Thou mayest eat of every tree in the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat; For in the day that thou eatest of it, thou shalt dye the death: But those being divers ordinances, argue different times.

Fifthly, the Scripture stammeringly shews us, That God had learned, as it were by experience, in a certain time passed, That Adam being without a helper, had neither tilled, nor conveniently kept the Garden.

Sixthly, God brought to Adam all the creatures of the earth, and all the fowls of heaven.

Nor is it possible that Adam could in one half of a day see all the creatures of the earth, and the fowls of heaven, and then premeditately give every one of them a convenient name; which neither in pronouncing of their names, not in a continual rehearsing of them, he could have performed in so short a time.

Eighthly, God sent a deep steep upon Adam, and when he had slept a long and deep sleep, God took one of his ribs, and filled up the flesh for it.

Nor did the Grecian Jews believe that the rib of Adam was made a woman the same day that Adam was made; for they affirm, That Adam was made in the New Moon, that is, the first day of the Moon.

Tenthly, God brought Eve to Adam.

Nor is it to be oversliped, that Adam called that Female a woman, as being taken out of a man, nor called her man, as the females were in the first creation.

The first, is Adam.

The first was Adam, whose mother was the Earth, God his father.

God was father both to Adam and Christ, under whose imputation all the world was sometimes to fall.

God was the father, Adam, was the son of God.

Adam was a sinner, Christ was just.

In all other things Adam and Christ were alike.

Adam was a type of Christ, and opposite to Christ.

Isaac was a type of Christ, and in the middle 'twixt Adam and Christ.

Christ was a Prototype of Isaac, and an Antitype of Adam.

The common Opinion is, That Adam was created by God of a full age, of the perfect stature of a man, and that the day wherein he was created, he might be a man of thirty yeers of age, at which age, Christ died.

Truely, I shall rather think, that Adam was in all things like Christ, except the justice of Christ; as Christ was made in all things like Adam, except the sin of Adam: and that Adam not straight, nor the first day, but by leisure, and by several ages, successively grew from infancy and youth to man's estate, by as many degrees as Christ arived at the same state at which Isaac arived at it, being himself likewise miraculously brought forth: and as other men begotten after the ordinary manner, arise from children to be men.

And he shall finde this to be most probable, whosoever shall seriously peruse the History of Adam, from the framing of him, till the framing of his wife Eve; for God framed Adam out of Paradise, whom he afterwards carried into Paradise, that he might manure it, says Genesis.

Hence I gather, that Adam was framed an Infant without Paradise, because I read, that he was carried into Paradise to till it, at such time of his age and strength as he was able to perform it.

I think that Adam was brought to that Holy Land, even as I finde Abraham led to the same Land: that Adam might have the first natural possession of it, the first and the father of all the Jews, and which by a stricter title, and a more peculiar obligation, God might afterwards promise & give Abraham, and to the Jews his posterity, being Adam's seed, and his own.

Adam being a young man and cultivating of Paradise, God thought of giving him a Wife; and being as it were uncertain whom he should bestow upon him, he brought unto him all the creatures of the earth, and all the Fowls of heaven, that he might see what he would call them: for every thing whatsoever Adam called it, that is the name thereof.

Here I imagine two things: first, because it is said; that he might see what Adam would call them; that he might see, denotes, that Adam made use of his reason in the proper and determinate Names, which he gave to all the living creatures and fowls.

And hence I gather, That Adam being now of ripe age, was taught the natural history of all Creatures and Fowls.

As also Rabbi Moses Ben-Maymon, makes mention of the books of his Predecessors, which make relation of Adam's Master, whose name, say they, was Somboscer.

Then it is written, all which Adam called any living thing; that is the name of it.

Hence I guess, that at what time Adam did conceive the nature of all creatures and fowls, he at the same time set them down in writing, and made a book of all their names; for how could it come to passe, that every thing which Adam called any thing, should be the name of it, unlesse Adam at the same time when he named them, had then composed a Dictionary of them for the use of posterity, least Adam himself should have forgotten all those living creatures and fowls, which he was never afterwards to see?

Adam called by their names all creatures, and all Fowls, and all Beasts of the earth.

But for Adam, says Genesis, was not found a helper like to himself.

It would be absurd to think, that a helper was sought for Adam amongst the Beasts of the earth, and the Fowls of heaven.

This then is the meaning of Genesis, That Adam did not find a helper amongst the Females of those creatures, that is, the Gentiles; For Adam such an excellent man, who was Isch, an excellent wife must be chosen, who should be Ischa, and not an ordinary and Gentile-woman.

Therefore a wife was framed for Adam.

But, as a house does not arise from the bottom, nor is perfected so soon, as in one day to be inhabited: so do I believe that Eve was not made so perfect in that very day wherein she was taken out of the side of Adam, that she was marriageable.

Besides, Eve was a mystical figure of the Church of Christ, for that same reason as we laid before Adam was a type of Christ.

Yea, and that is most certain, that the marriage of Adam and Eve was a Sacrament and mystery, signifying that unanimous conjunction by which God adheres to his Church.

I guesse that Eve, the wife of Adam, grew from her infancle to ripe age by little and little, as a house grows, as trees grow, which are called the sprouts of the field, from twigs to large branches: so as we read in this place the Church did, which was the Spouse of Christ.

The Lord brought Eve to Adam.

I guesse that Eve being now of age, and ready for a man, was brought to Adam at that same time when Adam was of ripe age about the three and thirtieth year of his age: so as Adam may be thought to have sinned in the same year of his age as Christ dyed for the sinne of Adam.

Which things if they be so, what difference was there betwixt the forming of Adam and building of Eve, which are rehearsed in the second Chapter of Genesis, and the creation of man, whom God created male and female upon the sixth day of the creation, which is made mention of Chapter 1.

That except the framing of Adam, who was made of the dust of the earth; and except the building of Eve, which was taken out of the side of Adam: it is probable in all other things, that they grew and liued as other men who were created long before; yea, after the same manner as we know that Christ the Antitype of Adam, conceived after a more wonderfull manner, did live and grow.

After Adam had sinned, he was afraid, because he was naked.

And God made coats of skins for Adam and his wife, and clothed them with the skins of cattle which had been killed.

Adam knew his wise Eve, and she conceived and bare Cain her first-born, then Abel her younger son.

And Adam divided his substance among his children, being men of age, as men do who are under the verge of the Civil Law.

Moreover, it is probable that Adam lived either in that time in an inclosed Village, or a fenced City.

Besides in this place of Genesis, which is the proper History of the Jews, no other Jews are said to be either born or made, but Adam, Eve, and Cain: and those Jews, of whm we doubt not.

Certainly, if not of his Father Adams Family, who was the first Father of the Jews, which Cain was not able to do; because Adam had as yet begotten no daughters: He must marry a wife of the daughters of the Gentiles, who was sprung from the men of the first creation.

Adam then had no children, Abel was killed, Cain fled.

And Adam then being one hundred and thirty years old, begat Seth, whom so soon as Eve had born, Adam said, God has given me another seed for Abel whom Cain slew.

By which words it is manifest, that Adam had no seed instead of Abel, til the hundred and thirtieth year of his age.

Genesis says beside, And the days of Adam, after he begot Seth, were eight hundred years; and he begat sons and daughters.

Which without doubt he would have spoken concerning the time betwixt Seth and Abel, if Adam had in that time begotten any sons or daughters.

On the other side we have seen Adam, from whom the Nation of the Jews is derived, created apart from those first men created in the first Chapter, and from the men of the first creation.

Which, that I may the more clearly illustrate▪ we have seen Adam and Eve otherways created by God, than the Gentiles were created, and the men of the first creation.

We have seen Cain banished from the house of his Father Adam, and the Family of God, a renegado to the remote and strange Gentiles.

