Adam Was, in the Strict Sense of the Words, the Federal Representative of the Race; and the Antenatal Forfeiture, of Which Each of His Descendants Is Subject, Is the Penal Consequence of His Public Sin

Our doctrine is, that God as the legitimate Guardian of the human race, and acting for its advantage, ordered its probation under the law as a covenant of life in the representative agency or federal headship of Adam, the first root and natural head of the race, in circumstances and on conditions as favourable for the race as possible. Adam, although as well endowed and circum stanced as any individual of his natural order, while yet in a state of instable moral equilibrium, could possibly be, nevertheless fell; and his sin, according to the favourable conditions of their probation, is the judicial ground of the antenatal forfeiture of his children, of the penal withdrawing from them of the influences of God’s Spirit; and hence their innate corruption is the penal consequence of Adam’s sin. We may therefore discuss this subject by tracing downward from cause to effect the headship of Adam, the imputation of the guilt of his sin, and the penal consequences thereof in the sin and misery of his descendants. Or, on the other hand, we may trace from effects to causes the experienced

FEDERAL HEADSHIP OF ADAM. f9

facts as to man’s natural condition up to the imputation of Adam’s public sin. I prefer the latter method for the following reasons: (a.) Because the facts of the case are indubitably proved by the natural reason and universal experience of mankind, as well as by divine revelation. It hence follows that the weight of the facts bears as heavily upon every system of thought which admits the existence of an infinite moral Governor as it does upon any school of Christian theology. (6.) Because this method will afford us the best possible opportunity of contrasting the solution which the Scriptures give us of the terrible facts of the case, by referring them to their legal ground in the judicial charging to his descendants of the guilt of the public sin of our representative, with every other solution ever suggested by human genius. This will bring out into clear relief the fact that the scriptural doctrine of the immediate and antecedent imputation of the guilt of Adam’s sin to his descendants, instead of being a repulsive and unnecessarilyaggravated feature of Calvinism, is the most honouring to God and gratifying to the moral sense of men, of all the solutions of the awful but undeniable facts of the case which has ever been attempted. None are more ready to recognize the real difficulties inherent in the doctrine of the federal headship of Adam than its staimchest advocates. But it is certain that these difficulties are the same, both in kind and degree, with those which are inseparable from those broad facts of the case which are universally recognized by all except theoretical or practical atheists.

These patent facts as to man’s moral and spiritual condition from birth, which T will here simply state and assume as universally conceded, are as follows. 1. Every individual human being is from birth and by nature totally depraved. This general truth involves three subordinate ones. (1.) Every human being habitually sins as soon as he enters a state of moral agency. (2.) Each human being is born with an antecedent effectual tendency in his nature to sin. And (3) this innate tendency in his nature to sin, with which every .man outers the world, is itself of the nature of sin and worthy of punishment.*

2. Every human being is born into and lives under the power of a social organization called the world, all the moral forces of which oppose virtue and secure the prevalence of vice.

3. All men are introduced into existence under the dominion of an unseen spiritual empire of apostate angels, of which Satan is prince. f

These, then, are the portentous facts concerning the universal moral condition of mankind by nature. Each individual comes into existence with a nature itself worthy of punishment, and effectually predisposing him to sin. They are moreover born into a corrupt and corrupting social organization, and subject to the mysterious and prevalent influence of an apostate spiritual empire. Yet, notwithstanding this disability under which men

* Dr. Edward Beeclier, in his “Conflict of Ages,” p. 96, give? his valuable testimony as follows: “The Princeton Review alleges, and as far as I know correctly, that ’ there is not a creed of any Christian Church in which the doctrine that inherent corruption, as existing prior to voluntaiy action, is of the nature of sin, is not distinctly affirmed.’”

f Dr. Edward Beeclier’? Conflict of Ages, Book I., Chapters viii., ix., x.

are born, they are still held bound, under further penalty of eternal damnation, to fulfil in disposition and act the entire unmodified law of absolute perfection. These statements, moreover, do not represent the peculiar results of any school either of philosophy or theology, but the naked and undeniable facts of the case, authenticated as certain by reason, conscience and experience, as well as by revelation. The denial of Christianity affords no escape from them, much less, of course, the denial of the truth of Augusti nian theology. We have no alternative but to face them in their full significance, and to adapt our speculations to the unquestionable facts.

It is here that the agonizing but unavoidable question arises as to the reconciliation of this state of facts with the character of a just, holy and merciful Creator. If God had seen fit to shed no light whatever upon this dark subject, it would still undoubtedly be our duty to exercise an unquestioning faith in him, and to appease our reason by the plea of mystery. But men must demand, and ought to demand, the full development of every element of relief from this great moral enigma which God has graciously vouchsafed to give us in his word. The ultimate intuitions of right are them selves a direct revelation from God, and when legitimately interpreted and applied, they are of as high authority as any dogma of theology. It is absolutely impossible for a devout mind to admit that God can be the immediate author of sin, or that he can treat a creature whose natural claims upon him, as a creature, have not previously been justly forfeited, as worthy of punishment. The most orthodox theologians agree with the Rationalists on the following points.

1. God cannot be the author of sin.

2. God cannot originally create agents with an inherent corrupt nature effectually predisposing them 10 sin, for that would constitute him the author of sin. And as a matter of fact he did create mankind and the angels holy; that is, with a positive, pre-existent disposition inclining them to virtue.

3. God will not inflict either moral or physical evil upon any moral agent whose natural claims as a dependent creature have not previously been justly forfeited.

4. Hence every moral agent ought in justice to enjoy a fair probation; that is, a trial so conditioned as to afford at least as much opportunity of success as liability to failure. Hence arise two distinct and unavoidable questions, which have been anxiously discussed by the philosophers and theologians of all times.

1. WHY, that is, on what ground oj ‘justice, does God inflict this terrible evil, the root and sum of all other evils, upon every human being at the instant his existence commences? What fair probation have infants born in sin enjoyed? And WHEN and WHY were their rights as new-created moral agents forfeited?

2. How — since we must believe that God originally creates every moral agent with a nature predisposed to virtue; and since as a matter of fact he did so create the first man — HOW, so that the author of the nature is not the author of the sin, is a sinful disposition originated in every human being as soon as he begins to exist?

It is self-evident that while these two questions relate to the same subject, they are themselves essentially distinct, and they must be treated as distinct, unless we should leave the entire subject in confusion. It is one thing to inquire how it is possible that sin shall originate as a connate predisposing cause of sin in every new-born infant, and yet the Maker of the infant not be the cause of the sin; and a very different thing to inquire WHY, on wnat ground of justice, this direful calamity is brought upon those who have not previously offended in their own persons. The former question may possibly be solved by reference to some ascertainable physiological law of natural generation; it may have its ground in some general relation which all individuals sustain to the genus to which they belong. But the latter question essentially relates to the administration of the divine government, and to the character of those ultimate moral principles upon which it proceeds. If this important distinction had always been kept clearly in view, much of the obscurity, and of the error too, which have marred speculations and controversies on this subject, would have been avoided. Endeavoring therefore, to keep it steadily in view, I proceed to give a summary statement of all the important solutions of both these questions which have been offered.

