1. Law is an expression of will.

The essential idea of law is that of a general expression of will enforced by power. It implies: (a) A lawgiver, or authoritative will. (b) Subjects, or beings upon whom this will terminates. (c) A general command, or expression of this will. (d) A power, enforcing the command.

These elements are found even in what we call natural law. The phrase “law of nature” involves a self-contradiction, when used to denote a mode of action or an order of sequence behind which there is conceived to be no intelligent and ordaining will. Physics derives the term “law” from jurisprudence, instead of jurisprudence deriving it from physics. It is first used of the relations of voluntary agents. Causation in our own wills enables us to see something besides mere antecedence and consequence in the world about us. Physical science, in her very use of the word “law,” implicitly confesses that a supreme Will has set general rules which control the processes of the universe.

Wayland, Moral Science, 1, unwisely defines law as “a mode of existence or order of sequence,” thus leaving out of his definition all reference to an ordaining will. He subsequently says that law presupposes an establisher, but in his definition there is nothing to indicate this. We insist, on the other hand, that the term “law” itself includes the idea of force and cause. The word “law” is from “lay” (German legen),—something laid down; German Gesetz, from setzen,—something set or established; Greek νόμος, from νέμω,—something assigned or apportioned; Latin lex, from lego,—something said or spoken. All these derivations show that man’s original conception of law is that of something proceeding from volition. Lewes, in his Problems of Life and Mind, says that the term “law” is so suggestive of a giver and impresser of law, that it ought to be dropped, and the word “method” substituted. The merit of Austin’s treatment of the subject is that he “rigorously limits the term ‘law’ to the commands of a superior”; see John Austin, Province of Jurisprudence, 1:88-93, 220-223. The defects of his treatment we shall note further on. J. S. Mill: “It is the custom, wherever they [scientific men] can trace regularity of any kind, to call the general proposition which expresses the nature of that regularity, a law; as when in mathematics we speak of the law of the successive terms of a converging series. But the expression ‘law of nature’ is generally employed by scientific men with a sort of tacit reference to the original sense of the word ‘law,’ namely, the expression of the will of a superior—the superior in this case being the Ruler of the universe.” Paley, Nat. Theology, chap. 1—“It is a perversion of language to assign any law as the efficient operative cause of anything. A law presupposes an agent; this is only the mode according to which an agent proceeds; it implies a power, for it is the order according to which that power acts. Without this agent, without this power, which are both distinct from itself, the law does nothing.” “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” “Rules do not fulfill themselves, any more than a statute-book can quell a riot” (Martineau, Types, 1:367). Charles Darwin got the suggestion of natural selection, not from the study of lower plants and animals, but from Malthus on Population; see his Life and Letters, Vol. I, autobiographical chapter. Ward, Naturalism and Agnosticism, 2:248-252—“The conception of natural law rests upon the analogy of civil law.” Ladd, Philosophy of Knowledge, 333—“Laws are only the more or less frequently repeated and uniform modes of the behavior of things”; Philosophy of Mind, 122—“To be, to stand in relation, to be self-active, to act upon other being, to obey law, to be a cause, to be a permanent subject of states, to be the same to-day as yesterday, to be identical, to be one,—all these and all similar conceptions, together with the proofs that they are valid for real beings, are affirmed of physical realities, or projected into them, only on a basis of self-knowledge, envisaging and affirming the reality of mind. Without psychological insight and philosophical training, such terms or their equivalents are meaningless in physics. And because writers on physics do not in general have this insight and this training, in spite of their utmost endeavors to treat physics as an empirical science without metaphysics, they flounder and blunder and contradict themselves hopelessly whenever they touch upon fundamental matters.” See President McGarvey’s Criticism on James Lane Allen’s Reign of Law: “It is not in the nature of law to reign. To reign is an act which can be literally affirmed only of persons. A man may reign; a God may reign; a devil may reign; but a law cannot reign. If a law could reign, we should have no gambling in New York and no open saloons on Sunday. There would be no false swearing in courts of justice, and no dishonesty in politics. It is men who reign in these matters—the judges, the grand jury, the sheriff and the police. They may reign according to law. Law cannot reign even over those who are appointed to execute the law.”

2. Law is a general expression of will.

The characteristic of law is generality. It is addressed to substances or persons in classes. Special legislation is contrary to the true theory of law.

