sible it could be an act of God: consequently, to charge it to him must be the greatest presumption. 3. The preposterous nature of such a notion, even on superficial examination, is self-evident. Sin, although in scripture and common discourse it is frequently spoken of as abstracted from the agency which is essential to its existence or production, yet in the mind it is invariably associated with an inseparable adjunct; nor can it, indeed, be thought of without the idea of an intelligible, accountable being to whom it is attributable; or, in other words, we cannot think of sin without its correlative sinner. Sin, then, can only be defined as a disobedient act, or a moral defect the former has to do with the conduct; the latter rather with the disposition. For notwithstanding the satisfactionists frequently speak of sin and righteousness as interchangeable property, as if they could be reciprocally conveyed from one possessor or owner to another, yet no man in his senses can really consider them so. The imputation of sin, therefore, must be either true or false, real or fictitious. To illustrate these propositions by a comparison, let us suppose a man charged according to the laws of this country with a capital crime, and on trial, by substantial and indubitable evidence, found guilty: he would then be truly charged with it, or the imputation of this crime would be real, because it is proved that he actually committed it. But if, on the other hand, by the failure of the testi

mony on which he is prosecuted, and particularly by witnesses of his own side, his innocence should be clearly established and he should be acquitted, in that case the imputation would be false. False imputation, however, may be, amongst men, either maliciously or mistakenly so: that is, if this supposed criminal were accused and prosecuted by some malevolent enemy, the imputation of his crime would be maliciously false; but if the prosecutor and witnesses should accuse him under the persuasion that, through a striking resemblance, he was the really guilty party, then it would be a false, but merely so as a mistaken charge. There is only one other mode conceivable in which imputation can take place, and which, even if practicable, would still be classed under the description false, though differently modified; and that is by way of collusion, or nominally;* and this mode on analysis will be

* That is, as it respects a person absolutely innocent, or without sin; otherwise there is a sense in which, with justice and propriety, it may be said that one man is chargeable with the sins of another or others, and that is in cases wherein he becomes an accessory, an instigator, or designing cause; or even, in some respects, an undesigning cause. But the difference here is material; for in point of fact, such a man in such an instance or instances would be chargeable with the deed, as a participator, and would be considered as having, to a certain degree, shared in the actual guilt. In this sense, so far from the posterity of Adam being justly chargeable with the sin of their first progenitor, the reverse might more properly be maintained: and, indeed, it evidently appears that this is the scope of the

found to be precisely that for which the satisfactionist contends! Now, for one moment, let me seriously call on those who hold this doctrine to pause and reflect on these different ways of imputation, and candidly ask themselves how they can believe that a just and omniscient God, who cannot deceive or be deceived, is capable of acting towards his holy Son upon either of them.

In the first place, to suppose that God really imputed sin to Christ, is to suppose that he was really guilty, or that he actually committed it:

apostle's reasoning in part of Rom. v. For if Adam, under the advantages of his primeval state, did not retain his rectitude, did he not so far become an evil and influential example to his race, and so make them all sinners? On the same ground, what is called universal depravity may be accounted for more consistently than on the absurd idea of what is called derived pollution. The sins of every generation since Adam's departure from original purity, may be, in a certain measure, imputed to the preceding one, inasmuch as the wicked of every age, and particularly the higher classes of men, have been accessary to the crimes of their rising contemporaries by their example and authority. And so, likewise, in every case wherein through the evil example of bad parents, or the gross neglect of professedly good ones, the children are left to grow up in and pursue a course of vice, the sins of the latter are so far chargeable to the former. Quere: If children, instead of being taught as soon as they can learn any thing, this monstrous doctrine of " original sin," as it is called, as a first principle, were 66 trained up in the way they should go," as to the practice of virtue, would there not be more practical and living proofs in contradiction to the notion, that man is born "naturally prone to evil, and incapable of good"?

for as the act of one man cannot become the act of another in a physical or moral sense, so the act of sin, which is called in scripture the transgression of the law, can only be that of its real committer. My act of writing ex necessitate rei must be my own act, and cannot possibly be that of another person, except by a manifest perversion of language. It is true, another may write the same things, with the same pen; but the identity of the act is only cognizable in the writer; so that his writing would be his act exclusively, as well as my writing would be mine. Hence the wicked act of a wicked man cannot even be really imputed to another wicked man, much less to an innocent being. To say, therefore, that Jehovah really imputed sins to his Son, while he was "without sin," "holy and harmless," &c., is to say that he imputed sinning to him, which is impossible. Again, if we view sin as a moral defect, this reasoning is still applicable. The Scriptures represent it in this respect as a disease, a corrupt state of the mind, poverty, or the want of that which disposes to good, or which would constitute its possessor righteous or holy. Now, as this moral privation or negative quality owes its reality to an evil bias of the will, it can no more be reckoned or accounted to a person of moral purity or perfection, that is, in reality, than can the act of sin be really imputed to one who has not committed it: and as the act of one cannot become the act of another, so neither can the deficiencies or ill qualities of one person be really

those of another. Another may indeed be subject to, and possess, the same in point of resemblance, but not of identity: but even in that case there would be an equal reality in the state and situation of both. The disease of one man cannot identically be that of another, although the other might be suffering under one of exactly the like kind. To maintain, therefore, that Christ was really charged with sin, is to say, in effect, that he was destitute of those principles of rectitude which distinguish the righteous from the unrighteous. Supposing a physician, visiting a sick man, instead of taking the regular course of prescribing medicines for his cure, were to tell him that, in order to heal him, he would impute, reckon, or account this disease of his patient to his own son. Now to make this a reality the physician's son must actually be seized with all its symptoms, and suffer all its pains; while the patient would be completely relieved from both; so that the former would by a real change of condition be the party really and actually diseased. But as such a thing would be beyond the physician's power, his proposal would be a mockery, and bespeak his own insanity, rather than his skill for healing. Every one knows that in order to cure a disease its cause must be discovered and removed and although a thousand incantations may be used by way of charming it away, yet it cannot really be removed but by a process which is governed by the laws of matter and motion. When the Scriptures, therefore, speak of