Lastly, we have seen out of Genesis, and out of other choice places of both the Testaments, th [gap] multitudes of proofs by which it is abundant [gap] proved that the Gentiles are different from Adam and from the Jews of his posterity.

However it comes to pass, it will always appear, that those myriads I spoke of will alwayes much exceed, in the least computation, that beginning of the creation which is alwayes set down in Adam.

The invisible things of that true God, were first revealed to the Jews, to whom God first manifested and declared himself, to them first in Adam, and afterwards in the rest of the Patriarchs of the Jews.

Solon, who was the wisest thought, and the learnedst man of his age; and whose times are just betwixt ours and Adams, and whom we think not very far distant from us, and who told, as is credible to the Egyptian, the History of many thousand years, could he have been ignorant of the beginning of the world, if it had been from Adam, from whom, to Solons time, were not as yet passed three thousand years?

Do we think that those Philosophers were such blockheads, that they would not have found themselves grosly gulled and abused in Histories of so many thousand years ago, if they had but smelled, or had the least hint that the world was so lately made, and only from the time of Adam?

But the Egyptians wisdom was the same with the Chaldaeans; for it consisted chiefly in Astronomy, Astrology and Magick: It will be worth while here to consider, whether or no it was profitable for the Chaldeans to gain that exact knowledge of those sciences which they had in the time of Abraham, in that space which was betwixt the creation of Adam and Abraham, and which Scaliger according to the Jewish Greeks, reckoned to be a thousand nine hundred and eight years; And whether or no the Egyptians could perfectly learn those sciences, as they had them in Moses time, in that thousand years space which is reckoned from Adam to Moses his writing of Exodus, and which, according to the former Authors is, two thousand four hundred and fifty three years.

And let us seriously consider whether or no (which we undertook to demonstrate) the Chaldaeans and Egyptians could learn all those Sciences, which is betwixt Adam, and Abraham the Chaldaean, or Moses the Egyptian.

They that say the world was created with Adam, say, That Adam the first hour he was made, had all sciences, arts, and disciplines perfectly, which afterwards without any trouble or experiment, nor no long processe of time, he taught his posterity.

Adam, as we said before, being made perfect, had in him all perfections belonging to a man, but notwithstanding gained nothing by that perfection, which might exceed that perfection and his own humanity: But Adam had exceeded the perfection of all humanitie, if that day he was made he had perfectly known all arts and sciences.

Let us grant, that the world was made with Adam, it will not therefore follow, that all sciences and arts were framed with Adam.

Truly, in the beginning the prime causes and means of all sciences were in God, but the seeds of them were only sowed in Adam, which could not arise, but by meditation, reasoning with himself, by cultivating, and time.

Adam might attain all arts and sciences; but not for that cause he attained to them that minute he was born.

Besides, Adam could not understand any thing of things past, or judge of things to come, as a man, though most perfect, unlesse by knowledge or conjecture, or rather by consideration of things present, according to the common phrase, that there can be nothing in the knowledge or intellect of the most perfect man, which is not first his sense.

Adam could not subdivide the regions of heaven, which is the knowledge of the Sphere, but that he first must find out the regions of the earth, unlesse he had first traveled about the world, and viewed it.

But if Adam, as a man; yea in the integrity of his perfection, or before sin, which is the same thing, could not but by little and little, and succession of time, gain all sciences, arts, and disciplines: Certainly he must be far longer time in gaining them after his fall; especially according to their supposition, who think, that his mine was darkned and dulld by ignorance of all things.

Besides, according to them, there is so short a time betwixt the framing of Adam, and his sin, that Adam could know nothing but what cost him travel enough, yea the same travel and rate as all disciplines are sold for to sinful men.

Those which are scrupulously addicted to th [gap] books of Moses, use to referre the inventions oall arts, sciences, and disciplines, either to Adaem or his posterity; because in Moses there is no man read of before Adam.

I also believe, that the incomparable Prophet, according to his high knowledge of the Jewish affairs, wrote the Chronicle of the Jews, from the first original of them, and from Adam, the first author of that people, till his own times; as also the original of all things before Adam.

And hence I think it has come to passe, that the creation of the world is ended in one, in the first Chapter of Genesis; and that afterward, the framing of Adam, and building of Eve, are a little more particularly set down, and that after all that time which was betwixt Cam and Noah, is run over in the 4.

I doubted not to recall the creation of the first men to the beginnings of things, long before Adams time.

Yet, although Genesis have so briefly, nothing more brief, gone over the originals of things, yet we may gather from the same book, that the creation of the first men was far different, which is hinted at in the first Chapter, from the fashioning of Adam, the first father of the Jews; which is more largely set down in the second Chapter.

We hear no men named before Adam in Genesis; Therefore there were none before Adam.

And yet we deny that, that there was no men before Adam, because there are none named in Genes's.

As if Adam, who according to their supposition, was taught all arts at his making, should have been ignorant of Navigation, the most excellent of all arts, and most necessarie for the societie of men.

They also tell us the same story of Noahs planing the first Vine; because Moses tells us of no Vine planted before it: as if the earth, when it it was created, in the youth of the world, had not brought forth any Vines, the giver of mirth, and restorer of youth: Adam, being an excellent Husbandman, should have neglected the planting of Vines, the sweetest part of agriculture, and abandoned wine, which according to the Scripture, glads God and man.

And with like negligence they believe that there was no men before Adam, because there is none before him read of in Moses.

Nor is it taken notice of, that the design of Moses in setting down Adam, was not to mention the first of mankinde, but the Father of the Jews, whose peculiar Historie he wrote, and not the History of all Nations.

Truly the beginning of the Jews in Moses, and in Josephus both, is with Adam.

The Gentiles, I say, the births of divine creation from the beginning; and the Jews, the sons of divine architecture in Adam.

There is great errour in reading the Scripture many times, when that is taken more more generally, which ought to be particularly understood: as that of Adam, whom Moses made first Father of the Jews, and whom we hyberbolically call the first Father of all men.

I showed you before, that the Jews were framed in Adam, and esteemed the peculiar sons of God; that they were separated from all other Nations which God had created in the beginning.

Against the command of God, the Jews had admitted the Gentiles into their land; Who says Genesis, when they began to multiply upon the earth, the sons of God seeing the daughters of men that they were fair; or, which is the same, the sons of Adam, who were after called Jews, seeing the daughters of the Gentiles, took to themselves wives of all which they chose; and by that copulation Giants were begotten: For the Jews being made strong and lively by Gods late framing of them, and going in to the daughters of men, as strong men are begot by strong and divine seed, mixed with humane, begets Heroes: the sons of God lying with the daughters of men, begat Heroes, valiant men, as they are set down in that same place, by valiant and famous men in their age.

It repented God, being angry at the wickedness of the Jews, that he had made men, and wrought the clay of which he framed Adam, of whom the Jews were born, an earthie and corrupt generation of men.

The cogitation of whose heart was bent upon evil continually, at all times; that is, from their first beginning, both in Adam their Father, who had transgressed the commandement of God; and in themselves, who had likewise broken the covenant of God.

By the man whom he had created, understand the Jews, the posterity of Adam.

I say of that Adam whom he had created or framed, for creation and framing here is the same.

He said not, in which the chief of mankind was saved; but the chief of our stock or linage; that is, of the Jews: For there he speaks of the Jws, whom Iosephus calls his own, and his own stick bing a Jew himself: Who, I say, was the chief of the people of the Jews after the Foud; for Iosephus derives the first kindred of the Jews before the Flood, from Adam; by which it is very clear, that only the reliques of the Jews were saved in the Ark, and that the Family of the Jews was restored by Noe, who was the second beginner of that kindred after the Deluge.

