Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

66 THE FIRST AND THE SECOND MAN.of transmitting his quality of divine sonship to hi srace by propagation, and the dependence of thatquality, in them as well as in himself, on his personalfidelity to God.But the First Man, the Father and Head of therace, did not stand in his inheritance. He brokethe divine command, and lost the gift of sonship,and with it all the prerogatives attendant on thatgift, which were above nature and rooted in grace,and which the eminent goodness of God had be-stowed upon him: and by the terms of the originalcharter lost the gift, not only for himself, but forhis race. But he did not, therefore, destroy thatrelation between the Head and the Race, whichwas part of the original foundation of God. Thiscontinued; but whereas it had been intended tocommunicate the blessing of adoption, it nowserved to communicate the demerit of adoptionlost, the guilt, and with it the punishment incurredby that loss. This is the original sin, thesin of the nature, not of the person, inherited bythe members of Adam's body; and as there canbe no sin without free-will, the sin of the wholenature included in Adam as its Root and Head,which sinned by Adam's abuse of his free-will.Let us try to determine as accurately as wecan the position into which Adam and his racefell.Did, then, Adam simply lose with the forfeitureof sanctifying grace the gift of sonship, the super-