All opinions upon this subject may be classified upon two distinct principles.

1. We may classify them as they are, on the one hand, excogitated on purely rationalistic principles, independently of revelation, or as, on the other hand, they are developed by a more or less faithful interpretation of Scripture.

Or, 2. We may classify them either as they affirm or deny the principle that all men have justly forfeited their rights as new-created moral agents before their birth into this world. I shall adopt the latter principle of classi fication, remarking that the two principles come to the same practical result in this respect, that nearly all the purely rationalistic solutions of the problem deny that men are born subject to antenatal forfeiture; while, on the contrary, nearly all those solutions which are professedly derived from the interpretation of Scripture affirm it.

I. I propose under this head to state briefly those solutions of the questions above stated which agree in rejecting the principle that man is born subject to a just antenatal forfeiture, and liable to the righteous penalty of a violated law.

1. The first attempted solution is afforded by the Manichsean dualism, which postulates the independent self-existence of two principles. On the one hand, God, an eternal, self-existent, absolutely perfect Spirit, is the Father of all spirits, and the centre and governor of the whole spiritual kingdom of light and purity. On the other hand, matter, or that ultimate essence of which matter is one of the forms, is an independent, self-existing principle, inherently corrupt in itself, and corrupting to all that comes in contact with it. All spirits being pure in their origin from God, become vitiated through entanglement with the matter composing their bodies.* Although the magnificent speculations in which these opinions were first embodied have long since been forgotten, except by a few students of Christian antiquities, the radical idea of the self-existence and inherent viciousness of matter has not yet lost place among men’s thoughts. Against the false view of sin embodied in this theory all the early Fathers of the Christian Church protested. Manichseism virtually amounts to a denial of the existence of * Neander’s Hist. Christ. Relig., vol. i., pp. 488-506.

moral evil altogether, because it resolves it into a physical ground, making it an attribute of matter, like attraction, or inertia, or the like. The essence of sin lies in the fact that it is a spontaneous state or act of a free moral agent, not in conformity to the law of absolute moral perfection. Sin is necessarily immaterial, spiritual, an attribute of moral agency, inseparable from persons. Manichseism limits Jehovah by the eternal and necessary co-existence with him of a hostile and independent principle. It wrongs him by attempting to vindicate his freedom from all complication with sin by exhibiting him as helpless to prevent it. And it destroys all moral distinctions by resolving sin into a physical accident, exterior to the personal soul, and moral responsibility for crime into misfortune.

2. A second method of answering both the questions, how and why men always commence their conscious existence habitual sinners as far as that fact relates to the agency of God in the matter, cuts the knot by affirming the absolute self-determining power of the human will, and the consequent absolute “impreventability of sin.” While in many other respects they differ, yet at this point, touching the agency of God with respect to this estate of sin and misery into which man has fallen, Pelagians, Socinians, and the class of Trinitarians represented by Bushnell and Young, are perfectly agreed.* Every man creates his own character, being free to sin or not as he pleases. God did all he could to prevent the entrance of sin at the first, and ever since he has been doing all that is consistent with the necessary limitations of moral

*See Dr. J. Yoi ng’s “Evil and God,” pp 180-230, and “Life and Light of Men,” pp. 112-117.

agency, to put each man in the best possible positit it, and to bring to bear upon him the best possible moral and spiritual influences.

Now it is evident that this answer gets rid of the difficulty by denying the plain fact of the total depravity of each child from birth and by nature, antecedent to all moral action, which is proved as well by an unex ceptional experience as by revelation. The self-determining power of the human will may prove that sin is impreventable, and may account for the existence of sin in a few cases. As it is absolutely impossible for a man to believe, when the dice are thrown sixes successively a thousand times, that the dice are not loaded; so is it a thousand times more impossible to believe, when every human being of all nations and generations, without a single exception, begins to sin the instant he enters moral agency, that his will is not biassed by a previous effectual tendency in his nature to sin. Now the Bible, true psychology and uniform Christian experience unite in teaching that this innate previous tendency to sin is itself sin and worthy of punishment. The preventability of sin or the opposite is not the question. The fact to be accounted for is that all men sin as soon as they begin to act as moral agents. This universal constitution of things, which produces such uniformly dire effects, is God’s ordering, and he is bringing new souls into it every day. It does not help the matter to say, that the sin of the parent is propagated to the child by generation, or by education and example. For God is the author of the whole system of human generation and social relations. The questions remain unanswered, why? and how? God either permits or effects such results, and yet remains just and holy.

3. The third solution is the one incident to pantheistic speculations in general, and developed prominently by the German philosopher Hegel, adopted by Emerson, and, in a modified form, held by Theodore Parker and many of the advanced Unitarians of America; namely, that sin is a natural and necessary incident of a finite nature conditioned as man is, and the appointed means of development and ultimate perfection. Sin, according to this view, is limitation, the necessary accident of a process of growth. Even Bushnell regards sin as a favourable incident of spiritual education, which, training the soul for stable and intelligent virtue hereafter, involves necessarily an experiment of evil, and consequently a previous fall, and temporary subjection to its power.

This theory at once destroys all proper ideas alike of God and sin. It is absolutely inconsistent with the infinite power, wisdom, goodness and holiness of God. Sin is essentially avofju’a, and the divine law has its norm in the divine nature. Sin, therefore, is intrinsically opposition to God. It is not a limitation incident to finite existence, nor a condition incident to a stage in the development of a creature’s life, for then it would be according to law. It is the spontaneous reprehensible attitude of a creature’s will in opposition to God. God must hate and resist it and punish it, and no natural constitution of things which he ordains can involve it as a necsary incident. Sin can originate no otherwise than in the free, self-deer mined act of a personal spirit, acting in violation of, and not in accordance with, the law :rf its being.

4. The common view characteristic of the New England Theology was generated by an attempt to readjust the positions of old Calvinism in view of the rationalistic attacks made upon it by John Taylor, of Norwich, and the Socinians of America. This view was introduced by Dr. Samuel Hopkins, and developed by Edwards, Dwight, Em noons, &e., and has hence passed into general currency among all the adherents of that form of modified Calvinism called New England Theology. They found it necessary to protest in the interest of Rationalism against the principle that the descendants of Adam should have been judicially held to have justly forfeited all their rights as new-created moral agents, simply because of the sinful act of their progenitor, performed ages before their own existence. They therefore deny that human beings come into the world subject to any antenatal forfeiture, or with any positive moral corruption of nature. In the place of these discarded positions of old orthodoxy, they explain the facts by saying that the human race exists under a sovereign constitution of God, which has provided, that upon the condition of Adam’s sin in the garden, every one of his descendants shall infallibly sin as soon as he enters upon moral agency. Thus they ground the whole procedure ultimately upon the sovereignty instead of upon the justice of God. In answer to the question WHY this great evil is inflicted upon creatures just commencing their existence, they refer us simply to the sovereign good pleasure of God. In answer to the question HOW the uniform origination of sin i.s determined in the first responsible act of the recent creatures of a holy God, some of them content themselves with referring to an inscrutable divine constitution which secures that result; while others resolve the matter into the natural physiological laws of generation, whereby the parent begets an offspring morally, as well as intellectually and physically, like himself; and others again, as eminently Dr. Emmons, refer the result to a “stated mode of divine efficiency,” whereby God, upon the antecedent condition of Adam’s sin, proceeds to create a series of sinful acts through the agency of each of his descendants. This last view, which refers all human action to a direct divine efficient precursus, is virtual pantheism, and evidently makes God the author of all sin. On this side of divine efficiency Emmons developed the New England Theology to death. Since his time all the advocates of that system refer the origin of sin in men to their natural descent from Adam, the organic root and natural head of all mankind; so that inherited corruption, instead of being viewed as a penal consequent of Adam’s sin, is regarded simply as a natural consequent of it, transmitted, like the nose upon the face, by the natural and universal laws of animal reproduction.

