ly and personally in Adam
many thousand years before they were born, so as to sin with him, adopted
the hypothesis, that _if they had been in his place they would have
sinned_, and are therefore justly exposed to the penalty due to his
transgression; according to which theory each soul might be made liable to
the guilt of infinitely more sin than any finite being could possibly
commit. Another age, rising above such dark notions respecting the nature
of sin and the justice of God, maintained the hypothesis that Adam's sin
was imputed to all his posterity, by which the fearful penalty due to his
sin might be justly inflicted upon them. According to a fifth theory, it
is clear that "nothing under the empire of Jehovah" can be sin, except a
known transgression of the law; and infants are punished, because, as soon
as they come into the world, they knowingly transgress the law of God.
They cannot _knowingly_ sin, says a sixth theory; but still they really
transgress the law of God by those little bubbling emotions of anger, and
so forth, as soon as they come into existence; and hence, the penalty of
sin is inflicted upon them. Such are some of the hypotheses which have
been adopted by Christian theologians to reconcile the suffering of
infants with the justice and goodness of God. The more we look into them,
the more we are amazed that the great lights of the world should have
indulged in reveries so wild and so wonderful; and the more are we
convinced, that the speculations of men on these subjects, and the whole
theological literature of the world in relation to it, form one of the
darkest chapters in the history of the human mind.

How unlike are such views respecting the origin and existence of natural
evil to the divine simplicity and beauty of the gospel! "Who did sin, this
man or his parents," said the disciples to our Saviour, "that he was born
blind?" They made no doubt but that the great evil of natural blindness
must have been the punishment of some sin; and merely wished to know
whether it were his own sin, committed in some former state of existence,
or the sin of his parents. Their minds seem to have hung in a state of
vacillation between the theory of Plato and that of imputation. But our
Saviour replied: "Neither did this man sin, nor his parents," that he was
born blind; but "that the work of God might be made manifest in him." We
thank thee, O blessed Master, for that sweet word! How delightful is it,
after