of the rarity of its appearance. The remedy is adequate to the length and breadth of the calamity; and as the nature of Christ has come as a universal antidote to the morally diseased nature of Adam, it does not except any, on account of the particular virulence of the form which the disease may have taken in them. Indeed, as Adam's nature had the advantage of prior possession, in consequence of which men find themselves, at the commencement of their conscious existence, already under the influence of its evil tendencies, and gradually drawn on by it, before they are well aware, into acts of personal sin, which go on multiplying from day to day, whilst they continue unregenerated; if such cases as these were excluded from the restoration of Christ, it would be no better than a merely nominal restoration.

But it is not a merely nominal restoration, for the gift"-the nature of Jesus-does come to all, and the parallelism between it and the nature of Adam continues to hold good, for as Adam's nature proves its origin and shows its power, by bringing under sin, (or at least under temptation,) and under death, those into whom it enters, although they were new spirits, personally unpolluted

before its entrance into them, even so Christ's nature proves its origin and shows its power, by delivering from sin and from death all into whom it enters, however deep their personal pollution may have been in past time, and however "many" their "offences."

This is the true meaning of the clause under question, and assuming that this is its meaning, surely we must acknowledge that it is necessary, not for the purpose of doing away all comparison between the fall and the restoration, but for the opposite purpose of vindicating the parallelism between them, and of maintaining that the limitation in the apparent effects of the restoration, does not arise from any limitation in its nature, or in the purpose of God.

For if the character of the fall be this, that one offence, by one man, polluted the whole human nature, in the very fountain from which all its streams flowed, and brought upon it a moral taint, and a condemnation to death, which followed it wherever it went, so that whether it appeared in an infant or an idiot, who had never exercised a moral volition, or in a saint who had successfully striven against its evil tendency, it still did tend to sin, and carried along with it the

sentence of death, so that it was the unfailing token of weakness, and sorrow, and mortality, to the creature who partook in it,-if this be the character of the fall, I cannot think that any restoration, or act of grace, could truly be said to meet such a calamity, unless it met the evil in all its streams, as well as in its fountain, that is, unless it put every individual, however much he had personally sinned by yielding to the evil bent which had been thus induced upon the nature, into a condition and capacity of rising out of the fall, into a holiness and blessedness, equal to, if not beyond, what he would have had, on the supposition that the fall had never taken place.

And if there were foundation in fact and truth, for any man fearing that from any cause, and especially from his having in past time yielded to the evil tendencies brought on the nature by the fall, he was really so shut out from grace that "the gift which has abounded unto the many" is not permitted to abound to him-or that, though it does abound to him, the capacity of receiving it, has been withdrawn from him,—or that though he may and does receive it, it may not bring to him its saving healing power,

nor its seal of the judicial award of eternal life-then the Apostle's boast is gone, and the triumph of evil in the fall is above the triumph of good in the restoration.

But our clause denies that this is the case, and as it recognizes that the nature has been corrupted, and has lain under the condemnation of death, ever since the one offence of Adam, and brings its death to all, even to those who have had no personal guilt of their own; so it asserts, that the free gift comes to all, even to those who have committed "many offences," and that no amount of previous wickedness shuts a man out from it, and that as it comes to all, so it may be received by all, and wherever it is received, it seals the soul with the forgiving favour of God. The clause thus interpreted, agrees with the last clause of chap. iii. 25, where the righteousness to which man is called, is said to be a righteousness founded on the forgiveness of all the past sins of the whole life,—that time, during which God's mercy has been waiting for us.*

The limitation of the effects of the restor

* For the significations which I have attributed to the prepositions in and as, in this clause, I refer the reader to Schleusner, in x-(11,) and (15 b.)—and in (21.)

ation is explained in verse 17th. The cause of it lies in man's exercise of his elective power. He may and he does refuse entrance to "the gift" into his heart-and, whilst he continues to do so, he shuts out the blessing contained in the gift. But even whilst he refuses entrance to it, the love which sent it is not withdrawn, and the presence of the gift, though unreceived, lifts him out of the fall, and puts him in the condition of responsibility, which he could not have been in unless. the capacity of good had been communicated to him.

The Apostle had in ver. 15th declared that, in opposition to the fall through Adam, there is a gift of grace through Christ, which fully meets the fall, and extends as widely as the fall. He does not specify its nature or mode of working, but we proceed on from his statement with the conviction that a general reestablishment of the race, in a state of probation or trial, and in a capacity of obtaining salvation, is certainly the lowest interpretation which his language will bear. It would not have answered his purpose to have said any thing in that verse, about the way in which the gift was received, for he was there considering it, only in reference to that one of its