Emily Dickinson Lexicon

SUB-LAP-SA'RI-AN, n.

One who maintains the sublapsarian doctrine, that the sin of Adam's apostasy being imputed to all his posterity, God, in compassion, decreed to send his Son to rescue a great number from their lost state, and to accept his obedience and death on their account. The decree of reprobation, according to the sublapsarians, is nothing but a preterition or non-election of persons, whom God left as he found, involved in the guilt of Adam's transgression without any personal sin, when he withdrew some others as guilty as they. – Hammond. [Sublapsarian is opposed to supralapsarian.]