THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION. PART THE FIRST. THE CREATION TO THE FLOOD. SECTION I. The Creation.-B. C. 4000. THE History of the Bible commences with an account of the creation of the world; and it informs us, that from a single pair of human beings, the whole human race has descended. "He hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth." From the whole of Scripture, it also с appears, that Adam was treated and considered as the federal head and representative of all his posterity, and that according to his behaviour, he would entail happiness or misery on his descendants. If Adam, then, had continued in innocence, there is every reason to conclude, that neither Sin or Death would have entered into the world; because he was dealt with by his Maker, as the Father of Mankind. For though, as Bishop Butler justly remarks, "the very enquiry what would have followed, if God had not done, as he has done, may have in it some very great impropriety, and ought not to be carried on any further, than is necessary to help our partial and inadequate conception of things;" (Analogy, part II. ch. 5.) yet, for the sake of trying the force of an argument, we may be allowed to make this natural supposition. If, then, all men would have lived by Adam's Innocence, (and this, be it remembered, is something more than an hypothesis, since all men have suffered by Adam's guilt,) we conclude, by plain and necessary inference, that all men have been treated on the same universal principles, and that "there is no respect of persons with God." This argument acquires peculiar force from its connection with the first creation of man, because the first creation has a reference to all that follows. It is like laying the first stone of a building. The whole superstructure must depend on its solidity. The more deeply any man ponders the fact, that the whole family of mankind have descended from the same parents, the more fully will he be persuaded, that all the members of this family have been treated by God with the same impartial equity and justice. See Connection of Natural and Revealed Theology. Part I. Sect. 7. SECTION II. The Fall. THE reasoning, in the foregoing chapter, is amply confirmed by the event which took place soon after the Creation, and whilst only a single pair of human beings existed. Our first parents fell into sin, and thereby brought on themselves and their posterity the penalties of disobedience. In consequence, they were driven out of Paradise, compelled to earn their bread with the sweat of their brow, rendered liable to sickness and sorrows, and doomed, after a short interval, to return again to their dust. Gen. iii. 15-24. These are effects which have extended to all mankind, they are penalties which are suffered alike by all the nations of the earth. Here, then, "there is no respect of persons," no mark of favouritism or partiality, and the cause which the Scripture assigns is adequate to the effect: "In Adam all die." "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." But if all men are thus treated as sinners on account of Adam's fall, surely, a strong inference arises, that, whatever might be the future treatment or experience of man, it would extend to all the posterity of Adam; and that, if any plan of grace and mercy were designed for our recovery, it would be co-extensive with the wants of the whole human race, and not confined to any exclusive portion. Unless the force of this reasoning be admitted, a heavy and, I think, an insuperable difficulty will always attend on the history of the Fall. That some should be punished for Adam's transgression, and that others should not be punished, may suit the principles of Calvinism; but the moment it is admitted, there is an end to the doctrine of Universal Redemption*. * Bishop Sherlock carries this argument even still further:-"God would not have suffered the world to have been filled with weak and miserable creatures, had he not intended them for objects of mercy." See his Appendix to the Dissertation on the Fall at the end |