What is objected against what has been before laid down, in explaining this doctrine as though it were inconsistent with the sense of several scriptures, which speak of sin, as derived from our immediate parents. For the understanding of which, in general, let it be considered, that no sense of any scripture is true, that casts the least reflection on the divine perfections. If we could but prove, that our souls were propagated by our immediate parents, as our bodies are, there would be no difficulty in allowing the sense the objectors give of several scriptures, from whence they attempt to account for the corruption of nature in a different way, since God would not then be the immediate author thereof. But, supposing the soul to be created by God, we must take some other method to account for the sense of some scriptures, which are brought in opposition to the foregoing explication of the origin of moral evil. The first scripture, which is generally brought against it, is, in Psal. li. 5. _Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me_; the meaning of which is, I was conceived, and born guilty of sin, with an inability to do what is good, and in such a state, that actual sin would necessarily ensue, as soon as I was capable of committing it, which would bring with it a propensity to all manner of sin. And that David had a sense of guilt, as well as the pollution of nature, is plain, from several verses of this Psalm; especially in ver. 9, 14. It is therefore as though he should say, I was a guilty creature, as soon as I was conceived in the womb; and left of God, and so sin has the ascendant over me. I was conceived a sinner by imputation, under the guilt of Adam’s first sin; and to this I have added much more guilt, and lately that of blood-guiltiness. So that though he is said to have been _shapen in iniquity_, it does not necessarily follow, that his soul was created with infused habits of sin. Whatever the parents are the cause of, with respect to this corruption and pollution, let it be attributed to them; but far be it from us to say, that God is the cause thereof.