Mr Robert Bruce

. We seem to misunderstand one another about the two Adams, and especially the latter. (See Rom. 5:12 to the end.) In that excellent scripture a comparison is instituted, which if we duly understood and agreed in, we would not readily differ in the main things of the gospel. The apostle there tell us that the first Adam stood in the place of all his natural posterity. He had their stock in his hand. While he stood, they stood in him; and when he fell, they fell with him. By his fall he derived sin and death to all those who spring from him by natural generation. This is the sad side. But he tells us in opposition to this, and                                                      
comparing with it, that Christ — the second man — is the new head of the redeemed world. He stands in their place. His obedience is theirs; and he justly communicates to his spiritual offspring the contrary to what the first sinful Adam does to his natural offspring: righteousness instead of guilt and sin, life instead of death, justification instead of condemnation, and eternal life instead of hell deserved. So that I think the 3d, 4th, and 5th chapters of the epistle to the Romans deserve our deep study for the mystery of justification; and the 6th, 7th, and 8th chapters for the mystery of sanctification.   Robert Traill