The true doctrine of justification asserted and vindicated, from the errors of Papists, Arminians,…The true doctrine of justification asserted and vindicated, from the errours of Papists, Arminians,…

I pass over the third, and reserve the fourth and sixth Argument (being all one) for the next Lecture, because in them is matter worthy of a large consideration.

I come therefore to the fifth Argument,¹ which is taken from the collation between the first Adam and second out of Rom. 5.18, 19. From whence is argued, As in the first Adam we are accounted sinners before any thing done on our part; so in the second Adam, we are to be justified before any thing wrought in us. This the opponent doth much triumph in, but without cause, as the answer will manifest.

1. 1Arg. 5.

And in the first place we cannot but reject those Expositors of that text fore-quoted,¹ who understand us to be sinners in Adam, only by imitation, or by propagation merely, as from a corrupted fountain; but we suppose it to be by imputation: Adam (by Gods Covenant) being an universal person, and so as Austin said, Omnes ille unus homo fuerunt, All were that one man. And therefore these do not rise up to the full scope of the text, who parallel Christ and Adam only as two roots, Origens or fountains; for there must be a further consideration of them as two common persons, for our immediate fathers are a corrupted root, and we are corrupted by them, yet their sins are not made ours, as Adams was. Hence the Apostle layeth the whole transgression upon one, as by one mans disobedience, &c. Those that deny imputation of Adams sin (as the Pelagians of old, and Erasmus with others of late) do not relish that translation of those words [Greek or Hebrew], in whom all have sinned, but prefer the other, Forasmuch as all have sinned in him; but both come to the same sense: and howsoever Erasmus say, that [Greek or Hebrew] with a dative case must be understood causally, yet that is not universally true; for