ease, such as they allowed it to be, was considered by some of them as the effect of a peculiar quality in the forbidden fruit; by others, as having been contracted from the poisonous breath of the infernal spirit, which inhabited the serpent's body." (P. 56.)

This last opinion is indeed fanciful, and probably peculiar to the Scholastics; but the former has been maintained by some very eminent divines of our own Church, with a plausibility of argument which those who admit the positive infection of human nature, will not find it an easy task completely to overturn *. If the infection be derived by generation from Adam, we apprehend that it must be confined directly to the body, and communicated from it only indirectly to the soul, unless the soul, as well as the body, be extraduce, as Tertullian, and a few other fathers, taught. But if the soul be extraduce, must we not conceive it to be material, or, in other words, extended and solid; to grow with the body, to decay with the body, and with the body to die? These consequences, which seem utterly inconsistent with all that we know of the soul, as well by reason as by revelation, too plainly follow from the hypothesis, that we derive from Adam

"We know," says Dr. Delany, "there are several fruits, in several parts of the world, of so noxious a nature, as to destroy the best hu man constitution upon earth. We also know very well, that there are some fruits in the world which inflame the blood into fevers and phrenzies. And we are told, that the Indians are acquainted with a certain juice, which immediately turns the person who drinks it into an idiot; leaving him at the same time in the enjoyment of his health, and all the powers of his body. Now I ask, whether it is not possible, nay, whether it is not rational, to believe, that the same fruit which, in the present infirmity of nature, would utterly destroy the human constitution, might, in the highest perfection we can imagine it, at least disturb, and impair, and disease it? and whether the same fruit which would now inflame any man living into a fever, or phrenzy, might not inflame Adam into a tur bulence and irregularity of passion and appetite? and whether the same fluids which inflame the blood into irregularity of passion and appetite, may not naturally produce infection, and impair the constitution? Also, whether the same juice which now so affects the brain of an ordinary man, as to make him an idiot, might not so affect the brain of Adam, as to bring his understanding down to the present standard of ordinary men? and if this be possible, and not absurd to be supposed, it is evident the subsequent ignorance and corruption of human nature may clearly be ac counted for on these suppositions; nay, I had almost said, upon any one of them? For the perfection of human nature consisting in the dominion of reason over the passions and appetites, whatever destroyed the absolute. ness of that dominion, whether by inflaming the passions, or impairing the powers of reason, must of necessity destroy the perfection of human nature; and, in consequence of that, produce sin, guilt, and misery, in Adam, and entail it upon his posterity."—Revelation examined with Candour, vol. i. p. 8. Edit. 3.

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an infected soul, for us to adopt that hypothesis, merely that we may not harmonize with the Schoolmen! The depravity of human nature may surely be maintained without running into such dangerous absurdities; for the body is an essential part of man, and if it be depraved, human nature must be depraved, even though every soul proceed, as the Schoolmen taught, iminaculate from the hands of her Creator. In some families there is a species of madness, which has descended, through many generations, from father to son; and which, were families so infected to intermarry continually, would probably descend to the extinction of the race; but no physiologist, we apprehend, has ever thought of looking for the seat of the infection in the soul, or dreamed that the soul, if immaterial, passes from the parents to the children! On this question, therefore, we feel ourselves compelled by the force of truth to take the side of the Scholastics, however much we may differ from them in some of the inferences which they draw from it with respect to original sin.

"Original sin they directly opposed to original righteousness; and this they considered not as something connatural with man, but as a superinduced habit or adventitious ornament, the removal of which, according to the philosophical principles of the Stagirite, could not prove detrimental to the native Fowers of his mind. Hence they stated the former simply to be the loss or want of the latter; of an accomplishment unessential to his nature, of which it might be deprived, yet still retain its integrity inviolate. When therefore they contemplated the ef fects of the fall, by confining the evil to a corporeal taint, and not extending it to the nobler faculties of the soul, they regarded man as an object of divine displeasure, not because he possessed that, which was cffensive, but because he was defective in that, which was pleasing to the Almighty. While, however, they laboured to diminish the effects, they augmented in equal proportion the responsibility of the first transgression, asserting, that all participated in the guilt of Adam. He, they said, received for himself and his posterity the gift of righteousness, which he subsequently forfeited; in his loins we were included, and by him were virtually represented his will was ours, and hence the consequence of his lapse is justly imputable to us his descendants. By our natural birth therefore, under this idea, we are alienated from God, innocent in our individual persons, but guilty in that of him, from whom we derived our existence; a guilt which, although contracted through the fault of another, yet so closely adheres to us, that it effectually precludes our entrance at the gate of everlasting life, until the reception of a new birth in faptism.

