"Chrift fhall all be made alive." And no one can suppose that great man to have been fo bad a reafoner as, for the proof of a disputable point, to appeal to another equally difputable and uncertain. It ap peared to him, as a maxim that needed no demonftration, in Adam all die; and as fuch, hath delivered it down to us; and moft certainly his is an authority to be relied on, in preference to all the wisdom and argumentation of these later days. Let the learned and fagacious find out never fo many objections; and puzzle their own and others heads about the manner in which the fin of Adam was transferred to his latest posterity; they will find it ftill harder to account for their mortality up on any other fcore. For being all created in the image of God, and partaking of his immortal nature, what should hinder us from prolonging our lives upon earth, till the diffolution of all things, when we should all be taken up together into the air, after a fudden tranfmutation, and received into the glorious kingdom of our heavenly father, and only commence a fresh æra of immor tality? 'The whole fream of the fcriptures runs quite a different way, and flows with fuch a torrent of conviction, as cannot be refifted: almost every page afferts this propofition; In Adam all die; neither is that passage in Ifaiah, the foul that finneth, it .. fhall die," that is brought as an exception exception against this assertion, any exception at all. There was, as I observed before, a general fentence of death passed upon all men even before the fall. It was appointed unto all men once to die: but ftill God referved that once intirely to himself; He either left men to wear away gradually by old age and infirmities, or to be fuddenly cut off by diseases or accidents; or, for their more exemplary punishment, fometimes by his own hand swept away in his wrath. It is the fole prerogative of the Lord of life, and death, to prolong or fhorten the date of human life; and that without being accountable to human reason. Such is the nature of God, that we cannot fuppofe him capable of injuftice; and if we should fometimes be at a lofs to account account for his proceedings, yet poffibly a little more attention might fully reconcile them to our reason. Thus the Jews complained in Ifaiah's time, that 66 the fathers had "eaten four grapes and the children's "teeth were fet on edge;" intimating that the children were punished for the iniquity of their fathers. A very unjust thing faid they, as fome say now, that they should be punished with death for the tranfgreffion of Adam! But take notice, the complaint of the Jews doth by no means affect the juftice of the general fentence; but is made against a particular difpenfation. By the second commandment idolatry was forbidden; and the penalty nalty incurred by the breach of this commandment fell upon the chil"dren unto the third and fourth gene"ration;" the Jews were notoriously guilty of idolatry; and suffered for it in their generations; upon this they had the boldness to impeach the divine juftice whereupon God, to leave them without excufe, declares by his prophet, The Son fhall not "bear the iniquity of the father, nor "shall the father bear the iniquity of "the fon, the foul that finneth fhall die; are not my ways equal? Are "not your ways unequal?" Equal, certainly, were the ways of God in this cafe; (as they will be found in all others) for in the fame commandment that he denounced vengeance upon "the third and fourth generation" of those who hated him; he also promised |