Eighteen sermons preached in Oxford 1640 of conversion, unto God. Of redemption, & justification,…

Now that we may the better know to whom ⟨p. 66⟩these things belong, know it is thou and I, we all have been or are in this estate, till we have supernatural grace; and therefore we are declared to be children of wrath, and children of disobedience, till regenerated. Why? It's because it's thy nature, it belongs to all. Now we know the common nature always appertains to the same kind: There's nothing natural but is common with the kind. If then by nature we are children, then certainly it belongs to every Mothers son of us, for we are all sons of Adam. In Adam we all die, Rom. 5. That's the fountain whence all misery flows to us. As thou receivedst thy nature, so the corruption of thy nature from him; for he begat a son in his own likeness. This therefore is the condition of every one. The Apostle in 1 Cor. 15. speaks of two men, the first was from the earth, earthy, the second was the Lord from heaven. What, were there not many millions and generations more? True, but there were not more men like these, men of men, two head men, two fathers of all other men. There were but two by whom all must stand or fall, but two such men. By the fall of the first man we all fell; and if we rise not by the second man, we are yet in our sins. If he rise not, we cannot be risen. We must rise or fall by him. He is the Mediator of the second Covenant. If he rise and we are in him, we shall rise with him; but if not, we are dead still. So it is in the first Adam, we all depend on him, he is the root of all mankind. It's said in Isaiah 53. Our Saviour should rejoice to see his seed. His seed, that is to say, ⟨p. 67⟩he is the common father of all mankind, I mean of all those that shall proceed from him by spiritual generation. He shall present them to his father, as when one is presented to the University: Behold here am I, and the children that thou hast given me. So in Adam, he being the head of the covenant of nature, that is, the Law, if he had stood, none of us had fallen; if he fall, none of us all can stand He is the peg on which all the keys hang: if that stand, they hang fast; but if that fall, they fall with it. As we see in matter of bondage; if the father forfeit his liberty, and become a bondman, all his children are bondmen to a hundred generations: here is our case. We were all once free, but our father hath forfeited his liberty;