Here to reckon those things which I set out before more at large, That is an inconsistent time which is reckoned from Adam to Abraham the Chaldaean, or to Moses the Egyptian, and it is unadvi [gap]edly set down to be sufficient to gain the knowledge of those arts which Abraham and Moses were exact in.

They are likewise very much deceived in the ordering and dispensing of all actions, since the beginning of the world, who affirm that the world was made with Adam.

Paul had meant in those places, which I mentioned before in the former chapters, where he said, that the mysterie of the Gospel was hid from eternal times and ages, to expresse a thing so much secret and remote, that the mystery had been hidden since the world was made with Adam, from whom to the Apostle was not above four thousand years.

Let it therefore be taken for good, that the creation of the world, which is said from eternity, by the authority of both Testaments, could by no means be undersood since Adam was made, according to the definition of both ages.

For it is known that the time betwixts and Adam is within account.

For the times from Adam are of a known period, without the account of ages.

Besides there is a great deal of difference betwixt those things that preceeded the beginning of all things, and those things which were before [gap] Adam.

I say, from that tradition which had set down the ages of Crows, Harts, and Rooks, of which the Antients doubted not, and which they could not affirm the certainty of, without many and frequent experiments: Neither had Hesiod, a most learned and elegant old Poet, vouchsafed to have described such idle stories in such excellent Verses; nor Ausonius after him, a sweet and acute Poet translated them, if both of them had thought that the beginning of things was to be reckoned from Adam, from whom to H [gap]siod there was not as yet passed the age of an Hart.

But on the other side, too negligently, by their leave, they rested upon Adam, and thought him alone the first parent of all men, because he is read the first in Moses.

The same negligence which possessed the first, pursued the successive Doctors of the Church; who knew no other men, but such as were begotten by Adam; Yea, they pronounced them Hereticks, that placed the Antipodes over against Adams posterity; because they must then think them the posterity of some body else.

Truly they would pity themselves, if they should hear or see those things which are discovered in the East and West Indies, in this clear-sighted age, as also a great many other Countries full of men; to which it is certain none of Adams posterity ever arived.

It is the manner of all men, who search out the Originals of Nations, to derive them after the flood from the Grandchildren of Noah, who were the Grandchildren of Adam.

But, says he, if the Americans are not Germans (the Norwegians and Germans were with him all one) now they shall be the Off-spring of no Nation; which is as much as to believe, with Aristotle, that they were from eternity; or born of the earth, as is reported of the Spartans; or of the Ocean, according to Homer; or that there were some men before Adam, as one in France lately dreamed.

Would he say they were from eternity, or sprung from Greenland it self, or cast out by the Ocean upon land, or founded by another than Adam?

The danger that he saw, was, that by this means he perceived the original sin of Adam was by this doctrine quite overthrown; because it is the common consent of all Divines, that only by traduction it could passe upon all men.

This then I must prove, and this is only my task, to make it appear that we needed not Adam for our Father, nor traduction of Adam to make us partakers of his sin, as we needed not that Christ should be our Father, and his traduction should make us partakers of that grace is by Christ, and all the following book shall be of this, which shall begin with the end of this.

God would have all men die in Christ, and sinne in Adam.

God framed Adam, the Father of the Jews, of common and impure earth, corruptible; to whom he gave his Law: which if he did violate, all men should be guilty in him, and condemned by that Law.

That so likewise condemnation might come upon all men by Adam, the father of the Jews.

But there was no need that men should by traduction be born of Christ, that in him they migdie; nor needed all men to be born of the descent of Adam, that in him all men might die.

All that mysterie, of salvation and condemnation of men, in Christ and Adam, made up the body of the mystery; that is, the spiritual and divine way, above nature, and which is ingendred in all men by intellect and mysterie, and not by nature.

And the Apostle taught us, that all men sinned, were guiltie, and were condemned in Adam, who sinned according to the similitude of his transgression, According to the similitude of the transgression of Adam.

Which that we may the better understand, we must more at large handle the sin of Adam, which is commonly called Original sin.

That sin is considered two manner of ways, either as sin, or as a guilt; as a sin, so it is inherent; as it is a guilt, it is adventitious, and passed from Adam upon them all.

The one is proper to all men; the other a stranger, and called the sin of Adam.

A formal sin, which is anothers, and is become a guilt; which was the disobedience of Adam imputed to all men: according to that of the Apostle, By the disobedience of one, many became sinners.

The formality of sin, which is a stranger, and transient, had its beginning from imputation, by the transgression of the Law which Adam did violate.

Such is that mystical Communion and society by which the faith of Abraham is imputed to all the faithful, And all the faithfull are called the Sons of Abraham, not the Sons of Nature; but the sons of Adoption, and mystical similitude, which did unite all things: According to that same Communion and mystical society, the sin of Adam was imputed to other men.

For although Adam was made by Gods hands, by a peculiar and choice way of framing, beyond other men: yet God had framed him, as in other places.

And in all things was Adam made like other men, with sin also.

Yea even as fin was a natural imperfection, to all inherent, and proper to Adam himself, and so to all men; And likewise as all men by reason of that society of sinning, were apt or suceptive of that guilt which came by the transgression of Adam.

It is commonly believed that the death of Christ was imputed to men, because the sin of Adam was imputed to them.

They are deceived that think so; Yea upon the contrary, the sin of Adam was purposely imputed to men, that the death of Christ might be imputed to them likewise; For Christ ought not to be referred to Adam, but Adam ought to be referred to Christ: For all things tend towards their end for which they are made: Christ was the end of all mysteries; therefore were all mysteries meerly for Christ, and not Christ for the mysteries.

Adam was a type of Christ, But Christ was a prototype of Adam.

Nor for any other cause was the sin of Adam imputed to men, than that the death of Christ, which appeals for all mens sins, and regenerates them, might be also imputed to them.

Secondly in the sin of Adam, as you shall read it in the Revelations, That Christ was a Lamb slain from the ordaining of the world.

Which you shall never find of Adam, because Adam ought to be referred to Christ, as the principle decree of God, and his own first type.

Hence also it happens, that the sin of Adam went before the death of Christ; And hence it comes to passe that the imputation of the sin of Adam, is thought the cause of the imputation of the death of Christ, though indeed by reason of the imputation of the death of Christ, the sin of Adam was imputed; Yea, because really and properly God, by the sin of Adam, made way to the Covenant of grace, which is by Jesus Christ: Therefore the first born reason of those imputations was in the death of Christ; the condition of which, the secondary imputation of Adam, sin must needs ensue, and as Christ was not imputed by Nature, but by the mere mystery of God, so was Adam imputed to men, not by nature but by the mere dispensation of the divine mystery.

Christ and Adam were types one of another, or rather antitypes, and by dissimilitude like one another, like because Adam & Christ are both imputed after the same manner by dissimilitude, because Christ was imputed for justice, Adam was imputed for sin; but justice and sin are quite different.

Adam and Christ were in these mystical imputations chief, the middle betwixt them was Abraham: The guilt of Adam was imputed to all men, that the expiation of that guilt might likewise be imputed to them; I say, that it might be imputed to them by faith in God, which is in Christ; such as Abraham first had, and it was imputed to him for Justice; But it is not writ for Abrahams own sake, that his faith was imputed to him for justice, but likewise for us, saith the Apostle, that is for all men, to whom it shall be imputed, believing in him that raised Jesus Christ from the dead, who was betrayed for the sins of men, and rose again for the justification of them.

The imputation of the sin of Adam, The imputation of the expiation of it by the death of Christ, And the imputation of the faith of Abraham, which was the mean or mid path by which we should passe from the sin of Adam, to that justification and sanctification which by the death of Christ, and his resurrection, is engendred in men.

There was then a continued imputation from the sin of Adam to the death of Christ, by the faith of Abraham.

