50 Rom. v. 8 Justified by Christ's death, we shall be saved by his life. would SECT. even dare to die for certainly it is but here and man some X. there one, in a great multitude, who would be even dare to die. willing to redeem the most eminently useful life at the price of his own. But God hath re- 8 But God comcommended his astonishing love towards us, and mendeth his love toset it off as it were with this grand circumstance while we were yet wards us, in that of high embellishment, if I may so speak, that sinners, Christ died when we were yet sinners, and therefore not for us. only undeserving of his favour, but justly obnoxious to wrath and punishment, Christ died in our stead, that our guilt might be cancelled, and we brought into a state of Divine accept9 ance. Since therefore it hath pleased the bless- 9 Much more then, ed God to give us such an unexampled display being now justified of his love as this, how high may our expecta- be saved from wrath by his blood, we shall tions rise, and how cheerfully may we conclude through him. that much more being now justified by the efficacy of his most precious blood, we shall be saved from wrath by him! For we can never imagine that God would provide at so expensive a rate for our justification, and then finally leave us under wrath; though we have acquiesced in the scheme of his grace for our deliverance. 10 For if, when we were reconciled ciled, we shall be 1,0 For if, as I have already maintained, when we were enemies, through the perverseness of we were enemies, our minds, and the rebellion of our lives, we to God by the death were reconciled to God by the death of his own of his Son ; much dear Son, and if foreseeing we should fall into more being reconthis state of hostility, he made this wonderful saved by his life. provision for our being admitted to terms of peace; how much more being thus reconciled, shall we be saved from misery, and made completely happy by his recovered life, now he is risen from the dead, and ascended to glory? affection, and are bound in duty to God Jewish Antiquities, lib. 1. cap. ix.) bear some allusion to a distribution of mankind into three classes, oon, opry, and oyun, good men, righteous men, and sinners, which some rabbinical writers mention. All the beauty and grace of this passage is lost, by reading adixs instead of finais, as the editor of the new version of 1727 does; without, as I can find, any single authority: for a wicked man no one would willingly die, though for a benefactor some have readily offered to die. And ajabs does not signify merely a personal benefactor, but in general a benevolent man. Reflections on the happiness of peace with God. 57 IMPROVEMENT. verse WITH what ecstacies of holy joy may we justly survey these sECT. inestimable privileges, the blessed consequences of having em- X. braced the gospel, and being justified by faith, unfeigned! How great a happiness to have peace with God, with that omnipotent 1 Being, who can at pleasure arm all nature against us, or for us! To have access to him by Jesus Christ, and daily converse with 2 him as our Father in heaven! To rejoice in an assured hope of enjoying glory with Christ, in his presence; yea, of enjoying the God of glory. To see all affliction not only disarmed, but turned into matter of triumph, while tribulation worketh experi- 3,4 ence, patience, and hope! So may all our tribulations work, and be they ever so severe, they will be reasons for our joy and praise. The pain of them will soon be over; the happy consequences of them will be as lasting as our immortal souls. Let us endeavour to dilate our hearts, that we may receive 5 the largest effusions of the love of God, to be shed abroad there. The love of God! That plant of paradise, which will spring up unto eternal life. And to excite it, let us be daily meditating upon the rich wonders of redeeming love and grace; adoring that seasonable interposition of Divine mercy, that when we were 6 weak and guilty creatures, when we lay for ever helpless under a sentence of everlasting condemnation, that is, when we appeared thus in the eyes of him who beholdeth things which are not as 7 if they were, Christ died for us, and gave a token of his love even for the worst of sinners, which few among the children of men are willing to give, with respect to the most upright and benevolent of their brethren. Since the love of God comes thus recommended, let us cordially embrace it, and awaken all the powers of our souls to a diligent care to secure the happy fruits; that we may not receive the grace of God in vain. If we do indeed experience in ourselves, not only that there is a foundation laid for our reconciliation, but that we are actually reconciled to God by the death of his Son, our hopes may rise high, that we shall 10 much more obtain consummate salvation by his life. For surely it is infinitely more