5. Imputa tion defined.

ing, is, imputation. To impute, is, to attribute a moral act or attitude to a party. It is the charging or setting to the account of a moral agent, of such facts, whether meritorious or criminal, as constitute the grounds upon which the tribunal of justice may base the decree of approval or condemnation. Thus, when God declares that, "If any of the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace-offerings be eaten at all on the third day, it shall not be accepted, neither shall it be imputed unto him that offereth it,"-Lev. vii. 18, the meaning is, that it will not be accredited to the party as compliance with the law. When it is stated that, whosoever killeth a sacrifice elsewhere than at the door of the tabernacle, "blood shall be imputed unto that man, he hath shed blood,"-Lev. xvii. 4, the latter phrase is equivalent to the former: the imputation of blood is the charging of it against the party, at the tribunal, in order to sentence. So, too, in Paul's quotation from the Psalms, "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin," Rom. iv. 7, 8, the meaning is manifest:—not to impute sin, is, to omit the charge of it against the transgressor. See, also, 2 Sam. xix. 19; Psalm xxxii. 2; 2 Cor. v. 19; 2 Tim. iv. 16. "These, and numerous similar passages, render the scriptural idea of imputation perfectly clear: it is laying any thing to one's charge, and treating him accordingly. It produces no change in the individual to whom the imputation is made it simply alters his relation to the law. As far as the meaning of the word is concerned, it is a matter of indifference whether the thing imputed belonged antecedently to the person to whom the imputation is made, or not."

Here, however, a question of no little importance arises. Can that be imputed to a party at the bar, which does not really belong to him? The question is in respect to the bar of God; and it is, therefore, equivalent to asking whether "the judgment of God is according to truth;" of which the apostle declares that he is sure. (Rom. ii. 2.) Says Turrettin, "Imputation is either

* Hodge on the Romans, p. 88.

Sometimes

of what belongs to another, or of what is our own. that is imputed to us which is ours personally; in which sense God imputes sins to sinners whom he punishes for their own personal crimes; and, in respect to good deeds, the zeal of Phineas is said to have been imputed to him for righteousness. Psalm cvi. 31. Sometimes that is imputed which is extraneous to us, and not our deed; in which manner, the righteousness of Christ is said to be imputed to us, and our sins to him; although neither had he sin in himself, nor we righteousness." "But, when the sin of another is said to be imputed to any one, it is not to be understood that the sin is, purely and in every sense, foreign to him; but that, by some means, it pertains to him to whom it is said to be imputed; if not strictly his own, individually and personally, then (communiter) conjointly, on account of community between him and its proper author. For there can be no imputation of the sin of another, unless it is based upon some special union of the one with the other."* So, Van Mastricht, speaking of original sin, says, "The imputation does not consist in a merely putative act, by which God considers the breach of the covenant to have been committed not only by our first parents, but in action and personally by all their posterity; for in this there is a manifest error;—but that the breach of the covenant which was committed by the act of our first parents, was committed by all their posterity, in them, as in their cause."† And Marck says that "Adam's transgression was not merely personal, as were those that followed it, but common, and, in a sense, belonging to the nature. It hence appears that the dogma of the Pelagians and Remonstrants is to be rejected, that the sin of Adam was so alien to us, that it could not be called ours; for by God it could not be imputed to us, justly, unless it was in some manner ours; since 'the soul that sinneth, it shall die." "

Imputation, then, is the finding of the facts, upon a judicial investigation, the entering of the verdict, by which the case is defined in its true character; a comparison of which with

* Turrettini Instit., Locus I. Qu. ix. ¿? 10, 11. † Van Mastricht, Lib. iv. Cap. ii. 10.

Marckii Medulla, Lib. vi. § 36.

the requirements of the law, constitutes the ground of the decision of the judge, either of approval or condemnation. In this imputation, the case is never viewed or represented in any other light than precisely as it is. For example, it does not consider him as a personal sinner, an immediate transgressor, who is only guilty in the person of another, his representative. Nor does it account him to be righteous, who, though chargeable with no personal dereliction, has transgressed in the person of another. In short, in imputation, a faithful record is made of the case, precisely as it is, in all its aspects and elements; and, this being done, the office of imputation ceases. The rest remains for the decision of the judge, in accordance with the law.

