Imputation of Adam’s First Sin to His Posterity
A.A. Hodge
1st. All men, without exception, begin to sin as soon as they enter upon moral agency. 2nd. They are all born with an antecedent and prevailing tendency in their nature to sin. 3rd. This innate tendency is itself sin in the strictest sense. It is inherently ill–deserving as well as polluting and destructive, and without any reference to its origin in Adam, it fully deserves God’s wrath and curse, and except when expiated by the blood of Christ is always visited with that curse. President Edwards, "Freedom of the Will," pt. 4, sec. 1, says, "The essence of the virtue and vice of dispositions of the heart lies not in their cause but their nature." 4th. Men are, therefore, by nature, totally averse to all good and unable of themselves to reverse the evil tendency inherent in their nature and to choose good in preference to evil. 5th. Consequently they are by nature children of wrath, their character formed and their evil destiny fixed antecedent to any personal action of their own.
(3 votes) - Added: 07Â 29Â 2008
