temptation: what greater proof of a fallen nature have _I_ ever given?
or what is it possible for any one to give?--I thus discerned that
there was _à priori_ impossibility of fixing on myself the imputation
of _degeneracy_, without fixing the same on Adam. In short, Adam
undeniably proved his primitive nature to be frail; so do we all: but
as _he_ was nevertheless not primitively corrupt, why should we call
ourselves so? Frailty, then, is not corruption, and does not prove
degeneracy.

"Original sin" (says one of the 39 Articles) "standeth not in the
following of Adam, _as the Pelagians do vainly talk_," &c. Alas, then!
was I become a Pelagian? certainly I could no longer see that Adam's
first sin affected me more than his second or third, or so much as the
sins of my immediate parents. A father who, for instance, indulges
in furious passions and exciting liquors, may (I suppose) transmit
violent passions to his son. In this sense I could not wholly reject
the possibility of transmitted corruption; but it had nothing to do
with the theological doctrine of the "Federal Headship" of Adam. Not
that I could wholly give up this last doctrine; for I still read it in
the 5th chapter of Romans. But it was clear to me, that whatever that
meant, I could not combine it with the idea of degeneracy, nor could
I find a proof of it in the _fact_ of prevalent wickedness. Thus I
received a shadowy doctrine on mere Scriptural _authority_; it had no
longer any root in my understanding or heart.

Moreover, it was manifest to me that the Calvinistic view is based in
a vain attempt to acquit God of having created a "sinful" being, while
the broad Scriptural fact is, that he did create a being as truly
"liable to sin" as any of us. If that needs no exculpation, how more
does _our_ state need it? Does it not suffice to say, that "every