Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE FIRST AND THE SECOND MAN.75sonship lost, another of captivity to that enemy ofhis Creator and Father who had seduced him tofall. And this picture included in it the doubleffect of guilt transmitted through a whole racefrom its head and father, and of the ersonal sinsof each individual of the race : which, * moreover -E-i-LVX-l. V-/VX V^JL *had a tendency to be perpetually heightened bythe social nature of man-that part of his originalcondition which, as it would have supported hishighest good in the state of innocence, so came tomake his corruption intense and more complicatedin the state of fall. It has not been our purposein this sketch to dwell upon those who, like Adamhimself after his fall, accepted the divine assistanceoffered to them, and the promise of a futureRestorer, and who, living a life of penance, kepttheir faith in God. Such an assistance was offerednot only to Adam but to his whole race, and sucha line of men there always was ; of whom Abelwas the type in the world before the flood; Noahafter the flood, as the second father of the wholerace ; Abraham, the friend of God and father ofthe faithful, in whose son Isaac a people was tobe formed, which, as the nations in their apostasyfell more and more away from the faith and knowledgeof the true God, should maintain still theseed of promise out of which the Restorer shouldspring. But before that Restorer came, the heathenism-ofwhich we have been speaking in theformer chapter, and of which we have been giving