1. We may classify them as they are, on the one hand, excogitated on purely rationalistic principles, in- dependently of revelation; or as, on the other hand, they are developed by a more or less faithful interpretation of Scripture. Or,—
2. We may classify them either as they affirm or deny the principle that all men have justly forfeited their rights as new-created moral agents before their birth into this world. ,
I shall adopt the latter principle of classification, re- marking that the two principles come to the same prac- tical result in this respect, that nearly all the purely rationalistic solutions of the problem deny that men are born subject to antenatal forfeiture; while, on the con- trary, nearly all those solutions which are professedly derived from the interpretation of Scripture affirm it.
I. I propose under this head to state briefly those ttempt- solutions of the questions above stated which agree in pane rejecting the principle that man is born subject to a just ae antenatal forfeiture, and liable to the righteous penalty sen of a violated law.
1. The first attempted solution is afforded by the Mani. Manichean dualism, which postulates the independent 4 aoe | self-existence of two principles. On the one hand, God, ofS" an eternal, self-existent, absolutely perfect Spirit, is the _ Father of all spirits, and the centre and governor of the whole spiritual kingdom of light and purity. On the other hand, Matter, or thatultimate essence of which matter
6
CHAPTER Vit.
80 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
is one of the forms, is an independent, self-existing principle, inherently corrupt in itself, and corrupting to all that comes in contact with it. All spirits being pure in their origin from God, become vitiated through en- tanglement with the matter composing their bodies.* Although the magnificent speculations in which these opinions were first embodied have long since been for- gotten, except by a few students of Christian antiquities, the radical idea of the self-existence and inherent — viciousness of matter has not yet lost place among men’s thoughts. Against the false view of sin embodied in this theory all the early Fathers of the Christian Church protested. Manichzism virtually amounts to a denial of the existence of moral evil altogether, because it re- solves it into a physical ground, making it an attribute of matter, like attraction, or inertia, or the like. The essence of sin lies in the fact that it is a spontaneous state or act of a free moral agent, not in conformity to the law of absolute moral perfection. Sin is necessarily immaterial, spiritual, an attribute of moral agency, in- separable from persons. Manicheeism limits Jehovah, by the eternal and necessary co-existence with him of a hostile and independent principle. It wrongs him, by attempting to vindicate his freedom from all complica- tion with sin by exhibiting him as helpless to prevent it. And it destroys all moral distinctions, by resolving sin
_ into a physical accident; exterior to the personal soul,
Of impre- ' | ventabil- i ity-of sin.
and moral responsibility for crime into misfortune.
2. A second method of answering both the questions, how and why men always commence their conscious existence habitual sinners, as far as that fact relates to the agency of God in the matter, cuts the knot by affirm- ing the absolute self-determining power of the human will, and the consequent absolute “impreventability of
* Neander’s Hist. Christ. Relig., vol. i., pp. 488-506.
_ FEDERAL HEADSHIP OF ADAM. 81
sin.” While in many other respects they differ, yet at cuarrer this point, touching the agency of God with respect to this estate of sin aad misery into which man has fallen, Pelagians, Socinians, and the class of Trinitarians repre- sented by Bushnell and Young, are perfectly agreed.* _ Every man creates his own character, being free to sin or not as he pleases. God did all he could to prevent the entrance of sin at the first, and ever since he has been doing all that is consistent with the necessary limi- tations of moral agency, to put each man in the best _ possible position, and to bring to bear upon him the best possible moral and spiritual influences.