Contempt and ridicule will come. But the Christian should know that this indicates defect in the authors of them. If religion were, as the infidel hopes it will prove, without foundation, to ridicule the conscientious man for his weakness, is rudeness, weakness, and want of generosity. If religion be doubtful, to ridicule it is to run the hazard of Divine resentment, and highly imprudent. If it be certain, it is to rush upon the bosses of God’s buckler, and the most horrid insolence. Ridicule is no test of truth, for the greatest and most important truths may be subjected to wit; it is no index of strength of understanding; and wit and great knowledge almost never are found together. It indicates nothing noble or generous, but a little piddling genius, and contemptible pride. He who yields to the shame of that which is good, weakens his powers of resistance, provokes the Spirit of grace, hardens his conscience, strengthens the hands of the enemy, excites the contempt of the wicked themselves, grieves his follow Christians, affronts God to his face, and incurs the judgment of Christ “Whosoever is ashamed of me and my words, of him will I be ashamed.” Quest. XXII. QUEST. XXII. _Did all mankind fall in that first transgression?_ ANSW. The covenant being made with Adam, as a public person, not for himself only, but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him in that first transgression. Having shewn, in the foregoing answer how our first parents sinned and fell, we are now led to consider, how their fall affected all their posterity, whom they represented; and accordingly it is said, that the covenant was made with Adam, as a federal head, not for himself only, but all his posterity; so that they sinned in, and fell with him. But, before we enter more particularly on this subject, it may not be improper to enquire, whether this character, of being the head of the covenant, respects only Adam, or both our first parents? I am sensible there are many who think this covenant was made with Adam, as the head of his posterity, exclusive of Eve; so that, as he did not represent her therein, but his seed, she was not, together with him, the representative of mankind; therefore, though the covenant was made with her, and she was equally obliged to perform the conditions thereof, yet she was only to stand or fall for herself, her concern herein being only personal; and therefore it follows, from hence, that when she fell, being _first in the transgression_, all mankind could not be said to sin and fall in her, as they did in Adam; therefore, if she alone had sinned, she would have perished alone.