This so-called “improvement” of New England Theology is in principle identical with the doctrine broached by Joshua Placseus, Professor in the Theological Seminary of Saumur, France (circum 1640). Pie maintained that Adam’s first sin whereby he apostatized, being his own personal act, could not be imputed to any of his descendants, because, since it was not their act, they were not responsible for it, and therefore could not justly lxi punished lor it. lput since Adam’s apostasy necessarily corrupted his own nature, and since, by ordinary generation, the corruption of his nature determined the corruption of all those who were descended from him, it follows hence (1) that all descended from him by ordinary generation begin to sin as soon as they begin to act as moral agents, and (2) that they are justly condemned and punished for their own sinful acts which thence result.

After this doctrine, which is obviously identical with that of the New England view above stated, had been ventilated a number of years, the French National Synod, meeting at Charenton (Dec. 26, 1644; Jan. 26, 1645), passed with reference to it the following decree: “There was a report made in Synod of a certain writing, both printed and manuscript, holding forth this doctrine, that the whole nature of original sin consisted only in that corruption which is hereditary to all Adam’s posterity, and residing originally in all men, and denying the imputation of his first sin. This Synod condemneth the said doctrine as far as it restraineth the doctrine of original sin to the sole hereditary corruption of Adam’s posterity, to the excluding of the imputation of that first sin by which he fell; and interdicteth, on pain of all church censure, all pastors, professors and others, who shall treat of this question, to depart from the common received opinion of the Protestant Churches, who (over and besides that corruption) have all acknowledged the imputation of Adam’s first sin to his posterity.”5

After this, in order to reconcile his doctrine in appearance with the requirements of the Synod, Placseus invented the distinction between immediate and antecedent * Quick’s Synodic-oil, vol. ii., p. 473.

imputation on the one hand, and mediate and consequent imputation on the other. By the immediate and antecedent imputation of Adam’s sin to his posterity, he meant to express the established doctrine of the Reformed Churches, to wit: that Adam was in such a sense the covenant head and representative of his descendants, that their probation was merged into his, and that his action was made the condition upon which their confirmation in holiness or rejection and punishment was made to depend; and hence that the guilt or punishableness of his sin was charged to their account immediately upon their birth, and antecedently to their own action; and that consequently the entire corruption of nature with which they are born is the first consequence and most awful part of the punishment of that sin charged to them and punished in them. By the mediate and consequent imputation of Adam’s sin to his posterity, Placseus meant to deny the above doctrine of antenatal forfeiture altogether, and to teach that the descendants of Adam, deriving from him corrupt natures by ordinary generation, begin to sin after his example as soon as they become moral agents, and are consequently, like him, punished for their own sin. It is as plain as noon-day that there is no real imputation here at all, no charging of the punishableness of Adam’s first apostatizing act to his descendants in any honest sense. The application of the term imputation to this theory by Placseus was uncandid and sophistical. His cavil was that he also held that Adam’s sin was imputed and punished in his posterity mediately through and consequently to their own sin in compliance with his example. Thus Adam sinned, and was punished for his own sin. For his sin his posterity are in no way responsible, nor are they punished on account of it, but only cursed, by means of the natural law of generation, with corrupt natures. They consequently sin, and are all severally punished for their own sins. Hence, Adam’s sin is charged to them mediately and consequently. This is nothing either more or less than the New England Root theory above stated, with this diiference, that the New England theory honourablydiscards the sophistical and deluding use of the theological term imputation in a sense not only modified, but so perverted as to signalize the express denial of that which from time immemorial all men had used it to affirm. The objections to this theory are fatal.

1. It fails entirely and obviously to quadrate with the plain sense of those Scriptures (Rom. v. 12-19) of which, as I shall show below, the orthodox doctrine is the dogmatic expression. The evidence of this allegation I will present when I come to exhibit the evidence establishing the truth of the old doctrine.

2. While this improvement was excogitated, as the younger Edwards said, with the design of reconciling the doctrine of the fall with the demands of rational justice, it sets justice at defiance far more directly and uncom promisingly than does that orthodox doctrine against the injustice of which it protests. The orthodox doctrine affirms that God, the rightful Guardian of the human race, gave them the most favourable trial possible for a race so propagated — a trial, moreover, in which great and undeserved blessings were made possible, as well as a great loss. It hence follows that they were justly responsible for the penal consequences of

‘* failure, and hence that their natural rights were justly forfeited before their birth. This “improved” doctrine, on the other hand, refers the whole result to the arbitrary sovereignty of God. The orthodox doctrine demonstrates that every man had a fair probation in the person of Adam. The “improved” doctrine asserts that God creates every man into a state of virtual reprobation, without any probation at all.

3. This theory absurdly attempts to account for the origination of sin in the children of men severally, as soon as they begin to act, by a physiological theory of generation, instead of on a moral principle of righteous legal responsibility.

4. The whole peculiarity of this view is grounded on an assumption subversive of the entire foundation-principles of the gospel; namely, that it is inconsistent with justice that, under any circumstances, one person should be held judicially punishable for a sin performed by another; while it is a matter of fact that Christ, in consequence of his federal union with his people, was justly punished for their sin, and they are justly pronounced righteous on the ground of his obedience.

5. This theory is conspicuously inconsistent with the fact of that parallel which the Scriptures affirm to exist between the principle upon which we are condemned for the sin of Adam and that upon which we are justified on the ground of the righteousness of Christ. The essence of redemption lies in the fact that Christ was justly punished for our sins as federally responsible for them, and that we are justly justified on the ground of his obedience, because by the terms of his covenant with the Father the rewardablen ^ss of his obedience reverts to us. If this be so, it follows that the guilt or obligation to fU THE NATURE O£ THE ATONEMENT.

punishment, accruing from Adam’s sin to us, it by the terms of the covenant justly ours, and hence that native depravity and all other natural evils are justly inflicted upon us as the punishment of that sin. While, on the other hand, if it be held that we first derive corrupt natures from Adam as purely natural and physical consequents of generation, and then are punished for that innate corruption or for the sinful actions to which it gives birth, it would necessarily follow, as to the method of salvation, that we first derive by regeneration holy natures from Christ, and are then justified on the ground of inherent holiness, which is precisely that Moral Influence Theory of Redemption advocated by Bushnell and Young. If the ultimate ground of our forfeiture is our inherent personal corruption of nature derived by generation, then Paul’s words are, EVEN so, the ultimate ground of our justification must be our inherent personal holiness of nature derived by regeneration. Dr. John W. Nevin says: “Our participation in the actual unrighteousness of Adam’s life forms the ground of our participation in his guilt and liability to punishment. And in no other way, I affirm, can the idea of imputation be satisfactorily explained in the case of the second Adam.” That is, we partake by ordinary generation of the fallen nature of Adam, and are therefore condemned. In like manner we partake of the divine-human life of the incarnate Word through union with the Church and the efficacy of the sacraments, and are therefore justified. Thus wonderfully do the latest “improvements” of old Puritan orthodoxy develop into that Mercersburg theology which has its roots in a pantheistic philosophy and a Romish religion.

