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solution which our moral interests require; and even in that which remains, and must remain, unfathomable, the Christian finds a new motive to walk humbly with the Lord his God.
Should a professed Believer ask you whether that, which is the ground of responsible action in your will, could in any way be responsibly present in the Will of Adam,--answer him in these words: "You, Sir! can no more demonstrate the negative, than I can conceive the affirmative. The corruption of my will may very warrantably be spoken of as a consequence of Adam's fall, even as my birth of Adam's existence; as a consequence, a link in the historic chain of instances, whereof Adam is the first. But that it is on account of Adam; or that this evil principle was, a priori, inserted or infused into my Will by the will of another--which is indeed a contradiction in terms, my Will in such case being no Will--this is nowhere asserted in Scripture explicitly or by implication." It belongs to the very essence of the doctrine, that in respect of Original Sin every man is the adequate representative of all men. What wonder, then, that where no inward ground of preference existed, the choice should be determined by outward relations, and that the first in time should be taken as the diagram? Even in Genesis the word, Adam, is distinguished from a proper name by an Article before it. It is the Adam, so as to express the genus, not the individual--or rather, perhaps, I should say, as well as the individual. But that the word with its equivalent, the old man, is used symbolically and universally by St. Paul, (1 Cor. xv. 22, 45. Eph. iv. 22. Col. iii. 9. Rom. vi. 6.) is too evident to need any proof.
I conclude with this remark. The doctrine of Original Sin concerns all men. But it concerns Christians in particular no otherwise than by its connexion with the doctrine of Redemption; and with the Divinity and Divine Humanity of the Redeemer as a corollary or necessary inference from both mysteries. BEWARE OF ARGUMENTS AGAINST CHRISTIANITY, WHICH CANNOT STOP THERE, AND CONSEQUENTLY OUGHT NOT TO HAVE COMMENCED THERE. Something I might have added to the clearness of the preceding views, if the limits of the work had permitted me to clear away the several delusive and fanciful assertions respecting the state[119] of our first parents, their wisdom, science, and angelic faculties, assertions without the slightest ground in Scripture:--Or, if consistently with the wants and preparatory studies of those for whose use the volume was especially intended, I could have entered into the momentous subject of a Spiritual Fall or Apostacy antecedent to the formation of man--a belief, the scriptural grounds of which are few and of diverse interpretation, but which has been almost universal in the Christian Church. Enough, however, has been given, I trust, for the Reader to see and (as far as the subject is capable of being understood) to understand this long controverted Article, in the sense in which alone it is binding on his faith. Supposing him therefore, to know the meaning of original sin, and to have decided for himself on the fact of its actual existence, as the antecedent ground and occasion of Christianity, we may now proceed to Christianity itself, as the Edifice raised on this ground, that is, to the great Constituent Article of the Faith in Christ, as the Remedy of the Disease--The Doctrine of Redemption.