(2.) While this “improvement” was excogitated, as the younger Edwards said, with the design of reconciling the doctrine of the Fall with the demands of rational justice, it sets justice at defiance far more directly and uncom- promisingly than does that orthodox doctrine against the injustice of which it protests. The orthodox doctrine affirms that God, the rightful Guardian of the human race, having given them the most favourable trial pos- sible for a race so propagated—a trial, moreover, in which great and undeserved blessings were made pos- sible, as well as a great loss—it hence follows that they were justly responsible for the penal consequences of Adam ’s failure, and hence that their natural rights were justly forfeited before their birth. This ‘‘improved” doctrine, on the other hand, refers the whole result to the arbitrary sovereignty of God. The orthodox doc- trine demonstrates that every man had a fair probation in the person of Adam. The ‘‘improved” doctrine asserts that God creates every man into a state of virtual _reprobation, without any probation at all.
(3.) This theory absurdly attempts to account for the origination of sin in the children of men severally, as soon as they begin to act, by a physiological theory of generation, instead of on a moral principle of righteous legal responsibility.
88 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
Ji i Aaa et ele
(4.) The whole peculiarity of this view is grounded on —
an assumption subversive of the entire foundation-prin-
ciples of the gospel, namely, that it is inconsistent with — justice that, under any circumstances, one person should |
be held judicially punishable for a sin performed by another; while it is a matter of fact that Christ, in consequence of his federal union with his people, was
justly punished for their sin, and they are justly pro-
nounced righteous on the ground of his obedience.
(5.) This theory is conspicuously inconsistent with the fact of that parallel which the Scriptures affirm to exist between the principle upon which we are condemned for the sin of Adam and that upon which we are justified on the ground of the righteousness of Christ. The essence of redemption hes in the fact that Christ was justly punished for our sins, as federally responsible for them ; and that we are justly justified on the ground of his obedience, because by the terms of his covenant with the Father the rewardableness of his obedience reverts to us. If this be so, it follows that the guilt, or obligation to punishment, accruing from Adam’s sin to us, is by the terms of the covenant justly ours; and hence that native depravity and all other natural evils are justly inflicted upon us as the punishment of that sin. While, on the other hand, if it be held that we first derive corrupt natures from Adam as purely natural and physical con- sequents of generation, and then are punished for that innate corruption or for the sinful actions to which it gives birth, it would necessarily follow, as to the method of sal- vation, that we first derive by regeneration holy natures from Christ, and are then justified on the ground of in- herent holiness; which is precisely that Moral Influence Theory of Redemption advocated by Bushnell and Young. If the ultimate ground of our forfeiture is our inherent personal corruption of nature derived by gene-
FEDERAL HEADSHIP OF ADAM. 89
ration, then Paul’s words are, “EVEN so,” the ultimate ground of our justification must be our inherent personal holiness of nature derived by regeneration. Dr. John W. Nevins says: ‘Our participation in the actual un- righteousness of Adam’s life forms the ground of our participation in his guilt and liability to punishment. And in no other way, I affirm, can the idea of imputa- tion be satisfactorily explained in the case of the second Adam.” That is, we partake by ordinary generation of the fallen nature of Adam, and are therefore condemned. In like manner we partake of the divine-human life of the incarnate Word through union with the Church and the efficacy of the sacraments, and are therefore justified. Thus wonderfully do the latest “improvements” of old Puritan orthodoxy develop into that Mercersberg theo- logy which has its roots in a Pantheistic philosophy and a Romish religion.
II. We come now to consider that class of opinions which agree in maintaining that the members of the human family come into existence under a forfeiture justly incurred before their birth. With one singular exception, all the theories, as far as I know, which main- tain the fact of this antenatal forfeiture, agree in refer- ring it to the first sin of Adam as its judicial ground.