And the whole mystery of mans redemption was accomplished in the persons of three Jews, Adam, Abraham, and Christ, accordnig as salvation comes to all the Nations by the Jews, according to the promise confirmed to Abraham, That in him all nations should be blessed, and in his seed.

Adam was the Father of Abraham according to the flesh, and according to the imputation of sin: he was likewise the Father of Christ, according to the flesh, without the defiling of the flesh.

Abraham was the Father of Christ, according to the blood, without the blemish of the blood, he was likewise the Father of Adam, according to the imputation of faith.

Christ was the Father of Adam and Abraham, according to the redemption and expiation of that sin which flowed from Adam, and was imputed to Abraham.

But the Gentiles are indeed the Sons both of Adam and Abraham, not naturally, but according to their engrafting and mystical adoption, according to which, Adam and Abraham being Jews were imputed to the Gentiles; that Christ being a Jew might be imputed to them also.

According to that mystical communion and conjunction, Adam and Abraham are called our Fathers, and we are said to be begotten in Christ; For these three men were common Representatives of all men, supposing the whole species.

But as Adam, Abraham, and Christ were all men: even so were all men one in Adam, Abraham, and Christ, by unity of similitude, and participation of the nature; as amongst Philosophers, all men participating of the same species are reputed one man: also, amongst Divines the whole species of men is believed to be deposited in those three, Adam, Abraham, and Christ.

In Adam, according to sin; in Abraham, according to faith; in Christ, according to redemption.

Mystical imputations agree with imputations politique, in that Adam, Abraham, and Christ, were the chief presidents, cautioners, and sureties for all mankind.

That whatsoever Adam should do as to the Law; Christ, in the business of Redemption; Abraham in matter of Faith, should stand firm.

Certainly Adam, of whom we chiefly here speak, was according to divine Law in an universal esteem, as a Prince in behalf of his people, Embassadors for a Kingdom or Commonwealth, or a President for the Universities.

And Adam was so ordained, being the Prince of all mankind; that so soon as he should transgresse the Law of God, he should not only be guilty himself, but make all men guilty likewise: for, as the Divines say, the act of Adam was not personal, but representative; that is, it was not the act of one person, but of a person represented others, as sustaining the person of all mankind.

God had obliged all men in that Covenant which he made with Adam, as with a security, a Procurer or Protector of them, that what he should sin in, they should also all be guilty.

Adam had a charge from God, not from men; according to which he might trannsact mens business without their knowledge.

Adam broke the Covenant of God, and according to that punishment of imputation, which God upon that breach destined for all men, all men are likewise thought to have broke it.

Adam was a common Representative of all men.

Men sinned in general by a unition to that representative, as the School-men say: and as Christ, our Justice, was the form of the mystical imputation, according to the same manner of imputation was Adam our sin.

What shall I mention, that for the wickedness of the Jews their earth was made iron, that the heaven became brasse, and fires were kindled to burn every tree, both dry and green, That became common by the mystical imputation of the sin of Adm; For the earth was cursed for the rebellion of Adam.

He was commanded to goe upon his belly, and commanded to ear dust all the days of his life: and those things which were joyned in no societie with Adam, endured the condemnation of that fault.

This was the difference betwixt inflicting of punishments in Physical, and punishments ordained upon the Mystical imputation of the sin of Adam.

That those punishments were Physical and real, according to their Physical and real imputations: the other Mystical, and spiritually understood, according to the spiritual and mystical imputation of the sin of Adam.

Certainly, the sin of Adam added nothing to the sinfull nature of man, but a mere guilt, which ought mystically to be understood.

Nor did the condemnation of death pronounced against Adam, adde any thing to the natural death, by which Adam, and all men, according to the Law of their creation ought to die, besides the mystical condemnation, consisting in mysterie and spirit.

Adam is understood to be dead according to that condemnation, and all men are understood to be dead in Adam, by that mysterie, and mystical way of imputation, by which the death of Christ ought to be applyed to Adam, and to all men.

Nor did Adam really die, nor man ever dyed really by the decree of that condemnation: one Christ alone, who was the expiation for all sin, both ought to do, and did that, and dyed for Adam and all men, and repeal by his death that condemnation which was gone out against Adam, and all mankind.

Yea, Christ himself, who was slain, before the world was ordaind, and to whom was allotted the task of expiating Adams sin, succeeded in Adams place at the very minute when Adam sinned, and in the place of all men, who were esteemed to sin in Adam.

And God sustained the punishment for Adam, and for all men, who ought to have dyed for Adam, and who from that very minute wherein Adam dyed, were understood dead, not really and actually, for they could not, because they had no being as yet, but by the force of mysterie, and that mystical imputation which was in force after the death of Christ, and before the death of Christ, upon men not as yet born.

And that all mankind had a being in one man, not truly and properly, but mystically, which is so to be understood, by a certain presupposition in the Law of God, according to the words of no ordinary Divine, The whole nature of man, says he, was in one man Adam, as in the head.

And all we, not truly and properly, for that time truly and properly we were not in being, but potentially and virtually, or by a certain supposition in Gods Law, in the act of Adam broke the Law of God, and transgressed his Covenant, as says the Scriture.

The sin of Adam was made the sin of all men by imputation, and that same supposition of mystery, by which all men that are, that were, that shall be, are imagined to have plucked that forbidden fruit with their own hands, at the same time when Adam did snatch it, and to have eaten it at the same time when Adam swallowed it, and by which supposition the numerical sin of Adam, is thought to be numerically the sin of all men, he, in whom all men are thought to have been in him; all men are said to have sinned, and so have deserved death: Nor were all men really and actually in Adam, nor are they to be thought to have sinned really and actually, nor did they really and naturally deserve death by that sin, but by force of mystery, which I have often repeated interpretatively, and imputatively, as the Divine says, which was meerly by supposition.

And since these things are undoubted and believed firmly: I see nothing that may be any ways prejudicial to Christian Doctrine, if I say, that we did not need Adam for our naturall Father and begetter of all Mankind, to have his sin imputed to all men.

For to what purpose should there here be a confusion of mystical and natural, & of imputation meerly spiritual, with propagation meerly natural; For the guilt of imputation which is by Adam, and natural wickedness, which is by traduction, and propagated by generation, are different.

The Divines do confesse those two together, who say, that original both as it is imputed, and as it is naturally derived, came from one fountain, Adam: They acknowledge a distinct and real difference betwixt mystical and physical, that which is imputed, & that which is naturally inherent.

They know also that none will ascribe that to the unserchable judgments of God, that a sickly man begets a sickly man, that a diseased person begets a diseased person: But that comes not by miracle, but by nature, and an ordinary way: They also call that sin of Adam which was first imputed to all men, that defection, transgression, a thing transient and actual.

Furthermore, they say, that the imputation of the first sin of Adam, and his inbred corruption, are so indivisibly linked, that they make not up more guilts, but one entire guilt, which by traduction of propagation, as they say, passed upon all men: But we shall readily prove out of the Apostle Rom.

The Law was by Adam, and was given when Adam was made: Therefore sin naturally inherent was ancienter than Adam, and ancienter than sin imputed, which had its original from Adam.

And that I may make it appear by plain truth, and demonstrate it by an irrefragable argument, that sin naturally inherent was by inbred corruption, and the viciousness of mans nature; that it was ancienter than the sin of Adam, which in Adam was imputed to all men, we must more narrowly pry into the History of Gen.

and the sin of Adam.

Where you see clearly, that the senes of Adam and Eve were corrupted before both did eat and sin.

The corrupt senses of Adam, corrupted him, by that small fault of this corruption which was inherent to Adam.

Adam sinned by his sight, before he sinned by his tast: He saw the fruit, and as his liver was apt to concupiscence, he covered it.

The concui [gap]cence was a sin; And according to the saying of or Saviour, Adam who coveted the fruit, sinned before he did sin.

