of sin, it is said, ““By ONE MAN sin entered into the
world, and death by sin.” “By one man’s offence death reigned by one.” ‘“‘ By the offence of one, jadgment came upon all men to condemnation.” ‘By one man’s dis-—
obedience many were made sinners” (Rom. v. 12-21). “In Adam all die” (1 Cor. xv. 22). 3. This theory is as much inconsistent with all the experience and pheno- mena of human life as it is with the words of revelation. It is impossible to see or rationally to imagine anything in a young child and its early growth, except the original development of the germ of a new existence. This view represents the unconscious infant, with its slowly un- folding capacities, to be the veteran agent in a high act of conscious and responsible apostasy, accomplished amid the scenes of a former life. 4, This theory obviously fails, even upon the hypothesis of its truth, to account for the enigma which it was invented to explain. There appears to the reason of man no propriety, no moral significancy, in punishing a moral agent for a personal sin of which he is utterly and_ necessarily unconscious, What the Scriptures and our own con- sciences condemn us for is our present morally de- _ praved state and actions. This is the burden of human guilt, and it is impossible that we can be rationally or rightfully punished on personal grounds for that of which we are universally and invincibly personally un- conscious.* | It remains for us, hence, to consider only those re- maining solutions of the questions in hand which agree
¥ Princeton Review, January 1854,
FEDERAL HEADSHIP OF ADAM. . 93
in maintaining these two points: (a) that all human caarrsr souls are born into this world subject to a forfeiture bis justly incurred before their birth; and (6) that this forfeiture was incurred in the guilt of the first sin of Adam.
All possible opinions, embracing both these elements in
‘common, may be classed under one or other of the three following heads: 1. That all human souls were created simultaneously with Adam, and in some way consented with him in his sin; 2. That all human souls were actually in Adam (physically) and, as guilty co-agents, acted with him in his apostasy ; 3. The doctrine of the Reformed Churches that all human souls were in Adam (vepresentatively) as our federal head, and are therefore | justly liable, with him, for all of the penal consequences of his act. 1. The first view, which represents all souls being created with Adam, and consenting with him, need not be considered here, since it is held by no one, and since it is obviously open to all the objections alleged against the Pre-existence Theory of Beecher, while it is destitute of all its advantages.
2. The second view is, that since Adam was the entire The genus homo, as well as the first individual of the series aired into which, by his agency, the genus has been subse-
quently explicated, it follows that every individual mem- ber of that series was physically numerically one with him, and in the entirety of the genus a guilty co-agent with him in his act of apostasy; and hence that the whole genus is guilty of that sin, and hence each indi- vidual into which the genus is severally propagated is really, essentially and inherently, as guilty of that sin as Adam was. This is the Realistic view of the nature of our connection with Adam, recently advocated by Dr. Samuel J. Baird, in his Elohim Revealed; and by Dr.
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94 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
onarter William G. T. Shedd, both in his volume of Essays and - in his History of Christian Doctrine.