"Caution is requisite in this case, as in most others, lest we give to the general forms of Scripture language a more particular meaning than they are designed to convey. It is, if I mistake not, from the want of this that most of the theological controversy in the church arises, and especially on the subject now under consideration."

We turn now to the subject of "ORIGINAL SIN."

John Taylor."It appeareth, therefore, for anything I can see, that the true answer to this question, how far we are involved in the consequences of Adam's sin, is this: we are thereby, or thereupon, subjected to temporal sorrow, labor, and death: all which (thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift!) are in the Redeemer turned into great advantages, as to our present spiritual improvements; and at length we shall, if obedient to the Son of God, and sanctified by the methods of salvation established in him, not only be delivered from them all, but we shall also reign forever with him in glory." . . . "Immediately upon the annulling the first covenant, he advanced a new and grand scheme for restoring mankind, and exalting them to eternal life and death must be considered as transferred into this new and gracious dispensation; otherwise it will be inconsistent with it. In this view death will be, upon the whole, a benefit; and we may account for all men's being made sufferers by the disobedience of Adam in the manner following. That judgment, which was pronounced upon Adam for his sin, came upon all men: or, the Judge decreed, that the sentence passed upon Adam should, as to the things inflicted in themselves considered, light upon his posterity: just as if a father, for some irregularity in his first child, should determine to lay a restraint upon him, either in diet, dress, diversions; and at the same time should judge it expedient to make it a rule with all the other children he may afterward have: in this instance it is easy to see how the judgment to condemnation, pronounced upon the offence of the first-born, cometh upon the other children, even before they are brought into the world, without any injustice, nay, perhaps with a great deal of goodness on the father's part: upon the first it is a proper punishment; upon the rest it cometh as wholesome discipline: and yet through the offence of one they are debarred some pleasures or enjoyments. By the offence of one the judgment to condemnation cometh upon all the rest; by one child's offence restraint reigneth and by one child's disobedience the many that come after him are made sinners, or sufferers, as they are deprived of some enjoyment which they might be fond of, but which the father saw, everything considered, would not be for their good." "Thus it is true that all

mankind are subject to death, not through their own personal sins, but the one offence of Adam." ... "For as upon the account of one man's disobedience mankind were judicially constituted sinners, i. e., subjected to death by the sentence of God, the Judge: so it is proportionably right and true, that by the obedience of one, mankind shall be judicially constituted righteous by being raised to life again."

...

Nathaniel W. Taylor.-"It will be admitted by those from whom I may differ on the topics just stated, that the language of the Scriptures, at least so far as words or forms of statement are concerned, gives us only the general fact, that the sinfulness of mankind is in consequence of the sin of Adam. But it is maintained that this general form implies the other more particular facts. This I deny. It may be true, that God determined that if Adam sinned his posterity should be sinners, and also, that had Adam not sinned, some, or even all of his posterity should sin. God may determine that the small-pox should be introduced into a community by one man; and still it may be true, that were it not to be thus brought, it would be introduced in some other way. So also it may be true, that the death of mankind is a consequence indirectly of Adam's sin, and directly a consequence of their own sin." "Another fact is conspicuous from this narrative, [of the fall,] that death and other evils consequent on Adam's sin, both to him and his posterity, are not the result of a strictly legal process. . . These evils are inflicted under an economy of grace, and are blended with manifold mercies. . . . Even death, the greatest of them, may be, and often is, a blessing, being an entrance into bliss eternal. . . . Though an evil, it was not a penal evil — it was an evil as included in a system of moral discipline for sinners under grace; it was an evil, and, as such, a consequence and proof of sin and condemnation, but not a legal penalty. . . . Neither may we infer as a revealed doctrine, that death comes on men in no sense for their own sin. For had not their sin been certain, God might not have doomed them to certain death. If it be said that infants have no sin of their own, and therefore do not die for their own sin in any sense, I answer, this may be true, and yet the Scriptures may have used that general phraseology which decides nothing respecting infants. Their case may have been unnoticed, and the Scriptures have expressly decided in general terms that men die in the character of sinners. On this supposition, death, though it comes in one respect as the consequence of the personal sin of each, comes as a mark of God's displeasure with each comes as a proof of sin in each; still as it does not come in the way of a strictly legal process, it may also be connected with Adam's sin as well as with their own."

Having in this general way admitted a connection between Adam's sin and the sinfulness of his posterity, he proceeds to the mode of the connection, and, as usual, makes his admission look very like an Indian gift. He says:

"It is obvious that one thing may be supposed to be the consequence of another in many ways or modes of consequence, and that simply to affirm that one thing is by another or by means of it, or is a consequence of it, decides nothing in respect to the particular mode of the connection. It is, if I mistake not, in this general and indefinite manner that the Scriptures exhibit the connection between Adam's sin and the sin and death of his posterity."

We turn back again to John Taylor on the same subject.

