difficulties attending the allowing of one than the other" of these two particulars; namely, sharing in Adam's first sin, and "that innate sinful depravity of the heart," which has been transmitted from parents to their offspring, ever since Adam's fall. And with both Calvin and Edwards we believe, that "the arguments which prove the one, establish the other"that if the corruption of our whole nature is derived originally from Adam, we must consider his off spring as having had, by the divine constitution, a connexion with him in the act by which it was brought both on him and on them. If there was no connexion in the act, why should there be a connexion in the consequences? But our immediate object at present, is not so much to reason, as to ascertain what were the views of Calvin. They will appear more fully by the following quotations. We have taken enough of the sections from which we quote to show their scope, and their fair and full import. We have placed in italicks the passages which we wish to be particularly noticed, as bearing on the point which we seek to establish-The few words which the translator had italicised, we have given in small capitals-We begin with Section V. "As the spiritual life of Adam consisted in a union to his Maker, so an alienation from him was the death of his soul. Nor is it surprising that he ruined his posterity by his defection, which has perverted the whole order of nature in heaven and earth. 'The creatures groan,' says Paul, 'being made subject to vanity, not willingly. If the cause be inquired, it is undoubtedly that they sustain part of the punishment due to the demerits of man, for whose use they were created. And his guilt ** *Rom. viii 20. 22. being the origin of that curse which extends to every part of the world, it is reasonable to conclude its propagation to all his offspring. Therefore when the Divine image in him was obliterated, and he was punished with the loss of wisdom, strength, sanctity, truth, and righ teousness, with which he had been adorned, but which were succeeded by the dreadful pests of igno rance, impotence, impurity, vanity, and iniquity, he suffered not alone, but involved all his posterity with him, and plunged them into the same miseries. This is that hereditary corruption which the fathers called ORIGINAL SIN; meaning by sin, the depravation of a nature previously good and pure. On which subject they had much contention, nothing being more remote from common sense, than that all should be criminated on account of the guilt of one, and thus his sin become common. Which seems to have been the reason why the most ancient doctors of the church did but obscurely glance at this point, or at least explained it with less perspicuity than it required. Yet this timidity could not prevent Pelagius from arising, who profanely pretended, that the sin of Adam only ruined himself, and did not injure his descendants. By concealing the disease with this delusion, Satan attempted to render it incurable. But when it was evinced by the plain testimony of the Scripture, that sin was communicated from the first man to all his posterity, he sophistically urged, that it was communicated by imitation, not by propagation. * * * * VI. "We have heard that the impurity of the parents is so transmitted to the children, that all, without a single exception, are polluted as soon as they exist. But we shall not find the origin of this pollution, unless we ascend to the first parent of us all, as to the fountain which sends forth all the streams. Thus it is certain that Adam was not only the progenitor, but as it were the root of mankind, and therefore that all the race were necessarily vitiated in his corruption. The apostle explains this by a comparison between him and Christ: As,' says he, 'by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned;'* so by the grace of Christ, righteousness and life have been restored to us. What cavil will the Pelagians raise here? That the sin of Adam was propagated by imitation? Do we then receive no other advantage from the righteousness of Christ, than the proposal of an example for our imitation? Who can bear such blasphemy? But if it cannot be controverted that the righteousness of Christ is ours by communication, and life as its consequence; it is equally evident that both were lost in Adam, in the same manner in which they were recovered in Christ, and that sin and death were introduced by Adam, in the same manner in which they were abolished by Christ. There is no obscurity in the declaration, that many are made righteous by the obedience of Christ, as they had been made sinners by the disobedience of Adam. And therefore between these two persons there is this relation, that the one ruined us by involving us in his destruction, the other by his grace has restored us to salvation. Any more prolix or tedious proof of a truth supported by such clear evidence must, I think, be unnecessary. Thus also in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, with a view to confirm the pious in a confidence of the resurrection, he shows, that the life which had been lost in Adam, was recovered in Christ. He, who pronounces that we were all dead in Adam, does also at the same time plainly declare, that we were implicated in the guilt of his sin. For * Rom. v. 12. † Rom. v. 19. no condemnation could reach those who were perfectly clear from all charge of iniquity. But his meaning cannot be better understood than from the relation of the other member of the sentence, where he informs us that the hope of life is restored in Christ. But that is well known to be accomplished, only when Christ, by a wonderful communication, transfuses into us the virtue of his righteousness: as it is elsewhere said, 'The Spirit is life, because of righteousness."