SECTION III. CONTAINING REMARKS ON THE ATONEMENT...
AND SATISFACTION FOR ORIGINAL SIN
The doctrine of imputation is in every point of view incompatible with the moral perfections of God. We will premise, that the race of Adam in their respective generations was guilty of the apostacy, and obnoxious to the vindictive justice and punishment of God, and accordingly doomed to either an eternal or temporary punishment therefore, which is the Bible representation of the matter. What possibility could there have been of reversing the divine decree? It must be supposed to have been just, or it could not have had the divine sanction, and if so, a reversal of it would be unjust. But it would be still a greater injustice to lay the blame and vindictive punishment of a guilty race of condemned sinners upon an innocent and inoffensive being, for in this case the guilty would be exempted from their just punishment, and the innocent unjustly suffer for it, which holds up to view two manifest injustices; the first consists in not doing justice to the guilty, and the second in actually punishing the innocent, which instead of atoning for sin, would add sin to sin, or injustice to injustice; and after all, if it was ever just, that the race of Adam should have been punished for the imputed sin of their premised original ancestor, be that punishment what it will, it is so still, notwithstanding the atonement, for the eternal justice and reason of things can never, be altered. This justice always defeats the possibility of satisfaction for sin by way of a mediator.
That physical evils may and have been propagated by natural generation, none can dispute, for that the facts themselves are obvious. But that moral evil can be thus propagated, is altogether chimerical, for we are not born criminals.