moral agency; by the nature of which those phenomena are determined to be good or evil, right or wrong. The substance of the soul itself, and all its capacities, were created by God. They all belong to him; and, designed to show his glory, are bound to do so, in their passive attitude as well as in their active state. The precept of the law is unambiguous:-"Be holy, for I the Lord thy God am holy." The requirement is, that not the body only, but the soul,-not the actions only, but the powers,-should be devoted to God,-not by a formal effort of the will merely, but by the spontaneity of the whole being. He is the centre around whom the soul, in its substance, its powers, and all its exercises, should revolve, freely, spontaneously, continually, from the first dawning of existence, forever. His law demands holiness, a word which does not express any form of mere action, but a state of all the powers, and of the nature, itself, conformed to God's nature. To this law Christ was conformed, from his first conception; and, in being so, illustrated the extent of the requirement of the law, which says, "Be holy." He was, in the womb, "that holy thing." To the law, thus comprehensive in its demands, thus claiming the allegiance of the soul and the nature, as well as the actions and life, want of conformity is sin. Here, the doctrine of Edwards, on the moral character of actions, presents itself. "One main foundation of the reasons 25. Edwards' which are brought to establish the forementioned notions of liberty, virtue, vice, &c., is a supposition that the virtuousness of the dispositions or acts of the will, consists not in the nature of those dispositions or acts, but wholly in the origin or cause of them; so that if the disposition of the mind or act of the will be ever so good, yet if the cause of the disposition or act be not our virtue, there is nothing virtuous or praiseworthy in it; and on the contrary, if the will in its inclination or acts be ever so bad, yet unless it arises from something that is our vice or fault, there is nothing vicious or blameworthy in it. . . . Now, if this matter be well considered, it will appear to be altogether a mistake, yea, a gross absurdity." "Thus, for instance, if the vice of a vicious act of will lies not in the nature of the act, but the cause; so that its being of a bad nature will not make

doctrine.

it at all our fault, unless it arises from some faulty determination of ours as its cause, or something in us that is our fault; then, for the same reason, neither can the viciousness of that cause lie in the nature of the thing itself, but in its cause; that evil determination of ours is not our fault, merely because it is of a bad nature, unless it arises from some cause in us that is our fault;" and so on ad infinitum.* This same idea runs through the whole argument, in Edwards' Treatise on Original Sin, Part iv. Chap. i.,-"Concerning that objection, that to suppose men's being born in sin, without their choice, or any previous act of their own, is to suppose what is inconsistent with the nature of sin;" in which chapter he refers his readers, for further light, to the work on the Will, from which we here quote.

The relation of this assumption to Edwards' doctrine of causation, is obvious. If the creature be no cause, there is but one alternative. Either all acts, as caused by the Holy One, are holy; or else, the character of an action is to be sought somewhere else than in its cause. But the argument is a fallacy, involving the latent assumption, that acts have a subsistence and moral agency of their own, apart from that of the actor. Strictly speaking, acts are without any moral character in themselves; they are not subjects of law, responsible to justice. An act is nothing but the agent acting; and when, in common language, we speak of moral attributes attaching to actions, and predicate of them praise or blame, we, in fact, mean to attribute these to the actor. This is as true of those "internal exercises," of which Edwards here speaks, as of outward actions. The reason, therefore, why the moral character of an act is to be sought, not intrinsically in it, but in its cause, is not merely that it is an effect, but, that it is an effect of which the moral nature of an accountable agent is the cause. Moral intelligences alone are responsible; and that by virtue of the causative moral nature which they possess. And the nature, as thus causative, is responsible for the effects which it produces; whether they be developed within, or extrinsic;-whether they be in the form

*Edwards on the Will, Part iv. sec. 1. See also sec. 9.

of apostasy of the very nature itself; or of dispositions and actions caused by the apostate condition of the nature, and demonstrative of it. Hence, the reason why the moral character of actions is not to be sought in their external form, but in their cause.

In this doctrine of Edwards, and in the whole argument by which it is sustained, we find very distinct intimations of the "exercise scheme," more fully developed by his pupil, Hopkins, that all sin and holiness consist in exercises or actions. In it, too, Emmons found the argument with which he vindicates the position that God is the author of sin. The holiness of the cause does not prevent the sinfulness of the action, since the moral character of the latter is to be sought in its formal aspect, and not in its source. God may, therefore, be the cause of men's sins, although he is the God of holiness.

Nature.