The concupiscence then of Adam did corrupt him, before he was corrupted by thatn which was imputed to him from the transgression of the Law, not from the corruption of nature.

They that interpret the sin of Adam Allegorically, say, that the Serpent washissense, the Woman the reason, the Man the intellect; the fervent perswasion of his sense blinded his reason, and reason deprated blinded his intellect.

The corrupt sense of Adam sinned, his crooked reason was faulty, before that his vitiated intellect had sinned.

Hence you may see how preposterously they overturn the order of things, that say Adams reason was therefore deprated, his senses corrupted, because he had eaten the forbidden fruit; Nay rather, upon the contrary, Adam sinned eating the forbidden fruit, because his senses were first corrupted, his reason first depraved.

And Adam sinned twice, first in his sences and reason, before he sinned in his intellect and will, in that sin which was imputed to him, and in him to all men.

But these were not always joyned in Adam: That league was not entered before the Law of God, and before the expiation of it: The inbred and innate corruption of Adam, was only inherent to him before his fall.

And there was first an inbred corruption in Adam before that imputation, which was caused by the transgression of that Law.

Under the Law legal imputation of Adams sin, and imbred corruption joyned: But therefore were not so indivisibly & closely joyned, that they made the least confusion of guilts; for there was never any guilt of anothers sin by imbred corruption.

The legal imputation of Adams guilt, flowed from the transgression of the Law by Adam, which passed upon all men; from imbred corruption flowed sin naturally inherent, not anothers sin, but every mans own sin, proper and particular to himself; which is not imputed by the Law, and by the adventitious sin of Adam; but the very nature of the sin inherent from ones imbred corruption is naturally ascribed to all men, that they may undergo death, which is according to nature, nor attain to immortality, which is above nature.

They who think that men took their Original first from Adam, because it is no opinion but a reality, that the first imputation of all sin, sprung from Adam, believe likewise that innate corruption and the imputation of sin were so indivisibly joyned in one man, that that imputation could no other ways passe upon all men, but by way of propagation, the original of which they bring from Adam, who first sinned, and the act of which sin, say they, was in all men by imputation, and the quality of the sin really inherent, since that act, which was not to interpret the matter, but entangle it, not to unrevel it, but tie faster.

Furthermore, this opinion, as I said, thence took its beginning, because Adam is thought the Original of all men.

And that opinion again hence is imagined, because they think that Moses spoke of Adam, as the first Father of all men, because there is no other man named in Moses Books before Adam: as if there never had been nothing in nature, nor in the world, which Moses had not mentioned.

Paul first declared, That sin entered into the world by the sin of Adam, and that death by that sin passed upon all men: although Moses said no such thing, yet he no where denyed it.

Paul expresly declares, That sin was in the world until the Law, or before the Law, which is the same thing; I say, that first, and first-born Law, as the best Divines call it, and which is here to be understood, as being the first of all Laws which God gave to Adam, and from which proceeded the imputation of sin: Nor did Moses deny that which Paul affirmed, Therefore it is better to assert it, since the Apostle affirms, Moses does not deny it, that there were men before Adam.

As it was never the intention of the Apostle to derive the original of all men from Adam, so also the Apostle never intended so to joyn sin naturally inherent, with sin imputed: and certainly it is as clear as Noon-day, That the Apostle never made any mixtures of these sins, Rom.

5 where he manifestly writes concerning the sin which in Adam was imputed, By one man, says he, sin entered into the world.

But that man by whom sin entered into the world, is without doubt Adam, whose sin was the sin of the whole world.

The Apostle adds in pursute of his argument, Till the Law sin was in the world; that is, till that man Adam sin was in the world.

At the same time as sin entered into the world through the Law by Adams sin, there was another, [gap] in the world, as the Apostle witnesses; [gap] and Adam, which is the same thing.

Where observe, the death which the Apostle here meanis not intended the natural death, which was deeply rooted in the bowels of meir by innate corruption, and by the depraving of his [gap]ation, but the spiritual and mystical death is here to be understood, which followed the spiritual and mystical imputation of Adams sin.

Which that you may the more clearly know, remember what I said before; That no man ever dyed for the sin of Adam, but one Christ alone, in whom, according to mystical imputation, all men are thought dead, as all men are thought to have sinned in Adam.

That death then, of which here the Apostle speaks, was mystical; fictitious, and Parabolical, which ensued upon Adams mystical, fictitious, & Parabolical sin.

Which death no man ever actually suffered in Christ, as no man actually or really ever sinned in Adam.

The Apostle spoke in this place, not of that sin which was naturally inherent to all men, but only of that which by mystical imputation passed upon all men from the sin of Adam.

The Apostle spoke likewise here not of that death which is naturally riveted to mans corruption, but of that only which followed the nature of Adams sin, and which by mystical imputation, passed from the death of Christ upon all men.

And Christs death was called a transient death, as the sin of Adam was called a transient sin.

Death, says the Apostle, passed upon all men; that he might intimate that he had nothing here to do with that death, which by their natural corruption is naturally inherent to them, and happens to them naturally; but only of that which in the expiation of Adams sin by the death of Christ passes upon all men.

But that you may yet have a clearer light shine into your eyes, take good notice to what in the same place presently follows, Death reigned from Adam tll Moses.

Death reigned from Adam, and that Law which Adam brake, until Moses, and that Law which was in force from Moses till Christ.

Christ dying, extinguished all Law, both that of Adam and Moses his Law; Blotting out says the Apostle, Col.

That bond or decree which was against us, was the condemnation of death decreed by the Law and obligation against all men in the sin of Adam, For judgement from one, became condemnation, as it is written Rom, 5.

For that condemnation hung over all mens heads, and reigned over them from Adam til Moses, and that time layd a tie of Law upon all men.

Nor did death properly, as I said before, reign upon all men, because no man properly dyed for the sin of Adam, but properly the condemnation of death which reigned over them, was that, which by the death of Christ was blotted out, taken away, and nailed to the Crosse.

God appointed then Adam and Moses the known limits and times for Adams sin, or to that death or condemnation of death, which was decreed by that sin; But the same God appointed no limits, no times, either to sin naturally inherent, or to death, which by natural default is inherent to all persons.

Sin naturally inherent was before the Law, and Adam, since the creation and beginning of things, which is without beginning.

Natural sin reigned after Moses, and after legal death of Adam and Moses, [gap] the same death reigned, and shall reign to the end of ages, which cannot be numbred.

Which death cannot be understood of death deserved by the sin of Adam: For when Moses was dead, that was destroyed.

Death reigned upon Adam till Moses, they must then be understood of a natural death, the destruction of which God has deferred till the end of things.

The Apostle [gap]ivides that spiritual and mystical subject from the material and natural, to shew that there was no need of the traduction of Adam, material and natural, towards the imputation, which was mystical and spiritual; which he more openly declares, Rom.

where he compares the obedience of Christ with the disobedience of Adam, and the imputation which did abound, from the sin of one Adam, to the condemnation of death, with the imputation of grace, which is given from above, of which is given to the satisfaction of life, in the offering up of one Jesus Christ, which are nothing material or natural, but rellish altogether of spirit and mystery.

And that the compafison of Adam and Christ may be absolute, Adam ought to be imputed to men after the same manner, spiritually and mystically, as Christ is imputed.

The best Divines confesse, that Paul spoke properly in the 5 chapter to the Romans, of the guilt and imputation of Adams sin; and considered sin, not as the fountain of humame corruption; but as it involves Adam, and in him all men in the same guilt: For the Apostle did not write, that men were corrupted in Adum, but sinned in him: That they sinned in Adam, by imputation, not since Adam by imputation: That they sinned [gap]irtually in Adam; not by vertue of seed, but by vertue of imputation.

And Adam is ordained in that place the head of all men, not naturally, but mystically.

