where teach that we actually sinned before we existed, they assert the fact which enters into the common faith of the Church, that guilt attaches to all sin however that sin originates.

§ 8. The Effects of Adam's Sin upon his Posterity.

That the sin of Adam injured not himself only but also all descending from him by ordinary generation, is part of the faith of the whole Christian world. The nature and extent of the evil thus entailed upon his race, and the ground or reason of the descendants of Adam being involved in the evil consequences of his transgression, have ever been matter of diversity and discussion. As to both of these points the common Augustinian doctrine is briefly stated in the Symbols of our Church. According to our standards, "the sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell 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, together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it." This corruption of nature is in the Confession of Faith declared to be "both in itself and in all motions thereof, truly and properly sin." And in virtue of this original corruption men are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil. As to the ground of these evils, we are taught that "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 in his first transgression." Or, as it is expressed in the Confession, "Our first parents, being the root of all mankind, the guilt of their sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature were conveyed to all their posterity, descending from them by ordinary generation."

In this view of the relation of mankind to Adam, and of the consequences of his apostasy, the three leading subjects included, are the imputation of Adam's first sin; the corruption of nature derived from him; and the inability of fallen man to any spiritual good.

§ 9. Immediate Imputation.

It being admitted that the race of man participates in the evil consequences of the fall of our first parent, that fact is accounted for on different theories.

1. That which is adopted by Protestants generally, as well Lutherans as Reformed, and also by the great body of the Latin Church is, that in virtue of the union, federal and natural, between

Adam and his posterity, his sin, although not their act, is so imputed to them that it is the judicial ground of the penalty threatened against him coming also upon them. This is the doctrine of immediate imputation.

2. Others, while they admit that a corrupt nature is derived from Adam by all his ordinary posterity, yet deny, first, that this corruption or spiritual death is a penal infliction for his sin; and second, that there is any imputation to Adam's descendants of the guilt of his first sin. All that is really imputed to them is their own inherent, hereditary depravity. This is the doctrine of mediate imputation.

3. Others discard entirely the idea of imputation, so far as Adam's sin is concerned, and refer the hereditary corruption of men to the general law of propagation. Throughout the vegetable and animal kingdoms, like begets like. Man is not an exception to that law. Adam having lost his original righteousness and corrupted his nature by his apostasy, transmits that despoiled and deteriorated nature to all his descendants. To what extent man's nature is injured by the fall, is left undetermined by this theory. According to some it is so deteriorated as to be in the true Scriptural sense of the term, spiritually dead, while according to others, the injury is little if anything more than a physical infirmity, an impaired constitution which the first parent has transmitted to his children. 4. Others again adopt the realistic theory, and teach that as generic humanity existed whole and entire in the persons of Adam and Eve, their sin was the sin of the entire race. The same

numerical rational and voluntary substance which acted in our first parents, having been communicated to us, their act was as truly and properly our act, being the act of our reason and will, as it was their act. It is imputed to us therefore not as his, but as our We literally sinned in Adam, and consequently the guilt of that sin is our personal guilt and the consequent corruption of nature is the effect of our own voluntary act.

own.

5. Others, finally, deny any causal relation, whether logical or natural, whether judicial or physical, between the sin of Adam and the sinfulness of his race. Some who take this ground say that it was a divine constitution, that, if Adam sinned, all men should sin. The one event was connected with the other only in the divine purpose. Others say that there is no necessity to account for the fact that all men are sinners, further than by referring to their liberty of will. Adam sinned, and other men sin. That is all. The one fact is as easily accounted for as the other.

Statement of the Doctrine of Immediate Imputation.

The first of the above mentioned doctrines is that presented in the Symbols of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches, and by the great body of the theologians of those great historical branches of the Protestant community. What that doctrine is may be stated in few words. To impute is simply to attribute to, as we are said to impute good or bad motives to any one. In the juridical and theological sense of the word, to impute is to attribute anything to a person or persons, upon adequate grounds, as the judicial or meritorious reason of reward or punishment, i. e., of the bestowment of good or the infliction of evil. The most elaborate discussion of the Hebrew word and the Greek Aoyíčoμa, used in Scripture in relation to this subject, gives nothing beyond the simple result above mentioned.

1. To impute is to reckon to, or to lay to one's account. So far as the meaning of the word is concerned, it makes no difference whether the thing imputed be sin or righteousness; whether it is our own personally, or the sin or righteousness of another.

2. To impute sin, in Scriptural and theological language, is to impute the guilt of sin. And by guilt is meant not criminality or moral ill-desert, or demerit, much less moral pollution, but the judicial obligation to satisfy justice. Hence the evil consequent on the imputation is not an arbitrary infliction; not merely a misfortune or calamity; not a chastisement in the proper sense of that word, but a punishment, i. e., an evil inflicted in execution of the penalty of law and for the satisfaction of justice.

