"We say, then," says Dr. Dick, "that by his sin his posterity became liable to the punishment denounced against himself. They became guilty through his guilt, which is imputed to them, or placed to their account; so that they are treated as if they had personally broken the covenant." Thus all the posterity of Adam, not excepting infants, became justly obnoxious to the "penalty of the covenant of works,—death, temporal, spiritual, and eternal." Now, we would suppose that this scheme of imputation is attended with at least as great a difficulty as the doctrine that the innocent do sometimes suffer under the good providence of God. Indeed, the author does not deny that it is attended with difficulties, which have never been answered. In regard to the imputation of sin, he says: "Candour requires me to add, that we are not competent fully to assign the reasons of this dispensation. After the most mature consideration of the subject, it appears mysterious that God should have placed our first parent in such circumstances, that while he might insure, he might forfeit, his own happiness and that of millions of beings who were to spring from his loins. We cannot tell why he adopted this plan with us and not with angels, each of whom was left to stand or fall for himself."* Now, when it is affirmed that the innocent may suffer for wise and good purposes, why is all this candour and modesty forgotten? Why is it not admitted, "It may be so;" "We cannot tell?" Why is the fact, of which these writers so often and so eloquently remind us, that the human intellect is a poor, blind, weak thing, quite unfit to pry into mysteries, then sunk in utter oblivion, and a tone of confident dogmatism assumed? Why not act consistently with the character of the sceptic or the dogmatist, and not put on the one or the other by turns, according to the exigencies of a system?

If we ask, why infants are exposed to death, we are told, that it is a punishment for Adam's sin imputed to them. We are told that this must be so; since "none but the guilty ever suffer under the administration of God," who is not an arbitrary and cruel tyrant to cause the innocent to suffer. Why then, we ask, does he impute sin to them? To this it is replied, "We cannot tell." No wonder; for if there must always be antecedent guilt to justify God in imposing evil upon his subLectures on Theology, vol. i, p. 458.

jects, then there can be no reason for such a dispensation for imposing the tremendous evil of the imputation of sin. The alvocates of it themselves have laid down a principle, which shows it to be without a reason. Hence they may well say, "We cannot tell." Thus suffering is justified by the imputation of guilt; the imputation of guilt by the divine constitution; and the divine constitution, by nothing! If this is all that can be done, would it not have been just as well to have begun, as well as ended, in the divine constitution of things? But, no! even the most humble of men must have some explanation, some little mitigation of their difficulties, if it be only to place the world upon the back of an elephant, the elephant upon the back of a tortoise, and the tortoise upon nothing.

It seems to be inconceivably horrible to Dr. Dick, and others of his school, that the innocent should ever be made to suffer under the providence of God; but yet they earnestly insist that the same good providence plunges the whole human race-infants and all-into unavoidable guilt, and then punishes them for it! To say that the innocent may be made to suffer is monstrous injustice-is horrible; but to say that they are made sinners, and then punished, is all right and proper! To say that the innocent can suffer under the administration of God, is to shock our sense of justice, and put out the light of the divine goodness; but it is all well if we only say that the punishment due to Adam's sin is made, by the same good administration, to fall upon all his posterity in the form of moral evil, and that then they are justly punished for this punishment! Alas, that the minds of the great and the good, born to reflect the light of the glorious gospel of God upon a darkened world, should be so sadly warped, so awfully distorted, by the inexorable necessities of a despotic system!

SECTION II.

The imputation of sin not consistent with the goodness of God.

This point has been already indirectly considered, but it is worthy of a more direct and complete examination. It is very remarkable that although Dr. Dick admits he cannot reconcile the scheme of imputation with the character of God, or remove its seeming hardships, not to say cruelty, he yet positively

affirms that "it is a proof of the goodness of God."* Surely, if the covenant of works, involving the imputation of sin, as explained by Dr. Dick, be a "proof of the divine goodness," it cannot but appear to be too severe. But as this point, on which he scarcely dwells at all, is more elaborately and fully discussed by President Edwards, we shall direct our attention to him.

"It is objected," says Edwards, "that appointing Adam to stand in this great affair as the moral head of his posterity, and so treating them as one with him, is injurious to them." "To which," says he, "I answer, it is demonstrably otherwise; that such a constitution was so far from being injurious to Adam's posterity any more than if every one had been appointed to stand for himself personally, that it was, in itself considered, attended with a more eligible probability of a happy issue than the latter would have been; and so is a constitution that truly expresses the goodness of its Author." Now, let us see how this is demonstrated.