By natural reason, says he, It cannot be, that all men who were not yet born sinned in Adam; Unlesse Adam in his moral existence be supposed the Prince of all men.

For which cause, the Apostle says in the same chapter, not of those sins by which Adam was corrupted naturally, and by which all men are naturally corrupted; but of one offence, one sin, one disobedience, which deserved a guilt to Adam, and in him to all men, and which not actually, but by imputation passed upon all men: By which means, says Cardinal Bellarmin, That disobedience might be communicated to all men: And the famous Gamach of Sorbon.

We grant says he, That the actual sin of Adam, as actual, was not in men, but by imputatign.

A moral cause, such as was the disobedience of Adam, could not produce a natural corruption.

Therefore the Apostle coupled not these things thus dis-joyned, and which can no way agree one with another, Nature and Law, Sin by Nature, and Guilt by Law, in this Treatise which he here intended concerning that sin, which in the transgression of Adam was imputed to all men.

Paul, or in any other sacred author can be read or gathered, that the natural traduction of Adam did any way conduce, not to say was necessary to the imputation of Adams sin.

That question which is commonly disputed concerning original sin, is intricate, dark, and difficult, upon presupposition, that all men were born of Adam.

There are some that throw hatred upon God, according to the first supposition, in saying that his Law was too rigid and cruel, in that he imputed that which was done by Adam, without the knowledge of men, before they had a being, to all mankind; and in that the punishments for that sin were so heavy, that the whole nature of man was over-run with punishments and plagues.

To which inconveniences, that from my supposition I may briefly and clearly answer and stop every mouth speaking irreverently of God: It is before sufficiently shown, that the imputation of Adams sin, added nothing to the nature of man, given to corruption, which is meerly mystical, and is only conceived in spirit; therefore, as to nature that imputation added, no new business.

Christ was the chief end of that mysterie, by which the sin of Adam was imputed to men, that to them the justice of Christ, which is the death of Christ might be imputed.

The imputation then of the sin of Adam, which brought us to that end, was the cause of our salvation, not our destruction; Therefore that dispensation of the divine Law, was first of meekness and bounty, not of wrath and crueltie, by which men, not knowing, and being not yet born, had the guilt of Adam imputed to them; For the sin of Adam was imputed to them without their knowledge, that the justice of Christ might be likewise imputed to them without their knowledge, which is the salvation of the Lord: Sin begat Justification by the same miracle as darkness is said to have produced light, and death raised up life.

They are much deceived, who think that eternal death ensued that condemnation of death, which was decreed upon the sin of Adam, For I think it is sufficiently cleared out of the Apostle Paul to the Romans, whom to this purpose I cited in the former chapter, that the condemnation was not eternal, but bounded with some limits, That it was born with Adam, and ended with Moses.

Death reigned from Adam to Moses, says the Apostle; For that death followed the fate of sin, and of the father of it, who begat it.

The sin of Adam began to reign from the transgression of the Law, which I therefore call a legal sin: Legal sin lived as long as the Law lived, and when the Law was extinct, that was likewise extinguished.

Eternity also is indefinite, Legal death had its certain limits, Adam and Moses, beyond which it could not remain.

Therefore the imputation of Adams sin was a preparative for the susception of justice, which flowed from the bloud of Christ, by which preparation all men thirsting, might more earnestly seize upon his justification, and receive it inwardly.

And as scarlet dye added to the wool drenched in, takes away the stain of the woad, and extinguishes the woad it self: so likewise the blood of Christ cast upon the ground of Adams imputation, took away the imputation of sin, and utterly extinguished the sin it self, so that by the death of Christ there is no imputation of that sin.

That sin is extinguished in the death of Christ, which was imputed to Adam, and in him to all men, by violation of the Law, which sin I call legal.

Christ then restored men to that condition wherein Adam had found them, into the condion of sin not imputed by the Law, and men became after the destruction of that Law, the very same thing before the Law was given to Adam; for another mans sin is not imputed to any, since the death of Christ, but every one bears his own sin.

Every one dies not for the sin of Adam, but every one for his own sin.

Of himself, not of Adam, of his sowr sin in his own behalf, not of the strong sin of Adam, which diligently observe, Every one carries his own burthen, Galat.

The old Adam is crucified with Christ, and our old legal man; but our old natural man lives in us, which is really ours, and is not dead in the death of Christ, but shall by the vertue of his resurrection, sometimes, be extinguished, whn God shall cloath us with full sanctification, which shall be our full and perfect restoring and resurrection.

Let us not therefore sin, because we are no more confined by the Law of Adam, or by any punishment of death decreed since the Law of Adam, after Christs death, but because really, and according to the nature of the business, we barricado our way to eternal life, and to the sight and glory of God, if we indulge matter and our flesh, and extinguish not sin bred in us.

No thought of cruelty then as to the Law of God, nothing dissonant or inconvenient shall arise in our thoughts by the imputation of that legal sin of Adam, which ensued upon that transgression, if all this business, according to my supposition, be taken as a mystical institution, that it might prepare a fit ground for the reception of the justice of Christ, which is the sanctification and salvation of men, and their chief happiness, for according to this mystery, any thing which might have seemed in God cruel against mankind, seems rather to have been designed for the salvation of man.

Examiners use to be more severe in the punishing of the actor, than in the punishing of the complices and partakers, which all Lawes teach us, both natural, civil, and Law of Nations, Nor needs this any proof, for it is already so often proved, that it would be clouded to cite all proofs; Only that Law held not in Adam, who, although he sinned as the head, yet he was not punished as the head for his sin.

For, if all sin and wickedness, all feavers and plagues, and eternal death it self, as it is believed, enterd into the world; and passed upon all men, Why was not Adam readiest to sin amongst all men, being the head and cause of all sins, by reason of his transgression?

Yea, why did Adam, if we will except his single transgression, become famous for no other sin?

But if on the contrary no man was ever partaker or conscious with Adam of Adams sin; yea if all men were purer from that sin, then Children are free from sin, as being not born when Adam dam sinned, What was the reason thar men should become more wicked by that sin than Adam himself?

For it is certain that a great many men have been thought more famous for the sin of Adam, then Adam himself, were sore handled▪ their life short, and sickly, and at last thrown down to hell, there to die an eternal death.

This darkness, from my supposition I will make as clear as day, if we consider the sin of Adam, either against the Law, which was a legal sin, or by default of his Nature subject to corruption; which is a natural sin.

If we consider Adam sining by a legal sin or against the Law, which is the same thing; we shall conceive him, not only as to himself; but also in regard of all men, and to all mankind, whom he did represent; by force and virtue of which representation, he deserved the imputation of that sin to himself and all Mankind.

For as an Ambassadour who yeilds up a people to a conquering Prince in the name of his Country, does not only bind in his rendition himself, but all the people of the City, whom the Ambassadour represents: So Adam, in regard that he did represent all mankind, did not only bind himself, but all mankind to the decree which went out against his sin, and made them and himself partakers of the same sin: And as in the business of rendition which the Ambassadour does in the behalf of his Country, all are equally obliged to the Laws of it, as well the Ambassadour, as all men of the Country; Just so in the business of Adams sin; all mankind did equally fall into the imputation.

And as this rendition according to the School men, is neither less nor more in one than another; nor of all those that are yeilded, none is more engaged to it than another: Iust so the imputation of the sin of Adam admits not of a more, or a less; nor can the sin of Adam be thought to be imputed more or less to any man that ever was, or is, or shall be: And Lucans expression might be very fit in this case: It stains and equals all; Yea Adam and all men that ever were made, or shall be, have suffered alike for that sin, for all have equally endured the condemnation of death decreed against that sin; and all those men were thought to be dead alike, according to that legal, spiritual, and mystical death, which ensued upon that legal, spiritual, and mystical sin.

