Adam and his descendants, but in all other cases, that the charac- ter and conduct of the one, of necessity to a greater or less degree affect the other. No fact in history is plainer than that children bear the iniquities of their fathers. They suffer for their sins. There must be a reason for this ; and a reason founded in the very constitution of our nature. But there wa.'i something peculiar in the case of Adam. Over and beyond this natural relation which exists between a man and his posterity, there was a special divine constitution by which he was appointed the head and representative of his whole I'ace.
Adam the Federal Head of his Race.
1. The first argument, therefore, in favour of the doctrine of imputation is that the Scriptures present Adam as not only the •natural, but also the federal head of his posterity. This is plain, as already remarked, from the narrative given in Genesis. Every- thing there said to Adam was said to him in his representative capacity. The promise of life was for him and for his seed after him. The dominion with which he was invested, belonged to his posteritv as well as to himself. All the evils threatened against him in case of transgression, included them, and have in fact come upon them. They are mortal ; they have to earn their bread by the sweat (jf their brows ; they are subject to all the inconvenien- ces and sufferings arising from the banishment of our first parents from paradise and from the curse pronounced for man's sake upon the earth. Tliey no less obviously are born into the woi-ld desti- tute of original rigliteousness and subject to spiritual death. The full penalty, theref(jre, threatened against Adam, has been inflicted upon them. It was death with the promise of redemption. Now that these evils are penal in our case as well as in his, is plain, be- cause punishment is suffering inflicted in execution of a threaten- ing, and for the satisfaction of justice. It matters not what that suffering may be. Its character as penalty depends not on its na- ture, but upon the design of its infliction. One man, as before remarked, may be shut up in a prison to protect him from popular violence ; another, in execution of a legal sentence. In one case the imprisonment is a favour, in the other, it is a punishment. As therefore, the evils which men suffer on account of the sin of Adam, are inflicted in execution of the penalty threatened against him, they are as truly penal in our case as they were in his ; and he was consequently treated as the federal head and representa- tive of his race. Besides the plain assumption of the truth of this
198 PART n. Ch. Vm. - SIN.
federal relation, it is expressly asserted in the Word of God. The parallel drawn by the Apostle between Adam and Christ relates precisely to this point. Adam was the type of Him who was to come, because as the one was the representative of his race, so the other is the representative of his people. And the consequences of the relation are shown to be in like manner analogous. It was because Adam was the representative of his race, that his sin is the judicial ground of their condemnation ; and it is because Christ is the representative of his people, that his righteousness is the judi- cial ground of the justification of believers.
ITie Representative Principle in the Scriptures. 2. This representative principle pervades the whole Scriptures. The imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity is not an isolaterl fact. It is only an illustration of a general principle wliicli charac- terizes the dispensations of God from the beginning of the world. God declared himself to Moses to be, " The Lord, the Lorh God, merciful and gracious, long-suifering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgres- sion, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty ; visifino- the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's chil- dren unto the third and to the fourth generation." (Ex. xxxiv. 6, 7.) Jeremiah says: "Thou showest loving-kindness unto thousands, and reconipensest the iniquities of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them. The Great, the Mighty God, the Lord of Hosts, is his name." (Jer. xxxii. 18.^ The curse pronounced on Canaan fell upon his posterity. Esau's selling his birthright, shut out his descendants from the covenant of promise. The chil- dren of Moab and Ammon were excluded from the congregation of the Lord forever, because their ancestors opposed the Israelites when they came out of Egypt. In the case oFDathan and Abiram, as in that of Achan, " their wives, and their sons, and their little children " perished for the sins of their parents. God said to Eli, that the iniquity of his house should not be purged with sacrifice and offering forever. To David it was said, "• The sword shall never depart from thy house ; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife." To the disobedient Gehazi it was said : " The leprosy of Naaman shall cleave unto thee and unto thy seed forever." The sin of Jero- boam and of the men of his generation determined the destiny of the ten tribes for all time. The imprecation of tlie Jews, when they demanded the crucifixion of Christ, " His blood be on us and