God. According to other theories, this terrible visitation has come upon us without any previous probation, either in ourselves or a fair representative. It seems to us, therefore, that by the rejection of this view much is lost, and nothing gained towards a sound theodicy.

5. The concessions of opposers. Dr. Hopkins opposed this doctrine, yet over and over again admits its main elements in such language as the following: "Adam was considered and treated as comprehending all mankind. . . . . . The covenant made with him was made with all mankind, and constituted him the public and confederating head of the whole race of men, and he acted in this capacity as being the whole; and his obedience was considered as the obedience of mankind; and as by this Adam was to obtain eternal life had he performed it, this comprehended and insured the eternal life of all his posterity. And, on the contrary, his disobedience was the disobedience of the whole, of all mankind; and the threatened penalty did not respect Adam personally, or as a single individual; but his whole. posterity, included in him and represented by him" (Hopkins's System of Divinity, Vol. I. pp. 192, 193). We could hardly wish for a more explicit statement of what we have set forth. It is not our province to reconcile it with much of a contrary sort. It is quite common for the extreme and strenuous opponents of the doctrine to fall into such phrase as that "Adam was not on trial for himself alone, but for his posterity," which, developed in all its implications, involves all that we have maintained. The great objection to this doctrine has been, that according to it, Adam was constituted representative of his posterity without their consent. But if this objection is valid, it impeaches many of the natural and providential arrangements of God. Are not parents and magistrates representatives of those who never could consent to their assumption of this position, so that the children of a family, or a nation, are often dealt with as if the acts of those set over them in the Lord were their own? Cannot a ruler plunge into the horrors of war those of his

subjects who were opposed to him and the war? Are not children, in spite of themselves, born to the poverty and degradation of poor or worthless parents? The objection, therefore, proves itself groundless by proving too much, and assailing the undeniable proceedures of the Almighty.

But it is objected again, that according to this scheme God inflicts sin as the punishment of sin; and this is incongruous with his nature, making him the author of sin. To this we reply, that this language of "punishing sin with sin," is chiefly, if not wholly, that of opponents. We hold to what the scripture undoubtedly teaches, when it represents God as giving men up to their own hearts' lusts, or to a strong delusion, or of hardening their hearts, for their sin and obduracy; not that God thus positively creates sin; but that, in punishment of it, he withdraws the gifts, endowments, and restraining grace of his Spirit, without which the mere natural principles of action become inordinate, unbalanced, and at once sink into ¿rážia and ȧvóμia. Such withdrawment of God's favor and Spirit is undeniably set forth in scripture as a penalty of sin often inflicted. So in the present case; original sin is exhibited in all our standards as taking rise in the "guilt of Adam's first sin"; then the "want [absence or loss] of that righteousness wherein he was created," as the immediate consequence of incurring this guilt; then, next in order, and as the instantaneous effect of this loss, is the "corruption of his whole nature," the disorder and abnormity arising from the loss of the regulative, harmonizing, and purifying power of original righteousness. The Confession of Faith(VI. 2) puts the same truth in another aspect: "By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in the faculties and parts of soul and body." Here their sin and the loss of original righteousness are spoken of as if they implied each other,' while it is by

1 The standard view on the two preceding heads is well put in the following language of Turretin: "Poena quam peccatum Adami in nos accersit, vel est privativa vel positiva. Prior est carentia et privatio justitiae originalis, Posterior VOL. XXI. No. 81.

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virtue of this that they became "dead in sin," etc. next article proceeds to say that "the guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their posterity," etc. That this is the present condition of our race, who are both "by nature children of wrath" and "dead in trespasses and sins," is the undeniable representation of scripture (Eph. ii. 1-3). That this view of the genesis of the successive stages of original sin, given in our standards, accords with scripture, and sufficiently disposes of the objection that thus God "punishes sin with sin," we think needs not to be further argued.

A single observation further. While, on this scheme, the withdrawment of divine favor and communion from our race, of which corruption is an instantaneous consequent, -is due to Adam's sin, yet the further punishment of subsequent misery and death is inflicted with primary reference to this inherent personal pollution and attendant guilt, originating as aforesaid, and the actual transgressions proceeding from it.

