DOCTRINE.

I. The doctrine of imputation is clearly taught in this passage. This doctrine does not include the idea of a mysterious identity of Adam and his race; nor that of a transfer of the moral turpitude of his sin to his descendants. It does not teach that his offence was personally or properly the sin of all men, or that his act was, in any mysterious sense, the act of his posterity. Neither does it imply, in reference to the righteousness of Christ, that his righteousness becomes personally and inherently ours, or that his moral excellence is in any way transferred from him to believers. The sin of Adam, therefore, is no ground to us of remorse; and the righteousness of Christ is no ground of self-complacency in those to whom it is imputed. This doctrine merely teaches, that in virtue of the union, representative and natural, between Adam and his posterity, his sin is the ground of their condemnation, that is, of their subjection to penal evils; and that in virtue of the union between Christ and his people, his righteousness is the ground of their justification. This doctrine is taught almost in so many words in vs. 12, 15—19. It is so clearly stated, so often repeated or assumed, and so formally proved, that very few commentators of any class fail to acknowledge, in one form or another, that it is the doctrine of the apostle.

It would be easy to prove that the statement of the doctrine just given is a correct exhibition of the form in which it was held by the great body of the Reformed Churches and divines. A few quotations from men of universally recognized authority, as competent witnesses on this subject, must suffice. Turrettin (Theol. Elench. Quaest. IX., p. 678) says, “Imputation is either of something foreign to us, or of something properly our own. Sometimes that is imputed to us which is personally ours; in which sense God imputes to sinners their transgressions. Sometimes that is imputed which is without us, and not performed by ourselves; thus the righteousness of Christ is said to be imputed to us, and our sins are imputed to him, although he has neither sin in himself, nor we righteousness. Here we speak of the latter kind of imputation, not of the former, because we are treating of a sin committed by Adam, not by us.” The ground of this imputation is the union between Adam and his posterity. This union is not a mysterious identity of person, but, 1. “Natural, as he is the father, and we are the children. 2. Political and forensic, as he was the representative head and chief of the whole human race. The foundation, therefore, of imputation is not only the natural connection which exists between us and Adam, since in that case all his sins might be imputed to us, but mainly the moral and federal, in virtue of which God entered into covenant with him as our head.” Again, “We are constituted sinners in Adam in the same way in which we are constituted righteous in Christ.” Again, (Vol. II., p. 707,) to impute, he says, “is a forensic term, which is not to be understood physically of the infusion of righteousness, but judicially and relatively.” Imputation does not alter the moral character; hence the same individual may, in different respects, be called both just and unjust: “For when reference is had to the inherent quality, he is called a sinner and ungodly; but when the external and forensic relation to Christ is regarded, he is pronounced just in Christ.” “When God justifies us on account of the righteousness of Christ, his judgment is still according to truth; because he does not pronounce us just in ourselves subjectively, which would be false, but in another putatively and relatively.” Tuckney, (Prælectiones, p. 234,) “We are counted righteous through Christ in the same manner that we are counted guilty through Adam. The latter is by imputation, therefore also the former.” “We are not so foolish or blasphemous as to say, or even to think, that the imputed righteousness of Christ makes us formally and subjectively righteous;” see further quotations from this writer on chap. iv. 5. Owen (in his work on Justification, p. 236) says, “Things which are not our own originally, inherently, may yet be imputed to us, ex justitia, by the rule of righteousness. And this may be done upon a double relation unto those whose they are, 1. Federal. 2. Natural. Things done by one may be imputed unto others, propter relationem fœderalem, because of a covenant relation between them. So the sin of Adam was imputed unto all his posterity. And the ground hereof is, that we stood in the same covenant with him who was our head and representative.” On page 242, he says, “This imputation (of Christ’s righteousness) is not the transmission or transfusion of the righteousness of another into them which are to be justified, that they should become perfectly and inherently righteous thereby. For it is impossible that the righteousness of one should be transfused into another, to become his subjectively and inherently.” Again, page 307, “As we are made guilty by Adam’s actual sin, which is not inherent in us, but only imputed to us; so are we made righteous by the righteousness of Christ, which is not inherent in us, but only imputed to us.” On page 468, he says, “Nothing is intended by the imputation of sin unto any, but the rendering them justly obnoxious unto the punishment due unto that sin. As the not imputing of sin is the freeing of men from being subject or liable to punishment.” It is one of his standing declarations, “To be alienæ culpæ reus, MAKES NO MAN A SINNER.” Knapp (in his Lectures on Theology, sect. 76) says, in stating what the doctrine of imputation is, “God’s imputing the sin of our first parents to their descendants, amounts to this: God punishes the descendants on account of the sin of their first parents.” This he gives as a mere historical statement of the nature of the doctrine, and the form in which its advocates maintained it. Zachariæ (Bib. Theologie, Vol. II., p. 394) says, “If God allows the punishment which Adam incurred, to come on all his descendants, he imputes his sin to them all. And, in this sense, Paul maintains that the sin of Adam is imputed to all, because the punishment of the one offence of Adam has come upon all.” And Bretschneider, as quoted above, on chap. iv. 3, when stating the doctrine of the Reformers, as presented in the various creeds published under their authority, says, that they regarded justification, which includes the idea of imputation, as a forensic or judicial act of God, by which the relation of man to God, and not the man himself, was changed. And imputation of righteousness they described as “that judgment of God, according to which he treats us as though we had not sinned, but had fulfilled the law, or as though the righteousness of Christ was ours.” This view of justification they constantly maintained in opposition to the Papists, who regarded it as a moral change, consisting in what they called the infusion of righteousness.

