t of the world,
not as it is darkly distorted in certain systems of theology, but as it is
in itself, replete with light and ineffable beauty.

But before we undertake to show this by direct arguments, let us pause and
consider the predicament to which the greatest divines have reduced
themselves, by their advocacy of such an imputation of the sin of one man.
Dr. Dick affirms, as we have seen, that every evil brought upon man under
the good providence of God, must be a punishment for sin; and hence, as
infants do not actually sin, they are exposed to divine wrath on account
of the sin of Adam, which is imputed to them. But is not this imputation,
which draws after itself pain and death, also an evil? How has it
happened, then, that in the good providence of God, this tremendous evil,
this frightful source of so many evils, has been permitted to fall on the
infant world? Must there not be some other sin imputed to justify the
infliction of such an evil, and so on _ad infinitum_? Will Dr. Dick carry
out his principle to this consequence? Will he require, as in consistency
he is bound to require, that the tremendous evil of the imputation of sin
shall not fall upon any part of God's creation, except as a punishment for
some antecedent guilt? No, indeed: at the very second step his great
principle, so confidently and so dogmatically asserted, completely breaks
down under him. The imposition of this evil is justified, not by any
antecedent guilt, but by the divine constitution, according to which Adam
is the federal head and representative of the human race. Thus, after all,
Dr. Dick has found some principle or ground on which to justify the
infliction of evil, beside the principle of guilt or ill-desert. Might
there not possibly be, then, such a divine constitution of things, as to
bring suffering upon the offspring of Adam in consequence of his sin,
without resorting to the dark and enigmatical fiction of the imputation of
his transgression? If there be a divine constitution, as Dr. Dick contends
there is, which justifies the imputation of moral evil, with all its
frightful consequences, both temporal and eternal death, may it not be
possible, in the nature of things, to suppose a divine constitution to
justify suffering without the imputation of sin? How can the one of these
things be so utterly repugnant to the divine character, and the other so
perfectly agreeable to it? Until this question be answered, we may suspect
th