These remarks may prepare the way for all that man by his moral sense can understand or go along with, in the doctrine of the imputation of Adam's sin to all his posterity. We confess that we are not able to perceive, how one man is at all responsible for the personal doings of another whom he never saw, and who departed this life many centuries before him. But if the personal doings of a distant ancestor, have in point of fact corrupted his moral nature; and if this corruption has been transmitted to his descendants-then we can see how these become responsible, not for what their forefather did, but for what they themselves do under the corrupt disposition that they have received from their forefather. And if there be a guilt attachable to evil desires, as well as to evil doings; and if the evil desire which prompted Adam to his first transgression, enter into the nature of all his posterity-then are his posterity the objects of moral blame and moral aversion, not on account of the transgression which Adam committed, but on account of such a wrong principle in their hearts, as would lead every one of them to the very same transgression in the very same circumstances. It is thus that Adam has transmitted a guilt the same with his own, as well as a depravity the same with his own, among all the individuals and families of our species-if not that each of them is liable to a separate reckoning on account of the offence committed in the garden of Eden, at least that each of them is liable to a separate

reckoning on account of his own separate and personal depravity-a depravity which had its rise in the offence that was then and there committed; and a depravity which would lead in every one instance to the same offence in the same circumstances of temptation. According to this explanation, every man still reapeth not what another soweth, but what he soweth himself. Every man eateth the fruit of his own doings. Every man

beareth the burden of his own tainted and accursed nature. Every man suffereth for his own guilt and not for Adam's guilt; and if he is said to suffer for Adam's guilt, the meaning is, that, from Adam he inherits a corruption which lands him in a guilt equal to that of Adam.

It were correct enough to say, that the sin of Cataline, that great conspirator against the state, is imputable to an equally great conspirator of the present day-not that he is at all responsible for what Cataline did, but responsible for his own sin that was the same with that of Cataline. And it would strengthen the resemblance, if it was the recorded example of Cataline which filled him with a kindred disposition, and hurried him on to a kindred enterprise. Then as Adam was the efficient cause of our corruption, so Cataline was of his; but each suffers for the guilt of his own sin nevertheless a guilt the same with us as that of Adam's, and the same with him as that of Cataline's.

Our Saviour cursed a fig tree because of its barrenness. Conceive a fig tree to be cursed be

cause of the bitterness of its fruit. It is for its own bitter fruit, and not for the bitter fruit of its first ancestor, that it is laid under the doom which has been pronounced upon it. But still its first ancestor may have been a tree of sweetly-flavoured fruit at its first formation; and a pestilential gust may have passed over and tainted it; and it may, by the laws of physiological succession have sent, down its deteriorated nature among all its posterity; and it may be true of each individual descendant, that, while it is for its own qualities it is so loathed and so condemned, still was it from its great originating parent that it inherited, the taint by which it has been vitiated, and the sentence by which it has been accursed.

Many, we are aware, carry the doctrine of imputation farther than this; and make each of us liable to answer at the bar of God's judicature for Adam's individual transgression. We shall only say of this view at present, that, whether it be scriptural or not, we are very sure that we cannot follow it by any sense of morality or rightfulness that is in our own heart. Still, even on this highest imagination of the doctrine, we hold the way of God to man, in all the bearings of this much agitated subject, to be capable of a most full and triumphant vindication; and with our attempt to evince this, we trust we shall be able in one address more, to finish all that is general and preliminary to the passage that is now before us. When we next resume this topic, we shall endeavour to

silence the rising murmurs, which we doubt not have been already felt in many a heart, on the hearing of the representation that we have now given-to prove that there is not an individual amongst us, who has a right to complain of the hardness or severity of God's dealing with us-to come forth with that gospel, in the utterance of which God may be said to wipe His hands of the blood of all who come within reach of the hearing of it-and to neutralize all your complaints about the curse and the corruption that have been entailed upon us, by lifting the welcome invitation to every man, of a righteousness overpassing all that we have lost, and of a grace that will restore us to a higher state of innocence and glory than that from which we are now the sentenced and the exiled wanderers.

433

LECTURE XXV.

ROMANS V, 12-21.

"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead; much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift; for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) 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. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners; so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered, that the offence might abound: but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord."

We have now disserted at very great length on the tenet of original sin, both as it includes the two great articles of original depravity and original guilt-understanding by the one, that every indi