Argument from Romans v. 12-21.

The Apostle in Romans v. 12-21 teaches this doctrine in the most formal and explicit manner. The design of that passage is to illustrate the method of salvation. The Apostle had taught that all men are sinners, and the whole world guilty before God. All men being under the condemnation of the law, it is impossible that they should be justified by the law. The same law cannot both justify and condemn the same persons. As therefore no flesh can be justified by the works of the law, God sent his Son for our salvation. He assumed our nature, took our place, and obeyed and suffered in our stead, and thus wrought out for us a perfect and infinitely meritorious righteousness. On the ground of that righteousness, God can now be just in justifying the ungodly, if, renouncing their own righteousness, they receive and trust upon this righteousness of God, freely offered to them in the Gospel. The fundamental doctrine of the Epistle to the Romans, as it is the fundamental doctrine of the Gospel, is, therefore, that the righteousness of one man, even Christ, can be and is so imputed to believers as to be the meritorious ground of their justification at the bar of God. To make this doctrine the more plain to his readers, the Apostle refers to the analogous case of the condemnation of the human race for the sin of Adam; and shows that as the sin of Adam is the judicial ground of the condemnation of all who were in him, i. e., of all represented by him, so the obedience of Christ is the judicial ground of the justification of all who are in Him. In the prosecution of his plan he first asserts the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity. He then proves it. He then comments upon it. He then applies it; and finally draws inferences from it. Thus in every possible way, as it would seem, he sets forth the doctrine as part of the revelation of God. The assertion of the doctrine is contained in the twelfth verse of the chapter. It was by one man, he says, that sin and death passed upon all men; because all sinned. They sinned through, or in, that one man. His sin was the sin of all in virtue of the union between them and him. The proof of this doctrine is contained in verses thirteen and fourteen. The Apostle argues thus: Punishment supposes sin; sin supposes law; for sin is not imputed where there is no law. All men are punished; they are all subject to penal evils. They are, therefore, all chargeable with sin, and consequently are all guilty of violation of law. That law cannot be the law of Moses, for men died (i. e., were subject to the penalty of the law) before that law was given.

It cannot be the law as written on the heart; for those die who have never committed any personal sin. There are penal evils, therefore, which come upon all mankind prior to anything in their state or conduct to merit such infliction. The ground of that infliction must therefore be sought out of themselves, i. e., in the sin of their first parent. Hence Adam is the type of Christ. As the one is the head and representative of his race, so the other is the head and representative of his people. As the sin of the one is the ground of the condemnation of his posterity, so the righteousness of the other is the ground of the justification of all who are in him. But although there is this grand analogy between the fall and the redemption of man, there are nevertheless certain points of difference, all in favour of the scheme of redemption. If we die for the offence of one man, much more shall grace abound unto many through one man. If for one offence the sentence of condemnation passed on all, the free justification is from many offences. If condemned for a sin in which we had no personal and voluntary participation, how much more shall we live on account of a righteousness, which we cordially receive. Wherefore, continues the Apostle, in the application of his illustration, if all men (in union with Adam) are condemned by the offence of one man, so also all (in union with Christ) shall be justified on the ground of the righteousness of one man. As one man's disobedience constituted us sinners, so the obedience of one man constitutes us righteous, (verses 18 and 19). From these premises the Apostle draws two conclusions: First, that the law was not designed for justification, but that sin might abound in the knowledge and consciousness of men; and secondly, that where sin hath abounded grace shall much more abound. The benefits and blessings of redemption shall far exceed all the evils of the apostasy.

Whatever may be thought of the details of this exposition, there can hardly be a doubt that it expresses the main idea of the passage. Few can doubt, and few ever have doubted, that the Apostle does here clearly teach that the sin of Adam is the judicial ground of the condemnation of his race. With this agrees not only, as we have already seen, the Scriptural account of the fall, but also what the Apostle teaches in 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22. "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Union with Adam is the cause of death; union with Christ is the cause of life.

Argument from General Consent.

The imputation of Adam's sin has been the doctrine of the Church universal in all ages. It was the doctrine of the Jews, derived from the plain teaching of the Old Testament Scriptures. It was and is the doctrine of the Greek, Latin, Lutheran, and Reformed churches. Its denial is a novelty. It is only since the rise of Arminianism that any considerable body of Christians have ventured to set themselves in opposition to a doctrine so clearly taught in the Bible, and sustained by so many facts of history and experience. The points of diversity in reference to this subject do not relate to the fact that Adam's sin is imputed to his posterity, but either to the grounds of that imputation or to its consequences. In the Greek Church the lowest views prevalent among Christians were adopted. The theologians of that church generally held that natural death, and a deterioration of our nature, and a change for the worse in the whole state of the world, were the only penal evils which the race of mankind suffer on account of Adam's sin. In the Latin Church during the Middle Ages, as we have already seen, great diversity of opinion obtained as to the nature and extent of the evils brought upon the world by the apostasy of our first parent. The Council of Trent declared those evils to be death, the loss of original righteousness, and sin which is pronounced to be the death of the soul. The Lutherans and Reformed held the same doctrine with more consistency and earnestness. But in all this diversity it was universally admitted, first, that certain evils are inflicted. upon all mankind on account of Adam's sin; and, secondly, that those evils are penal. Men were universally, so far as the Church is concerned, held to bear in a greater or less degree the punishment of the sin of their first parent.

