of his argument that that sin was the ground of the loss of the divine favour, the withholding of divine influence, and the consequent corrup- tion of our nature.
3. Whatever evil the Scriptures represent as coming upon us on ac- count of Adam, they regard as penal; they call it death, which is the general term by which any penal evil is expressed.
It is not, however, the doctrine of the Scriptures, nor of the reformed churches, nor of our standards, that the corruption of nature of which they speak is any depravation of the soul, or an essential attribute, or the infusion of any positive evil. " Original sin," as the Confessions of the Reformers maintain, " is not the substance of man, neither his soul, nor body ; nor is it any thing infused into his nature by Satan, as poison is mixed with wine ; it is not an essential attribute, but an accident, i. e. something which does not exist of itself, an incidental quality," &c. Bretschneider, Vol. II. p. 30. These confessions teach that original righteousness, as a punishment of Adam's sin, was lost, and hy that de- fect the tendency to sin, or corrupt disposition, or corruption of nature, is occasioned. Though they speak of original sin as being, first, nega- tive, i. e. the loss of righteousness ; and, secondly, positive, or corruption of nature ; yet by the latter, they state, is to be understood, not the in- fusion of any thing ip itself sinful, but an actual tendency or disposition to evil, resulting from the loss of righteousness. This is clearly ex- pressed in the quotation just made. "There is no necessity," says Goodwin, " of asserting original sin to be a positive quality in our souls, since the privation of righteousness is enough to infect the soul with all that is evil." Yet he, in common with the reformers, represents origi- nal sin as having a positive as well as a negative side. This, however, results from the active nature of the soul. If there is no tendency to the love and service of God, there is, from this very defect, a tendency to self and sin.
4. It is included in the doctrines already stated, that mankind have had a fair probation in Adam, their head and representative ; and that we are not to consider God as placing them on their probation in the very first dawn of their intellectual and moral existence, and under cir- cumstances (or " a divine constitution") which secure the certainty of their sinning. Such a probation could hardly deserve the name.
5. It is also included in the doctrine of this portion of Scripture, that mankind is an unit, in the sense in which an army, in distinction from a mob, is one ; or as a nation, a community, or a family, is one, in opposition to a mere fortuitous collection of individuals. Hence the frequent and ex- tensive transfer of the responsibility and consequences of the acts of the heads of these communities to their several members, and from one member to others. This is a law which pervades the whole moral government and providential dispensations of God. We are not like the separate grains of wheat in a measure ; but links in a complicated chain. All influence the destiny of each ; and each influences the destiny of all.