If we consider Adam sinning in the default of his Nature given to corruption, which is natural sin; then we shall conceive him in regard of himself, not in regard of all men: And in that regard the more that Adam sinned to himself in that natural sin he gained himself more natural evil and punishment, and so had fall'n into more grievous diseases.

And indeed, because natural sin is receptive of more or less, according to mans nature, more or less corrupt, as likewise all natural punishments admit of more or less, and all natural evils which ensue upon that natural sin: And as Adam beyond all other men was of a less corrupt nature by the prerogative of his creation, which he had from God himself; so sinned he less than other men in natural sin; And was less punished for his natural sin; and suffered fewer evils than other men suffered; yea fewer than they for the self same sin now suffer.

Let us examine this business on the right ballance of reason, that it may appear beyond all controversie, that the sins of all men, and all those evils and plagues which punish men, and their eternal death, which hinders them from eternal life, to have flowed from the fault of their own nature, inherent to them, and not from the sin of Adam.

Because we believe that the sin of Adam was imputed to beasts, and engendred such vices also in them.

which are higher or less grievous in humane bodies, as the badness of their affections is either lightned or remitted: But certainly varieties of sins or health, which make men either ill or diseased, do plainly shew that all this vitiousness springs from our nature, and from the substance of men, which as it is diversly affected to divers, by either less or more it is corrupted and troubled: Neither could the legal sin of Adam ever bring any such thing to passe: For it is but one, and not vicious; and passed not upon men, either more intense, or more remiss, but made all men alike guilty; and had made all men alike evil, and alike bad, and had put all men in the same kind and condition for sin and death; if the sins and diseases of men had taken their originals from that one and one kind of sin.

It is objected to this, that Adam when he transgressed the Law, did sin naturally, for he naturally desired the forbidden fruit, and naturally did eat of it; Therefore the sin of Adam was natural not legal only.

And therefore not only by mystical and spiritual imputation, but by Nature also, and traduction from Adam, it passed upon all men.

I answer, that Adam did not therefore sin, because he naturally desired the fruit, and naturally did eat it; but because he desired it against Gods command, and eat it contrary to his Law.

The Apostle calls the sin of Adam disobedience moral, not natural; or as there was a formality, not a materiality in that sin: I say a formality, morality, and mystery, which alone was imputed to Adam, and to all men, and for which he gained death to himself, and to all men: The nature and materiality of that sin was properly no sin; For of it self, and naturally, it was no sin to covet and eat that fruit which was fair to the eye, and good to eat, as Moses witnesses of it: The force of that sin consisted only in the transgression and disobedience of Adam, which was the formality and morality of that sin.

Besides, that sin was two manner of ways imputed to Adam; Either in that by his corrupt mind and will he transgressed the Law of God, or in so much as corporally, or by eating he broke it; In so far as Adam by his corrupted mind and will broke the Law, which was the formality, and the spirituality of his sin, he deserved that condemnation ordained by the Law of God, & so dyed the death a moral and a spiritual death, which Christ really, and in his body suffered for Adam.

In so far as Adam in his body transgressed, he was in his body thrust out of Paradise; lest perhaps, says Genesis, he should put out his hand and take the tred of life, and live for ever.

Both these happened to Adam by this transgression, death, and thrusting out of Paradise: but both significatively, parabolically, and by similitude.

All men dyed by the sin of Adam, by the same spiritual and mystical death by which Adam dyed.

All men were thrown out of Paradise not actually and corporally as Adam was, but significatively, and mystically.

The Law given to Adam did double barricado the way to this Paradise, and added strength to that sin, as says the second Epistle to the Corinthians, which that sin brought to passe, making it exceeding sinfull, as the Epistle to the Rom.

The Law violated by Adam was the second and the spiritual hindrance, not an innate, but an impediment by another, which shut up Paradise, and which not naturally, nor by traduction from Adam; but which by imputation, spirit, and mere fiction of divine mysteries was objected to all men, that upon the same account they might lose eternal life: Christ dying for us, took away the second spiritual hindrance, which by Adams sin was against us.

All that are dead, and are mortal, are thrown out of Paradise, and shut out of eternal life by the sin of Adam, mystically and parabolically, that by the resurrection of the same Christ, they might enter into the same Paradise, and enjoy eternal life, not mystically nor Parabolically; but truly and really; all, I mean, that should be chosen to it.

The Apostle writes, that Adam was a type of Christ, Christ was then a prototype of Adam, but by way of similitude of Adam with Christ his prototype.

And in regard as Christ who was to restore what Adam had lost, was not the last of all men, to comprehend men that were only past in his grace and justification, no more needed Adam to be the first of all men, to involve all men that were after him only in the imputation of his sin.

And as the death of Christ the prototype, was imputed to all men, both who lived in Christs time, and who were from all time before him, and those that have been since Christ, and shall be born to the end of all time, by the same type and similitude of the Prototype, the sin of Adam was imputed to all men, those who lived in the days of Adam, and who were born before Adam, and shall be born to eternity, and the one sin of Adam caused all men, both since and before, to be condemned.

where he says, That death reigned from Adam unto Moses, upon those also that had not sinned according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam.

Upon those who had not sinned; which words, are no doubt to be understood of those men that were born before Adam.

Men that were born before Adam did sin.

Men that were sinners according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam, born before Adam.

Men that were born after Adam, sinned acording to his similitude.

Which to open up in order, we must observe that never no man sinned actually, as Adam sinned, but that it was actually imputed to all; for no man, as I said before, did actually eat the fruit of the tree of good and evil; which according to the common opinion, no mortal men ever saw, nor could see; for the tree was removed from the sight of all men, so soon as Adam was thrust out of Paradise.

But if no man could actually sin, as Adam did, and yet all sinned as Adam did, it remains, that all sinned, according to the similitude of that sin, by the imputation of it.

And it is certain, that the adventitious sin of Adam, was imputed to all men: We must therefore think, that all men were esteemed in the same condition, as if they had performed that sin not actually; for then no mans sin should be imputed to any one, but his own.

It remains then, that all men have committed the sin of Adam, according to similitude, if not actually.

This the Apostle maintains to have happened to all men, and to have sinned as Adam sinned, and to have suffered the same death which Adam suffered for his sin, By one man, says he, sin entered into the world, and by sin, death: I say, he would have all men turned into the image and similitude of the transgression of Adam, that they might all be thought to have sinned, according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam, and the like death reigned over them, which reigned over him, for the similitude of his transgression.

And the Apostle, that none might be freed from the death of this punishment, adds, That death reigned from Adam upon those also who had not sinned, according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam: For it was known before, that the sin of Adam had passed upon all men which had been born since the framing of Adam, and should be born afterwards, and that death reigned from him upon his posterity.

But that he might comprehend all men in the sin of Adam, whose roots reached as far from Adam to the foregoing ages, as their branches reached from Adam to the future ages, and the times after Adam: It was the meaning of the Apostle, that the sin of Adam was indifferently imputed to all men, before and since, and that death reigned from him upon those that were past, and those that were to come.

And as it was fit it should be, so likewise the manner of the mystical imputation perswades us, that it was so, spiritually I mean, and by way of conception, according to which, mystical imputation takes hold of men: For as Lightning breaking out of a cloud enlightens with one flash things above it, and things below it: So the imputation that broke out of the sin of Adam, darted one and the same lightning upon all men, those that were born after Adam, and those that were born before him.

And the same manner of mysterie, which may teach us, that the death of Adam passed upon all men that were not born many ages after Adam, will teach us, that death could reign backward upon those that were born before him never so long.

Nor is there any new miracle to be sought for, that sin should be imputed to men created before Adam, if it be believed to be imputed to men created after Adam.

And at last you will confess, that no other could sin, but according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam; but only those that were begotten and born before Adam.