When the Sultan of Zanzibar orders his barber to be beheaded because the latter has cut his master, this order is not properly a law. To be a law it must read: “Every barber who cuts his majesty shall thereupon be decapitated.” Einmal ist keinmal = “Once is no custom.” Dr. Schurman suggests that the word meal (Mahl) means originally time (mal in einmal). The measurement of time among ourselves is astronomical; among our earliest ancestors it was gastronomical, and the reduplication mealtime = the ding-dong of the dinner bell. The Shah of Persia once asked the Prince of Wales to have a man put to death in order that he might see the English method of execution. When the Prince told him that this was beyond his power, the Shah wished to know what was the use of being a king if he could not kill people at his pleasure. Peter the Great suggested a way out of the difficulty. He desired to see keelhauling. When informed that there was no sailor liable to that penalty, he replied: “That does not matter,—take one of my suite.” Amos, Science of Law, 33, 34—“Law eminently deals in general rules.” It knows not persons or personality. It must apply to more than one case. “The characteristic of law is generality, as that of morality is individual application.” Special legislation is the bane of good government; it does not properly fall within the province of the law-making power; it savors of the caprice of despotism, which gives commands to each subject at will. Hence our more advanced political constitutions check lobby influence and bribery, by prohibiting special legislation in all cases where general laws already exist.

3. Law implies power to enforce.

It is essential to the existence of law, that there be power to enforce. Otherwise law becomes the expression of mere wish or advice. Since physical substances and forces have no intelligence and no power to resist, the four elements already mentioned exhaust the implications of the term “law” as applied to nature. In the case of rational and free agents, however, law implies in addition: (e) Duty or obligation to obey; and (f) Sanctions, or pains and penalties for disobedience.

“Law that has no penalty is not law but advice, and the government in which infliction does not follow transgression is the reign of rogues or demons.” On the question whether any of the punishments of civil law are legal sanctions, except the punishment of death, see N. W. Taylor, Moral Govt., 2:367-387. Rewards are motives, but they are not sanctions. Since public opinion may be conceived of as inflicting penalties for violation of her will, we speak figuratively of the laws of society, of fashion, of etiquette, of honor. Only so far as the community of nations can and does by sanctions compel obedience, can we with propriety assert the existence of international law. Even among nations, however, there may be moral as well as physical sanctions. The decision of an international tribunal has the same sanction as a treaty, and if the former is impotent, the latter also is. Fines and imprisonment do not deter decent people from violations of law half so effectively as do the social penalties of ostracism and disgrace, and it will be the same with the findings of an international tribunal. Diplomacy without ships and armies has been said to be law without penalty. But exclusion from civilized society is penalty. “In the unquestioning obedience to fashion’s decrees, to which we all quietly submit, we are simply yielding to the pressure of the persons about us. No one adopts a style of dress because it is reasonable, for the styles are often most unreasonable; but we meekly yield to the most absurd of them rather than resist this force and be called eccentric. So what we call public opinion is the most mighty power to-day known, whether in society or in politics.”

4. Law expresses and demands nature.

The will which thus binds its subjects by commands and penalties is an expression of the nature of the governing power, and reveals the normal relations of the subjects to that power. Finally, therefore, law (g) Is an expression of the nature of the lawgiver; and (h) Sets forth the condition or conduct in the subjects which is requisite for harmony with that nature. Any so-called law which fails to represent the nature of the governing power soon becomes obsolete. All law that is permanent is a transcript of the facts of being, a discovery of what is and must be, in order to harmony between the governing and the governed; in short, positive law is just and lasting only as it is an expression and republication of the law of nature.

