ver committed, and to punish them in their
souls eternally for that which is no act of theirs."(181) It certainly
"seems very hard," as the author says, "to apprehend how persons who have
never sinned, but are only unhappily descended, should be, in consequence
of that, under so great a misery." But how to escape the pressure of this
stupendous difficulty is the question. There are many who cannot endure
it; or rather, there are very few who can endure it; but, as Bishop Burnet
says, they find no difficulty in the idea of temporal punishment on
account of Adam's sin. "This, they think, is easily enough reconcilable
with the notions of justice and goodness, since this is only a temporary
_punishment_ relating to men's persons."(182) But do they not sacrifice
their logic to their feelings? Let us see.

This view of a limited imputation, and a limited _punishment_, is not
confined to the Church of England. It prevails to a greater or less extent
in all denominations. But President Edwards has, we think, unanswerably
exposed the inconsistency of its advocates. "One of them supposes," says
he, "that this sin, though truly imputed to INFANTS, so that thereby they
are exposed to a proper _punishment_, yet is not imputed to them in such a
_degree_, as that upon this account they should be liable to _eternal_
punishment, as Adam himself was, but only to _temporal death_, or
_annihilation_; Adam himself, the immediate actor, being made infinitely
more guilty of it than his posterity. On which I would observe, that to
suppose God imputes, not _all_ the guilt of Adam, but only _some little
part_ of it, relieves nothing but his _imagination_. To think of poor
little infants bearing such torments for Adam's sin, as they sometimes do
in this world, and these torments ending in death and annihilation, may
sit easier on the imagination, than to conceive of their suffering eternal
misery for it; but it does not at all relieve one's _reason_. There is no
rule of reason that can be supposed to lie against imputing a sin in the
_whole_ of it, which was committed by one, to another who did not
personally commit it, but will also lie against its being so imputed and
punished in _part_; for all the reasons (if there be any) lie against the
_imputation_, not the _quality_ or _degree_ of what is imputed. If there
be any rule of reason that is strong and good, lying against a proper
derivation or communication of guilt from one that acted to anothe