* No other explanation therefore can be given of our being said to be dead in Adam, than that his transgression not only procured misery and ruin for himself, but also precipitated our nature into similar destruction. And that not by his personal guilt as an individual, which pertains not to us, but because he infected all his descendants with the corruption into which he had fallen. Otherwise there would be no truth in the assertion of Paul, that all are by nature children of wrath, if they had not been already under the curse even before their birth. Now it is easily inferred that our nature is there characterised, not as it was created by God, but as it was vitiated in Adam: because it would be unreasonable to make God the author of death. Adam therefore corrupted himself in such a manner, that the contagion has been communicated from him to all his offspring. And Christ himself, the heavenly Judge, declares, in the most unequivocal terms, that all are born in a state of pravity and corruption, when he teaches, that 'whatoever is born of the flesh is flesh,' and that therefore the gate of life is closed against all who have not been regenerated. VII. "Nor, to enable us to understand this subject, have we any need to enter on that tedious dispute, with which the Fathers were not a little perplexed, whe * Rom. viii. 10. + Ephes. ii. 3. ther the soul of a son proceeds by derivation or transmission from the soul of the father, because the soul is the principal seat of the pollution. We ought to be satisfied with this, that the Lord deposited with Adam the endowments he chose to confer on the human nature; and therefore that when he lost the favours he had received, he lost them not only for himself, but for us all. Who will be so solicitous about a transmission of the soul, when he hears that Adam received the ornaments that he lost, no less for us than for himself? that they were given, not to one man only, but to the whole human nature? There is nothing absurd therefore, if in consequence of his being spoiled of his dignities, that nature be destitute and poor; if in consequence of his being polluted with sin, the whole nature be infected with the contagion. From a putrified root therefore have sprung putrid branches, which have transmitted their putrescence to remoter ramifications. For the children were so vitiated in their parent, that they became contagious to their descendants: there was in Adam such a spring of corruption, that it is transfused from parents to children in a perpetual stream. But the cause of the contagion is not in the substance of the body or of the soul; but because it was ordained by God, that the gifts which he conferred on the first man should by him be preserved or lost both for himself and for all his posterity. * VIII. "To remove all uncertainty and misunderstanding on this subject, let us define original sin. It is not my intention to discuss all the definitions given by writers; I shall only produce one which I think perfectly consistent with the truth. Original sin therefore appears to be an hereditary pravity and corruption of our nature, diffused through all the parts of the soul: rendering us obnoxious to the . Divine wrath, and producing in us those works which the Scripture calls works of the flesh.'* And this is indeed what Paul frequently denominates SIN. The works which proceed thence, such as adulteries, fornications, thefts, hatreds, murders, revellings, he calls in the same manner fruits of sin;' although they are also called 'sins' in many passages of Scripture, and even by himself. These two things therefore should be distinctly observed: first, that our nature being so totally vitiated and depraved, we are on account of this very corruption, considered as convicted and justly condemned in the sight of God, to whom nothing is ac ceptable but righteousness, innocence, and purity. And this liableness to punishment arises not from the delinquency of another: for when it is said that the sin of Adam renders us obnoxious to the divine judgment, it is not to be understood as if we, though innocent, were undeservedly loaded with the guilt of his sin; but because we are all subject to a curse, in consequence of his transgression, he is therefore said to have involved us in guilt. Nevertheless we derive from him, not only the punishment, but also the pollu tion to which the punishment is justly due. Wherefore Augustine, though he frequently calls it the sin of another, the more clearly to indicate its transmission to us by propagation; yet at the same time he also asserts it properly to be long to every individual. And the apostle himself expressly declares, that death has therefore passed upon all men, for that all have sinned,'t that is, have been involved in original sin, and defiled with its blemishes. And therefore infants themselves, as they bring their condemnation into the world with them, are rendered obnoxious to punishment by their own sinfulness, not by the sinfulness of ano† Rom, v. 12, * Gal. v. 19. ther. For though they have not yet produced the fruits of their iniquity, yet they have the seed of it within them; even their whole nature is as it were a seed of sin, and therefore cannot but be odious and abominable to God. Whence it follows, that it is properly accounted sin in the sight of God, because there could be no guilt without crime." * In view of these quotations, let us recite the allegation of the Christian Observer, with the explanation of the term imputation, given by Edwards-"He [Calvin] did not hold the doctrine of the imputation of Adam's sin to all his posterity;" that is, "he did not hold the doctrine of the liableness or exposedness in the divine judgment of all the posterity of Adam, to partake of the punishment of his first sin." Now we appeal to every candid and intelligent reader of the foregoing passages from Calvin's Institutes, whether it is not the very scope of a considerable part of them, to maintain and prove the very thing which the Observer denies. For ourselves, we honestly declare that we hardly know what language could be used that would show more unequivocally than is shown in several of the above quoted expressions, that the Observer's statement is