The question whether we are called on to repent of Adam's sin as if we committed it personally, is sufficiently answered by what has been already presented. As it was not a sin committed by us personally, we are not to repent of it as such. We are to feel humbled as members of a race fallen from its integrity and purity, on a most favorable trial, in short, as "degenerate plants of a strange vine."

We will now inquire a moment as to the extent of this fall. This will help to estimate how far there is any ability on the part of man to recover himself from it. Presbyterians find no language more clear and exact than their own

est mors tum temporalis, tum acterna, et in genere mala omnia, quae peccatoribus immittuntur. Etsi secunda necessario sequitur primam ex natura rei, nisi intercedat Dei misericordia, non debet tamen cum ea confundi. Quoad primam dicimus Adami peccatum nobis imputari immediate ad poenam privativam, quia est causa privationis justitiae originalis, et sic corrupcionem antecedere debet, saltem ordine naturae; Sed quoad posteriorem potest dici imputari mediate quoad poenam positivam, quia isti pocnae obnoxii non sumus, nisi postquam nati et corrupti sumus."-Loc. IX. Quaest. IX. 14.

standards, to express their views. "From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions" (Con. of Faith, VI. 4). A previous article declares them "wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body." All evangelical Christians agree that the will is indisposed to good, and perverse in all its actions. That the desires, feelings, and dispositions partake of this depravity and consequent culpability has been sufficiently evinced already. That the intellect, as it is implicated in the moral and spiritual actings of the soul, is also defiled and blinded, has been shown heretofore. It is a necessary inference from the necessity of spiritual illumination so constantly asserted in the scriptures. How could this be more strongly asserted, even past all power of self-recovery, than in the following words, so familiar to all conversant with these subjects? "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. ii. 14). The body not only has in it the seeds of disease and death, but, in so far as it is mysteriously united to the soul and is manifoldly its organ and instrument, as libidinous and intemperate appetites have their seat in the body as animated by the conscious soul, so the body partakes of the defilement of our sin. Hence the exhortation: "Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal bodies, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof, neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin" (Rom. vi. 12, 13). "If ye through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live."

INABILITY.

All this involves inability for self-restoration. They are "indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good." These terms are expository and complementary of each other. The indisposition is inability. The inability consists in such indisposition as involves a disordered state

of the faculties, cognitive, sensitive, and volitional. It is needless to rehearse the direct assertions of the sinner's inability; the arguments from his being dead in sin, having a heart of stone; from the new creation by the Holy Ghost, and the exceeding greatness of his power to us ward who believe. All this has satisfied all parties that the sinner labors under some sort of inability. But precisely what it is, and how far it is a real inability, is in question. We hold it to be a moral inability, a sinful inability, and a real inability. With respect to the distinction between natural and moral inability so much insisted on by some, we hold to whatever of truth it contains, although most of us are not foud of the phrase, on account of its liability to be misunderstood or perverted. We hold that our inability is moral, and is our sin; and that it is natural in one sense, and not so in another sense, of the word "nature." It is natural in the sense that it is native to fallen man, and not acquired, so being like the depravity in which it consists. It is not natural in the sense of belonging to human nature in its original, normal, unfallen state. It is a depravation of this nature induced by the fall. Further, it is irremoveable by the sinners own power, else it would be no real inability. We thus stand opposed to those who affirm a natural ability, meaning thereby a real, present ability, to perform works spiritually good, without divine grace. If by natural ability they mean, as some do, only the possession of natural faculties which constitute a moral agent, or which are essential to mankind, we maintain it. But these faculties are in a distempered state, governed by an evil bias, which needs to be purged away, by the Holy Spirit "creating us anew in Christ Jesus unto good works," before we can truly serve God in the spirit. This meaning of our Confession is put beyond all doubt, in the following language:

"Man by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so, as a natural man, being altogether averse from that which is good, and dead in sin, is not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, or prepare himself thereto." Chap. IX. 3.