Diman, Theistic Argument, 106, 107: John Austin, although he “rigorously limited the term law to the commands of a superior,” yet “rejected Ulpian’s explanation of the law of nature, and ridiculed as fustian the celebrated description in Hooker.” This we conceive to be the radical defect of Austin’s conception. The Will from which natural law proceeds is conceived of after a deistic fashion, instead of being immanent in the universe. Lightwood, in his Nature of Positive Law, 78-90, criticizes Austin’s definition of law as command, and substitutes the idea of law as custom. Sir Henry Maine’s Ancient Law has shown us that the early village communities had customs which only gradually took form as definite laws. But we reply that custom is not the ultimate source of anything. Repeated acts of will are necessary to constitute custom. The first customs are due to the commanding will of the father in the patriarchal family. So Austin’s definition is justified. Collective morals (mores) come from individual duty (due); law originates in will; Martineau, Types, 2:18, 19. Behind this will, however, is something which Austin does not take account of, namely, the nature of things as constituted by God, as revealing the universal Reason, and as furnishing the standard to which all positive law, if it would be permanent, must conform. See Montesquieu, Spirit of Laws, book 1, sec. 14—“Laws are the necessary relations arising from the nature of things.... There is a primitive Reason, and laws are the relations subsisting between it and different beings, and the relations of these to one another.... These rules are a fixed and invariable relation.... Particular intelligent beings may have laws of their own making, but they have some likewise that they never made.... To say that there is nothing just or unjust but what is commanded or forbidden by positive laws, is the same as saying that before the describing of a circle all the radii were not equal. We must therefore acknowledge relations antecedent to the positive law by which they were established.” Kant, Metaphysic of Ethics, 169-172—“By the science of law is meant systematic knowledge of the principles of the law of nature—from which positive law takes its rise—which is forever the same, and carries its sure and unchanging obligations over all nations and throughout all ages.” It is true even of a despot’s law, that it reveals his nature, and shows what is requisite in the subject to constitute him in harmony with that nature. A law which does not represent the nature of things, or the real relations of the governor and the governed, has only a nominal existence, and cannot be permanent. On the definition and nature of law, see also Pomeroy, in Johnson’s Encyclopædia, art.: Law; Ahrens, Cours de Droit Naturel, book 1, sec. 14; Lorimer, Institutes of Law, 256, who quotes from Burke: “All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory. They may alter the mode and application, but have no power over the substance of original justice”; Lord Bacon: “Regula enim legem (ut acus nautica polos) indicat, non statuit.” Duke of Argyll, Reign of Law, 64; H. C. Carey, Unity of Law. Fairbairn, in Contemp. Rev., Apl. 1895:473—“The Roman jurists draw a distinction between jus naturale and jus civile, and they used the former to affect the latter. The jus civile was statutory, established and fixed law, as it were, the actual legal environment; the jus naturale was ideal, the principle of justice and equity immanent in man, yet with the progress of his ethical culture growing ever more articulate.” We add the fact that jus in Latin and Recht in German have ceased to mean merely abstract right, and have come to denote the legal system in which that abstract right is embodied and expressed. Here we have a proof that Christ is gradually moralizing the world and translating law into life. E. G. Robinson: “Never a government on earth made its own laws. Even constitutions simply declare laws already and actually existing. Where society falls into anarchy, the lex talionis becomes the prevailing principle.”

The law of God is a general expression of the divine will enforced by power. It has two forms: Elemental Law and Positive Enactment.

1. Elemental Law, or law inwrought into the elements, substances, and forces of the rational and irrational creation. This is twofold:

A. The expression of the divine will in the constitution of the material universe;—this we call physical, or natural law. Physical law is not necessary. Another order of things is conceivable. Physical order is not an end in itself; it exists for the sake of moral order. Physical order has therefore only a relative constancy, and God supplements it at times by miracle.

Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 210—“The laws of nature represent no necessity, but are only the orderly forms of procedure of some Being back of them.... Cosmic uniformities are God’s methods in freedom.” Philos. of Theism, 73—“Any of the cosmic laws, from gravitation on, might conceivably have been lacking or altogether different.... No trace of necessity can be found in the Cosmos or in its laws.” Seth, Hegelianism and Personality: “Nature is not necessary. Why put an island where it is, and not a mile east or west? Why connect the smell and shape of the rose, or the taste and color of the orange? Why do H2O form water? No one knows.” William James: “The parts seem shot at us out of a pistol.” Rather, we would say, out of a shotgun. Martineau, Seat of Authority, 33—“Why undulations in one medium should produce sound, and in another light; why one speed of vibration should give red color, and another blue, can be explained by no reason of necessity. Here is selecting will.” Brooks, Foundations of Zoölogy, 126—“So far as the philosophy of evolution involves belief that nature is determinate, or due to a necessary law of universal progress or evolution, it seems to me to be utterly unsupported by evidence and totally unscientific.” There is no power to deduce anything whatever from homogeneity. Press the button and law does the rest? Yes, but what presses the button? The solution crystalises when shaken? Yes, but what shakes it? Ladd, Philos. of Knowledge, 310—“The directions and velocities of the stars fall under no common principles that astronomy can discover. One of the stars—‘1830 Groombridge’—is flying through space at a rate many times as great as it could attain if it had fallen through infinite space through all eternity toward the entire physical universe.... Fluids contract when cooled and expand when heated,—yet there is the well known exception of water at the degree of freezing.” 263—“Things do not appear to be mathematical all the way through. The system of things may be a Life, changing its modes of manifestation according to immanent ideas, rather than a collection of rigid entities, blindly subject in a mechanical way to unchanging laws.” Augustine: “Dei voluntas rerum natura est.” Joseph Cook: “The laws of nature are the habits of God.” But Campbell, Atonement, Introd., xxvi, says there is this difference between the laws of the moral universe and those of the physical, namely, that we do not trace the existence of the former to an act of will, as we do the latter. “To say that God has given existence to goodness, as he has to the laws of nature, would be equivalent to saying that he has given existence to himself.” Pepper, Outlines of Syst. Theol., 91—“Moral law, unlike natural law, is a standard of action to be adopted or rejected in the exercise of rational freedom, i. e., of moral agency.” See also Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:531. Mark Hopkins, in Princeton Rev., Sept. 1882:190—“In moral law there is enforcement by punishment only—never by power, for this would confound moral law with physical, and obedience can never be produced or secured by power. In physical law, on the contrary, enforcement is wholly by power, and punishment is impossible. So far as man is free, he is not subject to law at all, in its physical sense. Our wills are free from law, as enforced by power; but are free under law, as enforced by punishment. Where law prevails in the same sense as in the material world, there can be no freedom. Law does not prevail when we reach the region of choice. We hold to a power in the mind of man originating a free choice. Two objects or courses of action, between which choice is to be made, are presupposed: (1) A uniformity or set of uniformities implying a force by which the uniformity is produced [physical or natural law]; (2) A command, addressed to free and intelligent beings, that can be obeyed or disobeyed, and that has connected with it rewards or punishments” [moral law]. See also Wm. Arthur, Difference between Physical and Moral Law.

B. The expression of the divine will in the constitution of rational and free agents;—this we call moral law. This elemental law of our moral nature, with which only we are now concerned, has all the characteristics mentioned as belonging to law in general. It implies: (a) A divine Law-giver, or ordaining Will. (b) Subjects, or moral beings upon whom the law terminates. (c) General command, or expression of this will in the moral constitution of the subjects. (d) Power, enforcing the command. (e) Duty, or obligation to obey. (f) Sanctions, or pains and penalties for disobedience.

All these are of a loftier sort than are found in human law. But we need especially to emphasize the fact that this law (g) Is an expression of the moral nature of God, and therefore of God’s holiness, the fundamental attribute of that nature; and that it (h) Sets forth absolute conformity to that holiness, as the normal condition of man. This law is inwrought into man’s rational and moral being. Man fulfills it, only when in his moral as well as his rational being he is the image of God.