IT. We come now to consider that class of opinions which agree in maintaining that the members of the human family come into existence tinder a forfeiture justly incurred before their birth. With one singular exception, all the theories, as far as I know, which maintain the fact of this antenatal forfeiture, agree in referring it to the first sin of Adam as its judicial ground.

1. The singular exception referred to is the eccentric theory that the evil nature with which all men are born into this world has been self-originated by a free, personal self-determination to evil in a pre-existent state. As thus generally stated, this theory was first introduced into the Christian Church by Origen, and revived in the modern Church by Dr. Edward Beecher in his “Conflict of Ages,” and by Julius Müller in his great work on the “Christian Doctrine of Sin.” Beecher and Müller agree in holding that (a) every child is born with a nature morally corrupt; (6) that this innate corruption is guilt; that is, that every new-born soul is from the first morally responsible and justly punishable for that corruption; (c) but since a moral agent can be morally responsible for a moral character only when it has been self-originated by a previous unbiassed act of will, it follows that each human person must have had an existence in which responsible self-determination was possible previous to his birth in this life.

Beecher’s conception of the matter is as follows. In the beginning all human souls were created like the angels, free, responsible, moral agents fully developed. Each stood alone and enjoyed a fair probation in his own person. Some of the angels stood the trial, and were confirmed in holy character for ever. Some of the an-

9G THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.

gels, and all of those spirits subsequently born into this world as men, fell and became morally depraved, and righteously condemned because of their own personal apostasy. For the purpose of bringing this last class of lost souls under a remedial system of grace, God created the physical universe for their habitation, and caused them to be born into material bodies and propagated by generation. TJiey all come into the world, consequently, with their natures depraved and their natural rights forfeited by their own personal action in their pre-existent state.

The conception of Mliller, though philosophically very different from the above, in a theological point of view amounts to the same. He adopts from the Ideal ism of Schelling the principle of a transcendental freedom as an attribute of all personal spirits. “Man in his origin is a morally undetermined not yet decided essence, and by virtue of his personality can only be such an one.“* “Only personal essences have a ground in their own act; it is the possession of freedom in this their now temporal root which distinguishes the spirit absolutely from nature.” f” In the kingdom of the intelligible, this silent, timeless, shadowy kingdom is, as it were, the maternal womb in which the embryos of all personal essences lie enclosed. Here we find the simple, undetermined beginnings of our being which precede its concrete contents; therefore, one is not in this kingdom to look for the fulness of the Godlike life, but only the power of deciding either in favour of voluntary union with God by subordination to his will, or for the persistency of selfnood in itself. Which ever way this primitive decision

* Christian Docti’ne of Sin, vol. ii., p. 157. f Ibid., p. 171.

may take place, it forms for these intelligible existences the transition into space and time, into corporiety and development, &c.” *

This theory, in all its forms, is inadmissible, because (1.) It is absolutely destitute of any assignable evidence, either in Scripture or in the sum total of human experience. It is confessedly a pure creation of the human brain to reconcile the fact that all men are born responsible, guilty sinners with the speculative assumption that a moral agent cannot be responsible for its moral character, unless that moral character be self-determined by a previous unbiassed self-decision of the moral agent himself. (2.) This doctrine is plainly inconsistent with all the Scriptures teach us, either as to the origin and original state of man, or as to the origin of sin. As to the origin of man, it is said, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul,” Gen. ii. 7. As to his original state, it is said, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him,” Gen. i. 27; v. 1; ix. 6; which image Paul declares consists in “knowledge, righteousness and true holiness.” Eph. iv. 24, and Col. iii. 10. At the close of his six days of work God saw everything he had made, man included, “and behold it was very good.” Gen. i. 31. “Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.” Eccles. vii. 29. As to the origin of sin it is said, “BY OXE MAN sin entered into the world, and death by sin.” “By one man’s offence death reigned by one.”” By the offence of one, judgment came

* Christum Doctrine of Sin, vol. ii., p. 167.

upon all men to condemnation.” “By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners.” Rom. v. 12-21. “In Adam all die.” 1 Cor. xv. 22. (3.) This theory is as much inconsistent with all the experience and phenomena of human life as it is with the words of revelation. It is impossible to see or rationally to imagine anything in a young child and its early growth, except the original development of the germ of a new existence. This view represents the unconscious infant, with its slowly un folding capacities, to be the veteran agent in a high act of conscious and responsible apostasy, accomplished amid the scenes of a former life.

(4.) This theory obviously fails, even upon the hypothesis of its truth, to account for the enigma which it was invented to explain. There appears to the reason of man no propriety, no moral significancy, in punishing a moral agent for a personal sin of which he is utterly and necessarily unconscious. What the Scriptures and our own consciences condemn us for is our present morally depraved state and actions. This is the burden of human guilt, and it is impossible that we can be ration ally or rightfully punished on personal grounds for that of which we are universally and invincibly personally unconscious.*

It remains for us, hence, to consider only those remaining solutions of the questions in hand which agree in maintaining these two points: (a) that all human souls are born into this world subject to a forfeiture justly incurred before their birth; and (6) that this forfeiture was incurred in the guilt of the first sin of Adam.

All possible opinions, embracing both these elements * Princeton Review, Jaminry, 1854.

in common, may be classed under one of the three following heads: (a) that all human souls were created simultaneously with Adam, and in some way consented with him in his sin; (6) that all human souls were actually in Adam (physically), and. as guilty co-agents, acted with him in his apostasy; (c) the doctrine of the Reformed Churches that all human souls were in Adam (representatively) as our Federal Head, and are therefore justly liable, with him, for all of the penal consequences of his act.

1. The first view, which represents all souls being created with Adam and consenting with him, need not be considered here, since it is held by no one, and since it is obviously open to all the objections alleged against the pre-existence theory of Beecher, while it is destitute of all its advantages.

2. The second view is, that since Adam was the entire genm homOj as well as the first individual of the series into which, by his agency, the genus has been subsequently explicated, it follows that every individual member of that series was physically numerically one with him, and in the entirety of the genus a guilty co-agent with him in his act of apostasy; and hence that the whole genus is guilty of that sin, and hence each individual into which the genus is severally propagated is really, essentially and inherently as guilty of that sin as Adam was. This is the Realistic view of the nature of our connection with Adam, recently advocated by Dr. Samuel J. Baird, in his Elohim Revealed, and by Dr. William G. T. Shedd, both in his volume of Essays and .in his “History of Christian Doctrine.”

