sibly present in Adam, and responsibly sharing in his apostacy from God. The statement in the creed which they drew up, is as follows:- "The covenant being made with Adam, not only for himself but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation sinned in him and fell with him in his first transgression." And the two strongest texts which they cite in proof of the truth of their creed, are these: "By one man's disobedience, many were made sinners." (Rom. v. 19.) "In Adam all die." (1 Cor. xv. 22.)

Now it is to be remembered, that these men were making distinct and scientific statements, and their language, consequently, is not to be regarded as merely metaphorical. It must, therefore, be understood in the same way that scientific language is always to be understood-to be taken in its literal meaning, unless a palpable contradiction or absurdity is involved in so doing. In this doctrinal and scientific statement, then, it is affirmed, that all men sinned in Adam, and fell with Adam in his first transgression. This implies and teaches that all men were, in some sense, co-existent in Adam, otherwise they could not have sinned in him. It teaches that all men were, in some sense, co-agent in Adam, otherwise they could not have fallen with him. The mode of this co-existence and co-agency of the whole human race in the first man, they do not, it is true, attempt to set forth; but their language distinctly implies that they believed there was such a co-existence and co-agency, whether it could be explained or not. They regarded Adam not merely as an individual, but as a common person; as having a generic as well as individual character. They taught that he was substantially the race of mankind, and that his whole posterity existed in him. Consequently, whatever befell Adam, befell the race. In Adam's fall, the race fell. And what is to be particularly noted is, that they did not regard the fall of Adam, considered as an individual, as any more guilty than the fall of each and every one of his posterity, or that original sin was any the less guilt in his posterity than it was in him. So far as responsibility was concerned, Adam and his posterity were all alike guilty of apostacy. They were all involved in a common condemnation, because they were all alike concurrent in the fall. The race fell in Adam, and consequently each individual of the race was in some mysterious, yet real manner, existent in this common parent of all.

It is on this ground that they taught that original sin is real sin-is guilt. The sinful nature they held, could be properly charged upon every child of Adam, as a nature for

which he, and not his Creator,* was responsible, and which rendered him obnoxious to the eternal displeasure of God-even though, as in the case of infants dying before the dawn of selfconsciousness, this nature should never have manifested itself in conscious transgression. Every child of Adam fell from God, in Adam, and in company with Adam, and therefore is justly chargeable with all that Adam is chargeable with, and precisely on the same grounds, viz., on the ground that his fall was not necessitated, but self-determined. For the Will of Adam was not the Will of a single isolated individual merely it was also, and besides this, the Will of the human species-the human Will generically. If he fell freely, so did his posterity-yet not one after another, and each by himself, as the series of individuals in which the one seminal human nature manifests itself, were born into the world, but all together and all at once, in that first transgression, which stands a most awful and awfully pregnant event at the beginning of human history.

The aim of the Westminster symbol accordingly, and, it may be added, of all the creeds on the Augustinian side of the controversy, was to combine two elements, each having truth in it-to teach the fall of the human race as a unity, and, at the same time, recognize the existence, freedom, and guilt of the individual in the fall. Accordingly they locate the individual in Adam, and make him, in some mysterious but real manner, a responsible partaker in Adam's sin-a guilty sharer, and, in some solid sense of the word, co-agent in a common apostacy. As proof of this assertion, we shall quote from a few of the leading authors on this side of the great controversy.

Augustine, although the first to philosophize upon this difficult point, in order to bring it within the limits of a doctrinal system, has, nevertheless, as it seems to us, not been excelled by any of his successors in the profundity and comprehensiveness of his views. He is explicit in teaching the oneness of the human race in Adam, and of the fall of Adam and his posterity in the first transgression. In his work on the desert and remission of sin, he says: "All men at that time sinned in Adam, since, in his nature, all men were as yet that one man." And the sentiment is repeated still more distinctly in that most elaborate of his treatises-De Civitate Dei; a work which was the fruit of mature reason, and ripe Christian experience, and which, notwithstanding the crudity of some of its speculations on subjects pertaining to the sensuous nature of man, and to

Nor Adam, considered as an individual merely.

In Adamo omnes tunc peccaverunt, quando in ejus natura adhuc omnes ille unus fuerunt.-De pec. mer. et rem, iii. 7.

physical nature generally, is unrivalled for the depth and clearness of its insight into all that is distinctively and purely spiritual. "We were all in that one man, since we were all that one man, who lapsed into sin through that woman, who was made from him previous to transgression. The form in which we were to live as individuals had not been created and assigned to us, man by man, but that seminal nature was in existence, from which we were to be propagated."* In the words of Neander, "Augustine supposed not only that that bondage, under the principle of sin, by which sin is its own punishment, was transmitted by the progenitor of the human race to his posterity but also that the first transgression, as an act, was to be imputed to the whole human race-that the guilt and the penalty were propagated from one to all. This participation of all in Adam's transgression, Augustine made clear to his own mind in this way: Adam was the representative of the whole race, and bore in himself the entire human nature and kind, in germ, since it was from him that it unfolded itself. And this theory would easily blend with Augustine's speculative form of thought, as he had appropriated to himself the Platonico-Aristotelian realism, in the doctrine of general conceptions, and conceived of general conceptions as the original types of the kind realized in individual things."