Objections to the Doctrine.

The great objection to this doctrine, that it is manifestly unjust that one man should be punished for the sin of another, has already been incidentally referred to. What is punishment? It is evil or suffering inflicted in support of law. Wherein is the injustice that one man should, on the ground of the union between them, be punished for the sin of another? If there be injustice in the case it must be in the infliction of suffering anterior to or irrespective of personal ill-desert. It does not consist in the motive of that infliction. The infliction of suffering to gratify malice or revenge is of course a crime. To inflict it in mere caprice is no less obviously

wrong. To inflict it for the attainment of some right and desirable end may be not only just but benevolent. Is not the support of the divine law such an end? The fact that all mankind do suffer on account of Adam's sin no believer in the Bible can or does deny. It cannot be denied that these sufferings were designed. They are included in the threatenings made in the beginning. They were expressly declared to be penal in the Bible. The sentence of condemnation is said to have passed on all men for the offence of one man. A part of the penalty threatened against sin in the great progenitor of the race was that his posterity should suffer the consequences of his transgression. They do thus suffer. It is vain, therefore, to deny the fact, and no relief is obtained by denying that those sufferings are inflicted in execution of the penalty of the law and for the infinitely important object of sustaining its authority.

§ 10. Mediate Imputation.

About the middle of the seventeenth century Amyraut, Cappel, and La Place (or Placæus), three distinguished professors in the French theological school at Saumur, introduced several modifications of the Augustinian or Reformed doctrine on the decrees, election, the atonement, and the imputation of Adam's sin. La Place taught that we derive a corrupt nature from Adam, and that that corrupt nature, and not Adam's sin, is the ground of the condemnation which has come upon all mankind. When it was objected to this statement of the case that it left out of view the guilt of Adam's first sin, he answered that he did not deny the imputation of that sin, but simply made it dependent on our participation of his corrupted nature. We are inherently depraved, and therefore we are involved in the guilt of Adam's sin. There is no direct or immediate imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity, but only an indirect or mediate imputation of it, founded, on the fact that we share his moral character. These views were first presented by La Place in a disputation, "De statu hominis lapsi ante gratiam," published in the "Theses Salmurienses," and afterwards more elaborately in a treatise, "De imputatione primi peccati Adami." This doctrine was formally condemned by the National Synod of France in 1644-45;1 by the Swiss churches in the "Formula Conand by the theologians of Holland. Jæger, a Lutheran divine, in his "Ecclesiastical History," 2 is justified in saying, "Contra doctrinam Placei-tota Gallia reformata, quin et Theologi 1 See Quick's Synodicon, London, 1692.

sensus;

2 Tom. i. lib. ix. cap. v.

reformati in Hollandiâ surrexêre." The decree of the French Synod of Charenton on this subject is as follows: "Cum relatum esset ad Synodum, scripta quædam . . . . prodisse, quæ totam rationem peccati originalis solâ corruptione hæreditariâ in omnibus hominibus inhærente definiunt, et primi peccati Adami imputationem negant: Damnavit Synodus doctrinam ejusmodi, quatenus peccati originalis naturam ad corruptionem hæreditariam posterum Adæ ita restringit, ut imputationem excludat primi illius peccati, quo lapsus est Adam: Adeoque censuris omnibus ecclesiasticis subjiciendos censuit pastores, professores, et quoscunque alios, qui in hujus quæstionis disceptatione a communi sententia recesserit Ecclesiarum Protestantium, quæ omnes hactenus et corruptionem illam, et imputationem hanc in omnes Adami posteros descendentem agnoverunt."

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It was to evade the force of this decision that Placæus proposed the distinction between mediate and immediate imputation. He said he did not deny the imputation of Adam's sin, but only that it preceded the view of hereditary corruption. But this is the very thing which the Synod asserted. Hereditary corruption, or spiritual death is the penalty, or, as expressed by the Lutheran confessions, by Calvin, and by the Protestants generally, it was an evil inflicted by the just judgment of God, on account of Adam's sin (propter peccatum Adami)." The Formula Consensus Ecclesiarum Helveticarum was set forth 1675, in opposition to the doctrine of Amyraut on universal grace, to the doctrine of Placæus on mediate imputation, and to that of others concerning the active obedience of Christ. In that Formula it is said: "Censemus igitur (i. e., because the covenant of works was made not only with Adam, but also in him, with the whole human race) peccatum Adami omnibus ejus posteris, judicio Dei arcano et justo, imputari. Testatur quippe Apostolus in Adamo omnes peccasse: Unius hominis inobedientia peccatores multos constitui;' et 'in eodem omnes mori.' Neque vero ratio apparet, quemadmodum hæreditaria corruptio, tanquam mors spiritualis, in universum genus humanum justo Dei judicio cadere possit, nisi ejusdem generis humani delictum aliquod, mortis illius reatum inducens, præcesserit. Cum Deus justissimus totius terræ judex nonnisi sontem puniat." 2

Rivet, one of the professors of the University of Leyden, published a treatise in support of the decision of the French Synod, entitled "Decretum Synodi Nationalis Ecclesiarum Reformatarum Galliæ initio anni 1645, de Imputatione primi Peccati omnibus Adami pos1 Niemeyer's Collectio Confessionum, p. lxxxi. 2 Art. x.; Niemeyer, p. 733.