All that we can say, with certainty on this subject,-and it is abundantly sufficient to fill us with horror in contemplating the natural condition of the human race, and to induce us to accept and prize the great salvation offered through Jesus Christ,-is, that man was subjected to a forfeiture of all that life, which, in a state of innocence our first parents possessed, and for any thing he knew, or could do, to better his condition, it must and would have been eternal. To Jesus the blessed mediator, do we owe the resolution of our painful doubts, and horrible suspense on this subject. The justice that exacted a present forfeiture of life, and inflicted a present suffering, might be presumed to require that they should be eternal, since it was, manifestly, morally imposible that man could re-instate himself in the condition from which he fell, or un

loss of all that life, he was then in possession of, which we may call the paradisiacal life, and no further. It seems therefore incumbent on those who extend it to eternal death, to make it appear that Adam, in paradise, was possessed of that kind of life, which is called ETERNAL, the life which is in Christ Jesus; which I believe nobody will say. They build much on the nature and demerit of sin: and I would not willingly say any thing, that might be constructed into the least tendency toward extenuating the nature of that horrible evil; but by the issue of this first dispensation, and several other instances in the record, we must conclude, that it belongs to the Great Sovereign to affix what penalty he pleases to his laws. The conclusions drawn from the nature of vindictive justice, are rather too bold for man to make, without better authority than the record gives us. But there is one insuperable prejudice, that attends this supposition. That had eternal death been the penalty, Adam himself at least, must have died eternally; and if the denunciation given upon the transgression, extends to all his posterity, as appears by the event it did, not one of them could have been saved, without dispensing with the unalterable divine constitution, or somehow changing the tenor of it: an absurdity which can never be admitted on any consideration whatsoever. That original life must be destroyed; nor can the original law be satisfied by any means whatsoever until that is done; but when it is done, and that law thereby fulfilled, there is nothing to hinder the Creator to raise whom he pleases to eternal life: Riccaltoun's works, vol. ii. p. 72-75.

do what had been done. Vague hopes, wretched delusions, distracting fears, gloomy forebodings, horrible anticipations, were the exchange that our first parents made for the peace and joy of a calm life of communion with God. And the very same things are characteristic of that condition into which we are born. By virtue of our connection with Adam as descending from him, we are subjected in fact to the forfeiture of all the privileges and immunities pertaining to a state of innocence. It cannot for a moment be alleged, that we are treated as we would have beer, had we been the children of innocent parents.

2. But this is not all. In consequence of the sin of Adam, men come into existence under the influence of causes and circumstances, which render it morally certain, that they universally, will sin, as soon as they are capable of moral agency. As to the facts here stated, there is no dispute. But what are these causes? An innate powerful efficient principle, says one. The internal constitution, says another. A corrupt habit, says a third. The operative disposition or propensity, says a fourth. The very nature itself, says a fifth. It is of little moment to dispute about words. The whole dispute here, it seems to us, turns on the decision of the following question. Is there in simple nature, as created by God, and derived from Adam, and prior to all acts, an efficient cause, whose operation renders it certain that men will sin? It is admitted, that, in so far as it relates to the appetites and passions of our nature, there is some foundation laid for them in our very being. We hunger, we thirst, we love, we fear, because such is our nature. God has so constituted us. There is acause for these things in our physical constitution, just as there is in the irrational animals.

Some animals are carnivorous; others are graminivorous. They are instinctively inclined to the food which is adapted to their appetites. In all this, there is a foun-

dation laid in their very physical being. There is a sort of necessity superinduced upon the actions from the very constitution of the animal. It is an operative cause, laid in the very nature, which renders the result irresistible and infallible. Must we believe that men are inclined in the same way to sin, and that therefore, because of an innate propensity to sin―the foundation laid in the very nature-that nature, apart from, and prior to, any of its moral actings is sinful? That is to make God the author of sin, and to make men sin by physical necessity. The idea of God's creating men physically incapable of holiness and yet requiring holiness in them, and damning them to eternal misery for not possessing it, is too monstrous for any one avowedly to advocate.