Calvin, though not so explicit as his predecessor Augustine, or as some of his successors, in regard to the precise nature of the individual's connection with Adam, yet leaves no doubt in the mind of the reader that he believed in the original oneness of Adam and his posterity, in the act of apostacy. He says: "It is certain that Adam was not only the progenitor, but, as it were, the root of mankind, and therefore all the race were necessarily vitiated in his corruption." Again he 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," [as Adam's posterity would be, were each and every man merely a distinct and isolated individual, existing entirely by himself.] Again he says: "No other explanation, therefore, can be given of our being said to be in Adam, than that his transgression not only procured misery and ruin for himself, but also precipitated our

* Omnes enim fuimus in illo uno, quando omnes fuimus ille unus, qui per feminam lapsus est in peccatum, quæ de illo facta est ante peccatum, Nondum erat nobis singillatim creata et distributa forma, in qua singuli viveremus; sed jam natura erat seminalis ex qua propagaremur.-De Civ. Dei. xiii, 14.

Torrey's Neander, ii. 609.

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.”*

John Owen is more explicit still, and he unquestionably reflects the views of the Westminster divines, to say nothing of his general profundity and clearness on all points of systematic theology. In his treatise, entitled "A Display of Arminianism," in connection with some other answers to the objection that original sin is not voluntary, and therefore cannot be sin, in the sense of guilt, he expressly affirms that it is voluntary, in some sense of that word-that it has the element of free self-determination in it. "But, thirdly," he says, "in respect to our wills, we are not thus innocent neither, for we all sinned in Adam, as the apostle affirmeth. Now all sin is voluntary, say the remonstrants, [the party whom Owen was opposing, but whose statement in this case he was willing to grant,] and therefore Adam's transgression was our voluntary sin also, and that in divers respects; first, in that his voluntary act is imputed to us as ours, by reason of the covenant which was made with him in our behalf; but because this consisting in an imputation, must needs be extrinsical to us; therefore, secondly, we say that Adam, being the root and head of all human kind, and we all branches from that root, all parts of that body whereof he was the head, his will may be said to be ours; we were then all that one man, (omnes eramus unus ille homo, Aug.,) we were all in him, and had no other will but his; so that though that (viz., Adam's will) be extrinsical unto us, considered as particular persons, yet it (viz., Adam's will) is intrinsical, as we are all parts of one common nature; as in him we sinned, so in him we had a will of sinning." In a passage in his "Vindiciae Evangelica," he also says, "By Adam sin entered into the world, so that all sinned in him, and are made sinners thereby-so that also his sin is called the 'sin of the world;' in him all mankind sinned, and his sin is imputed to them."

One more quotation shall suffice, in corroboration of the view presented of the oneness of Adam and his posterity, in respect both to the act and the guilt of apostacy, and this shall be from Jonathan Edwards. In his treatise upon original sin, after citing the passage, "By one man sin entered into the world," he adds, "this passage implies that sin became universal

* Institutes-Book ii., chap. i. Allen's Trans. + Works, V. 127. Russell's Ed.

Works, VIII. p. 222. Russell's Ed.

in the world, and not merely (which would be a trifling, insignificant assertion) that one man, who was made first, sinned first, before other men sinned; or that it did not so happen that many men began to sin just together at the same moment." The latter part of the verse (he goes on to say) "and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned, shows that, in the eye of the Judge of the world, in Adam's first sin all sinned; not only in some sort, but all sinned so as to be exposed to that death and final destruction, which is the proper wages of sin."* In the third chapter of this treatise he combats the objection made against the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity-"that such imputation is unjust and unreasonable, inasmuch as Adam and his posterity are not one and the same," (one of the principal objections to the doctrine, and a fatal one, if it can be maintained.) He combats it by denying the truth of the affirmation, that Adam and his posterity are not one and the same, and by establishing the contrary position by as profound and truthful a course of speculation as ever emanated from his mind. "I think" (he says) "it would go far towards directing us to the more clear and distinct conceiving and right stating of this affair, (of original sin,) were we steadily to bear this in mind: that God, in each step of his proceeding with Adam, in relation to the covenant or constitution established with him, looked on his posterity as being one with him. * *Therefore, I am humbly of opinion, that if any have supposed the children of Adam to come into the world with a double guilt: one, the guilt of Adam's sin; another, the guilt arising from their having a corrupt heart, they have not so well conceived of the matter. The guilt a man has on his soul at his first existence is one and simple, viz., the guilt of the original apostacy, the guilt of the sin by which the species first rebelled from God. first existing of a corrupt disposition in the hearts of Adam's posterity is not to be looked upon as sin belonging to them, distinct from their participation of Adam's first sin: it is, as it were, the extended pollution of that sin, through the whole tree, by virtue of the constituted union of the branches with the root; or the inherence of the sin of that head of the species in the members, in the consent and concurrence of the hearts of the members, with the head in that first act." Edwards also quotes with approbation the following from Stapfer: "It is objected against the imputation of Adam's sin, that we never committed the same sin with Adam, neither in number nor in

*

*

*

The

The italics are Edwards's, and the italics of Edwards are always significant.