Although the will from which the moral law springs is an expression of the nature of God, and a necessary expression of that nature in view of the existence of moral beings, it is none the less a personal will. We should be careful not to attribute to law a personality of its own. When Plutarch says: “Law is king both of mortal and immortal beings,” and when we say: “The law will take hold of you,” “The criminal is in danger of the law,” we are simply substituting the name of the agent for that of the principal. God is not subject to law; God is the source of law; and we may say: “If Jehovah be God, worship him; but if Law, worship it.” Since moral law merely reflects God, it is not a thing made. Men discover laws, but they do not make them, any more than the chemist makes the laws by which the elements combine. Instance the solidification of hydrogen at Geneva. Utility does not constitute law, although we test law by utility; see Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 58-71. The true nature of the moral law is set forth in the noble though rhetorical description of Hooker (Eccl. Pol., 1:194)—“Of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is in the bosom of God; her voice the harmony of the world; all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power; both angels and men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in a different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy.” See also Martineau, Types, 2:119, and Study, 1:35. Curtis, Primitive Semitic Religions, 66, 101—“The Oriental believes that God makes right by edict. Saladin demonstrated to Henry of Champagne the loyalty of his Assassins, by commanding two of them to throw themselves down from a lofty tower to certain and violent death.” H. B. Smith, System, 192—“Will implies personality, and personality adds to abstract truth and duty the element of authority. Law therefore has the force that a person has over and above that of an idea.” Human law forbids only those offences which constitute a breach of public order or of private right. God’s law forbids all that is an offence against the divine order, that is, all that is unlike God. The whole law may be summed up in the words: “Be like God.” Salter, First Steps in Philosophy, 101-126—“The realization of the nature of each being is the end to be striven for. Self-realization is an ideal end, not of one being, but of each being, with due regard to the value of each in the proper scale of worth. The beast can be sacrificed for man. All men are sacred as capable of unlimited progress. It is our duty to realize the capacities of our nature so far as they are consistent with one another and go to make up one whole.” This means that man fulfills the law only as he realizes the divine idea in his character and life, or, in other words, as he becomes a finite image of God’s infinite perfections. Bixby, Crisis in Morals, 191, 201, 285, 286—“Morality is rooted in the nature of things. There is a universe. We are all parts of an infinite organism. Man is inseparably bound to man [and to God]. All rights and duties arise out of this common life. In the solidarity of social life lies the ground of Kant’s law: So will, that the maxim of thy conduct may apply to all. The planet cannot safely fly away from the sun, and the hand cannot safely separate itself from the heart. It is from the fundamental unity of life that our duties flow.... The infinite world-organism is the body and manifestation of God. And when we recognize the solidarity of our vital being with this divine life and embodiment, we begin to see into the heart of the mystery, the unquestionable authority and supreme sanction of duty. Our moral intuitions are simply the unchanging laws of the universe that have emerged to consciousness in the human heart.... The inherent principles of the universal Reason reflect themselves in the mirror of the moral nature.... The enlightened conscience is the expression in the human soul of the divine Consciousness.... Morality is the victory of the divine Life in us.... Solidarity of our life with the universal Life gives it unconditional sacredness and transcendental authority.... The microcosm must bring itself en rapport with the Macrocosm. Man must bring his spirit into resemblance to the World-essence, and into union with it.”

The law of God, then, is simply an expression of the nature of God in the form of moral requirement, and a necessary expression of that nature in view of the existence of moral beings (Ps. 19:7; cf. 1). To the existence of this law all men bear witness. The consciences even of the heathen testify to it (Rom. 2:14, 15). Those who have the written law recognize this elemental law as of greater compass and penetration (Rom. 7:14; 8:4). The perfect embodiment and fulfillment of this law is seen only in Christ (Rom. 10:4; Phil. 3:8, 9).