Another point, to be distinctly marked, is, that imputation does not exert any kind of efficiency over the facts, to modify or transform them. It does not create any different state of the case from that which existed prior to the imputing act. That which is not mine, otherwise, cannot be made mine by imputation. It does not make the case; but ascertains and records it, as it already exists.

CHAPTER XVI.

ORIGINAL SIN IMPUTED-THE GUILT OF ADAM'S FIRST SIN.

"Peccatum originale, . . . quomodo intravit? . . . Per propagationem, per imputationem, idque jure hereditario, propagatum per generationis naturalis successionem. Tria erant in primo peccato; 1. culpa actualis; 2. pravitas naturalis, sive horribilis naturæ deformitas; 3. reatus legalis. Et hæc omnia ad posteros introierunt, non una via, sed triplici; culpa participatione, quia omnes seminali ratione fuerunt in lumbis Adami; pravitas propagatione, seu generatione, quia filios genuit Adam, ad imaginem suam, non Dei; reatus imputatione, quia gratia ita Adamo collata est ut si peccaret, tota posteritas cum ipso ea excideret; sicut feuda tali conditione dantur vasalis, ut si ea per culpam perdant, eodem reatu liberos involvant."-POLI SYNOPSIS CRITICORUM, in Rom. v. 12.

THE statement given above presents, with admirable clearness and discrimination, the doctrine of original sin, as held from the 1. Doctrine beginning, in the Reformed churches. It is adopted of imputation. by Poole, with an appeal to the authority of Paræus, the colleague and editor of Ursinus. "There were three things in the first sin. 1. Actual crime. 2. Natural depravity, or a horrible deformity of nature. 3. Legal guilt. And these come upon his posterity, not in one but three ways;-crime by participation, because all were, by the law of propagation, in the loins of Adam;—depravity by propagation or generation, because Adam begat sons in his own image, not that of God;-guilt by imputation, because grace was so bestowed upon Adam, that if he sinned, he in the act destroyed his whole posterity with himself; as fiefs are given to vassals upon such terms that if by any offence they forfeit them, they involve their children with themselves in the damage." To precisely the same purpose are the statements of our Catechism:-"The covenant being made with Adam not only for himself, but for his posterity, all mankind

descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him" into an estate, the sinfulness of which "consists in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called original sin."

In Adam's sin, there were four several things, which it is necessary carefully to distinguish. These were,—the action of apostasy, or depravation of his nature,—the depravity, or aversion from God, in which that action terminated,—the criminality, guilt, or desert of punishment, thence arising; and,—the formal act of plucking the fruit. This latter act, again, is to be viewed in two aspects;-as it was an act personal to Adam; and as it was the action, and constituted the publication and pledge, of the apostasy of his nature, and seal of the curse consequent thereon. In this latter respect, it is an element in the account of sin, which stands on record against the whole nature and race of man. Thus viewed, however, its criminality is not distinguishable from that of the apostasy, of which it was the consummation and first fruit. The act of apostasy, as it was the embrace of depravity,—the cause of the corruption of man's nature,-will come to be considered in the next chapters, in connection with the discussion of original sin inherent. That with which we have now to do is, the guilt of the apostasy. The doctrine which we derive from the Scriptures on the subject is, that we were so in Adam that we share in the moral responsibility of his apostasy, as really as though we had wrought it for ourselves, personally, and severally; and that in consequence we are guilty, and condemned under the curse, at the bar of God's infinite justice. Of the evidence in support of this doctrine, we have already given a large illustration, and, we trust, established it by the testimony of the Scriptures.

The rejection of our doctrine leaves but one alternative,-the denial that we have any thing to do with Adam's sin; or a 22. Edwards' choice between the mediate and Arminian theories. mediate impu- Of these, the former is held by Edwards. He takes the ground that we were not natively one with Adam, in any such sense, as to involve the derivation from him of

tation.