Shidd maintains that sin can be predicated only of the will, its states and acts, and only of such states of the will as are consequent upon its own previous unbiassed self-determination. He does not, however, limit these responsible self-determinations to single volitions, in which the soul consciously chooses or refuses particular objects, which is the superficial theory of “the self-determining power of the will” held by the Arminians; but he includes the profound original self-determination of the whole inward being to evil instead of good, which antedates consciousness, which corrupted our moral nature, and which, by thus producing a corrupt nature, determined the character of all subsequent responsible moral action. Will, in this sense, by an act of self-determination to evil before consciousness, is the responsible guilty author of its own depravity. And this act was performed not by each one of us personally, but by our common nature, the entire genus homo, which existed as a whole in Adam. Adam he regards not as a mere receptacle, containing millions of individuals, but as the entire genus, as well as the first individual of the series into which it has been explicated. This genus has since, through Adam’s agency, become varied and manifold through its development by propagation into a series of individuals. The responsibility and guilt incured by his apostasy, therefore, inheres necessarily in the entire nature, and is consequently propagated into and made the personal attribute of each individual of the series who have part with the common nature.

Although I object, for many serious reasons, to the Realistic philosophy of Shedd, I believe it covers a doctrine of original sin perfectly orthodox. Any doctrine, to be orthodox in the sense of the Reformed

Churches, must include the two positions (a) that the entire moral corruption of nature which characterizes every human soul from birth is a consequence of Adam’s act of apostasy; and (6) that it is a most just penal consequence of that sin. This Shedd and all the advocates of his doctrine can affirm in the most literal sense, and with their whole heart. To the question WHY this great evil is brought upon all new-born souls, the answer they give is that we, in virtue of our share in the common nature, were really and numerically one with Adam, active co-agents with him in his great act of apostasy, and hence the depravity of nature in which they are born is the just punishment of our common sin. To the question HOW original sin is originated in the new-born soul, the answer is that it follows by natural law from the development of the genus through generation into a series of individuals.

It has in the last few years been affirmed that this Realistic theory of our numerical physical oneness with Adam is an essential element of the doctrine of the Reformed Churches as to the imputation of the guilt of his first sin to his descendants. We believe this to be utterly and transparently groundless.

(1.) The Realistic philosophy did not prevail in the schools during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and hence this mode of thought was as foreign to the

O cT*

general mental habits of men in that age as it is in this. It hence certainly follows that if this had been the doctrine of the Reformers and their great successors, they would have explicitly stated and illustrated this point in their writings, which it is notorious they have not done. (2.) The Church from the beginning has been divided on the question how the individual souls of men are produced. Now the belief that souls as well as bodies are produced ex traduce from their parents is consistent with either the Realistic view of our union with Adam or the federal and representative view. President Edwards* and Samuel Hopkinsf both held the Traduce theory, yet both held the doctrine of Placseus or the Root Theory, which excludes that idea of antenatal forfeiture which it is the end and boast of the Realistic theory to vindicate. But, on the other hand, the doctrine that each soul is severally and immediately created by God at the instant of conception is obviously and absolutely inconsistent with the Realistic view of human nature. No Creationist can be a Realist, and no man who doubts between Creationism and Traducianism can be a conscious and intelligent Realist. Now, let it be observed (a) that Augustine, who is so often claimed as a Realist, never decided between Traducianism and Creationism. Tertullian was the advocate of Traducianism, Jerome of Creationism. Augustine doubted. He wrote to Jerome, “Teach me now, I beg of you, what I shall teach; teach, me what I shall hold, and tell me if souls are every day, one by one, called into being from nonenity in those who are daily being born... I desire that that opinion may be mine, but I am not yet certain.” J It is simply and absolutely impossible that a man talking so should be a Realist. Augustine often says that the whole race, being many, were one in Adam. Turretin, quoting such an expression, explains it thu*5: “A unity not specific nor nume-

* Original Sin. pt. 4, chap, ii, f Works, vol. i., p. 289.

% Augustinus: De Origine Aniruae, sou Epistolu 166, Ad Hieronynium, quoted by Shedd.

rical, but partly a unity of origin, because all are from one blood, and partly unity of representation, because by the ordinance of God one represented the persons of all.“4 (b) The doctrine of the Reformed Churches could not have been Realistic, because Calvin and the Reformed theologians, almost to a man, were Creationists. This Shedd confesses.f Hagenbach j says: ’ “Bellarmine, Calvin, and the theologians of the Reformed Church in general, advocated the theory of Creationism.” He quotes in illustration of this, Calvin, Beza, Peter Martyr, Bucanus, and Polanusf and he certainly might have quoted many more, as Heidegger, Turretin, De Moor, Vitsius, Goodwin, Owen, &c. Turretin says with respect to Creationism, “Priorem (creationem) Orthodox! fere omnes sequuntur” Realism is not the doctrine of the Reformed Churches. The truth is, it was simply not dreamed of by the men who wrote our creeds.

(3.) Not one of the creeds in question uses any terms or forms peculiar to Realism. Calvin, Beza, Turretin, Heidegger, &c., all of whom explicitly repudiate Traducianism, an essential element of Realism, unite in affirm- ;ng that we were in Adam representatively; that we really and truly sinned in him because his sin is our sin, really and truly our sin as to its federal responsibility. Really and truly, though not physically, but morally; not efficiently with respect to personal agency, but virtually with respect t ) representative agency and just legal accountability, his act was our act, and we truly sinned in him. This is precisely what Turretin and Heidegger say in the Formula Consensus Helvetica, canons 10-12:. “God entered into the COVENANT OF WORKS not only

* Locus 9, Qiiijestiu 9. f Vol. ii., pp. 24, 25. J Vol. ii., p. 204.

with Adam for himself, but also in him, as the head and root, with the whole human lace.” “There appears no way in which hereditary corruption could fall as a spiritual death upon the whole human race by the just judgment of God unless some sin of that race preceded, incurring the penalty of that death. For God, the supremely just Judge of all the earth, punishes none but the guilty.” “For a double reason, therefore, first on account of the transgression and disobedience which he committed in the loins of Adam; and secondly, on account of the consequent hereditary corruption,” &c. Yet it is certain that these men were not Realists. In their personal writings they specifically explain their meaning to be that we were in Adam representatively. Our Confession and Catechism use the same language in the same sense. “The first COVENANT made with man was a Covenant of Works, wherein life was promised to Adam, and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience,” (the Realists do not claim that we were in Adam personally).* “They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to their posterity, descending from them by ordinary generation,“f” The COVENANT being made with Adam as & public person, (here there is a distinct definition of the representative theory of Adam’s oneness with the race, and not directly nor by implication a hint of his being the genus homo, or of our generic nature acting as an impersonal co-agent with him in his apostasy,) not only for himself but for his posterity, all mankind descending

* Coi-.f. Faith, ch. vii., 2. f Ch. vi.y 3.

from him by ordinary generation tinned in kir,n, and fell with him ir that first transgression.”

