QUESTION II. 271' the particular personal sin of all single souls in a former state before they came into this world : This present universal misery and wretchedness, could never be appointed as a punishment to us for our former personal offences against our Maker, for we know nothing of any such former state or former offences; we have not the least idea or remembrance of it : Now personal guilt cannot be properly punished by the all-knowing and just God, where the sinner has no consciousness nor remembrance of the crime. There must be the same mind, the same spirit, the same intelligent self or person, cohscious both of the past personal sin, and of the present punishment, to make it appear to be a proper instance of the anger of God for their sin ; other- wise the ends of personal punishment cannot be answered, sin- ning creatures will not be made to see the justice of their punisher, nor can they condemn themselves as justly deserv- ing such misery. Without this consciousness and remembrance, all our miseries would be nothing but afflictive evils brought on us by our Creator, not as personal criminals, but as merecrea- tures, and consequently not agreeable to the goodnessand equity of a God. III. 'If this sinful and miserable condition of men cannot be supposed to arise from their own personal sing in a pre - existent state, we may enquire then in the next place, whether it may not be derived from some original parent pf' our race, who sinning against God, lost his own innocence, apd'tliereivith lost his habit or principles of virtue and goodness ; he was exposed to the.displeasure of his Maker, and fell under just and grievous miseries. Such a primitive sinner, if lie proceeded to propagate his offspring according to thecommon rulesor laws of nature, must communicate to them such a sinful nature as lie' had himself, and they will stand exposed to the natural efleets' of his sin, as well as to all following penal miseries for their own sins. The saine irregular ferments of flesh and blood, and suchcorrupt appetites and vicious passions, will be found in them also; which still grew stronger before the young creatures grew up, so far as to exer- cise their reason. Andwhen by degrees they came to know good and evil, and to be capable of actual sin, these vicious propen- sitiesdid generally, if not always,overcome their rational faculties, did prevail upon their wills to a frequent actual compliance, and led them away effectually to sin against their Maker, and so to expose themselves more and more to his displeasure, and to confirm their own habits of sip. And thus every one of the race of man, in their successive seasons of life, mightbecome per- sonally vicious, or deprived of the holy image of God, by their descending from vicious parents, and were deprived of the favour of God by their own actual 'compliances with. these vicious pro- s3
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