Though this view of the nature of imputation, both of sin and righteousness, is so familiar, yet as almost all the objections to the doctrine are founded on the assumption that it proceeds on the ground of a mysterious identity between Adam and his race on the one hand, and Christ and his people on the other; and that it implies the transfer of the moral character of the acts imputed, it seemed necessary to present some small portion of the evidence which might be adduced, to show that the view of the subject presented above is that which has always been held by the great body of the Reformed Churches. The objections urged against this doctrine at the present day, are precisely the same which were urged by the Roman Catholics against the Reformers; and the answers which we are obliged to repeat, are the same which the Reformers and their successors gave to those with whom they had to contend.

It will be seen how large a portion of the objections are answered by the mere statement of the doctrine. 1. It is objected that this doctrine “contradicts the essential principles of moral consciousness. We never did, and never can feel guilty of another’s act, which was done without any knowledge or concurrence of our own. We may just as well say we can appropriate to ourselves, and make our own, the righteousness of another, as his unrighteousness. But we can never, in either case, even force ourselves into a consciousness that any act is really our own, except one in which we have had a personal and voluntary concern. A transfer of moral turpitude is just as impossible as a transfer of souls; nor does it lie within the boundary of human effort, that we should repent of Adam’s sin.” Prof. Stuart, p. 239. This idea is repeated very frequently in his commentary on this passage, and the Excursus, IV. V. “To say Adam’s disobedience was the occasion, or ground, or instrumental cause of all men becoming sinners, and was thus an evil to them all, and to say that his disobedience was personally theirs, is saying two very different things. I see no way in which this last assertion can ever be made out by philology.” Compare Mr. Barnes, p. 119. Professor Stuart further says, page 212, that if verse 12 speaks of the imputation of Adam’s sin, it could not be said men had not sinned after the likeness of Adam’s transgression. “So far from this must it be, that Adam’s sin is their very sin, and the ground why death reigns over them.” Mr. Barnes says, page 119, “If the doctrine of imputation be true, they not only had sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, but had sinned the very identical sin. It was precisely like him. It was the very thing itself.” In like manner, on page 96, he says, “But if the doctrine of the Scriptures was, that the entire righteousness of Christ was set over to them, was really and truly theirs, and was transferred to them in any sense, with what propriety could the apostle say that God justified the ungodly?” &c. “They are eminently pure, and have a claim not of grace, but of debt, to the very highest rewards of heaven.” It will be at once perceived that these and similar objections are all founded on a misapprehension of the doctrine in question. They are all directed against the ideas of identity of person, and transfer of moral character, neither of which is, as we have seen, included in it; they are, moreover, not only inconsistent with the true nature of the doctrine, but with the statements and arguments of these writers themselves. Thus Professor Stuart, page 239, says, “That ‘the son shall not die for the iniquity of the father,’ is as true as that ‘the father shall not die for the iniquity of the son;’ as God has most fully declared in Ezek. xviii.” According to this view of the subject, “for the son to die for the iniquity of the father,” is to have the sin of the father imputed to him, or laid to his charge. The ideas of personal identity and transfer of moral character are necessarily excluded from it, by its opponents themselves, who thus virtually admit the irrelevancy of their previous objections. The fact is, that imputation is never represented as affecting the moral character, but merely the relation of men to God and his law. To impute sin is to regard and treat as a sinner; and to impute righteousness is to regard and treat as righteous. 2. It is said that this doctrine is nothing but a theory, an attempt to explain what the apostle does not explain, a philosophical speculation, &c. This again is a mistake. It is neither a theory nor a philosophical speculation, but the statement of a scriptural fact in scriptural language. Paul says, For the offence of one man all men are condemned; and for the righteousness of one all are regarded and treated as righteous. This is the whole doctrine.

3. It is asserted that the word impute is never used in the Bible, in reference to reckoning or charging upon a man any thing which is not strictly and properly his own. But this has been shown to be incorrect; see chap. iv. 3. It is used twice in chap. iv., of “imputing righteousness” to those without works, to the ungodly, &c. But if the objection were well founded, it would be destitute of any force; for if the word means so to ascribe an action to a man as to treat him as the author of it, it would be correct and scriptural to say that the sin or righteousness of one man is imputed to another, when that sin or righteousness is made the ground of the condemnation or justification of any other than its personal authors.

