CHAPTER XVI.

ORIGINAL SIN IMPUTED THE GUILT OF ADAM'S FIRST SIN.

"Peccatum originale, . quomodo intravit?... Per propagationem, per imputationem, idque jure hereditario, propagatum per generationis naturalis successionem. Tria erant in primo peccato; 1. culpa actualis; 2. pravitas naturalis, sive horribilis naturæ deformitas; 3. reatus legalis. Et hæc omnia ad posteros introierunt, non una via, sed triplici; culpa participatione, quia omnes seminali ratione fuerunt in lumbis Adami; pravitas propagatione, seu generatione, quia filios genuit Adam, ad imaginem suam, non Dei; reatus imputatione, quia gratia ita Adamo collata est ut si peccaret, tota posteritas cum ipso ea excideret; sicut feuda tali conditione dantur vasalis, ut si ea per culpam perdant, eodem reatu liberos involvant."-POLI SYNOPSIS CRITICORUM, in Rom. v. 12.

THE statement given above presents, with admirable clearness and discrimination, the doctrine of original sin, as held from the 1. Doctrine beginning, in the Reformed churches. It is adopted of imputation. by Poole, with an appeal to the authority of Paræus, the colleague and editor of Ursinus. "There were three things in the first sin. 1. Actual crime. 2. Natural depravity, or a horrible deformity of nature. 3. Legal guilt. And these come upon his posterity, not in one but three ways;-crime by participation, because all were, by the law of propagation, in the loins of Adam;-depravity by propagation or generation, because Adam begat sons in his own image, not that of God;—guilt by imputation, because grace was so bestowed upon Adam, that if he sinned, he in the act destroyed his whole posterity with himself; as fiefs are given to vassals upon such terms that if by any offence they forfeit them, they involve their children with themselves in the damage." To precisely the same purpose are the statements of our Catechism:-"The covenant being made with Adam not only for himself, but for his posterity, all mankind

descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him" into an estate, the sinfulness of which "consists in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called original sin."

In Adam's sin, there were four several things, which it is necessary carefully to distinguish. These were, the action of apostasy, or depravation of his nature, the depravity, or aversion from God, in which that action terminated,—the criminality, guilt, or desert of punishment, thence arising; and,—the formal act of plucking the fruit. This latter act, again, is to be viewed in two aspects;-as it was an act personal to Adam; and as it was the action, and constituted the publication and pledge, of the apostasy of his nature, and seal of the curse consequent thereon. In this latter respect, it is an element in the account of sin, which stands on record against the whole nature and race of man. Thus viewed, however, its criminality is not distinguishable from that of the apostasy, of which it was the consummation and first fruit. The act of apostasy, as it was the embrace of depravity, the cause of the corruption of man's nature,-will come to be considered in the next chapters, in connection with the discussion of original sin inherent. That with which we have now to do is, the guilt of the apostasy. The doctrine which we derive from the Scriptures on the subject is, that we were so in Adam that we share in the moral responsibility of his apostasy, as really as though we had wrought it for ourselves, personally, and severally; and that in consequence we are guilty, and condemned under the curse, at the bar of God's infinite justice. Of the evidence in support of this doctrine, we have already given a large illustration, and, we trust, established it by the testimony of the Scriptures.

2. Edwards'

The rejection of our doctrine leaves but one alternative,—the denial that we have any thing to do with Adam's sin; or a choice between the mediate and Arminian theories. mediate impu- Of these, the former is held by Edwards. He takes the ground that we were not natively one with Adam, in any such sense, as to involve the derivation from him of

tation.

qualities and relations; since, not only are we new and distinct creations, at each instant, emanating, by a perpetually creative agency, from the immediate hand of God,—but, in particular, the phenomena of generation are nothing but the established order in which, by such an immediate agency, he brings into existence both body and soul. Yet, by the assertion of his "arbitrary sovereignty," God has put forth a constitution by which the state of the case, simply and absolutely considered, is set aside, and we are constituted one with him. This constituted oneness, however, does not immediately and fully bind us in the guilt of the first sin; but only involves us in depravity of nature. The action of this depravity, constituting in us a corrupt assent to the first sin of Adam, becomes at length the ground of the imputation of the sin to us. He says, "The first being of an evil disposition in the heart of a child of Adam, whereby he is disposed to approve of the sin of his first father, as fully as he himself approved of it, when he committed it, or so far as to imply a full and perfect consent of heart to it, I think is not to be looked upon as a consequence of the imputation of that first sin, any more than the full consent of Adam's own heart, in the act of sinning; which was not consequent on the imputation of his sin to himself, but rather prior to it in the order of nature. Indeed, the derivation of the evil disposition to the hearts of Adam's posterity, or rather the coexistence of the evil disposition implied in Adam's first rebellion, in the root and branches, is a consequence of the union that the wise author of the world has established between Adam and his posterity; but not properly a consequence of the imputation of his sin; nay, rather antecedent to it, as it was in Adam himself. The first depravity of heart, and the imputation of that sin, are both the consequences of that established union; but yet in such order, that the evil disposition is first, and the charge of guilt consequent; as it was in the case of Adam himself." Again, in reply to the objection that sorrow and shame are for personal sin alone, he says, "Nor is it a thing strange and unheard-of, that men should be ashamed of things done by others whom they are nearly concerned in. I am sure it is not unscriptural; especially when they are justly

