Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

Note VII. 349
justice." The result of this distinction is, that God, in
cases of punishment for imputed sin, inflicts no more
evil than He has a right to inflict where there is no sin
in the case. But if on such a ground the imputation of
sin is reconciled with our idea of justice, what becomes
of the idea itself of imputation ? There is evidently no
real imputation of, no punishment for, another s sin, and
therefore this whole mode of representing original sin
falls to the ground. Taylor says, By reason of the rela
tion of the afflicted to him that sinned, to him it is a
punishment. Why so ? Whether a certain evil is a
punishment depends on the ground on which it is inflicted.
If it is inflicted on the ground of guilt, actual or imputed,
it is punishment; if it is inflicted simply jure Domini /,
on the ground of that right which the Maker of the
world has over the lives and fortunes of His creatures, it
is not punishment, but Providence. But is Taylor still
and lie
unwilling to abandon the idea of punishment,
suggests a form of punishment which, he thinks, is not
liable to any charge of injustice. In Adam we are made
sinners, that is, treated ill or afflicted, though ourselves
be innocent of that sin, ivhich was the occasion of our
being used so severely for other sins, of which we were,
not innocent ]). 4. God inflicts pain upon us, then ;
which pain is punishment, because such pain is greater
than it would have been but for Adam s sin ; we are not
punished for Adam s sin, but we are, in consequence of
Adam s sin, punished worse for our own sins. But the
difficulty of punishment is not at all lessened by this
artifice of attaching the to
punishment
our own actual
sins in the first place, and only charging upon Adam s sin
the increase of this Increase of
punishment.
punishment
is fresh punishment. Taylor
thus oscillates between
Adam s
acknowledging and disowning punishment for
sin. He disowns it as inconsistent with justice ; he
acknowledges it because he cannot wholly deny that some
thing very like it is maintained in Scripture, and he
shrinks from wholly giving up the received doctrine. He