where, in its roots, its trunk, its limbs, and all these individual buds feel it. Yet each bud has also a life of its own, and develops its own stalk, leaves, blossom, fruit. It can be taken from its own tree, and put into another tree, and grow. So it is with separate men grafted into the great tree of mankind. No one lives to himself, nor dies to himself. If one suffers, all suffer. The life of mankind, becoming diseased, pours disease into all individual men.

Now, is there not something in this doctrine to which our instincts assent? Do not we feel it true that we inherit not our own life merely, but that of our race? and is not this the essential truth in the doctrine of the fall?

It is true that we fell in Adam. It is also true that we fell in every act of sin, in every weakness and folly, of any subsequent child of Adam. We are all drawn downward by every sin; we are lifted upward, too, by every act of heroic virtue, not by example only, but also by that mysterious influence, that subtile contagion, finer than anything visible, ponderable, or tangible, that effluence from eye, voice, tone, manner, which, according to the character which is behind, communicates an impulse of faith and courage, or an impulse of cowardice and untruth; which may be transmitted onward, forward, on every side, like the widening circles in a disturbed lake, circles which meet and cross each other without disturbance, and whose influence may be strictly illimitable and infinite.

No doubt, sin began with the historical Adam - the first man who lived. "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin." But still more true is it that we fell in the typical Adam-Adam who stands for innocent, ignorant human nature before temptation; truest of all, that we fall in Adam, because we are, each of us, at first an Adam.

We are all in the garden; we are at first placed in paradise; and each has in himself all the four dramatis persona Adam, Eve, the Serpent, and the Voice of God. Adam

is the will, the power of choice, the masculine element, in man; Eve is the affection, the desire, the feminine element, in man; the Voice of God is the higher reason in the soul, through which infinite truth commands, ―i. e., the higher law; and the Serpent, the lower reason in the soul, the cunning element, the sophistical understanding, which can put evil for good, and good for evil. The garden is our early innocence, where there is no struggle, no remorse, no anxiety; where goodness is not labor, but impulse. But, when we go out of the garden, we enter a life of trial, till we reach the higher paradise, the kingdom of heaven; and then joy and duty become one again. Then

"Love is an unerring light,

And joy its own security."

From paradise, through the world, to heaven; from Egypt, through the wilderness, to Canaan; from innocence, through temptation, sin, repentance, faith, to regeneration, — such is the progress of man.

To me, the belief that I fell in Adam is not an opinion fraught only with sadness. This tide of life which comes pouring through me comes from ten thousand ancestors. All their sorrows and joys, temptations and struggles, sins and virtues, have helped to make it what it is. I am a member of a great body. I am willing to be so-to bear the fortunes and misfortunes of my race.

It is true that I find evil tendencies in me, which I did not cause; but I know, that, for whatever part I am not the cause, I am not accountable. For this part of my life I do not dread the wrath, but rather claim the pity, of my God. My nature I find to be diseased not well; needing cure, and not merely food and exercise. I can, therefore, the more easily believe that God has sent me a physician, and that I shall be cured by him. I can believe in a future emancipation from these tendencies to vanity, sensuality,

indolence, anger, wilfulness, impatience, obstinacy-tendencies which are, in me, not crime, but disease; and I can see how to say with Paul, "Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but SIN THAT DWELLETH IN ME."

If, now, we return to the consideration of the Orthodox doctrine of the fall, as set forth by the Westminster Assembly, we shall find it to be half true and half false. It states truly (chap. 6, § 1) that our first parents sinned, and also (2) that by this sin they fell from their original righteousness; for this only means that the first conscious act of disobedience by man produced alienation from God, and degeneracy of nature. This was no arbitrary punishment, but the natural consequence. The creed also says truly (§ 3) that this corrupted nature was conveyed to all their posterity; for this only means, that, by the laws of descent, good and evil qualities are transmitted; which all wise observers of human nature knew to be the fact. It is also true (§ 5) that this corrupt nature does remain (to some extent at least), even in the regenerate, in this life.

So far, so true. Sin, as disease, began with the first man, in his first sin, and has been transmitted, by physical, moral, and spiritual influences, from him to us all.

But now we find complicated with these truths other statements, which we must need regard as falsehoods. Tried either by reason or Scripture, they are palpably untrue, and are very dangerous errors.

The first error of Orthodoxy is in declaring transmitted or inherited evil to be total. It declares that our first parents “were wholly defiled in all faculties and parts of soul and body," and that we, in consequence, "are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil." This statement is indefensible. But we shall consider this in another section on "Total Depravity," and only allude to it now in passing.

Another error, however, and a very important one, is to

attribute the guilt of Adam and Eve to their descendants. This is the famous doctrine of imputation, which is now rejected by all the leading schools of modern Orthodoxy. That we can be guilty of Adam's sin, either by imputation or in any other way, seems too absurd and immoral a statement to be now received.

But though many intelligent Orthodox teachers and believers do now reject the imputation of Adam's sin, they admit what is just as false and just as immoral a doctrine. They make us guilty for that part of sin which is depravity, as well as for that which is wilful.

Whatever, either of moral good or moral evil, proceeds from our nature, and not from our will, has no character of merit or demerit. The reason is evident, and is stated by the apostle Paul. We are only guilty for what we do ourselves; we are only meritorious for what we do ourselves: but what our nature does, we do not do. "Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me."

Professor Shedd, late of Andover, some years ago published a very able essay in the "Christian Review," the title of which was, "Sin a Nature, and that Nature Guilt." This title is a sufficient refutation of the essay. A man could not utter a more palpable contradiction, if he said, "The sun solid, and that solid fluid," or, "The earth black, and that black white." *

There are two kinds of moral good and two kinds of moral evil, which are essentially different. The two kinds of moral good may be named moral virtue and moral beauty; the two kinds of moral evil may be named guilt and depravity. Now, so far as goodness proceeds from a beautiful nature, it is not virtuous, and so far as sin proceeds from a depraved nature, it is not guilty. We can conceive of an angelic nature with no capacity of virtue, because incapable of guilt.

See, in the Appendix, an examination of Professor Shedd's article.

We can also conceive of a nature so depraved as to be incapable of guilt, because incapable of virtue.

§ 6. Examination of Romans, 5: 12-21. The famous passage in Paul (Rom. 5: 12-21), which is the direct scriptural foundation claimed for the doctrine of Adam's fall producing guilt in his posterity, is in reality a support of our view. The only other passage (1 Cor. 15:22) where Adam is referred to, declares that we all die in him, but by no

means asserts that we sin in him.

The passage referred to runs thus (Rom. 5:12-18): — Verse 12: "As by one man sin entered into the world,”— (Paul here refers to the fact that sin BEGAN with the first man.)

"And death by sin; "

(By means of the sin of one man, death entered.)

"And so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."

(Rather "death came upon all men, because all have sinned." The Vulgate has here in quo, "in whom;" that is, in Adam. So Augustine. But even those who, like Olshausen, contend for Augustine's views, admit that ' here is a conjunction, equivalent to because, and not a relative.)

The next five verses (13, 14, 15, 16, 17) constitute a parenthesis, and refer to an objection which is not stated. Some one might say, "How could all sin, from Adam to Moses, when there was no law till Moses? and you, Paul, have said (Rom. 4: 15), that "where there is no law there is no transgression."

Paul replies that "sin is not imputed without law;" that is, as I think evident, it is not regarded as guilt. A man who sins ignorantly is not guilty; but he suffers the consequences of his sin, which are depravity of his nature, or moral death."Sin is not imputed," says Paul; "but death reigns." Those who do not sin "after the similitude of Adam's transgression," that is, who do not violate a posi