the sin of his descendants, many of whom were born thousands of
years after it was committed?

Augustine, as is well known, maintained the startling paradox, that all
mankind were present in Adam, and sinned in him. In this way, he supposed
that all men became partakers in the guilt of Adam's sin, and consequently
justly liable to the penalty due to his transgression. Augustine was quite
too good a logician not to perceive, that if all men are responsible for
Adam's sin, because they were in him when he transgressed, then, it
follows, that we are also responsible for the sins of all our ancestors,
from whom we are more immediately descended. This follows from that maxim
of jurisprudence, from that dictate of common-sense, that a rule of law is
coextensive with the reason upon which it is based. Hence, as Wiggers
remarks: "Augustine thought it not improbable that the sins of ancestors
_universally_ are imputed to their descendants."(171) This conclusion is
clearly set forth in the extracts made by the translator of Wiggers.(172)
If this scheme be true, we know indeed that we are all guilty of Adam's
sin; but who, or how many of the human race, were the perpetrators of
Cain's murder beside himself, we cannot determine. Indeed, if this
frightful hypothesis be well founded, if it form a part of the moral
constitution of the world, no man can possibly tell how many thefts,
murders, or treasons, he may have committed in his ancestors. One thing is
certain, however, and that is, that the man who is born later in the
course of time, will have the more sins to answer for, and the more
fearful will be the accumulation of his guilt; as all the transgressions
of all his ancestors, from Adam down to his immediate parents, will be
laid upon his head.

Clearly as this consequence is involved in the fundamental principle of
Augustine's theory, the good father could not but reel and stagger under
it. "Respecting the sins of the other parents," says he, "the progenitors
from Adam down to one's own immediate father, _it may not improperly be
debated_, whether the child is implicated in the evil acts and multiplied
original faults of _all_, so that each one is the worse in proportion as
he is later; or that, in respect to the sins of their parents, God
threatens posterity to the third and fourth generation, because, _by the
moderation of his compassion_, he does not further extend his anger in
respect to the faults of progenitors, lest th