Reason, the Only Oracle of Man; Or, A Compendius System of Natural ReligionAllen, Ethan
Religion
Reason, the Only Oracle of Man; Or, A Compendius System of Natural Religion
Allen, Ethan
Rationalism
argument in the premises, and on a full examination of both parts of
the doctrine, rejected the whole; for on a fair scrutiny I found, that
I must concede to it entirely or not at all, or else believe
inconsistently as the clergyman had argued.
Having opened and explained the doctrine, we proceed argumentatively to
consider it. Imputation of sin or righteousness includes an alteration
or transferring of the personal merits or demerits of sin or
righteousness, from those who may be supposed to have been active in the
one or the other, to others, who are premised not to have been active
therein, otherwise it would not answer the Bible notion of imputation.
For if sin or righteousness, vice or virtue, are imputable only to their
respective personal proficients or actors, in this case original sin
must have been imputed to Adam and Eve, to the exclusion of their
posterity, and the righteousness of Christ as exclusively imputed to
himself, precluding all others therefrom; so that both the sin of the
first Adam and the righteousness of the second, would, on this stating
of imputation, have been matters which respect merely the agency, of the
demerits or merits of the two respective Adams themselves, and in which
we could have had no blame, reward or concern, any more than in the
building of Babel.
This then is the question that determines the sequel of the dispute for
or against the doctrine of imputation, viz. whether the personal
merit or demerit of mankind, that is to say, their virtue or vice,
righteousness or wickedness can be alienated, imputed to, or transferred
from one person to another, or not? If any should object against this
stating of the question now in dispute, it would be the same in reality
as disputing against the doctrine of imputation itself, for imputation
must transfer or change the personal merit or demerit of the sin or
righteousness of mankind or not do it; if it does not do it, the whole
notion of original sin or of righteousness, as being imputed from the
first and second Adams to mankind, is without foundation, consequently,
if there is any reality in the doctrine of imputation, it must needs
transfer or change the guilt of original sin, or of the apostacy of Adam
and Eve, to their posterity, or otherwise they could need no atonement
or imputative righteousness, as a remedy therefrom, but every individual
of "mankind would have stood accountable to their creator and judge on
the basis of their own moral agency," which is undoubted the true state
of the case, respecting all rational and accountable beings; so that if
the transferring of the individual merits or demerits of one person
to another, is not contained in the act or doctrine of imputation, it
contains nothing at all, but is a sound without a meaning, and after all
the talk which has been in the world about it, we must finally adopt to
old proverb, viz. "every tub stands upon its own bottom."
SECTON II. THE MORAL RECTITUDE OF THINGS FORECLOSES...
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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