4. It is denied that Adam was the representative of his posterity, because he is not so called in Scripture, and because a representative supposes the consent of those for whom he acts. But this is a mistake. It is rare that a representative is appointed by the choice of all on whom his acts are binding. This is the case in no country in the world; and nothing is more common than for a parent or court to appoint a guardian to act as the representative of a minor. If it is competent for a parent to make such an appointment, it is surely proper in God. It is a mere question of fact. If the Scriptures teach that Adam was on trial not for himself only, but also for his posterity; if the race fell when he fell; then do they teach that he was in fact and form their representative. That they do teach the fact supposed, can scarcely be denied; it is asserted as often as it is stated that the sin of Adam was the ground of the condemnation of men.

5. It is said that the doctrine of imputation is inconsistent with the first principles of justice. This objection is only of force against the mistaken view given above. It has no weight against the true doctrine. It is on all hands admitted that the sin of Adam involved the race in ruin. This is the whole difficulty. How is it to be reconciled with the divine character, that the fate of unborn millions should depend on an act over which they had not the slightest control, and in which they had no agency? This difficulty presses the opponents of the doctrine more heavily than its advocates. The former have no advantage over the latter; not in the amount of evil inflicted, because they make the evil directly inflicted on account of Adam’s sin much greater than the others do; not in the provision made for the redemption of the race from this evil, because both maintain that the work of Christ brings the offer of life to the whole race, while it infallibly secures the salvation of a multitude which no man can number. The opinion of those writers not only has no advantage over the common doctrine, but it is encumbered with difficulties peculiar to itself. It represents the race as being involved in ruin and condemnation, without having the slightest probation. According to one view, they “are born with a corrupt disposition, and with the loss of righteousness, and subjection to pain and wo,” by a mere arbitrary appointment of God, and without a trial, either personally, or by a representative. According to another view, men are born without any such corrupt disposition, but in a state of indifference, and are placed on their probation at the very first moment of moral agency, and under a constitution which infallibly secures their becoming sinners. According to the realistic doctrine, revived by the modern speculative theologians of the school of Schleiermacher, humanity existed as a generic life in Adam. The acts of that life were therefore the acts of all the individuals to whom, in the development of the race, the life itself was communicated. All men consequently sinned in Adam, by an act of self-determination. They are punished, therefore, not for Adam’s act, but for their own; not simply for their innate depravity, nor for their personal acts only, but for the act which they committed thousands of years ago, when their nature, i. e. their intelligence and will, were determined to evil in the person of Adam. This is avowedly a philosophical doctrine. This doctrine assumes the objective reality of human nature as a generic life. It takes for granted that persons can act before they exist, or that actual sin can be committed by an impersonal nature, which is a contradiction in terms, inasmuch as an intelligent, voluntary act is an act of a person. If we actually sinned in Adam, then we (as persons) were then in conscious being. This doctrine is directly opposed to Scripture, which expressly teaches that the sin of Adam, and not our personal sin, was the original ground of condemnation; as the righteousness of Christ, and not our personal righteousness, is the ground of our justification. No less clearly does the Bible condemn the other doctrines just mentioned. Paul represents the evils which came on men on account of the offence of Adam, as a condemnation; not as an arbitrary infliction, nor as a merely natural consequence. We are bound to acquiesce in the truth as taught in the Scriptures, and not to introduce explanations and theories of our own. The denial of this doctrine involves also the denial of the scriptural view of atonement and justification. It is essential to the scriptural form of these doctrines, that the idea of legal substitution should be retained. Christ bore our sins; our iniquities were laid upon him, which, according to the true meaning of scriptural language, can only signify, that he bore the punishment of those sins; not the same evils, indeed, either in kind or degree; but still penal, because judicially inflicted for the support of law. It matters little whether a debt be paid in gold or copper, provided it is cancelled. And as a comparatively small quantity of the former is of equal value with a great deal of the latter, so the temporary sufferings of Christ are of more value for all the purposes of punishment, than the eternal sufferings of all mankind. It is then no objection to the scriptural doctrine of sacrifice and atonement, that Christ did not suffer the same kind or degree of evil, which those for whom he died must have endured in their own persons. This idea of legal substitution enters also into the scriptural view of justification. In justification, according to Paul’s language, God imputes righteousness to the ungodly. This righteousness is not their own; but they are regarded and treated as righteous on account of the obedience of Christ. That is, his righteousness is so laid to their account, or imputed to them, that they are regarded and treated as if it were their own; or “as if they had kept the law.” This is the great doctrine of the Reformation, Luther’s articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesiæ. The great question between the Papists and Protestants was, whether men are justified on account of inherent or imputed righteousness. For the latter, the Protestants contended as for their lives, and for the life of the Church. See the passages quoted above on chap. iv. 3, and the Confessions of that period.⁹

