But you say, "Punishment always connotes guilt." It always connotes sin and suffering, and here are both. Adam sinned, his posterity suffer, and that in consequence of his sin.

But you think, "sufferings are benefits to us." Doubtless; but this does not hinder their being punishments. The pain I suffer as a punishment for my own sins may be a benefit to me, but it is a punishment nevertheless.

But "as they two only were guilty of the first sin, so no other but they two only could be conscious of it as their sin." No other could be conscious of it as their sin in the same sense as Adam and Eve were; and yet others may "charge it upon themselves " in a different sense, so as to judge themselves "children of wrath" on that account.

To sum up this point in Dr. Jennings's words: "If there be any thing in this argument, that Adam's posterity could not be justly punishable for his trangressions, because it was his personal act and not theirs, it must prove universally that it is unjust to punish the posterity of any man for his personal crimes. And yet most certain it is that God has in other cases actually punished men's sins on their posterity. Thus the posterity of Canaan, the son of Ham, is punished with slavery for his sin (Gen. ix, 25, 27). Noah pronounced the curse under a divine afflatus, and God confirmed it by his providence. So we do, in fact, suffer for Adam's sin, and that, too, by the sentence inflicted on our first parents. We suffer death in consequence of their transgression. Therefore, we are, in some sense, guilty of their sin. I would ask, What is guilt but an obligation to suffer punishment for sin? Now, since we suffer the same penal evil which God threatened to, and inflicted on, Adam for his sin, and since it is allowed we suffer this for Adam's sin, and that by the sentence of God, appointing all men to die because Adam sinned, is not the consequence evident? Therefore we are all some way guilty of Adam's sin." (Jennings's Vindication.)

6. "The consequences appointed by the judicial sentence of God are found in that pronounced on the serpent, or the woman, or the man."

"The serpent is cursed (Gen. iii, 14, 15). And those words in the fifteenth verse: 'I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he' (so the Hebrew) 'shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel,' imply that God would appoint his only begotten Son to maintain a kingdom in the world opposite to the kingdom of Satan, till he should be born of a woman, and, by his doctrine, example, obedience, and death, give the last stroke, by way of moral means, to the power and works of the devil."

I do not understand that expression, "By way of moral means.' What I understand from the whole tenor of Scripture is, that the eternal, almighty Son of God, "who is over all, God blessed forever," having reconciled us to God by his blood, creates us anew by his Spirit, and reigns till he hath destroyed all the works of the devil.

"Sentence is passed upon the woman (verse 16), that she should

bring forth children with more pain and hazard than otherwise she would have done." How? With "more pain and hazard than otherwise she would have done! Would she otherwise have had any pain at all? or have brought forth children with any hazard? Hazard of what? Certainly not of death. I cannot comprehend this.

"Lastly, the sentence upon man (verses 17-19) first affects the earth, and then denounces death upon himself.

"After sentence pronounced, God, having clothed Adam and Eve, drove them out of Paradise."

Here, "observe (1), A curse is pronounced on the serpent and on the ground, but no curse upon the woman and the man." But a curse fell upon them in that very moment wherein they transgressed the law of God. For, "cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are" contained "in the law to do them." Vainly, therefore, do you subjoin, "Though they are subjected to sorrow, labor, and death, these are not inflicted under the notion of a curse." Surely they are; as the several branches of that curse which he had already incurred; and which had already not only "darkened and weakened his rational powers," but disordered his whole soul.

"Observe (2), Here is not one word of any other death, but the dissolution of the body." Nor was it needful. He felt in himself that spiritual death which is the prelude of death everlasting. "But the words, 'Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,' restrain this death to this dissolution alone." "This dissolution alone" is expressed in those words. But how does it appear that nothing more is implied? The direct contrary appears from your own assertions; for if these words refer clearly to those, "And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," and if "the judicial act of condemnation clearly implieth the depriving him of that life which God then breathed into him," it undeniably follows that this judicial act implieth a deprivation of spiritual life as well as temporal, seeing God breathed into him both one and the other, in order to his becoming "a living soul."

It remains that the death expressed in the original threatening, and implied in the sentence pronounced upon man, includes all evils which could befall his soul and body, death temporal, spiritual, and eternal.

THE TRANSMISSION OF SIN.

(Reply to Dr. Taylor, continued, 1757.)

BEFORE I say any thing on this head I must premise that there are a thousand circumstances relating to it, concerning which I can form no conception at all, but am utterly in the dark. I know not how my body was fashioned in the womb, or when or how my soul was united to it; and it is far easier, in speaking on so abstruse a subject, to pull down than to build up. I can easily object to any hypothesis which is advanced; but I cannot easily defend any.

And if you ask me how, in what determinate manner, sin is propagated, how it is transmitted from father to son, I answer plainly, I cannot tell; no more than I can tell how man is propagated, how a body is transmitted from father to son. I know both the one and the other fact, but I can account for neither.