"Man's sinfulness consisting in the guilt of Adam's sin, is language the Scripture nowhere useth; nor can it be vindicated from these or any other texts. For whereas guilt always denotes the having committed a wicked action, by which a person becomes obnoxious to punishment, it is evident our sinfulness cannot, in the nature of things, consist in the guilt of Adam's first sin; because, as we could not possibly commit that action in any sense, so we could not, upon account thereof, become obnoxious to punishment. That Adam's first sin was attended with consequences which affect all his posterity, may, indeed, truly be concluded from Rom. 5: 12-19. But not as if we were involved in the guilt of his sin, or punished for it. But as God thought fit, that death, which came upon him for his sin, should at the same time pass upon all men."

"These words, 'by one man's disobedience many were made sinners,' mean neither more nor less than that by one man's disobedience the many, that is, mankind, were made subject to death, by the judicial act of God. . . . Being made sinners may very well signify being adjudged or condemned to death; for the Hebrew word which signifies to be a sinner, in the conjugation Hiphil, signifies to make one a sinner by a judicial sentence, or to condemn, and so it is often used. . . . Now any one may see there is a vast difference between a man's making himself a sinner by his own wicked act, and his being made a sinner by the wicked act of another, of which he is altogether guiltless. They who are made sinners by the disobedience of another, without their own knowledge or consent, surely can be sinners in no other sense but as they are sufferers. They are sinners by sharing in the calamities of those that have sinned; which may be

without any wrong to them by the just appointment of God, not as a punishment, but for other good reasons."

Now let us see how very similar to this are both the argument and language of Nathaniel W. Taylor. He is introducing

a variety of arguments to show that Paul, in Romans 5: 12-19, "does not teach that infants are sinners, nor that the death of which he treats is the legal penalty of sin." His language is:

"We assert that no proof of the doctrine can be found in the passage before us, unless the word of inspiration is self-contradictory. At least we may say, in view of the very peculiar and incredible nature of the supposed fact, that if this passage or any other asserts it, it must be asserted in a form which shall be so unequivocal as to admit of no other construction. The mere assertion has the same aspect of incredibility beforehand, as that infants, at the moment of birth, are accomplished orators, mathematicians, or generals. . . . The question is - whether the apostle means to say that death is the consequence of sin, and thus proves sin in those cases in which they are, according to reason and common sense and the word of God, without sin and incapable of sin. Suppose it were to be said in the language of common usage, that all men take food because they know that it is necessary to sustain life. Could this language be justly interpreted to include infants? It will not be pretended. But why not? Infants take food as well as other human beings. Why then are they not to be included in the above proposition? Plainly because reason and common sense say that they are incapable of the knowledge predicated. But reason and common sense decide with the same infallibility that they are incapable of actual sin. This our opponents all admit. I have already shown that there can be no other sin than actual sin. . . . These decisive reasons exist in the case before us for saying that the apostle, when he said 'all men die because they are sinners,' had no thought of an infant."

Our author finally proceeds to show positively what is the mode of connection between Adam's sin and its consequences to his posterity. And he affirms it to be "by God's sovereign constitution, in distinction from the mode of strict legal procedure. Or thus, the mode of this connection was by God's sovereign constitution," (just what John Taylor seems to mean by "the judicial sentence," and "the just appointment of God," as

quoted above); "ordaining an economy of grace immediately after the sin of Adam, so that his posterity commence their moral probation under a system of both law and grace; i. e., under a system in which law is so modified by grace, that while in its authority to command, and in its power to condemn, it is neither abrogated nor weakened, it is not in all its principles strictly adhered to, or carried out in man's probation on earth, but is in this respect partially, and may be wholely, through grace, dispensed with in determining man's relations to its sanctions, and to the rewards and punishments of a future state."

That these two Taylors hold essentially the same view of the fifth chapter of Romans, as well as the same free and easy mode of interpreting Scripture, will appear from the following comparisons.

John Taylor." Nothing more, I think, wants to be explained in this passage but that expression, (ver. 12,) and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned,' namely, in Adam; for the apostle doth not here intend to affirm, that death passed upon all men by their own sins. The whole of his discourse plainly shows, that he understood and believed, that death came upon mankind by Adam's one offence. And he sets himself directly to prove it, (ver. 13, 14,) as I have shown before. Death, therefore, must be understood to have passed upon all mankind, not for that all have sinned really, properly, and personally; but they have sinned, are made sinners, are subjected to death, through the one offence of one man, that is Adam. Therefore the apostle's argument constrains us to take these words, 'for that all have sinned,' in the same, or nearly the same, sense with those, 'are made sinners,' (ver. 19). . . . Let it be observed, that by one man, Adam, sin entered into the world. He began transgression, and through his one sin death also entered into the world; and so, in this way, through his one sin, death came upon all mankind, as far even as that all men are sufferers, through his one offence."

Nathaniel W. Taylor.-"His (Paul's) object in the 12th, 13th, and 14th verses, is to show that all the posterity of Adam became sinners, and subject to temporal death in consequence of his sin, and yet in such a way or mode of connection as not to exclude their individual responsibility for their own sin, nor to imply that temporal death was the legal penalty of sin; but in such a way by God's sovereign consti