6. As the term death is used for any and every evil judicially inflicted as the punishment of sin, the amount and nature of the evil not being expressed by the word, it is no part of the apostle’s doctrine, that eternal misery is inflicted on any man for the sin of Adam, irrespective of inherent depravity or actual transgression. It is enough for all the purposes of his argument, that this sin was the ground of the loss of the divine favour, the withholding of divine influence, and the consequent corruption of our nature. Turrettin, Theologia Elenct., vol. i., page 680: “Poena quam peccatum Adami in nos accersit, vel est privativa, vel positiva. Quoad primam dicimus Adami peccatum nobis imputari immediate ad poenam privativam, quia est causa privationis justitiae originalis, et sic corruptionem antecedere debet saltem ordine naturae: Sed quoad posteriorem potest dici imputari mediate quoad poenam positivam, quia isti poenae obnoxii non sumus, nisi postquam nati et corrupti sumus.”

7. It is said that it is inconsistent with the omniscience and veracity of God, and consequently with his nature as God, that he should regard and treat as sinners those who are not sinners, or those as righteous who are in fact unrighteous. God’s judgments are according to truth, and therefore must be determined by the real, subjective character of those whom they concern. This difficulty arises simply from the ambiguity of language The words sinner, just, unjust, righteous, and unrighteous, in English, and the corresponding words in other languages, are familiarly and properly used in two distinct senses. They sometimes express moral character, and sometimes legal relations. A man may therefore be just and unjust, righteous and unrighteous at the same time. A criminal who has satisfied the demands of justice, is just in the eye of the law; he cannot be again or further punished for his offence, and is entitled to all his rights as a citizen, although morally unrighteous. The sinner, and every sinner whom God accepts or pronounces righteous for the righteousness of Christ, feels himself to be in his own person most unrighteous. God’s judgment, in pronouncing him righteous, is none the less according to truth. He does not pronounce the sinner subjectively righteous, which he is not, but forensically righteous, which he is, because Christ has satisfied the demands of justice on his behalf. In like manner, when our blessed Lord, although he knew no sin, is said to have been made sin, it only means that he assumed the responsibility of meeting the requirements of the law in our place; so that his sufferings were not chastisements or calamities, but of the nature of punishment. He was condemned for our sakes, as we are justified for his. It is no impeachment, therefore, of the omniscience or veracity of God, when he holds us as guilty on account of Adam’s sin, as he does not pronounce us morally criminal for his offence, but simply declares that for the ends of justice we are involved in his condemnation.

8. Perhaps the most operative of all objections against the doctrine of imputation is founded on the assumption that moral character must be self-originated. It is assumed that inherent, hereditary depravity in man cannot have the nature of sin and involve guilt, unless it is due to his own act. This principle, however, is not only erroneous, but contrary to the plainest and most universally received doctrines of the Bible. It is the intuitive judgment of men that moral qualities owe their character to their nature,” and not to their origin. A holy being is recognized as holy, whether his holiness be concreated, infused, or self-originated. All Churches believe that Adam was created holy; all Churches believe that holiness is the product of divine power in regeneration; and all Churches, that is, the Latin, Lutheran, and Reformed, acknowledge that innate depravity is truly sin, although anterior to any act of self-determination on our part to evil. It is not necessary, therefore, to assume that if men are born in sin, their sinfulness is to be referred to their personal act. It may, consistently with the common judgment of men, and with the faith of the Church universal, be a penal consequence of the sin of Adam.

II. Whatever evil the Scriptures represent as coming upon us on account of Adam, they regard as penal; they call it death, which is the general term by which any penal evil is expressed. It is not however the doctrine of the Scriptures, nor of the Reformed Churches, nor of our standards, that the corruption of nature of which they speak, is any depravation of the soul, or an essential attribute, or the infusion of any positive evil. “Original sin,” as the Confessions of the Reformers maintain, “is not the substance of man, neither his soul nor body; nor is it anything infused into his nature by Satan, as poison is mixed with wine; it is not an essential attribute, but an accident,¹⁰ i. e. something which does not exist of itself, an incidental quality,” &c. Bretschneider, vol. ii., p. 30. These confessions teach that original righteousness was lost, as a punishment of Adam’s sin, and by that defect, the tendency to sin, or corrupt disposition, or corruption of nature is occasioned.¹¹ Though they speak of original sin as being, first, negative, i. e. the loss of righteousness; and secondly, positive, or corruption of nature; yet by the latter, they state, is to be understood, not the infusion of anything in itself sinful, but an actual tendency or disposition to evil, resulting from the loss of righteousness. This is clearly expressed in the quotation just made. It is therefore in perfect consistency with his own views, and with those of the Protestant creeds, that President Edwards teaches, in his book on Original Sin, “It is agreeable to the sentiments of the best divines, that all sin comes from a defective or privative cause,” (p. 28;) and that he argues against the idea of any evil quality being infused, implanted, or wrought into our nature by any positive cause or influence whatever, either of God or the creature, &c. With equal consistency and propriety, he goes on to state that “the absence of positive good principles,” and “the withholding of special divine influence,” and “the leaving of the common principles of self-love, natural appetite, which were in man in innocence,” are sufficient to account for all the corruption which appears among men. Goodwin, one of the strictest Puritanical divines, (vol. iii., p. 323,) has a distinct chapter to prove, “that there is no necessity of asserting original sin to be a positive quality in our souls, since the privation of righteousness is enough to infect the soul with all that is evil.” Yet he, in common with the Reformers, represents original sin as having a positive as well as a negative side. This, however, results from the active nature of the soul. If there is no tendency to the love and service of God, there is, from this very defect, a tendency to self and sin. How large a portion of the objections to the doctrine of original sin is founded on the idea of its being an evil positively infused into our nature, “as poison is mixed with wine,” may be inferred from the exclamation of Professor Stuart. in reference to the passage just quoted from President Edwards. He says it is “a signal instance, indeed, of the triumph of the spontaneous feelings of our nature over the power of system.” It would seem from this, that he has no objection to the doctrine as thus stated. And yet this is the form in which, as we have just seen, it is presented in the creeds of the Reformers, and the works of the “best divines.”