Thus much, however, is plain, that "God is the maker of every man who comes into the world." For it is God alone who gives man power to propagate his species. Or, rather, it is God himself who does the work by man as an instrument-man (as you observed before) having no other part in producing man than the oak has in producing an acorn. God is really the producer of every man, every animal, every vegetable in the world, as he is the true primum mobile [first mover], the spring of all motion throughout the universe. So far we agree. But when you subsume, "If it be the power of God whereby a sinful species is propagated, whereby a sinful father begets a sinful son, then God is the author of sin; that sinfulness is chargeable upon him." Here we divide. I cannot allow the consequence; because the same argument would make God chargeable with all the sinful actions of men. For it is the power of God whereby the murderer lifts up his arm, whereby the adulterer perpetrates his wickedness, full as much as it is his power whereby an acorn produces an oak, or a father a son. But does it follow that God is chargeable with the sin? You know it does not follow. The power of God, vulgarly termed nature, acts from age to age under its fixed rules. Yet he who this moment supplies the power by which a sinful action is committed is not chargeable with the sinfulness of that action. In like manner it is the power of God which, from age to age, continues the human species. Yet he who this moment supplies the power whereby a

single nature is propagated (according to the fixed rules established in the lower world) is not chargeable with the sinfulness of that nature. This distinction you must allow, as was observed before, or charge God with all the sin committed under heaven. And this general answer may suffice any sincere and modest inquirer, without entangling himself in those minute particulars which are beyond the reach of human understanding.

"But does not God create the nature of every man that comes into the world?" He does not, in the proper sense of the word, create. The Scripture plainly affirms the contrary: "On the seventh day he rested from all his work which God created and made" (Gen. ii, 2, 3). "The works" which God created "were finished from the foundation of the world." And as soon

as they were finished "God ceased from his work (Heb. iv, 3, 10)—namely, from his work of creating. He, therefore, now (not creates, but) produces the body of every man in the same manner as he produces the oak, only by supplying the power whereby one creature begets another, according to what we term the laws of nature. In a higher sense he is the creator of all souls. But how or when he does or did create them, I cannot tell; neither can I give any account how or when he unites them to the body. Likewise, how we are conceived in sin, I know not; but I know that we are so conceived. God hath said it; and I know he will be "justified in his saying, and clear when he is judged."

It is certain that God is the Maker of every man; but it is neither certain nor true, as you say, that he "makes every man in the womb, both soul and body, as immediately as he made Adam,” and that, therefore, "every man comes out of the hands of God as properly as Adam did." To interpret any Scriptures as affirming this is to make them flatly contradict other ScriptGod made Adam by immediate creation; he does not so make every man, nor any man beside him. Adam came directly out of the hands of God without the intervention of any creature. Does every man thus come out of the hands of God? Do no creatures now intervene ?

ures.

"But if God produces the nature of every man in the womb, he must produce it with all the qualities which belong to that nature, as it is then and so produced." So, if God produces the action of every man in the world, he must produce it with all the qualities which belong to that action, as it is then and so produced. "For it is impossible God should produce our nature

and not produce the qualities it has when produced." For it is impossible God should produce an action, and yet not produce the qualities it has when produced. "No substance can be made without some qualities, and it must necessarily, as soon as it is made, have those qualities which the Maker gives it, and no other." No action can be produced without some qualities, and it must necessarily, as soon as it is produced, have those qualities which the producer gives it, and no other. You see what this argument would prove, if it proved any thing at all.

We will trace it a little farther: "If God produces the nature of every man in the womb, with all its qualities, then, whatever those qualities are, they are the will and the work of God." So if God produces the action of every man in the world, with all its qualities, then, whatever those qualities are, they are the will and the work of God. Surely, no. God does (in the sense above explained) produce the action which is sinful; and yet (whether I can account for it or no) the sinfulness of it is not his will or work. He does also produce the nature which is sinful (he supplies the power by which it is produced); and yet (whether I can account for this or no) the sinfulness of it is not his will or work. I am as sure of this as I am that there is a God; and yet impenetrable darkness rests on the subject. Yet I am conscious my understanding can no more fathom this deep than reconcile man's free will with the foreknowledge of God.

"Consequently, those qualities cannot be sinful." This consequence cannot hold in one case, unless it holds in both;" but if it does, there can be no sin in the universe.

However, you go on: "It is highly dishonorable to God to suppose he is displeased at us for what he himself has infused into our nature." It is not allowed that he has "infused sin into our nature," no more than that he infuses sin into our actions, though it is his power which produces both our actions and

nature.

I am aware of the distinction that man's free will is concerned in the one case but not the other, and that on this account God cannot be charged with the sinfulness of human actions; but this does by no means remove the difficulty. For, 1. Does not God know what the murderer or adulterer is about to do? what use he will make of that power to act which he cannot have but from God? 2. Does he not at the instant supply him with that power whereby the sinful action is done? God, therefore, produces the action which is sinful. It is his work and his will (for