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 another that did not act, then it lies against all that is of that nature.... If these reasons are good, all the difference is this: that to bring a _great_ punishment on infants for Adam’s sin, is a _great_ act of injustice, and to bring a comparatively _smaller_ punishment is a smaller act of injustice; but not, that this is not as truly and demonstrably an act of injustice as the other.”(183) We hold this to be a solid and unanswerable argument; and we hold also, that God can no more commit a small act of injustice than a great one. Hence, in the eye of _reason_, there is no medium between rejecting the whole of the imputation of Adam’s sin, and ceasing to object against the imputation of the whole of it, as inconsistent with the justice and goodness of God. We may arbitrarily wipe out a portion of it in order to relieve our _imagination_; but this brings no relief to the calm and passionless reason. It may still the wild tumults of emotion, but it cannot silence the voice of the intellect. Why not relieve both the _imagination_ and the _reason_? Why not wipe out the whole dark film of imputation, and permit the glad eye to open on the bright glory of God’s infinite goodness?