316 RUIN AND RECOVERY, &C. many were made sinners, or stòod as guilty and condemned before God". It is true indeed, that Christ trains up and prepares his children for eternal life, bymaking then his chldren, by renew- ing them after the image of God his Father,' or after his own likeness, or by giving them a holy nature, a principle of divine Iif°without which it is impossible they should be made actual partakers of happiness; and so he is 'typified by Adam, who conveyed a sinful nature, or his ownsinful image'to his children : But the chief thing which the apostle seems to have in his eye, in This chapter; is the conveyance of condemnation and death to the seed of Adam, and a justifying righteousness and eternal life to the seed of Christ, by their being the common heads or repre. sentatives, as well as the fathers or fountains, of their distinct households or oftprings; the one involving his offspring whom he represented in his own sin and death, and the other acquiring ' for his offspring whomhe represented, 'righteousness, that is, a right to life and eternal happiness. Objection I. Some persons have-supposed, that it confuses and perplexes our ideas; to treat of mankind thus as one collec- tive body, or to suppose that the race of man have ruined them - selves in Adam their' head ; whereas, say they, the scripture. often teltsus, that God will judge everyman personally and par- ticularly according to his own works. I answer; It takesaway all this supposed confusion, and makes our ideas very distinct and plain, if we consider that in the general sentence of ruin and condemnation for the first sin of Adam, mankind may be reckoned as ohe collective body, under One head, falling under this universal condemnation by the .original law of creation, and the constitution of th'e covenant of works, since it is evidently represented in thismanner in several verses in Romans Y. 12-21. Whereas in the last judgment every one will be personally judged- and.acquitted or-condemned according to their personal behaviour under the sevéral particular consti- tutions or dispensations both of law or grace which they have enjoyed. Objection Il. We are informed by the word of God, that there have been two general fathers, viz. Adam and Noah c Now there are three particulars that do summarily and distinctly contain the blessings, endowments and pre-eminence conferred upon Adam in his innocent state, 1. The blessing Of propaga- tion. 2. The dominion over the brutes. 3. The imageof God in which he was made : All which are contained in Gen. i. 27, 28. Now the very sanie blessings and marks of excellency are 8 All the texts cited under this gnestoo are explained and vindicated morç at large -by many writers'on this subject, eider alit Later.
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