spect to the subject of sin, and one that I propose briefly to examine, before I proceed further in the great topic before us. They concede that all sin must consist in the actual and voluntary transgression of law; but they maintain at the same time, that infants, for example, have from the earliest period of their existence some proper knowledge of the divine law; at all events, that they have so much as to render them capable of being sinners in the sense alleged, i. e. in the sense of being voluntary transgressors.

I deem it proper to bestow a few moments' attention on this view of our subject; not so much for the sake of the theory itself, which seems not to have been hitherto regarded with much approbation, and is, as it seems to me, in but little danger of becoming popular, as on account of the principles concerned with this subject, which have an important bearing on our general topic.

We will endeavour to examine this matter, then, by proposing a few definitive questions, and giving, so far as we can, an answer to them.

I. Have infants any proper KNOWLEDGE of the divine law, i. e. such a knowledge as enables them to distinguish between MORAL good and MORAL evil?.

In order duly to answer this question, it will be necessary, first of all, to define what we mean by infants. In Greek, the word Boéqos, usually rendered infant, means either a child unborn, or a child recently born, i. e. a suckling. In English, the word infant has the same meaning, and corresponds well with the Greek Poigos. The word, in both languages, designates in all cases, when literally interpreted, a child before it comes to such a state as to exercise in any perceptible manner its intellectual and rational faculties.

I admit now, very readily, that it is impossible for men to decide exactly at what point infancy (in the sense now defined) ceases, and youth or childhood begins. But the Searcher of hearts does know; and it is for him to determine, and easy for him to determine, when moral responsibility commences.

Our present object, then, is not at all to aim at deciding exactly when inability to know the difference between good and evil ceases, but to inquire, whether there ever is such an inability, at the commencement of our existence. This inquiry seems to lie within a short compass. I shall make no appeal to our own experience, observation, or consciousness in regard

to a matter of this kind, for we might be easily misled by these in a case so peculiar as the present and so much removed from the actual sphere of observation; but I will appeal simply to declarations of the divine word, which cannot be lawfully set aside in order to make out positions of our own in regard to any speculative theology.

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In Is. 7: 14-16 the prophet declares, that a child shall be born of a virgin, whose name shall be called Immanuel, and that he shall eat butter and honey until he shall know (in) to refuse the evil and choose the good.' Here then the act of eating butter and honey is specifically designated, as a thing that would take place some time before this child could know the distinction between good and evil. This is rendered quite certain by the verse which follows: "For before the child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land shall be forsaken [i. e. the country of the Syrian and of the Samaritan kings] before whose two kings thou dost now shudder." [I translate the passage according to the proper meaning of the Hebrew.]

Here then is a case so plain and palpable, that it does not seem to admit of being explained away. If by the child Immanuel be meant here, a child which was actually born, at that period, of a virgin, and who was the designed type of a future and spiritual Immanuel, it is plain that there was a period, even after birth, and while he could eat butter and honey, during which he could not distinguish between good and evil. Now as the divine law is good, and what it forbids is evil, so it follows, that this child did not during such a period have any knowledge of the divine law, as the arbiter of good and evil. But again; if by the child Immanuel be here meant only Jesus our Saviour, to be born of a virgin at a future period, then is the passage more to our purpose still; for if the child Jesus could not, in his infancy, distinguish between good and evil, how is it possible that other children, so much inferior to him in all respects, can rationally be supposed to be capable of such knowledge?

Is it kind and candid, now, to pour down-as some have done on this view of the subject which is certainly a simple and scriptural one-a shower of exclamation points, or to pass over it in deep and guarded silence, so as to make one's readers lose sight of it, if this can be done? There are readers, we ought always to remember, who will detect every artifice of this sort; and then, if we have erected our building in such a

way, what can we rationally expect, but that it will be thrown down, and that we shall be obliged to recommence our work by endeavouring to rear up another?

In perfect consonance with this view of Isaiah respecting the infantile state of man, is the view which Moses gives in Deut.

He is speaking to the Hebrews respecting God's promise in regard to the land of Canaan, when he says: "Moreover your little ones which ye said should be a prey, and your children which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil, they shall go in thither. . . and possess it [the land]."

By little ones here are designated those whom we should usually name children, and by those "who had no knowledge. between good and evil," are meant infants, in the sense above explained. Moses then agrees fully in opinion with Isaiah, as it respects the state or condition of human beings at such an early period of their existence.

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The divine Being, in reproving Jonah for his vexation because Nineveh had not been destroyed, says: "And should I not spare Nineveh . . . wherein are more than six score thousand persons, who cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand?" Jonah 4: 11. The sentiment here is obviously the same, for substance, as in the preceding quotations, although the form of expression is a little varied.