It will be at once perceived that all such questions as the following, proceed on an incorrect apprehension of the point at issue. It is often asked, If Adam’s first sin is propagated to us, why not all his other sins, and the sins of all our ancestors? No one properly maintains that Adam’s first sin, his act of eating the forbidden fruit, is propagated to any one. This is a sheer impossibility. We derive from Adam a nature destitute of any native tendency to the love and service of God; and since the soul, from its nature, is filled as it were with susceptibilities, dispositions or tendencies to certain modes of acting, or to objects out of itself, if destitute of the governing tendency or disposition to holiness and God, it has, of course, a tendency to self-gratification and sin. There is surely nothing incredible or inconceivable in the existence of a native tendency to delight in God, any more than in the existence of a tendency or disposition to delight in beauty, or social intercourse, or in our own offspring. Men have still an innate sense of right and wrong, a natural sense of justice, &c. Why then may not Adam have been created with an analogous tendency to delight in God? And if this disposition presupposes a state of friendship with his Maker, or if it is the result of special Divine influence, why may not that influence be withheld as the expression of God’s displeasure for the apostasy and rebellion of man? This is perfectly analogous to the dealings of God in his providence, and agreeable to the declarations of his word. He abandons sinners to themselves as a punishment of their transgressions; he withholds or withdraws blessings from children, in punishment, or as an expression of his displeasure, for the sins of their parents. There is, therefore, nothing in this doctrine at variance with the Divine character or conduct. On the contrary, it has in its support the whole tenor of his dealings with our race, from the beginning of the world. The objections, therefore, founded on the supposed absurdity of the propagation of sin, and especially of Adam’s first sin, all rest on misapprehension of the doctrine in dispute.

Nor is the objection any better supported, that the doctrine of corruption of nature makes God, from whom that nature proceeds, the author of sin. Our nature is not corrupted by any positive act of God, or by the infusion, implanting, or inworking of any habit or principle of sin; God merely withholds judicially those influences which produced in Adam a tendency or disposition to holiness; precisely as a monarch often, from the purest and wisest motives, withholds favours from the children of traitors or rebels, or bestows them upon the children of patriots and public benefactors. There is in every human being a tendency to act upon the same principle. We are all disposed to regard with less favour the children of the wicked than the children of the good. If this principle is recognized even in the ordinary dealings of Divine Providence, we need not wonder at its being acted upon in that great transaction which decided the fate of the world, as Adam was not on trial for himself alone, but also for his posterity.

As little weight is due to the objection, that the law of propagation does not secure the transmission of bodily defects, or mental and moral peculiarities of parents to their children. This objection supposes that the derivation of a corrupt nature from Adam is resolved into this general law; whereas it is uniformly represented as a peculiar case, founded on the representative character of Adam, and not to be accounted for by this general law exclusively. It is constantly represented as resulting from the judicial withholding of the influences of the Holy Spirit from an apostate race. See the Confessions of the Reformers quoted above: Defectus et concupiscentia sunt poenæ, Apologia I., p. 58. That the peculiarities, and especially that the piety of parents, are not transmitted by the law of propagation, from parents to children, does not therefore present a shadow of an objection to the common doctrine on this subject. The notorious fact, however, that the mental and moral peculiarities of parents are transmitted to their children, frequently and manifestly, though not with the uniformity of an established law, answers two important purposes. It shows that there is nothing absurd, or out of analogy with God’s dealing with men, in the doctrine of hereditary depravity; and also, that the doctrine is consistent with God’s goodness and justice. For if, under the administration of the divine Being, analogous facts are daily occurring, it must be right and consistent with the perfections of God.