Yet this idea seems to be wrapped up in the technics and illustrations of some. "The scripture certainly" says Rivet, "oft-times insinuates to us, that original sin is not a mere privation, but something somehow positive, that is, it is wont to inculcate that it is affirmative." Paul's personification of sin, he interpreted literally and philosophically; so that, when the apostle exhorts christians, that they "let not sin reign in (their) mortal body, 'that they should obey it in the lusts thereof," he supposed his words indicate, that there is some habitual lusting in man whose proper acts are actual lustings, which habitual evil the apostle calls sin." Still less ambiguously does he seem to inculcate the monstrous sentiment above expressed. They, therefore, have not significantly enough

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1. Scriptura certe quoties peccatum originale nobis insinuat, non meram privationem, sed aliquid quodam modo positioum, id est affirmativum, solet inculcare. SYN. PUR. THEOL. DISP. XV. p. 169.

2. Rom. vi, 12.

3. Quæ verba indicant, concupiscentiam quandam habitualem esse in homine, cujus proprii actus sunt conupiscentia actuales, quod malum habitale apostolus peccatum appellat. SINOP. PER. THEOL. DISP. XV. p. 169

expressed the force of this sin"-he had just above called it "a stain; and most filthy corruption of all the parts of man, as born into this world;" (labes et fœdissima omnium hominis partium)"who make it to consist only in the want of original righteousness; because, by it, our nature is not only devoid of any thing good, but also fertile and fruitful of every thing evil; so that it cannot be idle. Hence some of our men have said, that the fuel of sin is not without ACTUAL sin; yea, that it is actual sin; which, although said without authority, yet ought not to be calumniated by our adversaries, since they meant nothing else, than that this sin both exists in act, and is also actuating and operative, so that it cannot rest even in infants, but excites vicious (guilty) affections."1

"But the subject of this subsistence or inhesion, (i. e. in which original sin subsists and inheres,) when this sin is considered, not in respect of the whole species of which it is predicated, but of the individual of which it is native and inherent, is not the body in man alone, nor the soul alone, but body and soul together; and so the man entire, as to all the faculties of body and soul, as to his entire self, and the whole of himself.""2

1. Non igitur significanter satis vim hujus peccati expresserunt, qui eam tantum in justitiæ originalis carentia constituerunt; quia per illud natura nostra non tantum boni inops est, sed etiam malorum omnium adeo fertilis et ferax, ut otiosa esse non possit. Hine quidam e nostris fomitem peccati non esse absque actuali peccato, imo peccatum actuale esse dixerunt, quod anupas quidem dictum, in calumniam tamen non debuit ab adversarris, trahi, cum nihil aliud voluerint, quam peccatum hoc et esse actu, et actuosum etiam et operosum, ut ne in parvulis quidem quiescat, quin vitiosos motus excitet. SYNOP. PUR. THEOL. Disp. xv.

2. Subjectum autem uzažas vel inhæsionis, quando peccatum hoc con sideratur non respectu totius speciei de qua prædicatur, sed individui cui adnascitur et inhæret, est non solum hominis corpus, neque sola anima, sed corpus et anima simul, adeoque homo totus quantus, secundum omnes corporis et animæ facultates, secundum se totum, et totum sui.-SYNOP. PUB, THEOL. DISP. Xv. p. 167.

In the above language, which we have quoted frem one, whose name is of great authority with the advocates of physical depravity, it is very manifest, that the writer assigns the origin and certainty of sin among men, to some cause existing in the very soul itself, so that men sin by necessity of nature. And this nature is derived by natural generation!

The same view is also given of the subject by Dr. Owen. He speaks of the impotency of the mind itself, as we have seen, saying that it is natural, "because it can never be taken away or cured, but by an immediate communication of a new spiritual power and ability, unto the mind itself, by the Holy Ghost, in its renovation, so curing the depravation of the faculty itself." That impotency which he assigns to the mind, as the cause of sin, is clearly the result of its constitution by nature, for he places it in the very fuculty itself, and distinguishes it from what he correctly enough calls its moral impotency. If such is the cause of sin, man is truly to be pitied, and only to be pitied, not culpable; for God, his Creator and Judge, has made him, so that he can do nothing but sin; and that through the very necessities of his natare! To this, we must object; because we do not learn, from the scriptures, that man is destitute of natural ability; but, that the inability attributed to him is of a moral character, and because we can discern sufficient causes in operation, to render it morally certain, that all men will sin, without summoning to our aid, the philosophical supposition and theory of a physical depravity, or of there being an efficient cause in the very constitution of the soul, rendering it, anterior to all its voluntary acts, sinful in itself.

We shall take occasion, when noticing the developments of human depravity, to designate some of those causes in operation, which render it morally certain, that men uni1. Owen on the Spirit, vol. i, p. 418.