Ps. 19:7—“The law of Jehovah is perfect, restoring the soul”; cf. verse 1—“The heavens declare the glory of God”—two revelations of God—one in nature, the other in the moral law. Rom. 2:14, 15—“for when Gentiles that have not the law do by nature the things of the law, these, not having the law, are the law unto themselves; in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness therewith, and their thoughts one with another accusing or else excusing them”—here the “work of the law”—, not the ten commandments, for of these the heathen were ignorant, but rather the work corresponding to them, i. e., the substance of them. Rom. 7:14—“For we know that the law is spiritual”—this, says Meyer, is equivalent to saying “its essence is divine, of like nature with the Holy Spirit who gave it, a holy self-revelation of God.” Rom. 8:4—“that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit”; 10:4—“For Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness to every one that believeth”; Phil. 3:8, 9—“that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith”; Heb. 10:9—“Lo, I am come to do thy will.” In Christ “the law appears Drawn out in living characters.” Just such as he was and is, we feel that we ought to be. Hence the character of Christ convicts us of sin, as does no other manifestation of God. See, on the passages from Romans, the Commentary of Philippi. Fleming, Vocab. Philos., 286—“Moral laws are derived from the nature and will of God, and the character and condition of man.” God’s nature is reflected in the laws of our nature. Since law is inwrought into man’s nature, man is a law unto himself. To conform to his own nature, in which conscience is supreme, is to conform to the nature of God. The law is only the revelation of the constitutive principles of being, the declaration of what must be, so long as man is man and God is God. It says in effect: “Be like God, or you cannot be truly man.” So moral law is not simply a test of obedience, but is also a revelation of eternal reality. Man cannot be lost to God, without being lost to himself. “The ‘hands of the living God’ (Heb. 10:31) into which we fall, are the laws of nature.” In the spiritual world “the same wheels revolve, only there is no iron” (Drummond, Natural Law in the Spiritual World, 27). Wuttke, Christian Ethics, 2:82-92—“The totality of created being is to be in harmony with God and with itself. The idea of this harmony, as active in God under the form of will, is God’s law.” A manuscript of the U. S. Constitution was so written that when held at a little distance the shading of the letters and their position showed the countenance of George Washington. So the law of God is only God’s face disclosed to human sight. R. W. Emerson, Woodnotes, 57—“Conscious Law is King of kings.” Two centuries ago John Norton wrote a book entitled The Orthodox Evangelist, “designed for the begetting and establishing of the faith which is in Jesus,” in which we find the following: “God doth not will things because they are just, but things are therefore just because God so willeth them. What reasonable man but will yield that the being of the moral law hath no necessary connection with the being of God? That the actions of men not conformable to this law should be sin, that death should be the punishment of sin, these are the constitutions of God, proceeding from him not by way of necessity of nature, but freely, as effects and products of his eternal good pleasure.” This is to make God an arbitrary despot. We should not say that God makes law, nor on the other hand that God is subject to law, but rather that God is law and the source of law. Bowne, Philos. of Theism, 161—“God’s law is organic—inwrought into the constitution of men and things. The chart however does not make the channel.... A law of nature is never the antecedent but the consequence of reality. What right has this consequence of reality to be personalized and made the ruler and source of reality? Law is only the fixed mode in which reality works. Law therefore can explain nothing. Only God, from whom reality springs, can explain reality.” In other words, law is never an agent but always a method—the method of God, or rather of Christ who is the only Revealer of God. Christ’s life in the flesh is the clearest manifestation of him who is the principle of law in the physical and moral universe. Christ is the Reason of God in expression. It was he who gave the law on Mount Sinai as well as in the Sermon on the Mount. For fuller treatment of the subject, see Bowen, Metaph. and Ethics, 321-344; Talbot, Ethical Prolegomena, in Bap. Quar., July, 1877:257-274; Whewell, Elements of Morality, 2:35; and especially E. G. Robinson, Principles and Practice of Morality, 79-108.

Each of the two last-mentioned characteristics of God’s law is important in its implications. We treat of these in their order.

First, the law of God as a transcript of the divine nature.—If this be the nature of the law, then certain common misconceptions of it are excluded. The law of God is

(a) Not arbitrary, or the product of arbitrary will. Since the will from which the law springs is a revelation of God’s nature, there can be no rashness or unwisdom in the law itself.

E. G. Robinson, Christ. Theology, 193—“No law of God seems ever to have been arbitrarily enacted, or simply with a view to certain ends to be accomplished; it always represented some reality of life which it was inexorably necessary that those who were to be regulated should carefully observe.” The theory that law originates in arbitrary will results in an effeminate type of piety, just as the theory that legislation has for its sole end the greatest happiness results in all manner of compromises of justice. Jones, Robert Browning, 43—“He who cheats his neighbor believes in tortuosity, and, as Carlyle says, has the supreme Quack for his god.”

(b) Not temporary, or ordained simply to meet an exigency. The law is a manifestation, not of temporary moods or desires, but of the essential nature of God.

The great speech of Sophocles’ Antigone gives us this conception of law: “The ordinances of the gods are unwritten, but sure. Not one of them is for to-day or for yesterday alone, but they live forever.” Moses might break the tables of stone upon which the law was inscribed, and Jehoiakim might cut up the scroll and cast it into the fire (Ex. 32:19; Jer. 36:23), but the law remained eternal as before in the nature of God and in the constitution of man. Prof. Walter Rauschenbusch: “The moral laws are just as stable as the law of gravitation. Every fuzzy human chicken that is hatched into this world tries to fool with those laws. Some grow wiser in the process and some do not. We talk about breaking God’s laws. But after those laws have been broken several billion times since Adam first tried to play with them, those laws are still intact and no seam or fracture is visible in them,—not even a scratch on the enamel. But the lawbreakers—that is another story. If you want to find their fragments, go to the ruins of Egypt, of Babylon, of Jerusalem; study statistics; read faces; keep your eyes open; visit Blackwell’s Island; walk through the graveyard and read the invisible inscriptions left by the Angel of Judgment, for instance: ‘Here lie the fragments of John Smith, who contradicted his Maker, played football with the ten commandments, and departed this life at the age of thirty-five. His mother and wife weep for him. Nobody else does. May he rest in peace!’ ”

(c) Not merely negative, or a law of mere prohibition,—since positive conformity to God is the inmost requisition of law.

