Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

64 THE FIRST AND THE SECOND MAN.is obvious at first sight that the divine gift hereintended, being in Adam's actual creation thwhich was over and above the naturaties of body and soul in their union, was bestowedabsolutely by the pure goodness of God, and thereforecould be bestowed with such conditions attachedto it as pleased the Giver. In all that isbeyond the mere faculties and needs of naturein forming which God's own being is a sort ofrule to Him-He is absolutely free to give aspleases Himself, to what degree He pleases, onwhat terms He pleases. What, then, were theconditions on which He invested Adam with thegift of Sonship, and created Him in grace as itsfoundation ? He created him, not only as theindividual Adam, bufc as the Head of his race, sothat his race was summed up in him, and a unitywas founded in him attaching his whole race asmembers to his body, in such manner that thesupernatural gift of sonship bestowed on him wasto descend from him by virtue of natural propagationto every member of that body, which thusbecame a supernatural race from a supernaturalfather. So absolute was this unity that the ordermaintained in the case of every other creature putunder the dominion of the man so formed wasnot followed in his case. For whereas they werecreated with the difference of sex, each a maleand a female, he was created alone, as the Head,and then she, by whose cooperation the race was