as actions are. God created man, and some other intelligences superior to man, with a liberty of acting; which liberty of acting is not itself evil, but may be the cause of something that is evil." Grotius: Christian Religion, I. viii. "Peccatum non est quid substantiale, ut Flacius Illyricus, haud procul a Manichaeismo, saltem de originale labe statuebat. Materia peccati proxima est ipsamet vel eğis vel actio vitiosa." Maresius: Systema, VI. 6, 8. The term eis is used by Plato and Aristotle to denote the habitual disposition of a faculty of the mind, in distinction from the substance of the faculty itself. "Sin," says Calvin (Inst., II. i. 11), "is rather an adventitious quality or accident, than a substantial property originally innate."

The first sin of man, though proximately and formally the violation of the Eden statute, was ultimately and implicitly the violation of the whole moral law. The contempt of the Divine authority in transgressing the commandment not to eat of the tree of knowledge, was the contempt of Divine authority generally. "He that offendeth in one point is guilty of all," James 2:10. Hence sin is defined as "the transgression of law," or lawlessness. 1 John 3:4.

The moral law violated by the free will of man is both written, and unwritten: the law of nature, and the decalogue. Rom. 2:14-16. The points of difference between them have been specified under the head of Revelation. Vol. I., p. 62 sq. The two laws are originally and essentially the same. The ethics of man's rational nature as he came from the Creator's hand, and of the decalogue, are identical. The now existing difference between the two is due to apostasy. "The natural law," says Ursinus (Christian Religion, Quest. 92), "doth not differ from the moral in nature not corrupted; but in nature corrupted, a good part of the nat ural law is darkened by sins, and but a little part only concerning the obedience due to God was left remaining in man's mind after the fall: for which cause, also, God hath

in his church repeated again and declared the whole sentence and doctrine of his law in the decalogue. Therefore the decalogue is a restoring and re-entering or reinforcing of the law of nature; and the law of nature is a part only of the decalogue." Such being the connection between the unwritten and written law, it follows that sin in the heathen is the same in kind with sin in Christendom. Free and responsible human will, in both instances, transgresses a common law and ethics. The difference between the violation of the unwritten law and the written, is one of degree only. "As many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law," Rom. 2: 12.

CHAPTER V.

ORIGINAL SIN.

Augustine: City of God, XIV. xii. xiii.; De natura et gratia; Contra Julianum; Opus imperfectum contra Julianum. Anselm : De Conceptu virginali et originali peccato. Aquinas: Summa, II. (1) lxxix.-lxxxvii. Lombard: Sententiarum, II. xxii. 12. Calvin: Institutes, II. i.-v. Ursinus: Christian Religion, Qu. 7-9. Turrettin Institutio, IX. viii.-xii. Placaeus De Imputatione. Burgess: Original Sin. Charnocke: Attributes (Holiness). Owen: Vindiciae, VI; Arminianism, VII. VIII. Howe Oracles, II. xxiii.-xxvii; Temple, II. viii. Episcopius: Opera, II. vii. (Apologia). John Taylor: Original Sin. Jeremy Taylor: Original Sin. Davenant: Justification, Ch. XIV. Usher: Original Sin. Butler: Sermons on Human Nature. Edwards: Original Sin. King: Origin of Evil. Nitzsch: Christian Doctrine, 107, 111. Wiggers: Augustinianism and Pelagianism (Emerson's Tr.). Watson: Institutes, Pt. II. Ch. xviii. Baur: Gegensatz (Lehre von der Sünde). Gangauf: Aug. Psychologie, VI. 7, 8. Heppe: Dogmatik der Evangelish-Reformirten Kirche; Dogmatik des Deutschen Protestantismus. Schweitzer Glaubenslehre der Evangelisch-Reformirten Kirche. Rivetus: Testimonia de Imputatione. Landis: Original Sin and Gratuitous Imputation. Princeton Essays: On Imputation. Fisher: Discussions (Augustinian and Federal Theories). Müller: Sin, I. i. ii. ; IV. i. ii. Shedd: History of Doctrine, II. 50-177; Theological Essays (Original Sin).

"THE sinfulness of that estate [status, or condition] whereinto man fell consists in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of the whole nature which is commonly called original sin; together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it." Westminster Shorter Catechism, 18.

According to this doctrinal statement, there are three

particulars under the general head of Sin. 1. The guilt of the first sin. 2. The corruption of nature resulting from the first sin. 3. Actual transgressions, or sins of act, which result from corruption of nature.

1. The first part of the sinfulness of man's estate or condition is the guilt of the first sin. The first sin of Adam, strictly and formally considered, was the transgression of the particular command not to eat of the tree of knowledge. This was a positive statute, and not the moral law. It tested obedience more severely than the moral law does, because the latter carries its own reason with it, while the former containing no intrinsic morality appealed to no reason except the mere good pleasure of God. To disobey it, was to disregard the authority of God, and involved disobedience of all law. The guilt of Adam's first sin is the guilt of transgressing the law of Eden explicitly, and the moral law implicitly. "The rule of obedience revealed to Adam, besides a special command not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, was the moral law." Westminster L. C., 92.

The first sin of Adam was twofold: (a) Internal; (b) External. The internal part of it was the originating and starting of a wrong inclination. The external part of it was the exertion of a wrong volition prompted by the wrong inclination. Adam first inclined to self instead of God, as the ultimate end. He became an idolater, and "worshipped and served the creature more than the creator," Rom. 1:25. Then, in order to gratify this new inclination, he reached forth his hand and ate of the forbidden fruit. "Our first parents fell into open disobedience, because already they were secretly corrupted; for the evil act had never been done had not an evil inclination (voluntas) preceded it. And what is the origin of our evil inclination but pride? And what is pride but the craving for undue exaltation? And this is undue exaltation, when the soul abandons Him to whom it ought to cleave as its end, and

becomes an end to itself. The wicked desire to please himself secretly existed in Adam, and the open sin was but its consequence." Augustine: City of God, XIV. xiii. Edwards (Original Sin, Works, II. 385) directs attention to the internal part of Adam's first sin, in the following manner. His opponent Taylor had said that "Adam could not sin [externally] without a sinful inclination." Edwards replies that "this is doubtless true; for although there was no natural sinful inclination in [holy] Adam, yet an inclination to that sin of eating the forbidden fruit was begotten in him by the delusion and error he was led into, and this inclination to eat the forbidden fruit must precede his actual eating." The rising of this sinful desire and inclination, Edwards considers to be the firsts in itself. There was not a first sin prior to it of which the sinful inclination was the effect; but the very inclining away from God to the creature was Adam's fall itself, and that of his posterity in him. "I am humbly of the opinion," he says (Original Sin, Works, II. 481), "that if any have supposed the children of Adam to come into the world with a double guilt, one the guilt of Adam's sin, another the guilt arising from their having a corrupt heart, they have not so well conceived of the matter. The guilt a man has upon his soul at his first [individual] existence, is one and simple, viz., the guilt of the original apostasy, the guilt of the sin by which the species first rebelled against God. This, and the guilt arising from the first corruption or depraved disposition of the heart, are not to be looked upon as two things, distinctly imputed and charged upon men in the sight of God. It is true that the guilt that arises from the corruption of the heart as it remains a confirmed principle, and appears in its subsequent operations, is a distinct and additional guilt; but the guilt arising from the first existing [the start, or origination] of a depraved disposition in Adam's posterity, I apprehend is not distinct from their guilt of Adam's first sin. For so it was not in Adam himself. The first evil disposi