looked upon in the sight of God, who sees the disposition of their hearts, as fully consenting and concurring. From what has been observed, it may appear, there is no sure ground to conclude, that it must be an absurd and impossible thing for the race of mankind truly to partake of the sin of the first apostasy; so as that this, in reality and propriety, shall become their sin; by virtue of a real union between the root and branches of the world of mankind, (truly and properly availing to such a consequence,) established by the author of the whole system of the universe; to whose establishments is owing all propriety and reality of union, in any part of that system;-and by virtue of the full consent of the hearts of Adam's posterity to that first apostasy. And therefore the sin of the apostasy is not theirs, merely because God imputes it to them; but it is truly and properly theirs, and on that ground God imputes it to them." Again:-"The affair of the derivation of the natural corruption of mankind, in general, and of their consent to, and participation of, the primitive and common apostasy, is not in the least intermeddled with, or touched, by any thing meant or aimed at in the true scope and design of this place of Ezekiel,” (Ezek. xviii. 1–20). So he speaks of the teachings of the word of God, "concerning the derivation of a depravity and guilt from Adam to his posterity."* In the latter of these places, the order of enumeration implies what the others assert,—an imputation of the guilt of the first sin, because of the corrupt nature which in us actually approves the deed. That such was the doctrine of Edwards on the subject, is unquestionable. He not only thus again and again asserts it, and weaves it into his argument, but quotes and adopts the language of Stapfer, which is confessedly at variance with the received doctrine of the Reformed on this point.

This doctrine of mediate imputation-although it, or something similar, is practically inevitable, upon the adoption of Edwards' theory of identity-is logically irreconcilable with that theory. If there be in truth no real identity in things, except by the arbitrary process which he designates by the phrase, "divine constitution," and if by such a constitution we and

* All these passages are from the treatise on Original Sin, Part IV. ch. 3.

Adam are one, it follows, that in the same sense precisely in which the sin of eating the forbidden fruit was subsequently chargeable on the Adam who was excluded from the garden, it is chargeable on us. "Simply and absolutely considered," he that was driven forth with his weeping wife, under the terrors of the curse, was not the same, who had committed the fatal deed, any more than are we. And the "divine constitution,"which was effectual to justify the assumption of identity in the innumerable series of individuals, who by the creative power were made the fleeting succession, and by sovereignty constituted the personal unit, the first Adam,-was equally competent to constitute us one with him; and, as one, immediately responsible for his deed. But, although Edwards was ensnared by the subtlety of his own philosophy, his soul instinctively recoiled from his conclusions, and uttered an unapprehended but powerful protest against the sufficiency of his plea,—against the adequacy of a system, which based the whole tremendous consequences, which are involved in original sin, upon a ground so unreal, as a divine constitution, transforming the facts, and making things to be identical, which were essentially and by creation several and distinct. He therefore has recourse to the notion of mediate imputation, to release himself from the difficulties which his theory had created. He thus relieves his consciousness, respecting the relation of the scheme which he had contrived to the principles of divine justice, at the expense of his own consistency, and of the doctrine which he had set himself to defend. Such was the consequence in Edwards' case; and such, or like it, will be the result, whenever and wherever the attempt is made to vindicate the doctrine of original sin by recourse to any system of arbitrary constructions or legal intendments,-by any thing short of a real and native inbeing of Adam's posterity in him, as the root and cause of the race.

The mediate theory is, in fact, a mere modification of the Arminian doctrine,—essentially the same, and differing merely in phraseology. They agree in overlooking or denying Adam's causative relation to the race, as bearing upon the doctrine of imputation,—in denying any proper oneness between Adam and