The most common and plausible objection to this doctrine is, that it is inconsistent with the nature of sin and holiness to suppose that either one or the other can be innate, or that a disposition or principle, which is not the result of choice, can possess a moral character. To this objection, President Edwards answers, “In the first place, I think it a contradiction to the nature of things, as judged of by the common-sense of mankind. It is agreeable to the sense of the minds of men in all ages, not only that the fruit or effect of a good choice is virtuous, but the good choice itself, from which that effect proceeds; yea, and not only so, but the antecedent good disposition, temper, or affection of mind, from whence proceeds that good choice, is virtuous. This is the general notion, not that principles derive their goodness from actions, but that actions derive their goodness from the principles whence they proceed; and so that the act of choosing that which is good is no farther virtuous than it proceeds from a good principle or virtuous disposition of mind, which supposes that a virtuous disposition of mind may be before a virtuous act of choice; and that, therefore, it is not necessary that there should first be thought, reflection, and choice, before there can be any virtuous disposition. If the choice be first, before the existence of a good disposition of heart, what signifies that choice? There can, according to our natural notions, be no virtue in a choice which proceeds from no virtuous principle, but from mere self-love, ambition, or some animal appetite.” Original Sin, p. 140. It is certainly according to the intuitive judgment of men, that innate dispositions are amiable or unamiable, moral or immoral, according to their nature; and that their character does not depend on the mode of their production. The parental instinct, pity, sympathy with the happiness and sorrows of others, though founded in innate principles of our nature, are universally regarded as amiable attributes of the soul; and the opposite dispositions as the reverse. In like manner, the sense of justice, hatred of cruelty and oppression, though natural, are moral from their very nature. And the universal disposition to prefer ourselves to others, though the strongest of all the native tendencies of the mind, is no less universally recognized as evil.

The opposite opinion, which denies the possibility of moral dispositions prior to acts of choice, is irreconcilable with the nature of virtue, and involves us in all the difficulties of the doctrine, that indifference is necessary to the freedom of the will and the morality of actions. If Adam was created neither holy nor unholy, if it is not true that “God made man upright,” but that he formed his own moral character, how is his choice of God as the portion of his soul to be accounted for? Or what moral character could it have? To say that the choice was made from the desire of happiness, or the impulse of self-love, affords no solution of the case; because it does not account for the nature of the choice. It assigns no reason why God, in preference to any other object, was chosen. This desire could only prompt to a choice, but could not determine the object. If it be said that the choice was determined by the superior excellence of God as a source of happiness, this supposes that this excellence was, in the view of the mind, an object supremely desirable; but the desire of moral excellence is, from the nature of the case, a moral or virtuous desire; and if this determined the choice, moral character existed prior to this determination of the will, and neither consisted in it, nor resulted from it. On the other hand, if the choice was determined by no desire of the object as a moral good, it could have no moral character. How is it possible that the choice of an object which is made from no regard for its excellence, should have any moral character? The choice, considered as an act of the mind, derives its character entirely from the motive by which it is determined. If the motive be desire for it as morally excellent, the choice is morally good, and is the evidence of an antecedent virtuous disposition of mind; but if the motive be mere self-love, the choice is neither good nor bad. There is no way, on the theory in question, of accounting for this preference for God, but by assuming the self-determining power of the will, and supposing that the selection of one object, rather than another, is made prior to the rise of the desire for it as excellent, and consequently in a state of indifference.

This reasoning, though it applies to the origin of holiness, is not applicable to the origin of sin; and, therefore, the objection that it supposes a sinful disposition to exist in Adam, prior to his first transgression, is not valid. Because an act of disobedience performed under the impulse of self-love, or of some animal appetite, is sinful, it does not follow that an act of obedience, performed under a similar impulse, and without any regard for God or moral excellence, is virtuous.

Of all the facts ascertained by the history of the world, it would seem to be among the plainest, that men are born destitute of a disposition to seek their chief good in God, and with a disposition to make self-gratification the great end of their being. Even reason, conscience, and natural affection, are less universal characteristics of our fallen race. For there are idiots and moral monsters often to be met with; but for a child of Adam, uninfluenced by the special grace of God, to delight in his Maker, as the portion of his soul, from the first dawn of his moral being, is absolutely without example among all the thousands of millions of men who have inhabited our world. If experience can establish anything, it establishes the truth of the scriptural declaration, “that which is born of the flesh is flesh.” It would seem no less plain, that this cannot be the original and normal state of man; that human nature is not now what it was when it proceeded from the hand of God. Every thing else which God has made, answers the end of its being; but human nature, since the fall, has uniformly worked badly: in no one instance has it spontaneously turned to God as its chief good. It cannot be believed that God thus made man; that there has been no perversion of his faculties; no loss of some original and guiding disposition or tendency of his mind. It cannot be credited that men are now what Adam was, when he first opened his eyes on the wonders of creation and the glories of God. Reason, Scripture, and experience, therefore, all concur in support of the common doctrine of the Christian world, that the race fell in Adam, lost their original rectitude, and became prone to evil as the sparks fly upward.