astonishing, that the Son of God should die to reconcile enemies, than that having subdued their hearts by his dying love, and received them to friendship as the purchase of his blood, he should employ his recovered life and extensive authority for their protection, and complete salvation. SECT. xi. Rom. The apostle shews, that the calamities brought by the first Adam on his seed, are repaired with glorious advantage to all who by faith become interested in the second Adam. Rom. V. 11, to I the end. ROMANS V. 11. ROMANS V. 11. HAVE been breathing out our hopes, and A but we also joy our joys, as we are Christians, and are in God, through our taught by the principles of our Divine religion Lord Jesus Christ, v. 11 to rejoice, not only in the prospect of glory, by whom we have but even in tribulation itself. And now I must now received the add, that it is not only [so,] but that there is atonement. another grand consideration, which, though not yet mentioned, lies at the root of all our confidence and happiness; which is this, that we boast in God as invariably our covenant God and Father, through Jesus Christ our Lord, by whom we have now, in these late times, received the great and important reconciliation, which not only averts the terrors of his wrath, but opens upon us all the blessings of his perpetual friendship and love. 12 that all have sinned. And therefore we may from these premises 12 Wherefore, as infer, that the benefit which we believers re- by one man sin entered into the world, ceive from Christ, is equal to the detriment and death by sin we receive from Adam; yea, is on the whole and so death passed greater than that; for we now obtain righteous- upon all men, for ness and life from one; as by one man, that is, Adam, the common father of the human species, sin entered into the new made world, and death, before unknown in the creation of God, entered by sin; and so death passed on from one generation to another upon all men; unto which a Received the reconciliation.] The word e We believers.] As this 12th verse is here has so apparent a refer- an inference from the 11th, it seems evience to κατηλλαγημεν and καταλλαγέντες in dent that they only are spoken of; for it the preceding verse, that it is surprising it is plain from comparing the 9th, 10th, and should have been rendered by so different 11th verses with the first, that it is only a word in our version; especially as it is so they who are justified by faith, who have improper to speak of our receiving an atone- peace with God, and who joy in him by Christ ment, which God receives as made for our as having received the reconciliation. And sins. this obvious remark clears the following passage of difficulties, which would be exceeding great, if it were to be considered without regard to this connection, and which have in fact, misled many commentators; who for want of attending to it, have plunged themselves and their readers into great perplexity, and given a sense to the paragraph, of which it is by no means capable. b Therefore.] Aia T87% certainly does often signify in this respect; but there are some instances even among the texts collected by Mr. Taylor here, in which it may as well be rendered therefore particularly Matt. xiii. 13; John ix. 23; chap. xii. 18; chap. xiii. 2; 1 Cor. iv. 17; chap. xi. 30; Eph. i 15. In all which places our rendering seems preferable to what he would propose. For though by the one offence of Adam death came ; 59 Rom, V. all have sinned in him, that is, they are so far in- SECT. volved in the consequence of his first transgres- xi. sion, as by means of it to become obnoxious to 13 For until the death. And that this was indeed the case, law, sin was in the and this offence the engine of mortality in the world: but sin is whole human species, we may infer from one not imputed when there is no law. very obvious fact, I mean the death of infants, from the very beginning; for from the fall of Adam unto the time when God gave the law by Moses, as well as after it, sin was, and appeared to be in the world, by the continual execution of its punishment, that is, death. But it is a selfevident principle, that sin is not, and cannot be, imputed, where there is no law; since the very essence of sin is the violation of a law. And consequently, if we see in fact that sin was imputed, we must conclude that the persons to whose account it appears to have been 14 Nevertheless, charged, were under some law. Nevertheless, 14 death reigned from it is certain death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that even over infants as well as others, over those, had not sinned after I say, who had not sinned, according to the likethe similitude of ness of the transgression of Adam, that is, who Adam's transgres- had never in their own persons sion: who is the figoffended God, ure of him that was as Adam their father did; who, with respect to the extent of his actions to all his seed, was the figure, or model of him who was to come, Adam to Moses, to come: Unto which all have sinned: w f Figure, or model.] That the word lauaplov.] Elsner (Observ. Vol. II. TUT has this signification, will appear P. 26) would render it, on account of from Acts vii. 44; Rom. vi. 17; Phil. whom and he produces some remarkable iii. 17; 1 Thess. i. 7; 2 Thess. iii. 9; authorities for it; (compare Phil. iii. 12; 1 Tim. iv. 12; Tit. ii. 7; Heb. viii. 5; Rom. x. 19; chap. xvi. 19; 1 Thess. iii. 1 Pet. v. 3. 