appetites]" are certainly included in that vanity the creature is subjected to."* Then by the creature Dr. C. must mean, not the whole moral creation, or all mankind including those nations and individuals to whom the gospel is made known: because they are not under mere law, and therefore according to him are not subjected to that part of vanity which consists in bondage to animal appetites. Yet he abundantly holds, that all men are subjected to vanity, which certainly includes, according to him, bondage to animal appetites.

According to Dr. C. vanity includes bondage to bodily or animal appetites. Yet mankind are subjected to vanity not through any fault or crime of their own. But is it not a fault or crime in any man, to be governed by his bodily appetites, or to be in bondage to them? With what truth or consistency then could he hold, that men are subjected to vanity not through any fault or crime of their own, and that therefore their subjection to vanity is a ground of hope of deliverance from it; when the very state of subjection to vanity is a very great fault or crime? Can a fault or crime be a ground of hope of impunity, or of the divine favour?

But perhaps it may be pleaded, that though the state of subjection, or the being subject to vanity, implies a fault; yet the act of subjecting, or the act by which mankind were subjected, to vanity, is not through, or on ac- 、 count of any previous fault of mankind in general; and this is the ground of hope that they shall be delivered. If this be the meaning of Dr. C. it comes to this. That because mankind are, in consequence of Adam's sin, not their own personal sin, subjected by God to frailty, mortality, bodily appetites and sin; therefore they do not deserve to be left without hope of deliverance: the * Page 109.

it would not be Otherwise where

divine perfections do not admit of it: just at least it would be a hard case. is the ground of hope of deliverance? No promise is pleaded as the ground of this hope. The only pretended ground of hope in this argument is, that mankind were subjected to vanity, not through any fault of their own: as in the following passage; "For if mankind were subjected to a state of suffering, not through any wilful disobedience which they themselves had been personally guilty of, it is congruous to reason to think, that they should be subjected to it not finally-but with room for hope that they should be delivered from it: and was it not for this hope, it cannot be supposed-it would be a reflection on the-benevolence of the Deity to suppose, that they would have been subjected to it."* But if this subjection to vanity by God be perfectly just, what right have we to expect, that God will deliver all men from the consequences of it? Have we a right, without a divine promise to expect, that God will suffer none of the sinful race of men, to bear the consequences of a just and wise constitution? And would it be a reflection on the Deity, not to expect this?

So that this whole argument of Dr. C. implies that God in subjecting mankind, on account of Adam's sin, "to a state of suffering," made an unjust constitution. Yet Dr. C. himself abundantly holds, that this is a real constitution of God.

At the same time, it is implied in all this, that if mankind had been thus subjected to vanity, in consequence of their own personal sin; they might justly have been left without hope. Thus it is really granted by Dr. C. after all his labour to prove the contrary, that the personal sins of men, deserve a hopeless state of suffering. And the whole question in the present view of it, comes * Page 102.

to this, Whether the personal actual sins of mankind, under the present divine constitution, be real sins, and deserve the punishment justly due to sin: or whether these sins be not excusable, because they are the established consequence of Adam's transgression,and not the consequence of their own voluntary act. Or in other words, whether the moral evil of any action consist in the nature of the action itself, or in its cause or antecedents. Of this question I should be very willing to enter into the discussion, were it necessary: but as it has been so particularly considered by another author, I beg leave to refer to him."* I beg the reader's patience however, while I make only one or two brief observations.

If the present actions of mankind be excusable, because they are the consequence of Adam's transgression and not of their own previous sinful actions or volitions, in the first instance; it will follow that there is no sin or moral evil in the world, nor ever has been. All the present actions of men, if they be excusable, are no moral evil. The same is true of all the actions of men ever since the fall of Adam. And even Adam's transgression itself is no moral evil; for this did not take place in consequence of any previous criminal choice or action; because by supposition, that transgression was the first sin committed by man. Whatever transgression he first committed, is the very transgression of which we are speaking: and it is absurd to talk of a sin previous to the first sin.

Concerning Dr. C's idea, that mankind are subjected to mortality, infirmity, and the influence of bodily appetites, on account of Adam's sin only, without any regard to their personal sins; and that this subjection was the cause and occasion of all the actual transgressions and

*President Edwards's Enquiry into Freedom of Will throughout;, particularly Part iv. Sect. i.

temporal calamities of the posterity of Adam; it may be observed;

1. That for reasons already given,* it appears not to be true, that mortality and the calamities of life are brought on men on account of Adam's sin merely, without regard to the personal demerit of those who suffer them.

2. That the human race was indeed, in the sentence of God on Adam, subjected to infirmity and mortality: but it was no more subjected to these, than it was to depravity and sin. At least to assert the contrary would be to beg an important point in dispute: and to be sure, Dr. C. could not with any consistency assert the contrary. He holds throughout this, and all his other works, that the human race is subjected to infirmity on account of Adam's sin, and the Doctor's idea of this infirmity amounts to a proper moral depravity of nature. All that is meant, or that needs to be meant, by the moral depravity natural to mankind, in this fallen state, so far as that depravity is distinct from actual sin, is something in our nature, which universally leads to actuat sin. Whether this something exist primarily in the body and bodily appetites, or primarily in the soul, is perfectly immaterial, so long as it is an unfailing source of actual sin, as Dr. C. manifestly considers it. In his Five Dissertations he is very explicit and abundant in this matter. His words are, "In consequence of the operation of appetites and inclinations seated in our mortal bodies, we certainly shall, without the interposition of gracedo that the doing of which will denominate us the captives of sin and the servants of corruption." "He" [the apostle] "ascribes it to the flesh, by means of the overbearing influence of its propensities in this our present mortal state, that-we do that which our minds disap prove;"§ and in many other passages to the same effect,

* See page 190. †See page 45, &c. ‡ Page 277, Ibid,

So that Dr. C. really, though it seems undesignedly, held, that moral depravity of nature comes upon all mankind, on' account of Adam's sin: and his favourite construction of Rom. v. 12; "And so death passed upon all men, for that" (or as he will have it, whereupon, in consequence of which)" all have sinned;" comes to this only; that on account of Adam's sin, a divine sentence was denounced on the whole human race, dooming it to a state of moral depravity; in consequence of which moral depravity all men commit actual sin. What then has the Doctor gained by the construction of this passage, which he has laboured so hardly in this and his other works to establish; and in which he claims to be an orginal; and which perhaps is the only particular in his whole book, with respect to which he has a right to set up this claim? It is also curious to see a gentleman of Dr. C's abilities, both opposing and defending with all his might, the native moral depravity of human nature!

son;

Reasons have been already given, why willingly ought to be understood not to mean through the fault of a perbut in its original proper sense, with the consent of a person. If those reasons be sufficient, there is a further difficulty in Dr. C's construction of this passage, especially of the 20th verse. According to his construction of x, creature, the apostle declares, that mankind are subject to their bodily appetites, and so to sin, not willingly, not with their own consent. But is it possible, that men should be subject to bodily appetites, and should commit actual, personal sin, without their own consent?-If, to evade this observation, it be said, that they are however by the act of God, without any previous consent of their own, subjected to frailty, mortality, bodily appetites, and so to sin; this would be mere trifling. Who ever imagined, that God first waited for the consent of mankind, and having obtained their con