278 RUIN AND RECOV£RY, Ike. pensities of nature, that is, by'actual iniquities. I think it may be granted, that this supposition will solve the difficulty in some measure, and will go a.great way toward an answer to the pre- sent enquiry. IV. But still this in my opinion seems hardly sufficient to account for the miseries which come upon children from their very birth, for the pains and agonies, and dying groans, and death itself in their infant state, before they are capable of know- ing or doing good and evil, or of committing actual sins : And the reason I give for my opinion is this ; these tendencies or pro- pensities towards evil in the infant state, even though the soul or will complies with them, while there is no possibleknowledge of a law or duty, can hardlybe called actual sins : Nor can children, while incapable of proper virtue or vice, merit such pains and agonies of themselves as they often suffer. And I can scarce suppose they would be thus punished or tormented by arighteous or wise Governor in their infant age, when they cannot possibly commit actual sin, nor have any knowledge of good or evil, merely upon the account of the necessary propagation of a sinful nature to them from their parents, since they come into this state by that original law of creation and propagation, which a kind and wise Creator appointed to his innocent creatures. I cannot account for their being treated as sinners, unless they were some way involved in guilt or sin, as soon as they are born : And I do not see how this can be, unless they have* sin some way im- puted to them by their interest in, and communion with some common federal head, surety or representative, who hath ac- tually sinned. V. I might add also, that this natural propagationof sinful inclinations from a common parent by a law ofcreation, seems difficult to be reconciled with the justice and goodness of God, unless we suppose that some such legal or federal guilt and con- demnation came upon the race of man by the misbehaviour of a common surety or head. It seems exceeding hard to suppose that such a righteous and,holy God the Creator, who is also u * By rr sin or guilt imputed," I do not mean that any thing or action really fishy, is charged by way of accusation on the personsof infants, as though they hereby become personally faulty or blameable, or that the very acts óf sin are transferred so as io make them proper sinners or criminals ; but 'I mean that the children of some first man maybe by a righteous covenant, so far esteemed one with their parentWhen he sinned, as to be in some sense, involved with him is his state of condemnation, and liable to the miseries that proceed from it. This I have made to appear at large in the plainest light, in a short appendix sa dssertatiou oh ra Imputed Sin and Righteousness ;" and I desire all my espera- eions in this book may be construed in a consistency with this remark, and woli that dies-etatiop at this end of thebook. The arguments therefore whichare brought against "this doctrine; from the impossibility or the injusticeof imputing the very actions of one man to another, have no force, since I have so often declared in that essay, that actionsare not properly treasferte4 by imputation, but the legal result of those actions:
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