"There is a greater tendency to a happy issue in such an appointment," says he, "than if every one had been appointed to stand for himself; especially on these accounts: (1.) That Adam had stronger motives to watchfulness than his posterity would have had; in that, not only his own eternal welfare lay at stake, but also that of all his posterity. (2.) Adam was in a state of complete manhood when his trial began."+ In the first place, then, the constitution for which Edwards contends is "an expression of the divine goodness," because it presented stronger motives to obedience than if it had merely suspended the eternal destiny of Adam alone upon his conduct. The eternal welfare of his posterity was staked upon his obedience; and, having this stupendous motive before him, he would be more likely to preserve his allegiance than if the motive had been less powerful. The magnitude of the motive, says Edwards, is the grand circumstance which evinces the goodness of God in the appoint ment of such a constitution. If this be true, it is very easy to see how the Almighty might have made a vast improvement in his own constitution for the government of the world. IIe might have made the motive still stronger, and thereby made the appointment or covenant still better: instead of suspending merely the eternal destiny of the human race upon the conduct Lectures on Theology, p. 458. † Edwards's Works, vol. ii, p. 548.

of Adam, he might have staked the eternal fate of the universe upon it. According to the argument of Edwards, what a vast, what a wonderful improvement would this have been in the divine constitution for the government of the world, and how much more conspicuously would it have displayed the goodness of its Divine Author!

Again, the scheme of Edwards is condemned out of his own mouth. If this scheme be better than another, because its motives are stronger, why did not God render it still more worthy of his goodness, by rendering its motives still more powerful and efficacious? Edwards admits, nay, he insists, that God might easily have rendered the motives of his moral government perfectly efficacious and successful. He repeatedly declares that God could have prevented all sin, "by giving such influences of his Spirit as would have been absolutely effectual to hinder it." If the goodness of a constitution, then, is to be determined by the strength of its motives, as the argument of Edwards supposes, then we are bound, according to his principles, to pronounce that for which he contends unworthy of the goodness of God, as being radically unsound and defective. This is emphatically the case, as the Governor of the world might have strengthened the motives to obedience indefinitely, not by augmenting the danger, but by increasing the security of his subjects; that is to say, not by making the penalty more terrific, but by giving a greater disposition to obedience.

The same thing may be clearly seen from another point of view. Let us suppose, for instance, that God had established the constitution or covenant, that if Adam had persevered in obedience, then all his posterity should be confirmed in holiness and happiness; and that if he fell, he should fall for himself alone. Would not such an appointment, we ask, have been more likely to have been attended with a happy issue than that for which Edwards contends? Let us suppose again, that after such a constitution had been established, its Divine Author had really secured the obedience of Adam; would not this have made a "happy issue" perfectly certain? Why then was not such a constitution established? It would most assuredly have been an infinitely clearer and more beautiful expression of the divine goodness than that of Edwards. Hence, the philosophy of Edwards easily furnishes an unspeakably better con

stitution for the government of the world, than that which has been established by the wisdom of God! Is it not evident, that the advocates of such a scheme should never venture before the tribunal of reason at all? Is it not evident, that their only safe policy is to insist, as they sometimes do, that we do not know what is consistent, or inconsistent, with the attributes of God, in his arrangements for the government of the world? Is it not evident, that their truest wisdom is to be found in habitually dwelling on the littleness, weakness, misery, and darkness of the human mind, and in rebuking its arrogance for presuming to pry into the mysteries of their system?

The vindication of the divine goodness by Edwards, is, we think it must be conceded, exceedingly weak. All it amounts to is this, that this scheme is an expression of the goodness of God, because, in certain respects, it is better than a scheme which might have been established. So far from showing it to be the best possible scheme, his philosophy shows it might be greatly improved in the very respects in which its excellency is supposed to consist. In other words, he contends that God has displayed his goodness in the appointment of such a constitution, on the ground that he might have made a worse; though, according to his own principles, it is perfectly evident that he might have made a better! Is this to express, or to deny, the absolute, infinite goodness of God? Is it to manifest the glory of that goodness to the eye of man, or to shroud it in clouds and darkness?

Edwards also says, that "the goodness of God in such a constitution with Adam appears in this: that if there had been no sovereign, gracious establishment at all, but God had proceeded on the basis of mere justice, and had gone no farther than this required, he might have demanded of Adam and all his posterity, that they should have performed perfect, perpetual obedience." The italics are all his own. On this passage, we have to remark, that it is built upon unfounded assumptions. It is frequently sa'd, we are aware, that if it had not been for the redemption of the world by a "sovereign, gracious" dispensation, the whole race of man might have been justly exposed to the torments of hell forever. But where is the proof? Is it found in the word of God? This tells us what is, what has been, and what will be; but it is not given to speculate upon what might