Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

348
Note VII.
father, as he can be said to have done the father s action ;
and therefore we cannot possibly be guilty for it, for guilt
is an obligation to punishment for having done it ; the
action and the guilt are relatives one cannot be done
without the other, something must be done inwardly or
outwardly, or there can be no guilt. But then for the evil
of punishment, that may pass further than the action. If
it passes upon the innocent it is not a punishment to them,
but an evil inflicted in right of dominion ; but yet by
reason of the relation of the afflicted to him that hath
sinned, to him it is a punishment. But if it passes upon
others that are not innocent, then it is a punishment to
both ; to the first principally ; to the descendants or rela
tives for the other s sake, his sin being imputed so far,
p. 379. There is no necessity to affirm that we are
sinners in Adam any more than by imputation. p. 378.
Taylor considers this view of imputation as a middle
one between the received and the Pelagian view of original
sin. I do not approve of that gloss of the Pelagians
that in Adam we are made sinners by imitation, and much
less of that which affirms that we are made so properly
and formally. But made sinners signifies used like sinners,
in which
so as justified signifies treated like just persons ;
interpretation I follow S. Paul, not the Pelagians. p.
383.
But what is gained toward reconciling the doctrine
of original sin with our natural ideas, by substituting the
imputation of Adam s sin for sin in Adam ? If it is
contrary to reason that a man should be a party to sin
committed before he was born, it is contrary to justice
that a sin in which he was no partaker should be imputed
to him, and that he should be punished for it. It is true,
he says,
l
If the evil of punishment passes upon the
innocent, it is not a punishment to them, but an evil
inflicted by right of dominion, and therefore Eabbi
" Simeon Barsema said well, that When God visits the
vices of the fathers upon the children jure Dominii,
-non pcence utitur He uses the right of empire not of