considering that it is not a matter of mere curiosity, but a truth of
the deepest importance; it being impossible, on any other principle,

To assert a gracious Providence,
And justify the ways of God with men:

and considering withal, how plain this important truth is, to all
sensible and candid inquirers. May the Lover of men open the eyes
of our understanding, to perceive clearly that by the fall of Adam
mankind in general have gained a capacity,

First, of being more holy and happy on earth, and,

Secondly, of being more happy in heaven than otherwise they could have
been.

And, first, mankind in general have gained by the fall of Adam a
capacity of attaining more holiness and happiness on earth than it
would have been possible for them to attain if Adam had not fallen.
For if Adam had not fallen, Christ had not died. Nothing can be more
clear than this: nothing more undeniable: the more thoroughly we
consider the point, the more deeply shall we be convinced of it.
Unless all the partakers of human nature had received that deadly
wound in Adam it would not have been needful for the Son of God to
take our nature upon Him. Do you not see that this was the very ground
of His coming into the world? "By one man sin entered into the world,
and death by sin. And thus death passed upon all" through him, "in
whom all men sinned." (Rom. v., 12.) Was it not to remedy this very
thing that "the Word was made flesh"? that "as in Adam all died, so
in Christ all might be made alive"? Unless, then, many had been made