The objections to this Realistic theory are many and very serious. (1.) No logical dividing line can ever be drawn between Realism and Pantheism. For (a) if all men, of all varieties, all generations and local habitations, are numerically one substance, why may not a higher genus unite all animals or all entities in one numerical substance, one in essence, multitudinous in its transient modes. And (b) if will be not personal, if many thousand years before ve existed as persons we were guilty co-agents in a crime in virtue of the ancient existence of the total genus of which we are personal modes, what evidence have we left that the personal mode we call ourselves may not relapse into the essence from which it sprang, and that all things phenomenal may not be passing moments in succesive modifications (personal or otherwise) of one underlying substance?

(2.) This theory has no shadow of ground in the Scriptures. It is purely a creation of human speculation in the effort to reconcile, speculatively, the facts of human experience with our abstract notions of what justice requires on the part of God. It therefore, even if legitimate as a philosophical theory, can never be admitted for one moment to the place of a doctrine.

(3.) But even as an attempted reconciliation between the fact of innate sin and our ideas of divine justice, it breaks down utterly. All the ideas we have or possibly can have concerning sin, moral obligation, guilt, justice or the like, are derived from our own moral sense and from Scripture. But the moral sense of every man and Scripture teach us nothing about moral agency or responsibility which is not personal. An impersonal will, an impersonal obligation, an impersonal sin, are all as utterly inconceivable as a square circle or a red sound. No man’s conscience is bound, however much his mind may be confused by such words. The idea of a generic nature, acting as a guilty co-agent with a person in a crime, even if it were true, throws no light upon the justice of subjecting persons not then existing to a terrible personal penalty.

(4.) Hence this figment of the numerical union of every person of the race in Adam practically collapses into the poor Root theory of Placseus and the New England divines, which denies that antenatal forfeiture this Realistic theory was excogitated to defend, and maintains that the guilt of his sin is not ours, and that the depravity of his nature, consequent upon his sin, is made ours by an ordinary physiological law of generation. The effort to prove man a sinner on this scheme ends by reducing sin to the category of transmissible physiological accidents, such as red hair or a prognathous skull.

(5.) If the entire genus was in Adam, the entire post diluvian race was, in the same sense, in Noah. If we were guilty co-agents in the first sin of the one, because of numerical and physical identity, we must be, for the same reason and to the same extent, guilty of every one of the sins of Noah. And every existing person must literally, and by direct consequence of identity of nature, be as guilty of all the sins of all his ancestors as he is of his own personal transgressions.

(6.) If the guilt as well as the moral corruption of the generic nature is inherent in that nature, and passes uito every individual who shares in it, the awful consequence would follow that the guilt for which the human race is cursed attaches as much to the human soul and body of the Lord Jesus as to any other. Corruption of nature may be removed by divine power, but guilt never, otherwise there would have been no need for an atonement, for the absolute necessity of which Shedd argues so earnestly and so admirably.

(7.) In Romans v. 12 — 21, Paul asserts that the principle upon which we share in the righteousness of Christ is identical with that upon which we share in the guilt of Adam. If, therefore, we share in the guilt of Adam, because we were as to essence numerically one with him, and hence, in the totality of the generic nature, guilty co-agents with him in the act of apostasy, it necessarily follows that we share in the righteousness of Christ, because the eternal Word took into personal union with himself the total genus electorum; and because, hence, we were numerically one with him on the cross, and meritorious co-agents with him in his obedience and expiatory death. But the Scriptures teach us of the sovereign election of persons to eternal life. There is no intimation of the election of a certain slice of the genus humanum. But if the genus be one spiritual substance, how can it be divided? After its division, does it cease to be one? It is too horrible to think of, that he should be in union with the entire genus including the lost. If generation does not separate the genus into parts, then Christ must be in union with the whole genus. But if generation does separate the genus into parts, then it follows (a) that Christ’s human soul and body are only individual parts of the genus, and Christ, therefore, can sustain no generic relation to us; (b) that the elect who were born before Christ were already parts separated from the genus, and therefore his perfect humanity could not be propagated through the oneness of the genus to them; (c) that all infants, being born into the world corrupt, and being regenerated subsequently to their separation from the common nature, cannot receive, by any conceivable form of propagation within the genus or from the genus from which they are separated, that perfect humanity which, as second Adam, he communicates to his seed.

President Edwards holds a position on this subject which it is difficult to classify, because it is inconsistent with itself. His doctrine of identity, which, in his work on Original Sin,* he applies to our relation to Adam, allies him, as far as the question of antenatal forfeiture was concerned, with the high Realistic view just examined. According to him, there is no real causal connection between the being, mode or action of any created thing in any one moment with its being or condition the next moment. Everything which exists is in every successive moment the result of the perpetual efflux of the vis creatrix of God. There is no real identity, therefore, no real connection of any kind, between the man and his state and acts any one moment of his life and the same man any other moment. It is a direct and purely sovereign act of God which constitutes the sameness that we call identity between created moments of being in themselves really different. It is God’s bare will that makes any one of us identical with, and therefore responsible for, his youthful self. By a mere volition, he might make the age of one man iden- * Part 4, chap. iii.

tical with, and responsible for, the youth of another. Afe a matter of fact, he has pleased to make each one of us identical with (literally), and responsible for, the probationary life of Adam. Hence we are literally, and to the same degree, and on the same ground, and through the same method, identical with Adam and responsible for his sin, as he was himself, and as we are with respect to our own acts of disobedience. This is the doctrine of the antecedent and immediate imputation of Adam’s sin to his posterity put upon the highest ground possible. They are punished for it for the precise reason that he is punished for it — because they did it as much as they ever do anything, and because they were he as much as they ever are anything.

On the other hand, Edwards inconsistently teaches, and evidently makes his own thoroughly the doctrine of Placseus and Stapfer, that we are condemned with Adam only mediately through, and in consequence of, our having, by natural generation, corrupt natures like his. The corrupt nature is a natural result of his corruption, and the condemnation is consequent to the corruption. The corruption is not regarded as itself a punishment, and hence, on this side of his doctrine, Edwards does not teach the existence of any judicial ground of forfeiture prey ous to and conditioning the birth of mankind.

Having thus, by a process of exhaustion, shown that all of the prominent alternatives of the orthodox doctrine on this subject are alike unsatisfactory and unaulhenticated, we have raised a powerful presumption in its favour, in spite of the large residuum of difficulty

which confessedly remains in the question after all is said. The doctrine of the Reformed Church is thai every human soul is born into the world under forfeiture resulting from our just legal responsibility for Adam’s action as our federal head and representative. The several elements involved in this doctrine are as follows.

1. By a sovereign creative act Adam was constituted the natural head and root of all mankind.

2. According to a principle observed in the case of the angels, and we believe universal, God created Adam with a nature positively holy and inclined to good, yet fallible, and made his future character and destiny to depend upon his obedience for a definite period, called a probation, during which he remained in a condition of instablc moral equilibrium. The alternatives placed before him were, that if he obeyed for the term appointed he should be confirmed in moral excellence and rendered infallible and blessed for ever; and, on the other band, if he disobeyed, his trial should be, ipso facto, closed, and he himself morally degraded in character and made an heir of misery for ever. This most natural and reasonable divine constitution is commonly called the Covenant of Works or the Covenant of Life.

