consequence of some grand and primary transgression. Such a capital punishment would never have been inflicted on the human race, by the God of infinite justice, but for some adequate, preceding of fence. It is undeniably certain, that we who are now living, are in actual possession of an evil nature; which nature we brought with us into the world; it is not of our own acquiring, but was

"Cast and mingled with our very frame;

Grew with our growth, and strengthened with our strength."

We were therefore in a state of severe moral punishment, as soon as we began to be. And yet, it was impossible for us to have sinned in our own persons, antecedently to our actual existence.

This reflection leads up our enquiry, to that doctrine which alone can solve the (otherwise, insuperable) difficulty now started, viz. to that doctrine which asserts the imputation of Adam's disobedience to all his offspring. And which is, I. founded on scripture evidence; and II. adopted by the church of England; and III. not contrary to human reason. I will just touch on these three

particulars.

I. God's word expressly declares, that, By the disobedience of one man, many were constituted sinners, Rom. v. 19. They are in the divine estimation considered as guilty of Adam's own personal breach of the prohibitory command. Now, the judgment of God is always according to truth. He would not deem us guilty, unless we were so. And guilty of our first parent's offence we cannot be, but in a way of imputation.

By the offence of one [δι ενος παραπλωματος, by one transgression], judgment came upon all men, unto condemnation, Rom. v. 18. which could not be unless that one transgression was placed to our account.

By one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. Rom. v. 12. Yea, death reigned, and still continues to reign, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's

transgression: v. 14. Infants are here designed by the apostle; who have not sinned actually and in their own persons, as Adam did, and yet are liable to temporal death. Wherefore then, do they die? Is not death the wages of sin? Most certainly. And seeing it is incontestibly clear, that not any individual among the numberless millions who have died in infancy, was capable of committing actual sin; it follows, that they sinned representatively and implicitly in Adam. Else they would not be entitled to that death which is the wages of sin, and to those diseases by which their death is occasioned, and to that pain which most of them experience in dying. A majority of the human race are supposed to die under the age of seven years. A phenomenon which we should never see under the administration of a just and gracious God, if the young persons so dying had not been virtually comprehended in the person of Adam when he fell, and if the guilt of his fall was not imputed to them. Nothing but the imputation of that, can ever be able to account for the death of infants; any more than for the vitiosity, the manifold sufferings, the imperfections, and the death of men.

II. This is the doctrine of the church of England. "We were cast into miserable captivity, by breaking of God's commandment in our first parent Adam." (Second homily on the misery of man).

"Original sin is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man." (Article IX.) The corruption or defilement, is ours by inherency: we ourselves are the seat of it. But original sin can be our fault only by imputation, and in no other possible way.

Dearly beloved, ye have prayed that our Lord Jesus Christ would vouchsafe to release [this child] of his sins." (Baptismal office.) In the estimation therefore of our church, every infant is not only chargeable with sin in the singular number; but with sins in the plural. To wit, with intrinsic defilement, as the subject of an unholy nature; and with the imputed guilt of the first man's apostasy from God.

III. There is nothing contrary in all this, to human reason, and to the usual practice of men.

There is not a single nobleman, or person of property, who does not act, or who has not acted, as the covenant-head of his posterity; supposing him to have any.

Even a lease of lives, signed by a legal freeholder; and sometimes the total alienation of an estate for ever; are binding on (perhaps the unborn) heirs and successors of the person, who grants the lease, or signs away the property.

A person of quality commits high treason. For this, he not only forfeits his own life; but also his blood (i. e. his family) is tainted in law, and all his titles and possessions are forfeited from his descendants. His children, and their children to the end of the chapter, lose their peerage and lose their lands, though the father only was (we will suppose) in fault.

Thus the honours and estates of all the heirs in England, are suspended on the single loyalty of each present possessor respectively!

Where then is the unreasonableness of the imputation of Adam's crime? Why might not the welfare, and the rectitude, of all his posterity, be suspended on the single thread of his integrity? And what becomes of the empty cavils that are let off against those portions of holy writ which assure us, that in Adam all die?

But wherein did Adam's primary sin consist? Of what nature was that offence, which

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Brought death into the world, and all our woe?”

The scholastic writers, whose distinctions are frequently much too subtile, and sometimes quite insignificant, seem to have hit the mark of this enquiry with singular skill and exactness.

They very properly distinguish original sin into what they call peccatum originans, and peccatum originatum.

By peccatum originans, they mean the ipsissimum, or the very act itself, of Adam's offence in tasting the forbidden fruit.

By peccatum originatum, they mean that act, considered as transmitted to us. Which transmission includes its imputation to us, in point of guilt; and that internal, hereditary pollution, which has vitiated every faculty of man from that moment to this. With regard to the latter, a very slight acquaintance with ourselves must convince us that we have it. And as for the former [viz. the article of imputation], it could not have taken place, if Adam had not sustained our persons, and stood or fallen as our legal representative.

Consider original sin as resident in us, and it is very justly defined by our church to be that corrupt bias," whereby man is very far gone [quàm longissimè distet, is removed to the greatest distance possible] from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil; so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit." (Art. IX.) Upon which definition, the life of every man is, more or less, a practical comment.

But, Honos erit huic quoque pomo. Many, and of the utmost importance, are the consequences deducible from this great scripture doctrine. I shall briefly point out a few.

1. We learn from hence, that, which the ancient heathens in vain attempted to discover; viz. the door, by which natural evil (as sickness, afflictions, sorrow, pain, death) entered into the world: namely, the sin of Adam. Though the reasons why God permitted Adam to sin, are as deeply in the dark as ever; what we do know of God, entitles him surely to this small tribute at our hands, viz. that we repose our faith, with an absolute, an implicit, and an unlimited aquiescence, on his unerring wisdom and will; safely confident, that what such a being ordains and permits, is and must be right: however incapable we may find ourselves at present, to discern and comprehend the full propriety of his moral government.

2. Hence too, we learn the infinite freeness, and the unspeakable preciousness of his electing love. Why were any chosen, when all might justly have been passed by? Because he was resolved, for his own name's sake, to make known the riches of his glory, i. e. of his glorious grace, on the vessels of mercy, whom he therefore prepared unto glory.

3. Let this, O believer, humble you under the mighty hand of God; and convince you, with deeper impression than if ten thousand angels were to preach it from heaven, that election is not of works, but of him that calleth. Not your merit, but his unmerited mercy, mercy irrespective of either your good works or your bad ones, induced him to write your name in the Lamb's book of life.

4. So totally are we fallen by nature, that we cannot contribute any thing towards our recovery. Hence it was God's own arm which brought salvation. It is he that makes us his people, and the sheep of his pasture; not we ourselves. The church says truly, when she declares, that "We are by nature the children of God's wrath: but we are not able to make ourselves the children and inheritors of