7) but I think those produced by Mr. Taylor, (from Gal. v. 13; Eph. ii. 19; 1 Thess. iv. 7; 2 Tim. ii. 14,) with the use of the particles in some of the purest Greek classics, sufficient to support his rendering, which I have here followed. See his Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin, Part 1. p. 51, &c. Note. 8 Of him who was to come: Ty μexλov7@.] Here is evidently an ellipsis. Most commentators have explained it as referring to the great person that was to come, or in other words, the future [Adam,] that is, Christ. But Sir Norton Knatchbull would explain it of mankind to come. He thinks that Adam cannot with any propriety be Likeness of Adam's transgression.] Mr. called a type of Christ, as the type of a thing Locke and several more interpret this of is its shape, model, or representation; and the Gentiles, who did not sin against a therefore if the thing be good, the type of positive law. But they might certainly it must be so too. Dr. Milner, in vindihave died for their transgression against cation of this interpretation, observes, the natural law, under which they were that this will best agree with the apostle's born, and for which the apostle expressly asserts, not only that they were in fact liable to perish, (chap. ii. 12, &c.) but that they knew they were worthy of death, (chap. i.ult.) design. For if Adam was to be considered as a public person, the type, figure, or representation of mankind, his conduct will, as the apostle says it does, affect infants, Dr. Milner's Fading Flowers of Life, p. 14. 60 And reigned over the whole human race ; SECT. that is, a kind of type of the Messiah, as being xi. a public person and federal head. Rom. Yet I must observe by the way, that with 15 But not as the offence, so also is v. 15 respect to the free gift of God in the gospel the free gift. For if dispensation, it [is] not exactly as the offence, through the offence nor limited in all respects as that is; for if by ofone many be dead; the offence of one many died, if the whole human much more the grace of God, and the gift family, numerous as it is, became obnoxious to death and destruction thereby; how much more by one man, Jesus by grace, which is hath the free grace of God, and the gift [which Christ, hath aboundis granted] by that grace, as manifested and ed unto many. displayed in that one greater and better man Jesus Christ, abounded to many, that is, to all the numerous family of believers. 16 16 And not as it And this in two very important respects. In the first place, the gift [is] not merely, as the was by one that sin ruin that came upon us by one that sinned, in ned, so is the gift: for the judgment respect to the number of offences in question; was by one to confor the sentence of but one offence [passed] upon demnation, but the us to condemnation; and we were no farther free gift is of many offences unto justifi affected by the subsequent sins of Adam, than cation. by those of any intermediate parent: but the gift of Divine grace, exhibited in the gospel, [is effectual] to our justification from the guilt of many offences. It not only delivers us from the sentence to which we were from our birth liable on account of Adam's sin, but from that more grievous and dreadful sentence which we had brought upon ourselves in adult life by our innumerable and aggravated personal transgressions. one; 17 Moreover there is another important article in 17 For if by one which the grace of the gospel exceeds the seem- man's offence death ing severity, which attended the imputation of reigned by much more they guilt from our first father Adam; namely, that which receive a if by one man's offence death reigned by one, over bundance of grace, all his posterity, as we observed above, they and of the gift of who thankfully and obediently receive the over But it may be sufficient to answer, that ed here by receiving the gift, that is surprising any should have spoken of it as common to the whole human race. And nothing is more evident, than that the word aucar has often this sense, and signifies being active in embracing a benefit proposed, or a person offering himself under a character of importance. Compare John i. 11, 12; chap. iii. 11, 32; chap. v. 43; chap. xii. 48; chap. xiii. 20; Jam. v. 10; 1 John v. 9; 2 John 10; 3 John 7. |