Thus they contended, that the lapse of Adam conveys to us solely imputed guilt, the corporeal infection, which they admitted, not being sin itself, but only the subject-matter of it, not peccatum, but, according to their phraseology, fomes peccati, a kind of fuel, which the human will kindles, or not, at pleasure. It required, however, no common talent at paradoxical solution to prove, what was pertinaciously held, the innocence of that occult quality, which disposes to crime without being it. self criminal, which, void of all depravity, renders the mind depraved; that metaphorical fuel of the affections, which, although not vicious in

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its own nature, yet, when inflamed, generates vice in the heart, upon which it preys." (Pp. 58-60.)

Every reader of attention must perceive, that this view of original sin is not consistent with itself; and whoever shall turn to the learned author's notes, will see that it is partly taken from different Schoolmen, who were not agreed on the subject, and partly from the report! of the Lutherans. The report of the Lutherans, when unsupported by quotations from the Schoolmen themselves, must be received with some hesitation. No man can think more highly of Melancthon, in all respects, than the writer of this article, and few men are more thoroughly convinced of Luther's integrity; but it is hardly possible (such is the frailty of human nature) for men heated with controversy, as the first reformers were, to give such a report of the opinions of their antagonists as is entitled to implicit and unlimited credit. On the consequences of the fall, and on the subjects of grace and free will, &c. the sectarists and theorists differed almost as much between themselves, as the Church of England, and the novel sect of true churchmen, differ at present. However, what is here said of Adam's having received for himself and his posterity the gift of righteousness; of our being included in his loins, and by him being virtually represented; of his will being ours; of his lapse being justly imputable to his descendants; and of all participating in his guilt, harmonizes exactly with the Westminster Confession of Faith, and is the Calvinism now taught in the Church of Scotland. On the other hand, that view of original sin, in which the consequences of the fall are represented as consisting of the loss of something not connatural with man; in the removal of a superinduced habit, is by no means peculiar to the scholastics. Bishop Bull has, in the third volume of his English works, completely proved, that, long before the æra of the Schoolmen, the doctrine of the Catholic church, on this subject, was,

"That our first parents, besides the seeds of natural virtue and religion sown in their minds in their very creation, and besides the natural innscence and re&itude, wherein also they were created, were endowed with certain gifts and power supernatural, infused by the Spirit of God; and that in these gifts their perfection consisted; that these gifts were bestowed to fit them for a supernatural immortality; and that Adam, in this state of integrity, had naturally, and without the aid of the Divine Spirit, no more power to perform righteousness available to eternal life, than the vine hath to bring forth wine, without the warm influence of the sun, thẹ dew of heaven, and dressing."

This doctrine the Bishop himself adopted, and considered it as one of the main pillars of the Christian faith; for, upon any other hypothesis,

"I challenge," said he," any man to show me, wherein that great fall of mankind, of which the Scriptures, and the writings of the Catho lic Doctors, from the days of the Apostles to our present age, so loudly

ring, can be supposed to consist. Hence," continues he, "may be ga thered a clear solution of that question, so hotly agitated among modern divines, whether the original righteousness of the first man was supernatural? For the meaning of this question, if it signify any thing to any considerable purpose, is clearly this-whether Adam, in this state of integrity, needed a supernatural principle or power, in order to the performing of such a righteousness as, through the gracious acceptance of God, should have been available to an eternal and celestial life and happiness? And the question being thus stated, ought to be held in the affirmative, if the consistent determination of the church of God may be allowed its due weight in the balance of our judgments*."