3. In making this Covenant with Adam, and assigning him a favourable state and definite period of probation, God, acting as the guardian of the whole human race, and for their benefit, provided for all Adam’s descendants the best conceivable conditions of moral probation for a race of moral agents propagated through an animal nature such as mankind, by appointing Adam their federal head and representative, and making their permanent character and destiny to depend upon his conduct during his period of personal trial. The ground in

FEDERAL HEADSHIP OF ADAM. Ill

reason and right of this divine appointment of Adam as the federal head and representative of his descendants, as far as made known to us, is (a) the indefeasible right of God sovereignly to order the probation of the subjects of his moral government according to the pleasure of his infinitely wise, righteous, and benevolent will. (6) The evident fa jt that in the arrangement in question, God as the faithful Guardian of his creatures, has ordered their probation under the very best conditions — the holy and adult Adam in the virgin earth being in a condition for passing the trials of a moral probation far more favourable than any single infant or any number of infants developing into childhood could ever be. (c) Adam’s natural relation to his descendants made him the proper person to represent them. Without going the length of Realism, it appears probable that the divinely ordained representative and substitutionary constitution, alike of the probation in Adam and the redemption in Christ, is conditioned upon the generic unity of men as constituting a race propagated by generation, (r?) The headship of the first Adam is an inseparable part or that infinitely glorious system which culminates in the headship of the second Adam.

4. It is involved in this covenant headship that all Adam’s descendants were federally embraced in him and represented by him, so that in case either of obedience or of disobedience the corresponding reward or penalty is by the conditions of the covenant as justly and as really theirs as it is his.

5. It plainly follows that Adam’s first sin, which, ipso facto, closed his probation and theirs, although it be as resprcts us a peccatum alienum when it is regarded simply as an action, is, notwithstanding, when considered in respect to its guilt or legal responsibility or obligation to punishment, as justly and as really ours as it is his, since by the law of the covenant he acted as our agent, and we are bound by his action. In one sense the sin is very plainly his, and not ours. It is ours only as the covenant makes our moral standing to deyend upon his action. The personal character of one man never can be transferred to another. But, on the other hand, it is plain one man may be, under certain conditions, justly and morally responsible for the action of another man. Now, it is precisely the reatua, the legal responsibility, the federal obligation to punishment incurred by Adam’s sin, that is justly charged to each of his descendants. In this sense only is his sin their sin. And in this sense it is just as much and as really theirs as his.

6. Consequently God, by a strictly judicial, not sovereign, act, justly imputes Adam’s apostatizing act to us: that is, God simply acts upon the facts of the case, treat ing us as legally responsible for Adam’s sin, and justly obnoxious to its penalty. This imputation proceeds upon no fiction, makes no confusion between Adam’s personality and our personalities, between Adam’s agency and our agency, presumes no absurd transfer of Adam’s personal subjective moral character to us, nor confusion of his subjective states with ours; but it simply (a) recognizes our legal oneness with Adam, and consequent common responsibility with him for the guilt of his public sin; (6) consequently charges the guilt of his sin to our account; and (c) most righteously treats us according to the demerit af that sin.

When we say that Adam’s sin was imputed to us, the

Reformed Churches have always understood by it that the guilt or legal obligation to suffer the penalty of Adam’s sin is judicially charged to our account as the legal ground of penal treatment. That this is the true sense of the scriptural phrase to impute sin will be found sufficiently proved in the eleventh chapter of this book.

7. Hence we are all born into the world under an antecedent just forfeiture of all natural rights, and righteously subject to all the penal consequences of apostasy under the terms of the Covenant of Works; that is, to the immediate penal withdrawal of that communion and support of the Spirit of God which is the condition of spiritual life and blessedness. Connate spiritual death, therefore, befals us as the just punishment of the public sin of Adam, the penal responsibility for which is ours as truly as it is his. This imputation of the guilt of Adam’s sin to us, or this practical regarding and treating us as responsible for it, is (a) judicial, not sovereign, and (6) immediate and antecedent to the corruption of our nature, and to personal sinful actions, not mediately through them nor consequent upon them. It is to be remembered, however, that the antenatal forfeiture, involving the privation of those spiritual influences upon which spiritual and physical life depends, is the only penalty which comes upon us, consequent to Adam’s sin, immediately and antecedently to our own action. Other temporal and eternal punishments are doubtless necessary consequents (unless God mercifully intervenes) of that withdrawment of God’s Spirit which is the immediate penalty of Adam’s sin; nevertheless, the Scriptures always represent these as being properly and immediately the punishment of our own personal sins of disposition and action. This matter is clearly and fully stated, in the sense I have above given, by Turretin.* The doctrine of the Reformed Churches he sums up in the following unmistakable words: “The question returns to these terms, whether the sin of Adam, not any one, but the first sin (apostatizing act), not his sinful habit (that is, subjective state), but his act, is imputed to all his posterity proceeding from him by ordinary generation, by an imputation not mediate and consequent, but immediate and antecedent? They with whom we are now holding controversy either deny imputation absolutely or only admit a mediate imputation; we, on the other hand, with the orthodox, affirm alike that an imputation is to be conceded, and that it is immediate and antecedent.”

If, then, the question be asked WHY? on what basis of justice does God bring new-born creatures into existence under such penal conditions that total corruption of nature, the sum and root of all other evils in every case accrues? the answer is, that their natural rights were forfeited by the public act of their federal representative before they were born, and that they are in fact as truly, penally responsible for his sin as he was himself.

If, on the other hand, the question be asked HOW inherent moral corruption originates in a newly-created soul and yet the Creator of the soul be not the author of the sin, it must be confessed, in reply, that the Scriptures give us no direct solution, and that various answers have been given by men equally orthodox.

1. Some have maintained that, according to the great physiological law that like begets like, the depraved nature of Adam has been propagated to his descendants * Locus 9, Queestio 9.

through their bodies, and that each soul newly created pure is morally corrupted the instant it is brought into union with its body, in which the vitiating virus re sides.

The fatal objection to this view is that it is inconsistent with the essential nature of sin. Sin is a quality or accident neither of elementary matter nor of material organization. It can exist only as a moral quality of a rational spirit. A disordered condition of body may, as we all experience, occasion in an already apostate soul inordinate animal passions, but it could never cause in a holy soul aversion from God, pride, malice and other purely spiritual sins.

2. Another and by far more prevalent form of the ex traduce theory is that the souls, as well as the bodies, of children are propagated from their parents, and thai thus the depraved nature of Adam has, by a natural law, been reproduced in his offspring in successive generations. Jerome held to the immediate creation of each soul at the time of conception. Tertullian held to this doctrine of the generation of souls. Augustine was unwilling to decide the question either way. The Lutherans have generally held the doctrine of traduction, and the Reformed almost universally have maintained creationism.

