t word, as the Concordance
shows, does not once occur in the Canonical Scriptures in any relation
to the sin of Adam.

It is very noteworthy that after the account of Adam's sin in Genesis,
no express mention is made of it in subsequent Canonical Books, till we
come to the fifth chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, where
the introduction of sin into the world by _one man_ is prominently
adduced in an argumentative passage which appears to me to have been
much misunderstood.[1] The reason that a fact which is so essential an
element in theological systems is so little adverted to in the
Scriptures, I consider to be, that these systems have hitherto not
recognized an analogy which may be presumed to exist between God's
natural creation and His spiritual creation. From what is stated in
Genesis i. and ii. there is reason to say that the natural creation was
at its beginning without form, and dark, and unfurnished, and that by
the power of the Creator, operating, we may presume, according to laws,
it was brought into the state of order, light, and adornment (_kosmos_)
which we now behold. Hence, arguing from analogy, we {15} might infer
that the spiritual creation has its beginning in the reign of sin and
death, and that by the power of the Spirit of God, operating according
to law on our spirits, it has its consummation in the establishment of
righteousness and life.

This analogical inference suffices, I think, to explain why, after the
brief initial account of the entrance of sin and death into the world,
the purport of the whole of Scripture is to record the subsequent
prevalence of sin, and to reveal by what means grace abounded in the
gift of righteousness, and how it abounded all the more because the law
of sin and death "passed" from one man "upon all men" (Rom. v. 12).
The apostle Paul argues that whereas "_death_ reigned through one,
_much rather_ shall they who receive the abundance of grace and of the
gift of righteousness reign in _life_ through one Jesus Christ" (Rom.
v. 17); and in accordance with this doctrine he adds (v. 20), "The law
entered by the way (_pareiselen_) _in order that_ the offence might
abound, but where sin abounded grace did much more abound." It seems
impossible to draw from such sentences as these any other inference
than that, according to the scheme of the spiritual creation, the reign
of sin and death is the necessary antecedent of the evolution of life
from righteousness