groundless, or rather that it is made in direct opposition to the doctrine of Calvin. Let our readers observe that the question before us is distinctly this-Did Calvin hold and teach, that all Adam's posterity shared with him in his first sin, with its guilt and punishment, as well as in the depravity which was its consequence, or in which it commenced? As to depravity, we suppose we agree with the Observer. The exact point of difference is he denies that Calvin held the doctrine that all Adam's posterity share with him in his first sin, in its guilt and its punishment-We affirm that Calvin did hold this doctrine, and we appeal to our quotations-Calvin held and taught that Adam's "guilt, being the origin of that curse which extends to every part of the world, it is reasonable to conclude its propagation to all his offspring;" that is, the guilt as well as the curse was propagated to all his offspring-in the original, “culpa .... propagata fuerit, ad totam ejus sobolem." AgainCalvin says, the "fathers... had much contention [in regard to hereditary corruption, which they called original sin] nothing being more remote from common sense, than that all should be criminated on account of the guilt of one, and thus his sin become common." Here Calvin teaches that the sin, as well as the guilt, of Adam's transgression, has "become common;" for this is certainly what he meant to teach in this place; and we shall see that he teaches it repeatedly afterward; for Calvin never made that wonderful recent discovery, that there may be guilt, and liability to punishment, where there is no sin. On the contrary, in the very last sentence we have quoted from his Institutes, speaking of the depravity or corruption of infants, while yet incapable of personal moral action, he says, "whence it follows, that it is properly accounted sin in the sight of God, because there could be no guilt without crime-non esset reatus absque culpa. Again-Calvin, in condemning the reasoning of Pelagius, says, "it was evinced by the plain testimony of Scripture, that sin was communicated from the first man to all his posterity" what can be more explicit than this, to show that Calvin held that the sin of Adam was common to him and to his posterity-not merely guilt, but sin-"sin was communicated from the first man to all his posterity." We leave to our readers to remark how fully our point is maintained by the parallel which Calvin runs between what we lost in Adam, and what we regain by Christ; and the exact similarity in the manner in which the loss and the gain accrue. Once more, Calvin says, "He who pronounces that we were all dead in Adam, does also at the same time plainly declare, that we were implicated in the guilt, of his sin. For no condemnation could reach those who were perfectly clear from all charge of iniquity." We know not how it could be more unequivocally expressed than it is in this sentence, that we, that is, the whole human race, are sharers in both the sin and the guilt of our first parent, when he apostatized from God. We shall go into no farther comments on our italicised quotations, but only commend them to the careful investigation of our readers, after remarking on two passages, in which, as we have already intimated in a note, there is some obscurity; and parts of which, when taken separately, seem to contradict, and have been alleged as contradicting, the position which we maintain. The first of the passages to which we allude, is that toward the close of the 6th section, in which speaking of" our being dead ir Adam," and "that his transgression not only procured misery and ruin for himself, but also precipitated our nature into similar destruction," it is immediately added, "and that not by his personal guilt as an individual, which pertains not to us, but because he infected all his descendants with the corruption into which he had fallen.*" Now we think that the first member of this sentence cannot be rendered consistent either with the remainder of that sentence, and the two which immedi "Neque id suo unius vitio, quod nihil ad nos pertineat; sed quoniam universum semen in quam lapsus erat, vitiositate infecit." Ch. Adv.-VOL. X. ately follow it, or with what, as we have shown, Calvin elsewhere teaches, otherwise than by considering and supposing this to be the meaning of Calvin; namely, that the guilt of Adam, as an individual, was one thing, and the guilt which he brought on his posterity was another thing-the former much greater than the latter, but both real. Take an illustration; although we are sensible that no merely human transaction can furnish an exact parallel to the case before us. It is easily seen and admitted, that one who has been the sole, and active, and criminal agent, in bringing loss and ruin on a mercantile company, or a civil community, in behalf of which he has been fully authorized to act, has "a personal guilt as an individual," in which no one of the company or community shares. with him; and yet, all share with him in the loss and ruin which his criminal act or agency occasions. So in the case of Adam-his " personal guilt as an individual," in breaking covenant with his God, was probably greater than that of any individual of his fallen posterity since;* and this enormous personal guilt of Adam belonged to himself exclusively; but the guilt of a broken covenant, of which he was the appointed federal head, and all its direful consequences, are shared in by all his descendants. We verily believe that we have here given the meaning which Calvin intended to convey in the passage under consideration; and we are confirmed in this, not only, as we have said, by what immediately follows, and by what he had previously taught, but by the second passage to which we have referred. This is found in the eight section, and is introduced * We would recommend to such of our readers as possess Scott's Commentary, to turn to, and read carefully, his notes on Gen. ii. 16, 17; and particularly what he says on Gen. iii. 6. 2 R |