nned. Second, from Adam to Christ all the innocents upon earth
were sinners by the arbitrary decree of Jehovah. Third, the Father put
this _decree-load_ of guilt upon an innocent one, and executed the real
penalty upon him. How is this? Suppose a legislative body legislates a
man a murderer because his great great grand-father killed a man, should
it not also legislate him free from the penalty of murder and never in
cruel injustice inflict it upon him or any other innocent one simply as
a satisfaction to justice? Law ought to always place us where we are in
fact, otherwise it is detestably unjust. Why should any sensible man
attribute such dealings to the Father of Spirits? The fallacy of such
teaching is seen in the fact that the penalty of the Adamic law was
executed _in the day of the transgression_, and not nine hundred nor
thousands of years afterwards. The phrase, "Dying thou shalt die" does
not help the case, for the phrase "In the day" limits the penalty as
respects the time of its fulfillment.

Adam lost citizen life in the Garden of Eden in the very day of his
offense. The full penalty was executed when he was driven out. Physical
death was an after result, growing out of the fact that Adam's posterity
was unborn when he was driven from his Eden home. The Lord did not say
to Adam, in the day thou eatest thereof you shall die and not live
again, if he had the way of redemption would have been forever closed
against him. Adam's first sons appear before us with a law of faith,
embracing typical and sacrificial duties, through which they were
brought into the way of life with reference to an ultimate arrival at
the tree of life in the midst of the paradise of God.

This law of faith was given to Adam's family outside of the Garden; and
the law of Sinai was not given to Adam, nor to his immediate posterity,
for in that case Cain would have been put to death for killing his
brother Abel. It was given to Abraham's family after the exodus from
Egypt. It was a political law, because it pertained to a community.

Next in order follows the law of Christ. Beside these we know of no
revealed law, excepting those of which we have spoken. So this vicarious
punishment system of things, with all its consequences, rests upon a
something that men call the inexorable law of God, which a man can not
find in the annals of creation, providence or redemption. The prophet,
in the language of our quotation, "The soul that sinneth it