The Augustinian theory may therefore be called an ethical or theological interpretation of certain incontestable and acknowledged biological facts.

Ribot, Heredity, 1-"Heredity is that biological law by which all beings endowed with life tend to repeat themselves in their descendants; it is for the species what personal identity is for the individual. By it a groundwork remains unchanged amid incessant variations. By it nature ever copies and imitates herself." Griffith-Jones, Ascent through Christ, 202-218-"In man's moral condition we find arrested development; reversion to a savage type; hypocritical and self-protective mimicry of virtue; parasitism; physical and moral abnormality; deep-seated perversion of faculty." Simon, Reconciliation, 154 8q.-"The organism was affected before the individuals which are its successive differentiations and products were affected. . . . . Humanity as an organism received an injury from sin. It received that injury at the very beginning.

....

At the moment when the seed began to germinate disease entered and it was smitten with death on account of sin."

Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 134-"A general notion has no actual or possible metaphysical existence. All real existence is necessarily singular and individual. The only way to give the notion any metaphysical significance is to turn it into a law inherent in reality, and this attempt will fail unless we finally conceive this law as a rule according to which a basal intelligence proceeds in positing individuals." Sheldon, in the Methodist Review, March, 1901: 214-227, applies this explanation to the doctrine of original sin. Men have a common nature, he says, only in the sense that they are resembling personalities. If we literally died in Adam, we also literally died in Christ. There is no all-inclusive Christ, any more than there is an all-inclusive Adam. We regard this argument as proving the precise opposite of its intended conclusion. There is an all-inclusive Christ, and the fundamental error of most of those who oppose Augustinianism is that they misconceive the union of the believer with Christ. "A basal intelligence" here "posits individuals." And so with the relation of men to Adam. Here too there is "a law inherent in reality"- the regular working of the divine will, according to which like produces like, and a sinful germ reproduces itself, E. We are to remember, however, that while this theory of the method of our union with Adam is merely a valuable hypothesis, the problem which it seeks to explain is, in both its terms, presented to us both by conscience and by Scripture. In connection with this problem a central fact is announced in Scripture, which we feel compelled to believe upon divine testimony, even though every attempted explanation should prove unsatisfactory. That central fact, which constitutes the substance of the Scripture doctrine of original sin, is simply this: that the sin of Adam is the immediate cause and ground of inborn depravity, guilt and condemnation to the whole human race.

Three things must be received on Scripture testimony: (1) inborn depravity; (2) guilt and condemnation therefor; (3) Adam's sin the cause and ground of both. From these three positions of Scripture it seems not only natural, but inevitable, to draw the inference that we "all sinned" in Adam. The Augustinian theory simply puts in a link of connection between two sets of facts which otherwise would be difficult to reconcile. But, in putting in that link of connection, it claims that it is merely bringing out into clear light an underlying but implicit assumption of Paul's reasoning, and this it seeks to prove by showing that upon no other assumption can Paul's reasoning be understood at all. Since the passage in Rom. 5:12-19 is so important, we proceed to examine it in greater detail. Our treatment is mainly a reproduction of the substance of Shedd's Commentary, although we have combined with it remarks from Meyer, Schaff, Moule, and others.

EXPOSITION OF ROM. 5: 12-19.- Parallel between the salvation in Christ and the ruin that has come through Adam, in each case through no personal act of our own, neither by our earning salvation in the case of the life received through Christ, nor by our individually sinning in the case of the death received through Adam. The statement of the parallel is begun in

Verse 12: "as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned," so (as we may complete the interrupted sentence) by one man right

eousness entered into the world, and life by righteousness, and so life passed upon all men, because all became partakers of this righteousness. Both physical and spiritual death is meant. That it is physical, is shown (1) from verse 14; (2) from the allusion to Gen. 3:19; (3) from the universal Jewish and Christian assumption that physical death was the result of Adam's sin. See Wisdom 2: 23, 24; Sirach 25:24; 2 Esdras 3:7, 21;7:11, 46, 48, 118; 9: 19; John 8: 44; 1 Cor. 15: 21. That it is spiritual, is evident from Rom. 5:18, 21, where wý is the opposite of vávaros, and from 2 Tim. 1:10, where the same contrast occurs. The ours in verse 12 shows the mode in which historically death has come to all, namely, that the one sinned, and thereby brought death to all; in other words, death is the effect, of which the sin of the one is the cause. By Adam's act, physical and spiritual death passed upon all men, because all sinned. '&= because, on the ground of the fact that, for the reason that, all sinned. #ávres = all, without exception, infants included, as verse 14 teaches.

