Answer 1. There is a difference between a necessary extension and a voluntary one. Adam's sin was extensive necessarily, but salvation by Christ is of free grace, wholly of God's pleasure, and is therefore called the "free gift" (Ro 5:15).

2. Christ is nowhere compared to Adam in the extent of His object, but only in the efficacy of His obedience. All, and everyone, are not in Christ radically, as they were in Adam; all are not given to Christ; but "as many (saith Christ) as Thou has given Me." As all the offspring of Adam fell by his sin, so all that are Christ's are saved by His death; as all that are in Adam die, so all that are in Christ are made alive (1Co 15:22).

3. That the apostle might not be misunderstood, and the word "all" in Ro 5:18 taken universally, the term of comprehension is varied in the following verse, and "all" is rendered "many." "By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."

Objection 5. In Ro 14:15, it is said, "destroy not him for whom Christ died." And in 2Pe 2:1, persons are described as "denying the Lord that bought them."

Answer 1. Everlasting destruction cannot be intended by the word destroy in Ro 14:15, and the context shows this; for the apostle, throughout the chapter, is exhorting the believing Romans not to contemn or condemn one another on account of things indifferent; neither to destroy the weak believer's peace of mind by doing anything (which although it be indifferent, and not evil in itself) may yet prove a stumbling-block to him. I "am persuaded," says Paul, "that there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him that esteemeth anything unclean, to him it is unclean. If thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not" (by thy conduct in eating meat esteemed by thy brother unclean) the peace of mind of one of the weaklings of that flock "for which Christ died." Put not a stumbling-block, or an occasion of falling or offence in thy weak brother's way (Ro 14:13-15). "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. Give none offense" (1Co 10:31,32). To the same purport is 1 Corinthians 8 throughout.

2. The persons spoken of in 2Pe 2:1, as "denying the Lord that bought them," are described by the apostle thus, "false teachers"-- hypocritical professors, tares among the wheat (Mt 13:25,38), in whom was never the root of the matter; not bought and redeemed by Christ from eternal death, but had merely escaped, or abstained, from the pollutions of the world through a theoretical knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (2Pe 2:20). To answer certain purposes, they made an outward profession of the gospel, which obliged them for a space to be outwardly moral; associated with the people of God, insinuated themselves into churches, privily introduced therein damnable heresies. Many followed their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth was evil spoken of, and they made merchandise of true believers. They continued thus for a while, and then either their sheep's clothing was stripped off them, or they threw it off themselves, and returned back again into the world. They were all this while "goats" and not "sheep;" ravening wolves, not gentle lambs. And Peter closes the chapter concerning them by saying, "It is happened to them according to the true proverb. The dog is turned to its own vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire" (2Pe 2:1-3,17-22).

3. The apostle (2Pe 2:1) does not appear to be there speaking concerning the purchase of the Redeemer's blood, the name or title, Lord (Greek, depotes), is nowhere else applied to Christ in the New Testament, but to the Father, as in Lu 2:29; Ac 4:24; 2Ti 2:22; and especially in Jude 4, where "the only Lord God" is distinguished from "our Lord Jesus Christ." And even though it could be proved to apply to Christ in the above text, it may be explained upon the principle that it is no unusual thing with the inspired writers to speak of things not as they actually are, but according to the profession of the party. Thus, for instance, (Mt 13:12): "Whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath" that is, "which he seemeth to have," as explained in Lu 8:18. Thus apostates are said to be "twice dead," which would seem to import that they had been spiritually alive, though in fact that was never the case, but merely what they professed to be.

4. So that, if we even grant the premises, it only follows that such as think themselves redeemed, or are thought so by others, may blaspheme and perish; yet this makes not all the world redeemed; this can by no means establish the doctrine of Universal Redemption.

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