3. A third remark in elucidation of what is meant by the imputation of Adam's sin is, that by all theologians, Reformed and Lutheran, it is admitted, that in the imputation of Adam's sin to us, of our sins to Christ, and of Christ's righteousness to believers, the nature of imputation is the same, so that the one case illustrates the others. When it is said that our sins were imputed to Christ, or that He bore our sins, it is not meant that he actually committed our sins, or that He was morally criminal on account of them, or that the demerit of them rested upon Him. All that is meant is

1 As at the time of the Reformation an influential party in the Romish Church held, after some of the schoolmen, that original sin consists solely in the imputation of Adam's first sin, and as the Confessions of the Reformers were designed not only as an exhibition of the truth but as a protest against the errors of the Church of Rome, it will be observed that the Protestants frequently assert that original sin is not only the imputation of Adam's sin but also hereditary corruption of nature; and the Reformed theologians often made the latter more prominent than the former, because the one was admitted by their adversaries, but the other denied.

that He assumed, in the language of the older theologians, " our law-place." He undertook to answer the demands of justice for the sins of men, or, as it is expressed by the Apostle, to be made a curse for them. In like manner, when it is said that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to believers, it does not mean that they wrought out that righteousness, that they were the agents of the acts of Christ in obeying the law; nor that the merit of his righteousness is their personal merit ; nor that it constitutes their moral character; it simply means that his righteousness, having been wrought out by Christ for the benefit of his people, in their name, by Him as their representative, it is laid to their account, so that God can be just in justifying the ungodly. Much of the

difficulty on this subject arises from the ambiguity of language. The words righteous and unrighteous have two distinct meanings. Sometimes they express moral character. A righteous man is an upright or good man. At other times, these words do not express moral character, but simply relation to justice. In this sense a righteous man is one with regard to whom the demands of justice are satisfied. He may be personally unrighteous (or ungodly) and legally righteous. If this were not so, no sinner could be saved. There is not a believer on earth who does not feel and acknowledge himself to be personally unrighteous, ill-deserving, meriting the wrath and curse of God. Nevertheless he rejoices in the assurance that the infinitely meritorious righteousness of Christ, his full atonement for all sin, constitutes Him legally, not morally, righteous in the sight of divine justice. When, therefore, God pronounces the unrighteous to be righteous, He does not declare them to be what they are not. He simply declares that their debt to justice has been paid by another. And when it is said that the sin of Adam is imputed to his posterity, it is not meant that they committed his sin, or were the agents of his act, nor is it meant that they are morally criminal for his transgression; that it is for them the ground of remorse and selfreproach; but simply that in virtue of the union between him and his descendants, his sin is the judicial ground of the condemnation of his race, precisely as the righteousness of Christ is the judicial ground of the justification of his people. So much for the statement of the question.

It is no less a doctrine of Scripture than a fact of experience that mankind are a fallen race. Men universally, under all the circumstances of their being in this world, are sinful, and exposed to innumerable evils. Many of these, and that in many instances,

the most appalling, come upon the children of men in early infancy, anterior to any possible transgressions of their own. This is a fact which cannot be denied; and for which the human mind has tortured itself to find a solution. The Scriptural solution of this fearful problem is, that God constituted our first parent the federal head and representative of his race, and placed him on probation not only for himself, but also for all his posterity. Had he retained his integrity, he and all his descendants would have been confirmed in a state of holiness and happiness forever. As he fell from the estate in which he was created, they fell with him in his first transgression, so that the penalty of that sin came upon them as well as upon him. Men therefore stood their probation in Adam. As he sinned, his posterity come into the world in a state of sin and condemnation. They are by nature the children of wrath. The evils which they suffer are not arbitrary impositions, nor simply the natural consequences of his apostasy, but judicial inflictions. The loss of original righteousness, and death spiritual and temporal under which they commence their existence, are the penalty of Adam's first sin. We do not say that this solution of the problem of man's sinfulness and misery, is without its difficulties; for the ways of God are past finding out. But it may be

confidently asserted, first, that it is the Scriptural solution of that problem; and secondly, that it is far more satisfactory to the reason, the heart, and the conscience, than any other solution which the ingenuity of man has ever suggested. This is proved by its general acceptance in the Christian Church.

The Ground of the Imputation of Adam's Sin.

The ground of the imputation of Adam's sin, or the reason why the penalty of his sin has come upon all his posterity, according to the doctrine above stated, is the union between us and Adam. There could of course be no propriety in imputing the sin of one man to another unless there were some connection between them to explain and justify such imputation. The Scriptures never speak of the imputation of the sins of angels either to men or to Christ, or of his righteousness to them; because there is no such relation between men and angels, or between angels and Christ, as to involve the one in the judicial consequences of the sin or righteousness of the other. The union between Adam and his posterity which is the ground of the imputation of his sin to them, is both natural and federal. He was their natural head. Such is the relation between parent and child, not only in the case of