For it is certain, that all men after Adam, and their sons, and who shall also be by them begotten, did sinn according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam, What kind of men must those be, I beseech ye, who did not sin according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam?

Certainly it must be those who were born before Adam; because the Apostle says manifestly, they sinned before the Law, Rom.

And to whom, before the Law and Adam, their sin was not imputed, because sin is not imputed when the Law is not.

And therefore they neither sinned nor could sin according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam.

To make the difference betwixt them and all the posterity of Adam, who sinned after the Law, because after Adam, to whom the sin of Adam was imputed.

because sin began to be imputed from the Law, and from Adam; and who could sin only according to this real similitude of the transgression of Adam, of which we here speak, and which, no doubt, the Apostle meant.

Paul upon this place, if I tell them, that those things which they speake concerning children here, are inconsistent, whom they would have here to be the persons meant, who sinned not according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam, because they sinned not actually as Adam did; Yea, if they had sinned actually, they had not sinned according to similitude, because act is the reality of a thing, no similitude: And in that very regard, because infants sinned not actually, they must needs sin according to similitude.

But the mixture of those natural sins of Adam, deceived those most famous men, which were inherent to him; together with that legall sin which passed upon all men.

For they imagined that children sinned not according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam, because they sinned not actually as Adam sinned.

Because they killed not actually, as Adam killed, or might have killed; because they committed not adultery actually, as Adam did, or might have done; because they stole not actually, as Adam stole, or might have stollen: and so of the rest of Adams natural sins.

The Apostle said not, Who had not sinned according to the similitude of Adams sins.

Nay that only, Who had not sinned according to the similitude of Adams transgaession.

For here he intended nothing concerning all the sins of Adam, and those natural sins of Adam which only concerned himself, but of that one transgression that passed upon all men: All, I say, both of age and under age, as all men are indifferently comprehended in the species; and in regard that old and young, and men of all ages sinned in spirit and mysterie, not naturally and materially, according to the similitude of the transgression of Adam.

For although there be a natural similitude of all mens sins with the sins of Adam; yet the Apostle meant not that material and natural similitude here, wherein we may also communicate with the beasts, according to whose similitude, all men sin naturally and materially, by reason of their commmon nature and matter.

But how could, say they, the sin of Adam be imputed backward.

Nor ought it seem a wonder to any, that the sin of Adam was imputed backward, considering what I have often inculcated, That the faith of Abraham, according to the consent of all Divines, was imputed to the Predecessors of Abraham, though dead, and that Christ was imputed to all, both before himself, and Abraham, though dead and buried.

But yet it will seem prodigious, that death reigned back from the imputation of the sin of Adam, considering that no death could happen to men, but that which descended upon men by the seed of Adam, which as they say, became mortal, and begat death, since Adam sinned; For grant this, and it is impossible to imagine that death passed upon all men by the seed and sin of Adam, because it is impossible to be done, and impossible to be conceived, that Adam did beget his predecessors.

But if we consider that death, which passed from Adam upon all men, to be mystical and spiritual, which not materially nor naturally, but mystically and spiritually returned upon all men, that will be very clear.

For, as we conceive that death invaded Adam, and all after him, that very hour when he sinned, Why should we not think that death seized also all before and all after?

From Adam, and since that time, wherein Adam, and all men in Adam deserved to die for their transgression; who by Cassiodorus are elegantly said, To have deserved death, before they tasted of life.

Death then reigned from Adam upon men that were to be, and were not yet born; which if it could, any otherwise than mystically, and meerly intellectually, let every body imagine.

Let us therefore think that a mystical and spiritual death reigned upon all the predecessors of Adam: Just as the Civil Law presupposes those that have dyed a natutural death, may be also condemned to a civil death.

But those men who dyed before Adam, and never did violate any Law, because never none was given to them, how could they deserve any such thing at Gods hands?

Therefore God provided for those men which were before Adam, that they should die by the transgression of Adam, that they might again rise from the dead, according to the spirit of sanctification which is in Christ; They were saved because they perished; And it had been thought a disadvantage to the mystery, unlesse those who were in possibility to rise again had perished: And both could be well enough performed upon them, to die in Adam, and rise in Christ, by the mutual and reciprocal imputations of Adam and Christ, mystically and spiritually understood, if we conceive the condemnation of death turned back upon them, in the same manner as we understand the absolution from condemnation, by the satisfaction and death of Christ, mystically and spiritually returned also.

Yea, they do object, How can ever the predecessors of Adam be sanctified, and a rise up to eternal life in Christ, if life eternal, which is the salvation of man, is granted to none but such as know▪ God the Father, and believed in Christ his Son, whom the Father sent; But how could they either know God the Father, or believe in Christ his Son, who never heard any thing neither of Father nor Son; for knowlege and faith are by hearing?

That I may answer this according to time and place, you must know, that all Adams Ancestors might presume of their salvation; upon the same account as all the Patriarchs of the the Jews could conceive hope in their salvation; For neither did those Fathers of the Jews know God the Father, as Father, nor believed in Christ the Son, according to the Apostle, in the last Chapter of the Romans.

The mystery of God the Father and God the Son was hidden from eternity to our times; Therefore it was hid and unknown to all those Patriarchs that were betwixt Adam and Christ: But if any mention the words of our Saviour, saying, that Abraham and Isay foresaw the day of Christ, and were glad.

It is also written in the first Chapter to the Ephesians, That God did chuse the Gentiles to the Adoption of his own Sons, before the creation of the World: God forbid that we should think that election was so unprofitable, and to so little purpose, which we suppose to be from eternity, to the framing of Adam, and so to Jesus Christ, that none of all the Gentiles was elected and called to the participation of salvation which was in Christ, all that time which was betwixt the infancy of the world, till the death of Christ.

I passe by a great many Proselites, as also those Gentiles whom Mothanus Vuyerius the Chiron of our Achilles makes a long Catalogue of, in his elegant and and learned Treatise of the vertue of Heathens; I say I passe by all those good, approved, and wisemen, whom long before the death of Christ its probable, yea we may very well believe, were chosen by God, and called unto the Lord; But in the same account were after Adam to Christ, in the same account I say were those Gentiles in the first age, from the creation of the world, till the framing of Adam.

For this cause I think that all those Gentiles begotten before and after Adam, good and meek men, to have been Christs chief, because I believe they were the bondmen and servants of Christ.

Paul also affirms of those holy Jews, who lived under the Law from Adam till Christ; and might be also well fitted to those just Gentiles, who lived under Nature, before the Law and Adam.

Sons of Adam, who was the son of God, and therefore sons of God yourselves as well.

"Happy was the fault of Adam, your first father, by which he gained me as a redeemer.

I read Men before Adam in the London printing.

To say, that the first men were created before Adam, doth neither derogate from Christianity, nor the history of Genesis; nay, that it gives light to both.

La Peyrère asks who that someone could be, if only Adam's family was alive:

He says Diodorus thought it "hard to be believ'd, but not impossible." His point is that such records are far older than any timeline that starts with Adam.

"The Jews" here means Adam's line, which he sees as the people God made in Adam.

For the English translation of 1656, see my review of Men before Adam.

By which the first men, made before Adam, are brought in.

He does not say that men lived beside Adam.

Adam is a later man, not the first one.

He reads "the law" in Romans 5 as the law given to Adam, not the law of Moses:

The law in that place must be understood as the law of Adam, not the law of Moses.

If sin was in the world before that law, then a world without that law was there before Adam.

To hold that the first men were created before Adam goes against neither the Christian teaching nor the history of Genesis.

A short timeline from Adam cannot hold them.

A world with people before Adam can.

It ends Adam's line, except for Noah and his family.

It does not end the peoples who came before Adam.

Men before Adam (1656): my review of the English translation.

Creation stories: origins and the world before Adam.