3. The great majority of the Reformed theologians, since they maintain that each soul is a new and immediate product of creation have consequently held (a) that the only penalty inflicted by God on the new-created soul, as the immediate punishment of Adam’s public sin, is privative, the penal withholding of those spiritual influences upon lihich the moral and spiritual life of the creature depends. (6.) That (as has been always held from Augustine to Edwards) sin in its origin* is not a positive entity concreated in the soul, but a privative vice, resulting necessarily from the creation of the soul into a condition of justly incurred condemnation and alienation from God. Their common declaration was that innate corruption of nature is propagated neque per corpus, neque per animam, sed per culpam — not through the generation, either of the body or of the mind, but as a righteous punishment for crime. Ursinus, in his Expli cation of the Heidelberg Catechism, of which he was the principal author, says, “Original sin is communicated, neither through the body, nor through the soul, but through the guilt of parents, on account of which God, while he creates souls, at the same time deprives them of that original righteousness and of those gifts which he had conferred upon the parents upon this condition, that they should confer them or forfeit them for their posterity just as they retained or lost them for themselves.” The Reformed doctrine therefore is, that corruption of nature is the penal consequent of Adam’s sin, and that it is propagated, not on the physiological principles upon which it is the glory of the disciples of PlacaBUS and of the New England Theology to rely, but by the penal deprivation of the new-born soul of those influences of the Holy Spirit upon which its moral life depends.

We believe that the doctrine thus stated is substantiated by the following considerations.

1. This doctrine of tie Federal Representation of Adam, instead of adding anything either of mystery or of apparent severity to the undeniable facts of God’s * Edwards’ Original Sin, part 4, chap. ii.

providential dealing with the human race, is, as I have shown by comparison, more rational than any other explanation of these facts ever suggested by the ingenuity of man. On the hypothesis that a race of moral agents, united to an animal organization and propagated through it in successive generations, as man is, was to be created, the conceivable alternatives are — either (a) that a probationary trial, such as it appears God imposes upon all moral agents as the condition of their being confirmed in indefeasible holiness and blessedness, should, in their case, be absolutely forborne, and they be endowed with tho highest graces without passing through the conditions required of all other holy creatures; or (6) that each infant should stand his own trial severally as he struggles through twilight development of his corporeal and mental nature; or (c) the probation of the entire race must be held in the person of its holy adult progenitor, in the fresh vigour of his perfect manhood, surrounded with the purity of the new-born earth. Of the propriety of the first alternative we are utterly unable to judge. The execution of the second alternative would have certainly involved the whole race in ruin. It is certain, on the other hand, that the third alternative was the one actually chos< n by God as the infinitely wise and benevolent, as well as righteous, Guardian of the interests of all rational spirits created in his likeness, for the benefit of the race in this case concerned. If Adam had succeeded, and we had received the excellent graces conditioned on that success, no human being would have ever doubted the surpassing wisdom and justice of the entire constitution.

2. The biblical record unquestionably represents

Adam as sustaining a public and representative position (a.) He was named ADAM, that is, man, the man, the generic man. (6.) Everything that was commanded, or threatened, or promised him related to his descendants as much as to him personally. Thus “obedience,” “a cursed earth,” “liability to death,” “painful child-bearing,” concern us and our families as much as they concerned him. The Protevangdion, or promise of redemption through the Seed of the woman, which was given to our first parents in immediate connection with their fall, of course is a gospel for us as well as for the original parties.

3. It is an undeniable matter of fact that the very penalty which God denounced upon Adam has in all its particulars come upon every one of his descendants, from their birth upward. Death, physical and spiritual, was the penalty denounced and executed on Adam the very day he transgressed; and in the same sense it has been executed upon each of his descendants at birth. If these were penal inflictions in the case of Adam, they must be penal inflictions in the case of each one of his children.

4. The truth we contend for is expressly taught in Scripture, Rom. v. 12-21. In this passage, so plain in spite of all that men have done to confuse it, Paul says that death, which is the penalty of the law, came upon all men through the sin of one man. This great evil could not be inflicted as a penalty for violations of the law of Moses, because it had been inflicted for ages before the law of Moses was given. It could not be inflicted upon individuals as a penalty incurred by their personal sins, because it is inflicted upon infants, who have never been guilty of personal transgression. It follows, so Paul argues, that by one man’s offence death hath reigned, and that by the offence of one man judgment hath come upon all men to condemnation. Thus Paul in this passage affirms in precise terms the full doctrine of the Reformed Churches, to wit: (a) that the law of death, spiritual and physical, under which we are born, is a consequent of Adam’s public disobedience, and (b) that it is a “judgment” a “condemnation” — that is, a penal consequent of Adam’s sin — see also 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22.

5. The apostle proves in the above passage that there is a precise parallelism between the way in which our “condemnation” follows from the disobedience of Adam, and in which our “justification” or “being made righteous” follows from the obedience of Christ. Rom. v. 18. “Therefore, as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; EVEN so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.” If it be, then, the great central principle of the gospel that the merit or rewardableness of Christ’s obedience, graciously imputed or set to the account of the believer, is the legal ground of his justification, it follows of necessary consequence, if the apostle’s assertion of the parallelism of the two is correct, that the demerit or rightful obligation to punishment inherent in Adam’s sin, imputed or charged to the account of each of his natural descendants, is the legal ground of their antenatal forfeiture. These two complementary doctrines, thus bound together in the Scriptures, stand or fall together. It is an historical fact that whenever the one has been denied or radically misconceived, the other has soon fallen with it, and thus the whole gospel been subverted.

6. The federal or representative principle upon which this doctrine is grounded is conformed to the entire analogy of all God’s dispensations with mankind. Witness God’s covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, and David. Witness the constitutions of both the Jewish and Christian Churches, in which the rights of infants are predetermined by the status of their parents. Hugh Miller draws the following deduction from a scientific review of the world and of the history of the various races and nations of its human inhabitants.” It is a fact, broad and palpable as the economy of nature, that parents do occupy a federal position, and that the lapsed progenitors, when cut off from civilization and all external interference of a missionary character, become the founders of a lapsed race. The iniquities of the parents are visited upon their children. In all such instances it is man left to the freedom of his own will that is the deteriorator of man. The doctrine of the fall, in its purely theologic aspects, is a doctrine that must be apprehended by faith; but it is at least something to find that the analogies of science, instead of running counter to it, run in precisely the same line. It is one of the inevitable consequences of that nature of man which the Creator ’ bound fast in fate,’ while he left free his will, that the free-will of the parent should become the destiny of the child.’7*

7. It is a very strong presumption in favour of the truth of this doctrine in the form in which I have stated it above, that beyond question it is the common

* Testimony of the Rock*.

doctrine of the Romish, Lutheran, and Reformed Churches. It is accurately stated in the writings of Bellarmine and Pascal. As to the Reformed Church, the quotations I have given above, from the Formula Consensus Helvetica, from the Westminster Confession and Catechism, and from Ursinus and Turretin, must suffice, in connection with the following from Theodore Beza, the great pupil and friend and successor of John Calvin. Writing on Rom. v. 12, he says: “Two things should be considered in original sin, namely, guilt and corruption; which, although they cannot be separated, yet ought to be distinguished accurately. For as Adam by the commission of sin first was made guilty of the wrath of God, then, as being guilty, he underwent as the punishment of sin the corruption of soul and body; so also he transmitted to posterity a nature in the first place guilty, next corrupted. Concerning the propagation of guilt, the apostle is properly teaching in this passage, in contrast with which the imputation of the obedience of Christ is set forth. Hence it follows that that guilt which precedes corruption is by the imputation of Adam’s disobedience, as the remission of sins and the abolition of guilt is by the imputation of the obedience of Christ. Nothing can be plainer.” 11