This doctrine has so strong a witness in the religious experience of Christians, that it is not wonderful that it has been almost universally received. Individual opponents and objectors have indeed appeared, from time to time; but it is believed that no organized sect, bearing the Christian name, the Socinians excepted, have ever discarded it from the articles of their faith. It is so intimately connected with the doctrines of divine influence and redemption, that they have almost uniformly been held or rejected together. It has indeed often been said, because the term original sin was first used by Augustine, that the doctrine itself took its origin with him; although perfectly synonymous expressions occur so constantly in the writings of the earlier Fathers. Equally destitute of foundation is the assertion, so often made, that Augustine was driven to his views on this subject by his controversy with Pelagius. He had arrived at all the conclusions on which he ultimately rested, at least ten years before any controversy on the subject.¹² He was led to these results by the study of the Scriptures, and by his own personal experience. His earlier views on the intimately related doctrines of depravity, ability, dependence, and grace, were all modified as he became more thoroughly acquainted with the word of God, and with his own heart. When he passed what Neander calls the crisis of his religious history, he saw clearly the depth of the evil which existed within him, and had corresponding views of the necessity and efficacy of the grace of God, by which alone this evil could be removed.

With regard to Pelagius, the case was just the reverse. His views of depravity being superficial, he had very high ideas of the ability of man, and very low conceptions of the operations of the Spirit of God. The latter, as the author just referred to strikingly remarks, was the representative and champion of “the general, moral, and religious consciousness of men;” the other, of “the peculiar nature of Christian consciousness.” A doctrine which enters so much into the experience of all Christians, and which has maintained its ground in all ages and sections of the Church, must have its deep foundations in the testimony of God, and the consciousness of men.

III. It is included in the doctrines already stated, that mankind have had a fair probation in Adam, their head and representative, and that we are not to consider God as placing them on their probation, in the very first dawn of their intellectual and moral existence, and under circumstances (or “a divine constitution”) which secure the certainty of their sinning. Such a probation could hardly deserve the name.

IV. It is also included in the doctrine of this portion of Scripture, that mankind is an unit, in the sense in which an army, in distinction from a mob, is one; or as a nation, a community, or a family, is one, in opposition to a mere fortuitous collection of individuals. Hence the frequent and extensive transfer of the responsibility and consequences of the acts of the heads of these communities to their several members, and from one member to others. This is a law which pervades the whole moral government and providential dispensations of God. We are not like the separate grains of wheat in a measure, but links in a complicated chain. All influence the destiny of each, and each influences the destiny of all.

V. The design of the apostle being to illustrate the nature and to confirm the certainty of our justification, it is the leading doctrine of this passage, that our acceptance with God is founded neither on our faith nor our good works, but on the obedience or righteousness of Christ, which to us is a free gift. This is the fundamental doctrine of the gospel, vs. 18, 19.

VI. The dreadful evil of sin is best seen in the fall of Adam, and in the cross of Christ. By the one offence of one man, what a waste of ruin has been spread over the whole world! How far beyond conception the misery that one act occasioned! There was no adequate remedy for this evil but the death of the Son of God, vs, 12, 15, 16, &c.

VII. It is the prerogative of God to bring good out of evil, and to make the good triumph over the evil. From the fall has sprung redemption, and from redemption results which eternity alone can disclose, vs. 20, 21.

REMARKS.

1. Every man should bow down before God, under the humiliating consciousness that he is a member of an apostate race; the son of a rebellious parent; born estranged from God; and exposed to his displeasure, vs. 12, 15, 16, &c.

2. Every man should thankfully embrace the means provided for his restoration to the Divine favour, viz. “the abundance of grace and gift of righteousness,” ver. 17.

3. Those that perish, perish not because the sin of Adam has brought them under condemnation; nor because no adequate provision has been made for their recovery; but because they will not receive the offered mercy, ver. 17.

4. For those who refuse the proffered righteousness of Christ, and insist on trusting to their own righteousness, the evil of sin and God’s determination to punish it, show there can be no reasonable hope; while, for those who humbly receive this gift, there can be no rational ground of fear, ver. 15.

5. If, without personal participation in the sin of Adam, all men are subject to death, may we not hope that, without personal acceptance of the righteousness of Christ, all who die in infancy are saved?

6. We should never yield to temptation on the ground that the sin to which we are solicited appears to be a trifle, (merely eating a forbidden fruit;) or that it is but for ONCE. Remember the ONE offence of one man. How often has a man, or a family, been ruined for ever by ONE sin! ver. 12.

7. Our dependence on Jesus Christ is entire, and our obligations to him are infinite. It is through his righteousness, without the shadow of merit on our own part, that we are justified. He alone was adequate to restore the ruins of the fall. From those ruins he has built up a living temple, a habitation of God through the Spirit.

8. We must experience the operation of the law, in producing the knowledge and conviction of sin, in order to be prepared for the appreciation and reception of the work of Christ. The Church and the world were prepared, by the legal dispensation of the Old Testament, for the gracious dispensation of the New, ver. 20.