"Huaprov mentions the particular reason why all men died, viz., because all men sinned, It is the aorist of momentary past action—sinned when, through the one, sin entered into the world. It is as much as to say, "because, when Adam sinned, all men sinned in and with him." This is proved by the succeeding explanatory context (verses 15-19), in which it is reiterated five times in succession that one and only one sin is the cause of the death that befalls all men. Compare 1 Cor. 15:22. The senses "all were sinful," "all became sinful,” are inadmissible, for ἁμαρτάνειν is not ἁμαρτωλὸν γίγνεσθαι Or εἶναι. The sense "death passed upon all men, because all have consciously and personally sinned," is contradicted (1) by verse 14, in which it is asserted that certain persons who are a part of mavres, the subject of nμaprov, and who suffer the death which is the penalty of sin, did not commit sins resembling Adam's first sin, i. c., individual and conscious transgressions; and (2) by verses 15-19, in which it is asserted repeatedly that only one sin, and not millions of transgressions, is the cause of the death of all men. This sense would seem to require ἐφ ̓ ᾧ πάντες ἁμαρτάνουσιν. Neither can ἥμαρτον have the sense were accounted and treated as sinners"; for (1) there is no other instance in Scripture where this active verb has a passive signification; and (2) the passive makes aptor to denote God's action, and not man's. This would not furnish the justification of the infliction of death, which Paul is seeking.

Verse 13 begins a demonstration of the proposition, in verse 12, that death comes to all, because all men sinned the one sin of the one man. The argument is as follows: Before the law sin existed; for there was death, the penalty of sin. But this sin was not sin committed against the Mosaic law, because that law was not yet in existence. The death in the world prior to that law proves that there must have been some other law, against which sin had been committed.

Verse 14. Nor could it have been personal and conscious violation of an unwritten law, for which death was inflicted; for death passed upon multitudes, such as infants and idiots, who did not sin in their own persons, as Adam did, by violating some known commandment. Infants are not specifically named here, because the intention is to include others who, though mature in years, have not reached moral consciousness. But since death is everywhere and always the penalty of sin, the death of all must have been the penalty of the common sin of the race, when яávres μaprov in Adam. The law which they violated was the Eden statute, Gen. 2:17. The relation between their sin and Adam's is not that of resemblance, but of identity. Had the sin by which death came upon them been one like Adam's, there would have been as many sins, to be the cause of death and to account for it, as there were individuals. Death would have come into the world through millions of men, and not "through one man" (verse 12), and judgment would have come upon all men to condemnation through millions of trespasses, and not "through one trespass" (v. 18). The object, then, of the parenthetical digression in verses 13 and 14 is to prevent the reader from supposing, from the statement that "all men sinned," that the individual transgressions of all men are meant, and to make it clear that only the one first sin of the one first man is intended. Those who died before Moses must have violated some law. The Mosaic law, and the law of conscience, have been ruled out of the case. These persons must, therefore, have sinned against the commandment in Eden, the probationary statute; and their sin was not similar (óμoiws ) to Adam's, but Adam's identical sin, the very same sin numerically of the "one man." They did not, in their own persons and consciously, sin as Adam did; yet in Adam, and in the nature common to him and them, they sinned and fell ( versus Current Discussions in Theology, 5:277, 278). They did not sin like Adam, but they "sinned in him, and fell with him, in that first transgression" (Westminster Larger Catechism, 22).

Verses 15-17 show how the work of grace differs from, and surpasses, the work of sin.

Over against God's exact justice in punishing all for the first sin which all committed in Adam, is set the gratuitous justification of all who are in Christ. Adam's sin is the act of Adam and his posterity together; hence the imputation to the posterity is just, and merited. Christ's obedience is the work of Christ alone; hence the imputation of it to the elect is gracious and unmerited. Here Tous Toàλoυs is not of equal extent with oi rodλoí in the first clause, because other passages teach that "the many" who die in Adam are not conterminous with "the many" who live in Christ; see 1 Cor. 15: 22; Mat. 25: 46; also, see note on verse 18, below. Toùs modλous here refers to the same persons who, in verse 17, are said to "receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness." Verse 16 notices a numerical difference between the condemnation and the justification. Condemnation results from one offense; justification delivers from many offences. Verse 17 enforces and explains verse 16. If the union with Adam in his sin was certain to bring destruction, the union with Christ in his righteousness is yet more certain to bring salvation.

Verse 18 resumes the parallel between Adam and Christ which was commenced in verse 12, but was interrupted by the explanatory parenthesis in verses 13-17. "As through one trespass. ... unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness. . . . unto all men unto justification of [ necessary to ] life." Here the "all men to condemnation" = the oi modλoi in verse 15; and the "all men unto justification of life" the ToÙS TOλλous in verse 15. There is a totality in each case; but, in the former case, it is the “all men" who derive their physical life from Adam,- in the latter case, it is the "all men" who derive their spiritual life from Christ (compare 1 Cor. 15:22"For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive"-in which last clause Paul is speaking, as the context shows, not of the resurrection of all men, both saints and sinners, but only of the blessed resurrection of the righteous; in other words, of the resurrection of those who are one with Christ).

