ose on whom the grace of
regeneration is not conferred, _should be pressed with too heavy a burden
in their own eternal damnation_, if they were compelled to contract by way
of origin (_originaliter_) the _sins_ of _all_ their preceding parents
from the commencement of the human race, and _to suffer the punishment due
to them_.(173) Whether, on so great a subject, anything else can or cannot
be found, by a more diligent reading and scrutiny of the Scriptures, I
dare not hastily affirm."(174)

Thus does the sturdy logician, notwithstanding his almost indomitable
hardihood, seem to stand appalled before the consequences to which his
principles would inevitably conduct him. Having followed those principles
but a little way, the scene becomes so dark with his representations of
the divine justice, that he feels constrained to retrace his steps, and
arbitrarily introduce the divine mercy, in order to mitigate the
indescribable horrors which continually thicken around him. Such
hesitation, such wavering and inconsistency, is the natural result of
every scheme which places the decisions of the head in violent conflict
with the indestructible feelings of the heart.

In his attempt to reconcile the scheme of imputation with the justice of
God, Edwards has met with as little success as Augustine. For this
purpose, he supposed that God had constituted an identity between Adam and
all his posterity, whereby the latter became partakers of his rebellion.
"I think it would go far toward directing us to the more clear conception
and right statement of this affair," says he, in reference to imputation,
"were we steadily to bear this in mind, that God, in every step of his
proceedings with Adam, in relation to the covenant or constitution
established with him, looked on his posterity as being _one with him_. And
though he dealt more immediately with Adam, it yet was as the _head_ of
the whole body, and the _root_ of the whole tree; and in his proceedings
with him, he dealt with all the branches as if they had been then existing
in their root. From which it will follow, that both guilt, or exposedness
to punishment, and also depravity of heart, came upon Adam's posterity
just as they came upon him, as much as if he and they had all coexisted,
like a tree with many branches; allowing only for the difference
necessarily resulting from the place Adam stood in as head or root of the
whole. Otherwise, it is as if, in every step of proceeding,