In adopting these opinions, Bishop Bull was by no means singular. Archbishop King, in his Sermon on, the Fall of Man, says, we must remember, that if man's understanding was (originally) never so clear, and his senses and faculties never so strong; yet, having made no observation, and being absolutely without experience, he could know no more of any thing than what was revealed by God to him. Therefore we must conceive that Adam was under the immediate conduct and direction of God, and was not to judge for himself, but was to leave himself entirely to be guided and directed by his Maker. You see he was not left to de termine for himself what he should eat; but God, by revelation, assigned him his food, and provided it for him. It is to be considered • that man, by his constitution, was mortal, and subject to the impressions of the bodies which surrounded him; for being composed of the elements, as to his material part, in which he resembled other living creatures, these might be separated and dissolved; and the separation of the parts of our body, infers death; and therefore man, in his natural composition, was subject to it, but yet was capable of immortality, to which he could not be entitled but from a supernatural principle, and the peculiar care of God."Again, treating of the command given to Adam, he says, "We must consider that man was fallible in his understanding, peccable in his will, and mortal in his body; and therefore the preserving him from deceit, sin, and death, must be due to some supernatural grace of God; and that to confer that grace, there ought to be some obvious mean, easy to be known, and ready to be used."-He then shews the wisdom of the law under which the first pair were placed, and the means by which they were seduced from their duty; after which, speaking of the consequences of the fall, he observes, that one of these consequences was "their sense of their being naked, and shews that they were so. Shame proceeds from a consciousness of weakness, or of guilt, and from a secret pride that makes us unwilling to own it; lest we should be despised for it. Man could not be conscious of either before, his fall, because he was innocent from guilt, and was covered by the power of God against all the defects of his natural weakness; but being now left to himself, he felt both. He had offended God, and had no defence against his fellow-creatures: the sun scorched him, the rain wet him, and the cold pierced him. He found an inconveniency in exposing his body, and was ashamed of the effects of it. He found himself moved with lust, and other irregular passions, and his reason unable to curb them. Whereas the power of God, whilst he was under the divine government, had kept all his faculties in perfect order."

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This seems to differ very little from the doctrine of the Schoolmen of the sect of the Scotists; and the same learned and excellent prelate agrees with that sect in another opinion of great importance. Our author, in his notes (p. 259), refers to Scotus himself, as teaching that the punishment due to what he calls imputed guilt, consists merely in a deprivation of the beatific vision; and Bishop Bull thus expresses himself of the covenant made with man in Paradise:

"Fœdus vitæ cum Adamo initum in statu integro per ipsius peccatum irritum fuit non modò ipsi, sed et posteris ipsius; ut jam omnes Ade filii, quà tales, sint filii mortis, h. e. à promisso omni vitæ immortalis penitus exclusi, ac moriendi necessitati, ABSQUE SPE RESURRECTIONIS, sub. jecti. NULLA EST IN UNIVERSA THEOLOGIA HAC PREPOSITIONE CERTIOR. Passim enim in Scripturis Novi Testamenti apertissimè ac verbis disertissimis traditur; presertim in Epist. ad Rom. cap. v, fere per totum. Unde et probati ecclesiæ veteris doctores universi, tum qui ante, tum qui post Pelagium vixere, in ea consenserunt ; neque unquam à quoquam impunè et sine hæreseas natâ negata fuit.

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Instead of accounting for this dispensation by the unintelligible hypothesis of imputed guilt, and far from puzzling himself with the question, whether the infection derived from Adam be sin itself, the Bishop vindicates the ways of God to man by the following obvious and incontrovertible argument:

"Jure autem patuisse Deum ob solum Adami peccatum posteros ipsins omnes à vita immortali excludere, nimis manifestum est. Nem (ut optimè Cl. Gerardus J. Vossius) licet Adam non peccasset, poterat tamen Deus, qui liberrimus est donorum morum dispensator, creare hominem ad finem naturalem, eòque et gratiæ in hâc vita, et post hanc vitam gloriæ expertem. Evidentissimum autem est, quod poterat Deus absolutè, idem potuisse relatè, hoc est, cum respectu ad primum primorum parentum delictum : quò simul ostendet, se justi Judicis officio perfungit.”

Such was the doctrine, not of Bishop Bull only, but also of Archbishop King, Sherlock, afterwards Bishop of London, Dr. Whitby, Dr. Wells, and all the other eminent divines, whose theological writ ings adorned the Church of England about the beginning of the last

*This hypothesis, if it be not unintelligible, is something much. worse-it is impious. "In hoc autem peccati genere potest quis esse aut haberi reus, panasque luere culpæ ab altero commissæ. Fieri hoc posse, ut insons dicetur reus per iniquum judicem, atque pænas luet a potenti domino, non nego. Fieri quidem et potest per absolutam dominationem, quam solemus appellare tyrannidem. Sed id fiat licet nihil mutat in rati. onibus justi et injusti, nec proinde fieri potest omnino ab æquo judice dominoque, qualis et Deus optimus. A Deo, inquam, fieri non potest, ob suam perfectionem et sanétitatem."Burnet de Fide et Officiis Chrit