and defies their research. The only rational conclusion is, that the will of the Creator constitutes identity; but wherein it consists, he having not told us, we do not know.

Can any man tell us the primary, essential reason, why our bodies, perpetually changing, and ere death, so different from what they were at birth, are still the same bodies? Can the Christian say why he believes that the resurrection of his own body, and not the creation of another, a new one, is that which he expects? How has "God given to every seed its own body?" What strange nexus is that by which a mortal body, that is, pulvis et umbra, dust with its shadow, and a spiritual, immortal soul, constitute one man? The identity of the soul itself is scarcely more clear; for who is not conscious of a soul as different from what it once was, as the mature body is from the infant frame which his mother brought forth? The humility which the shadows that God has thrown around us should teach, is far wiser than the conceit which is but the offspring of our pride.

On the present subject we are taught, that by a divine constitution, the origin of all identity, a union exists between the first parent and our whole race; and since Christ is called the second Adam, we might have adduced this as one of the texts in which the Scriptures teach our union with Christ. That our first parent and all his descendants have been treated as one, must be, to some extent, admitted by all who believe the Scriptures. The exact measure of the extent and the instances, may be matter of dispute.

As if Adam, the root or stem, had co-existed with all its branches, the whole tree has been smitten and blasted at once. He who was made in God's holy image, and placed in a paradise, sinned, was doomed to die as a penalty, and expelled from the abode of bliss; and we are all "by nature the children of wrath," obnoxious to death, and born, not in paradise, but in that outer world to which he was exiled. His wife, taken from himself, was doomed to subjection, and the sorrows of child-bearing; and the sentence pronounced on her, is executed on the daughters of Adam. He is doomed to toil in procuring, from the earth, cursed with thorns and briers, his daily bread, with the sweat of his brow, till his return to the ground, from which he was taken; and his sons find, that this sentence, though spoken to him, was, in fact, hurled at their heads; for it smites them all.

In vain we attempt to evade the identity which this infers, by saying, How could it be otherwise ? Does not like beget like, as lambs generate lambs; and tigers, tigers? How could we inherit what our father lost? Must not a fallen bankrupt parent, beggar his children? All this is true, as premises; but false, in the conclusion attempted to be drawn from it. Accounting for a thing is not disproving it. Nor is this all for the reasoning of the opponent goes upon the supposition that this connexion was an absolute necessity, which Deity itself could not prevent. But we are, as believers in revelation, familiar with the idea of some angels falling, and leaving others in "their first estate." If it be

said, But angels were created simultaneously, as independent of each other; while men were created in the person of one parent, from whom they were all successively to spring: we grant it. But who made this difference? Does it not prove, that, by the pure will of the Deity, men are placed in this dependence upon a common parent, from which God could have exempted us, as well as angels, if such had been his high pleasure. But, in his wise and holy counsels, he has otherwise decreed. He, therefore, to a great extent, treats us all as if we had been that one man who first sinned. The wisdom, or propriety, or equity, or benevolence of this arrangement, are not now to be discussed; for we are contending with those who admit the fact, which is all that is essential to the present argument.

This union must have had its origin and cause in the Divine mind, it was not an after thought, but the effect of plan, the carrying into operation of a divine scheme. Who can suppose that it was after the fall, that we were associated with our great parent, so as to be made to share his fortunes, only when this was ruin to us? Would our Creator entail on us the evils, without affording us a chance, if we may so speak, of sharing the advantages that might have accrued from the connexion? The principal argument in defence of the whole arrangement is derived from the consideration, that we ought not to judge of plans by the event, but from their own nature; so that, as we should have approved of our connexion with Adam, if it had entailed on us righteous

ness and life; we ought not to censure it, merely because it has brought on us condemnation and death. In the former case, by the righteousness of one, many would have obtained Justification of life; in the latter, "by one man's disobedience many are made sinners," and are under condemnation to death.

Such are the fruits of uniting many to one head. But this union was formed by the Divine mind, the Author of all identity. God has produced it, and we are compelled to believe the fact, without being able to explain the reason or mode. Let it not be forgotten, then, that this discussion is not the creation of a writer without authority, whose reasonings, as fallible, may be given to the winds; but is stamped with apostolical authority, to which Rome and all who symbolise with her, profess to yield special and implicit deference. At the conclusion of a long and earnest discussion of the way in which a sinner can be justified, the epistle to the Romans contains a remarkable parallel between Adam and Christ, the former being declared to be "a figure of him that was to come.” If Adam was designed to be a type of which Christ was to be the antitype, there must have been some grand correspondence between the two. But, at first sight, we are struck with all that is the opposite of correspondence. Nor is this unnoticed in Scripture; for as we learn that our relation to Adam introduced into the argument on Justification, was no accidental allusion, (if such a thing could be admitted in an inspired letter,) but a great and important fact, which is of weight in other doc

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trines, and therefore is employed on the subject of the resurrection, also; so the contrast, rather than correspondence, is obvious in the epistle to the Corinthians, as well as in that to the Romans. The first Adam introduced death, the second confers resurrection to life. "The first is of the earth, earthy; the second is the Lord from heaven." The figure, or type, brings sin into the world, and death by sin; he "who was to come," as the antitype, brings righteousness and Justification of life. It is as unnecessary, as it would be easy, to pursue the contrast to greater lengths.

But how can any thing be a type of that to which it is a contrast? In the epistle to the Hebrews we are taught the typical nature of the Levitical ceremonies, not by contrast but by correspondences. "The law was a shadow of good things to come, but not the very image" or substance, in opposition to shadow. In the law, therefore, we have shadow; in the gospel, substance. But the shadow gives the shape and form; the resemblance, not the contrast. The sacrifices of bulls and of goats were types of a better sacrifice than these of something that REALLY puts away sin, not surely of that which brings guilt. By the veil which hung over the holy of holies, and debarred access, the "Holy Ghost this signified, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while the first tabernacle was standing." They would be thought strange expositors of this type who should explain the veil to signify manifestation of free

access.