Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE FIRST AND THE SECOND MAN.77aiice on the obedience of the creature, was theFountain of Grace Himself ruling the creature bya union indefeasible and eternal ; for grace communicatedrace immanent in its source. For theson gratuitously adopted was the Son by nature,making, by an inconceivable grace, the creatednature assumed to be that not of the adoptedbut of the natural Son. In a word, the figurewas man united to God ; the counterpart, theGod-man.What, again, is Adam's counterpart as Fatherand Head of his race ? It was human nature itself,which the Word of God espoused in the bridalchamber of the Virginal Womb, and so is becomethe Second Adam, the Father of a new race, theHead of a mystical Body, which corresponds toAdam's original Headship, but as far transcendsit as the grace of the Incarnate Word transcendsthe grace bestowed on the first man. As Adam,had he stood in his original state of son, wouldhave transmitted the gift of a like sonshi to hiswhole race - as, falling, he did actually transmit tothat race the guilt of adoption lost, so the SecondAdam, out of His own uncreated Sonship, butthrough the nature which He had assumed,stowed the dower of adopted sons and the giftof justice on his race. From the one there waspunishment generating through the flesh ;12 from12 " Adam unus est, in quo omnes peccaverunt, quia non solum ejusimitatio peccatores facit, sed per carnem generans poena : Christus unus