9. We should open our hearts to the large prospects of purity and blessedness presented in the gospel; the victory of grace over sin and death, which is to be consummated in the triumph of true religion, and in the eternal salvation of those multitudes out of every tribe and kindred, which no man can number, ver. 21.

---

← Chapter IV · Contents · Chapter VI →

Footnotes

1. Instead of ἔχομεν, we have peace, ἔχωμεν, let us have, is read in the MSS. A. C. D. 17, 18, 19, 22, 24, 34, 36, 37, 42, 44, 46, 55, 66, in the Syriac, Coptic, and Vulgate versions, and by several of the Fathers. The latter reading is adopted by Lachmann. But as the external authorities are nearly equally divided, and as the common reading gives a sense so much better suited to the context, it is retained by the majority of critical editors. ↩

2. Commentar über den Brief Pauli an die Römer von Friederich Adolph Philippi, Doktor und ord. Professor der Theologie zu Dorpat; since [?] Rostock. ↩

3. See Whitby on this passage. ↩

4. Philippi, Professor in the University at Rostock, one of the most recent as he is one of the best of the German commentators, says, in a note to this passage, “The Protestant Church had abundant scriptural authority as well as theological reasons for their doctrine of the imputatio peccati Adamitici ad culpam et poenam, and its consequent peccatum originale, consisting in the habitus peccandi, and hence involving guilt. It is one of the merits of Julius Müller’s work (die Christliche Lehre von der Sünde,) that he rejects the modern doctrine, that innate depravity or the corruption of nature in man, consequent on the fall of Adam, is simply an evil, so that only voluntary assent thereto is properly of the nature of sin.” ↩

5. Instead of ἁμαρτήσαντος, the MSS. D. E. F. G. 26, the Latin and Syriac versions read ἁμαρτήματος. The common text is retained by most editors, even by Lachmann. ↩

6. The words all men are expressed in ver. 18, where this clause is repeated: “By the offence of one, judgment came on all men to condemnation.” ↩

7. See 1 Cor. xv. 45, ‘The first Adam was made (εἰς ψυχὴν ζῶσαν) to a living soul.’ ‘The last Adam to a quickening spirit.’ Or the preposition (εἰς) may express the grade or point to which anything reaches, and εἰς κατάκριμα be equivalent to εἰς τὸ κατακριθῆναι, a sentence unto condemnation; a decision which went to the extent of condemning. So, in the next clause, εἰς δικαίωμα, unto justification, a sentence by which men are justified.—See Wahl, p. 428. ↩

8. Zachariæ, Biblische Theologie, Vol. II. p. 388. ↩

9. Apol., art. 9, p. 226. Merita propitiatoris—aliis donantur imputatione divina, ut per ea, tanquam propriis meritis justi reputentur, ut si quis amicus pro amico solvit aes alienum, debitor alieno merito tanquam proprio liberatur. F. Concordantiæ, art. 3, p. 687. Ad justificationem tria requiruntur: gratia Dei, meritum Christi et fides, quæ hæc ipsa Dei beneficia amplectitur; qua ratione nobis Christi justitia imputatur, unde remissionem peccatorum, reconciliationem cum Deo, adoptionem in filios Dei et hæreditatem vitæ æternæ consequimur. F. C. III., p. 684. Fides non propterea justificat, quod ipsa tam bonum opus, tamque præclara virtus sit, sed quia in promissione evangelii meritum Christi apprehendit et amplectitur, illud enim per fidem nobis applicari debet, si eo ipso merito justificari velimus. F. C. III., p. 688. Christi justitia nobis imputatur, unde remissionem peccatorum consequimur. Bretschneider, Dog., Vol. II., p. 254, says that, according to the creeds of the Reformation, justification “is that act of God in which he imputes to a man the merit of Christ, and no longer regards and treats him as a sinner, but as righteous.” “It is an act in which neither man nor God changes, but the man is merely freed from guilt, and declared to be free from punishment, and hence the relation only between God and man is altered.” This, he says, the symbolical books maintained, in opposition to the Romish Church, which makes justification a moral change. ↩

10. Accidens: quod non per se subsistit, sed in aliqua substantia est et ab ea discerni possit. ↩

11. F. Concor. I., p. 643: Etsi enim in Adamo et Heva natura initio pura, bona et sancta creata est; tamen per lapsum peccatum non eo modo ipsorum naturam invasit, ut Manichæi dixerunt—quin potius cum seductione Satanæ per lapsum, justo Dei judicio (in pœnam hominum) justitia concreata seu originalis amissa esset, defectu illo, privatione seu spoliatione et vulneratione, (quorum malorum Satan causa est) humana natura ita corrupta est, ut jam natura, una cum illo defectu et corruptione, &c. ↩

12. Neander’s Geschichte der Christlichen Religion und Kirche, ii., § 3. ↩