ESSAY II. 43 puted in scripture. Rom. iv. 4. Theword is Nay.. ,T«y which our translators have construed imputed in the next verse. But this leads me to the next remark. Ill. The scripture does not, as I remember, any where in express words assert, " that the sin of Adam is imputed to his children, or that the sins of mankind- or of believers were inn, puted to Christ, or that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to believers ;" yet still I think the sense and true meaning of all these expressions is sufficiently found in several places of scripture. If we consult the language of the prophets Isaiah, and Jeremy, and Daniel, and the apostles John, and Paul, and Peter, ih their repreientation of some of these subjects, Isa. liii. 4 -12. and Jer. xxiii. 6. and xxxiii. 16. Dan. ix. 24. Rom. v. 12-19. 1 Cor. xv. 3, 21, 22. Gal. iii. 13. 2 Cor. v. 21. Ephes. i. 7. and ii. 5, 13. Phil. iii. 9. Col, i. 14, 20. IIeb. ix. 14, 26. 1 Pet. ii. 24, and iii. 18. 1 John i. 7. and ii. 2. and iv. 10. and Rev. i. 5. and v. 9. and many other scriptures, we shall find the substanceand true sense of these phraises as I have ex- plained them. Yet since these express words and phrases of the " imputation of Adam's sin to us, of our sins to Christ, or of Christ's righteousness to us," are not plainlywritten in scripture, we should not impose these very expressions on every christian ; let every one take their liberty in manifesting their sense of these plain scriptural doctrines in such words and phrases of theirown, as are modest and secure from offence and danger, or confine themselves to scripture language. But if these words were ex- pressly written in the bible, they could not reasonably be inter- preted to any other sense, than that which I have explained in and by so many examples, both in the scripture-history"and in common life. Let us make this appear in a few instances. When we say, the sin of Adam is imputed to all his pos- terity, can we possibly mean that every evil motion of Adam's eye or hisheart towards the forbidden fruit, with every thought of unbelief of the threatening, or every workingof ingratitude toward God in his mind, or pride in his heart, together with the action of eating this fruit at his wife's request, is minutely and particularly imputed to alibis infant seed? Can these criminal thoughts be imputed to them who never were under any tempta- tion or capacity of tasting that fruit, or of breaking that particu- lar law of God ? Must we not necessarily therefore mean, that it is the guilt of Adam in that sin, or his liableness to condemna- tion and punishment, to misery and death, is imputed or trans= ferred to his posterity? Imputation of sin in this case signifies the irmputatiou or transferring of the 'legal or penal consequences of sin ; that is, misery and death. When the sins of David, and of Mary Magdalen, and E e 3
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=