FEDERAL THEOLOGY
516
FEDERAL THEOLOGY
progenitor. All the essentials of a covenant, too, are discoverable in the constitution under which Adam was placed bj' his Jlaker. Not only was he, as a moral being, under obligation to conform to the law written upon his heart, and to obey the positive pre- cept given to test his confidence in God, but eternal life was promised him on condition of his obedience. He was constituted the representative of liis race, and a limited period was assigned him in which the desti- ny of all was to be decided. That this is a true state- ment of the case was inferred from that wliich actually followed the transgression of our first parents, and must have been more or less clearly known to them. To such an arrangement those who had been created in the image of God could do no otherwise than yield a cheerful assent, inasmuch as far higher blessings were proposed by it than bj^ anj' merel}' legal relation. We have reason to suppose, also, that their powers were quite ample for the performance of the condition. !Many have thought that before the Fall they were endowed with such supernatural gifts as secured to them the possession of their original righteousness ; but, as nothing is said of these in the sacred historj', and as they appeared to many inconsistent with the possibility of man's fall, most writers contend that the divine image consisted wholly in the knowledge and moral excellence which Adam had within himself. That he would have secured eternal life for himself and his descendants had he continued faithful for a prescribed period is inferred from the fact that he fell for himself and them ; and we have no reason to think that a benevolent God would have made the penalty more extensive in its influence than the promise. The penalty for disobedience was death, corporeal, spirit- ual, and eternal, for each of these necessarily fol- lowed a forfeiture of a divine life. The seal by which this covenant was ratified and signified was at least the tree of life, but a sacramental character has been attributed to almost everything mentioned in the scrip- tural account of Paradise.
After an indefinite period this covenant was viola- ted on man's part. This result was not the effect of any action on God's part either positive or privative, but in the exercise of man's own freedom. No intel- lectual knowledge, or upright purposes, or pure affec- tions could give the creature absolute immutability; and hence, with the highest and best gifts, man "be- ing left to the freedom of his own will, fell from the • estate in which he was created." The friends of the federal system allege that this was the only proper period of man's probation, since only then was his destiny dependent upon a contingency. Ever since that event, if any are saved it must be by an uncon- ditional grant through Jesus Christ. The whole race sinned in Adam and fell with him, not because of anj' confusion of personal or moral identity, not because of any transference of character from one man to another, but simply because all were represented in him. As a representative, he was in no sense numerically one and the same with those he represents, for no one can represent himself. He simply acted in behalf of them, as a parent, or guardian, or agent often does. There was a reason on account of which he was thus chosen to fict in their stead. This was the unity of their na- ture with his, and his peculiar position as the natural head of the race; but their representation was some- thing additional to all that. A natural head of a family might be so situated that many consequences might flow to tliem from his action, and A'et he might not stand as their covenant or legal representative. Adam stood in our place, not directly, because he was our natural head, but because God chose him to stand thus. The natural relation might have been, and doubtless was, the reason for his being chosen to such an office, l)ut the legal or covenant unity was consti- tuted b}' the divine designution and choice. The con- sequence was that all mankind, descending from him
by ordinarj^ generation, were henceforth to he treated as guilty and fallen creatures. Only his first sin was thus imputed to them because the original covenant was broken bj' that alone, and Adam must afterwards have stood as a single person, and not as a public rep- resentative. Personally he lost the moral image of God, communion with God, corporeal life, a place in Paradise, and the hope of a Idesscd immortality. His posterity fell under the imputation of his guilt, were destitute of original righteousness, and became cor- rupt in their whole nature. As a method sanctioned bj' God for attaining eternal life, the covenant of works was henceforth abolished and forbidden, and yet all men are under obligation to obey the law, and on their own disobedience thej' must endure its pen- alty, unless thej' are redeemed by Jesus Christ. God has encouraged no expectation of salvation by an obe- dience to the law, for, even if such an obedience were possible, no one has ever realized it, and God has provided no promises for a mereh' hj^pothetical case. If, therefore, no other scheme had been proposed to man, each individual of our race had lain under the penaltj- of a broken covenant, which subjected him to a hopeless abandonment bj' his ]\Iaker, to all the evils of a dying state in this world, to final death itself, and to an everlasting banishment from God in the world to come. Not that each person was judicially con- demned to all these evils exclusively on account of the first sin, but such were the consequences which would certainly follow that act. It is conceded that in the last daj' none will be condemned for anj' but their own personal sin, and yet it is contended that in the first sin all are rendered liable to loth the sin- fulness and the misery of the present state.