Verse 19. "For as through the one man's disobedience the many were constituted sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be constituted righteous." The many were constituted sinners because, according to verse 12, they sinned in and with Adam in his fall. The verb presupposes the fact of natural union between those to whom it relates. All men are declared to be sinners on the ground of that "one trespass," because, when that one trespass was committed, all men were one man-1 that is, were one common nature in the first human pair. Sin is imputed, because it is committed. All men are punished with death, because they literally sinned in Adam, and not because they are metaphorically reputed to have done so, but in fact did not. Oi roλλoc is used in contrast with the one forefather, and the atonement of Christ is designated as vяakoń, in order to contrast it with the παρακοή of Adam.

Δίκαιοι

KaraσTadýσovra has the same signification as in the first part of the verse. κατασταθήσονται means simply " shall be justified, and is used instead of δικαιωθήσονται, in order to make the antithesis of ȧμaρrwλoi kateσTáðnσav more perfect. This being "constituted righteous" presupposes the fact of a union between ò els and oi modλoi, i. e,, between Christ and believers, just as the being "constituted sinners" presupposed the fact of a union between ὁ εἷς and οι πολλοί, t. e., between all men and Adam. The future κατασταθήσονται refers to the succession of believers; the justification of all was, ideally, complete already, but actually, it would await the times of individual believing. "The many" who shall be "constituted righteous" = not all mankind, but only "the many" to whom, in verse 15, grace abounded, and who are described, in verse 17, as "they that receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness."

"But this union differs in several important particulars from that between Adam and his posterity. It is not natural and substantial, but moral and spiritual; not generic and universal, but individual and by election; not caused by the creative act of God, but by his regenerating act. All men, without exception, are one with Adam; only believing men are one with Christ. The imputation of Adam's sin is not an arbitrary act in the sense that, if God so pleased, he could reckon it to the account of any beings in the universe, by a volition. The sin of Adam could not be imputed to the fallen angels, for example, and punished in them, because they never were one with Adam by unity of substance and nature. The fact that they have committed actual transgression of their own will not justify the imputation of Adam's sin to them, any more than the fact that the posterity of Adam have committed actual transgressions of their own would be a sufficient reason for imputing the first sin of Adam to them. Nothing but a real union of nature and being can justify the imputation of Adam's sin; and, similarly, the obedience of Christ could no more be imputed to an unbelieving man than to a lost angel, because neither of these is morally and spiritually one with Christ" (Shedd). For a different interpretation (uaρTov - sinned personally and individually), see Kendrick, in Bap. Rev., 1885 : 48-72,

IL- OBJECTIONS TO THE AUGUSTINIAN DOCTRINE OF IMPUTATION.

The doctrine of Imputation, to which we have thus arrived, is met by its opponents with the following objections. In discussing them, we are to remember that a truth revealed in Scripture may have claims to our belief, in spite of difficulties to us insoluble. Yet it is hoped that examination will show the objections in question to rest either upon false philosophical principles or upon misconception of the doctrine assailed.

A. That there can be no sin apart from and prior to consciousness. This we deny. The larger part of men's evil dispositions and acts are imperfectly conscious, and of many such dispositions and acts the evil quality is not discerned at all. The objection rests upon the assumption that law is confined to published statutes or to standards formally recognized by its subjects. A profounder view of law as identical with the constituent principles of being, as binding the nature to conformity with the nature of God, as demanding right volitions only because these are manifestations of a right state, as having claims upon men in their corporate capacity, deprives this objection of all its force.

If our aim is to find a conscious act of transgression upon which to base God's charge of guilt and man's condemnation, we can find this more easily in Adam's sin than at the beginning of each man's personal history; for no human being can remember his first sin. The main question at issue is therefore this: Is all sin personal? We claim that both Scripture and reason answer this question in the negative. There is such a thing as race-sin and race-responsibility.

B. That man cannot be responsible for a sinful nature which he did not personally originate.

We reply that the objection ignores the testimony of conscience and of Scripture. These assert that we are responsible for what we are. The sinful nature is not something external to us, but is our inmost selves. If man's original righteousness and the new affection implanted in regeneration have moral character, then the inborn tendency to evil has moral character; as the former are commendable, so the latter is condemnable. If it be said that sin is the act of a person, and not of a nature, we reply that in Adam the whole human nature once subsisted in the form of a single personality, and the act of the person could be at the same time the act of the nature. That which could not be at any subsequent point of time, could be and was, at that time. Human nature could fall in Adam, though that fall could not be repeated in the case of any one of his descendants. Hovey, Outlines, 129-"Shall we say that will is the cause of sin in holy beings, while wrong desire is the cause of sin in unholy beings? Augustine held this." Pepper, Outlines, 112—“We do not fall each one by himself. We were so on probation in Adam, that his fall was our fall."

C. That Adam's sin cannot be imputed to us, since we cannot repent of it.

The objection has plausibility only so long as we fail to distinguish between Adam's sin as the inward apostasy of the nature from God, and Adam's sin as the outward act of transgression which followed and manifested that apostasy. We cannot indeed repent of Adam's sin as our personal act or as Adam's personal act, but regarding his sin as the apostasy of our common nature -an apostasy which manifests itself in our personal transgressions as it did in his, we can repent of it and do repent of it. In