Thus much for the scriptural view of the knowledge which infants possess. But do the Scriptures, which thus plainly and positively declare the want of power at such an early age to discern between good and evil, also inform us whether infants are still considered as transgressors? This brings us to another question:

II. Are infants declared to be transgressors, by the divine word?

I say transgressors, because I have now to do with those who admit that all sin is transgression.

Paul seems to have decided this question; at any rate he has decided it in regard to children before their birth. In Rom. ix. he discusses the difficult, and to some offensive, subject of "the election of grace," i. e. of "the purpose of God according to election." In reference to this comes up the subject of a preference given to Jacob, when he and Esau struggled in the womb of Rebecca, Gen. 25: 21. Paul says in respect to this, that the preference given to Jacob did not rest on any merit of his, or on anything good in him and evil in Esau, but that God's pur

pose in this case was wholly independent of personal merit or demerit, either actually existing or even foreseen, in these two children: "For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, etc."

If now, in order to avoid the force of this declaration, it should be said, that the essence of Paul's affirmation has respect to outward acts of good or evil, and not to internal sin; then the answer is easy. On this ground the apostle's reasoning would be nugatory. His position is, that the distinction made in the case before us was not made on the ground of any merit or demerit of any kind in the children, but wholly of God's own elective purpose. Now if both the children, after all, were actual sinners, (and those with whom we now have to do maintain that they were such), then of course there did exist demerit in the case, at all adventures. But the apostle, by the very ground of his reasoning, assumes it to be a case of neither merit nor demerit, and therefore the divine decision was grounded entirely on reasons within the mind itself of the divine Being. Surely, if the position of those whom we are now opposing is correct, the sin of an infant, no matter how early it is, is a ground of demerit, as really and truly as a sin at any other period; for by their own statement, it is to be regarded as the transgression of a known law. Yet the apostle, from the simple fact that the children were not born, considers it as self-evident that they had not done any good or evil. We have seen a sufficient reason for such a view of the subject, in the declarations of Moses and Isaiah, viz., that infants" do not know to choose the good and refuse the evil."

I cannot resist the feeling that these considerations are decisive, in respect to the matter now under examination; and therefore, that those, who profess to believe in the essentially voluntary and active nature of sin, cannot find support for their views respecting the actual sin of infants. I am fully aware of the texts to which they appeal; but these appeals do not convince my mind of the correctness of their position. I can advert, however, only to some of the leading texts here, with merely a word upon them as we pass them in review.

"Thou wast called a transgressor from the womb," Is. 48: 8. "The wicked are estranged from the womb," Ps. 58: 3. "Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me," Ps. 51: 5.

I put these together, because they are all of the same general tenor. The two first, it is said, affirm that men are transgressors from the time that they are born; the third, that they are sinners even from the moment of their conception.

If this be a fair and legitimate exegesis, then it can prove, at most, only that infants are to be called sinners in such a sense as does not imply a knowledge of sin, or any power to distinguish between good and evil; for Moses and Isaiah, not to mention Jonah, have expressly decided that infants have no such power. These texts, moreover, can prove infants to be sinners only in some sense which differs from that of doing evil; for Paul expressly declares that infants, before their birth, do neither good nor evil. If now they are really sinners not only from the womb, but even from the moment of conception, and all the above expressions are to be literally understood, then their sin must be such a sin as Turretin and Edwards have pleaded for, i. e. one which is antecedent to all thought, desire, voluntary affection, or action; one which is connate and innate; yea, one which constitutes a part of the very elements of our being as modified since the fall of our first parents. In no other sense can we predicate an assertion of sin in these passages, without interpreting them so as to contradict other plain and positive declarations of the Scriptures.

In my own apprehension, it would be as correct to say, that we must interpret the Scriptures literally, when they speak of the hands, feet, eyes, mouth, arm, sword, shield, buckler, bow, arrows, etc., of the Almighty, as to say that we must interpret the texts before us in a literal manner. Who does not see, or rather, who can refuse to see, that they are animated expressions, designed to characterize with intensity the great and longcontinued wickedness of the individuals to whom they are applicable, wickedness even from the earliest period of their being when they were susceptible of sin? Must I, when the prophet Isaiah says: "Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty... and turneth it upside down;" or when the Psalmist says: "He [Jehovah] did fly, yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind;" or when he says again: "The mountains skipped like rams, the little hills like lambs," or once more when he says: "Let the floods clap their hands, let the hills exult together;"-must I find a literal meaning for all this? Or was it intense feeling in the poet or prophet, which gave birth to such language, and which is to be interpreted merely

SECOND SERIES, VOL. II. NO. III.

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