ESSAY IL 4I3 Tinted to the children together with the father ; Josh. vii. 24. The falsehood and covetousness of Gehazi were imputed to his posterity ; 2 Kings v. 25. When God by the mouth of his pro- phet pronounced that leprosy should cleave unto him, and to his seedfor ever. Many other instances of this kind might be collected from the sacred writings, to show us how persons may not only have their own sin, or their own righteousness imputed to them in the punishments or the rewards they receive ; but other persons also may have that sin or righteousness initiated tothem ; that is, they may fall under condemnation and punishment, or have a right to impunity and reward by a wise and holy constitution of God, upon the account of the crime or obedience of their forefathers. Note; It is not my business and design in this place to justify at large the conduct of providence in these instances, but only to represent the actual facts or matter of history, and show how very easy and intelligible these sort of representations are, and that they would afford no difficulty to a reader, nor occasion any controversy about the sense of them, if we came with honest minds to read them, and not under any former prejudices or bias. H. It is pretty evident that the scriptures of theold and new testament use the wordssin and iniquity, ttt)rt or; mom and IV and 'At<ar both in the Hebrew and Greek languages, to sig- nify not only the criminal actions themselves, but also sometimes they signify the legal result and consequences of these actions, that is, the guilt or liableness to punishment, and sometimes the punishment itself, whether it fall upon the original criminal, or upon others for his sake, andon his account. In the same man- ner the scriptureuses the word righteousness, pu or npu and Otxxiovu,e, to signify, that right to impunity, that-rectitude in court, that justification, or being pronounced righteous, or that right to reward, which is the result of those particular acts of piety and obedience, as well as to signify the particular acts of obedience or piety themselves. If this has not been sufficiently shewn already by writers in this controversy, a moderate study of some of those texts where these words are used, will convince us of it. I might give a short specimen of it ina few scriptures. Job xxxiii. 20. God will render to a man his 'righteousness, that is not the very righteous actions, but the proper result of them, or those blessings which are the fruits of righteousness. Psal, xiv. 5. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and right- eousness from the Godbf his salvation, that is, the reward of righteousness. Hosea x. 12. Sow to yourselves in righteousness, that is, in and by actions of piety and goodness ; till the Lord come, and rain righteousness upon you, that is, till he peur (lows on youths rewards or fruits of piety. VOL. IV. E a
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