Adam and Eve, by Satan's wiles decoy'd,
Did what the kind Commandment said - avoid.
To them with justice therefore you impute
The sin of eating the forbidden fruit:
And ev'ry imputation must in fact,
If just, be built on some preceding act;
Without the previous deed suppos'd, the word
Becomes unjust, unnatural, and absurd.
If as you seem'd to think the other day,
All Adam's race, in some mysterious way,
Sinn'd when he sinn'd; consented to his fall,
With justice then impute it to them all:
But still it follows that they all contract
An imputation founded upon fact.
And Righteousness of Christ, in Christian heirs
Must be as deeply and as truly theirs;
A heav'nly life in order to replace,
As was the sin that made a guilty race.
Old Eli thus, not knowing what to think,
Imputed Hannah's viol'nt pray'r to drink.
Little supposing that it would prepare
A successor to him, her silent pray'er.
There may be other meanings of the phrase,
To be accounted for in human ways;
But God's imputing to the future Child,
The sin by which his Parents were beguil'd;
Seems to establish, an unrighteous blame,
That brings no honour to its Maker's name.