The general principles thus far presented, apply in common to all moral intelligences. In order, however, to the solution of 26. Sin of the problem of man's nature and the responsibilities under which he lies, it is necessary to take into the account some additional facts not yet mentioned. In the angelic hosts each several individual is possessed of a several nature, original in and peculiar to him. The history of the person and of the nature is contemporaneous and the same. But in man it is different. The nature of the entire race was created originally in Adam, and is propagated from him by generation, and so descends to all his seed. Hence arise two distinct forms of responsibility: the nature being placed under a creative obligation of conformity to the holiness of God's nature, and each several person being, in a similar manner, held under obligation of personal conformity of affections, thoughts, words and actions, to the holy requirements of God's law. The apostasy of this nature was the immediate efficient cause in Adam of the act of disobedience, the plucking of the forbidden fruit. Thus there attached to him. the double crime of apostasy of his nature and of personal disobedience. The guilt thus incurred, attached, not only to Adam's person, but to the nature which, in his person, caused the act of transgression. Thus, as the nature flows to all the posterity of Adam, it comes bearing the burden of that initial

crime, and characterized by the depravity which was embraced therein. In both respects the nature is at variance with the law. In both respects it is guilty of sin,-the sin of nature. In addition to this, Adam's posterity find the depravity thus embraced and indwelling, an unfailing and active cause of other sins. The apostate nature works iniquity wherever it is found. Thus originate the personal sins which fill the world. Such is the ground upon which the apostasy of man's nature from holiness, and its embrace of depravity, is called sin, and, as such, charged upon the race of man. The propriety of so charging it would seem to be unquestionable. It is certain, that nothing may be predicated of the person which does not grow out of the nature. And, if this must be admitted, there appears to be no ground on which it can be claimed that the nature, because existing in another person, is entitled to exemption from its essential guilt. The opposite view assumes the absurdity, that there may be, and is, that in the person which has a subsistence and moral agency of its own; a competence to responsibility, and capacity to appreciate and experience the power of the law's sanctions, distinct from, and independent of, the nature. Is it said to be unjust to hold my person bound for an act which was committed in the person of another? The objection would be valid, were the person a force to control or modify the nature. But, since the contrary is the case, it does not appear reasonable that exemption should be claimed on that ground. In fact, the nature, which was the cause of my person, was there. And, as every power or principle of efficiency which is in the effect must have been in its cause, it follows, inevitably, that every thing in me, upon which resistance to the apostasy might be imagined, was actually there, and, so far from opposing, took part in the treason. We "sinned in Adam and fell with him in his first transgression." The accident of my personal existence, had it then been realized, would have added no new influences to those which were actually engaged, and would not have modified the result, nor changed the responsibility attaching to it. The objection here considered, strikes at the root of all responsibility, as well for personal as for native sin. If I am

not justly responsible for Adam's transgression, because only my nature was efficient in it, then may I, with equal propriety, claim exemption in respect to personal sins, since in them my person is the mere subject of the action, and my nature is the sole efficient cause. It is not, however, our purpose in this place to discuss the doctrine of original sin, but merely to show the general principles, which embrace our relation to Adam's apostasy, under the category of sin.

To the still further clearing of the Scripture doctrine of sin, two other points are to be noticed. The first is, that the law, as we have formerly seen, is as old as that nature of man, which we have seen to be bound under a responsibility as old as the race. The law was written on that nature, when created in holiness, in the person of Adam. So that God's justice, in charging native depravity as sin, does not hold that to be sin which entered before the law. This point Paul insists upon, in the epistle to the Romans. Having in the second chapter described the Gentile world, as amenable to the law written on their hearts; he, in the fifth, justifies the accusation of sin, which he makes against the race, in Adam, upon the ground of the existence of that law, antedating that of Moses. Rom. v. 13, 14: -"For until the law (of Moses) sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned." The second point to be noticed is, that although sin has, in some measure, obscured the lines in which the law is inscribed on the heart, yet is the law always present, and acting with an energy, and appeal to the consciousness, precisely proportioned to the exigency of the case. In the first dawn of infant existence, it is present; and, as sin is there, only in the form of latent corruption, so is the law, in the form of an immanent power of conscience, God's witness within, ready to forbid and condemn sin. So, as the growing capacities gradually develop an active corruption,—a living hostility to holiness and the Holy One, does the law within pari passu unfold a still more and more active testimony on their behalf; and, probably, nothing contributes, so constantly and so powerfully, to develop corruption in the yet unconscious infant heart, as the pre