on our cliiklren," still weighs down the scattered people of Israel. Our Lord hiinself said to the Jews of his £:;eneration that they built tiie sepulchres of the propliets wiiom their fathers had slain, and thus acknowledoced tlieinselves to be the children of murderers, and that therefore the blood of those prophets should be required at their liunds. This principle runs throu^jh the wliole Scriptures. When God entered into covenant with Abraham, it was not for himself only but also for his posterity. They were bound by all the stipulations of that covenant. They shared its promises and its threatenincTs, and in hundreds of cases the penalty of disobe- dience came upon those who had no personal part in the transo-res- sions. Children suffered equally with arlnlts in the judgments, whether fliniine, pestilence, or war, which came upon the people for their sins. In like manner, when God renewed and enlaro;ed the Abrahamic covenant at Mount Sinai, it was made with the adults of that generation as representing their descendants to the remotest generations. Ahfl the Jews to this day are sufFci-ing the penally of the sins of their fathers for their rejec^tion of Him of whom Moses and the pro|)hets spoke. The whole plan of re<iemp- tion rests on this same principle. Christ is the rejiresentative of his people, and on this ground their sins are imputed to Him and his righteousness to them. In like manner, in the baptismal cov- enant, the parent acts for the child, and binds him without the child's consent, and the destiny of the child is, as a general ride, suspended on the fidelity of the parent. No man who believes the Bible, can shut his eyes to the fact that it everywhere recog- jii/.es the representative character of parents, and that the dispen- sations of God have from the beginning been founded on the prin- ciple that children bear the iniquities of their fathers. Tiiis is one of the reasons which infidels assign for I'ejecting the divine oii<Tin of the Scriptures. But infidelity furnishes no relief. History is as full of this doctrine as the Bible is. The punishment of the I'elon involves his family in his disgrace and misery. The spend- thrift and drunkard entail poverty and wretchedness upon all con- nected with them. There is no nation now existing on tlu^ fice of the earth, whose condition for weal or woe is not largely deter- mined by the character and conduct of their ancestors. If, unable to solve the mysteries of Providence, we plunge info Atluisni. we only increase a thousand fold the darkness by which we are sur- rcnmded. It is easier to believe that all things are guidetl by infin- ite reason and goodness, and are certain to result in the in'gliest glory of God, and in the highest blessedness of the universe, than
200 PART n. ch. vni. — sm.
to believe that this vast aggregate of sin and misery is the working of bUnd force without purpose and without end.
If the fact be admitted that we bear tlie consequences of Adam's sin, and that children suffer for the iniquities of their fathers, it may be said that this is not to be referred to the justice of God, but to the undesigned working of a general law, which in despite of incidental evil, is on the whole beneficent. The difficulty on that assumption instead of being lessened, is only increased. On either theory the nature and the degree of suffering are the same. The innocence of the sufferers is the same. The only difference relates to the question. Why they suffer for offences of which they are not personally guilty ? The Bible says these sufferings are judicial ; they are inflicted as punishment for the support of law. Othei's say, they are merely natural consequences, or arbitrary inflictions of a sovereign. If a king should put the children of a rebel to death, would it relieve his conduct from reproach to say that it was an act of arbitrary sovereignty? If the prevention of crime be one important end of punishment (although not its primary end), would it not be a relief to say, that the death of the children was designed to prevent other parents from rebelling ? That the execution of the children of a criminal by a human sovereign would be a cruel and unjust punishment, may be admitted, while it is, and must be denied, that it is unjust in God that He should visit the iniquities of the fathers upon their children. In the first place no human sovereign has the right over his subjects which belongs to God over his creatures as their Creator. And in the second place, no human sovereign has the power and wisdom to secure the highest good from the penalties which he attaches to the viola- tions of law. We cannot infer that because a course of action w^ould be wrong in man, therefore it must be unjust in God. No man could rightfully send pestilence or famine through a land, but God does send such visitations not only righteously, but to the mani- festation of his own glory and to the good of his creatures.
The same Principle involved in other Doctrines.
That the sin of Adam is imputed to his posterity is proved not only (1.) From the fact that he was their natural head and rep- resentative ; and (2.) From the fact that this principle of repre- sentation pervades the Scriptures ; and (3.) From the fact that it is the ground on which the providence of God is administered ; and (4.) From the fact that evils consequent on the apostasy of Adam are expressly declared in Scripture to be penal inflictions ,