The negative form of the commandments in the decalogue merely takes for granted the evil inclination in men’s hearts and practically opposes its gratification. In the case of each commandment a whole province of the moral life is taken into the account, although the act expressly forbidden is the acme of evil in that one province. So the decalogue makes itself intelligible: it crosses man’s path just where he most feels inclined to wander. But back of the negative and specific expression in each case lies the whole mass of moral requirement: the thin edge of the wedge has the positive demand of holiness behind it, without obedience to which even the prohibition cannot in spirit be obeyed. Thus “the law is spiritual” (Rom. 7:14), and requires likeness in character and life to the spiritual God; John 4:24—“God is spirit, and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

(d) Not partial, or addressed to one part only of man’s being,—since likeness to God requires purity of substance in man’s soul and body, as well as purity in all the thoughts and acts that proceed therefrom. As law proceeds from the nature of God, so it requires conformity to that nature in the nature of man.

Whatever God gave to man at the beginning he requires of man with interest; cf. Mat. 25:27—“thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the bankers, and at my coming I should have received back mine own with interest.” Whatever comes short of perfect purity in soul or perfect health in body is non-conformity to God and contradicts his law, it being understood that only that perfection is demanded which answers to the creature’s stage of growth and progress, so that of the child there is required only the perfection of the child, of the youth only the perfection of the youth, of the man only the perfection of the man. See Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, chapter 1.

(e) Not outwardly published,—since all positive enactment is only the imperfect expression of this underlying and unwritten law of being.

Much misunderstanding of God’s law results from confounding it with published enactment. Paul takes the larger view that the law is independent of such expression; see Rom. 2:14, 15—“for when Gentiles that have not the law do by nature the things of the law, these, not having the law, are the law unto themselves; in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness therewith, and their thoughts one with another accusing or else excusing them:” see Expositor’s Greek Testament, in loco: “ ‘written on their hearts,’ when contrasted with the law written on the tables of stone, is equal to ‘unwritten’; the Apostle refers to what the Greeks called ἄγραφος νόμος.”

(f) Not inwardly conscious, or limited in its scope by men’s consciousness of it. Like the laws of our physical being, the moral law exists whether we recognize it or not.

Overeating brings its penalty in dyspepsia, whether we are conscious of our fault or not. We cannot by ignorance or by vote repeal the laws of our physical system. Self-will does not secure independence, any more than the stars can by combination abolish gravitation. Man cannot get rid of God’s dominion by denying its existence, nor by refusing submission to it. Psalm 2:1-4—“Why do the nations rage ... against Jehovah ... saying, Let us break their bonds asunder.... He that sitteth in the heavens will laugh.” Salter, First Steps in Philosophy, 94—“The fact that one is not aware of obligation no more affects its reality than ignorance of what is at the centre of the earth affects the nature of what is really discoverable there. We discover obligation, and do not create it by thinking of it, any more than we create the sensible world by thinking of it.”

(g) Not local, or confined to place,—since no moral creature can escape from God, from his own being, or from the natural necessity that unlikeness to God should involve misery and ruin.

“The Dutch auction” was the public offer of property at a price beyond its value, followed by the lowering of the price until some one accepted it as a purchaser. There is no such local exception to the full validity of God’s demands. The moral law has even more necessary and universal sway than the law of gravitation in the physical universe. It is inwrought into the very constitution of man, and of every other moral being. The man who offended the Roman Emperor found the whole empire a prison.

(h) Not changeable, or capable of modification. Since law represents the unchangeable nature of God, it is not a sliding scale of requirements which adapts itself to the ability of the subjects. God himself cannot change it without ceasing to be God.

The law, then, has a deeper foundation than that God merely “said so.” God’s word and God’s will are revelations of his inmost being; every transgression of the law is a stab at the heart of God. Simon, Reconciliation, 141, 142—“God continues to demand loyalty even after man has proved disloyal. Sin changes man, and man’s change involves a change in God. Man now regards God as a ruler and exactor, and God must regard man as a defaulter and a rebel.” God’s requirement is not lessened because man is unable to meet it. This inability is itself non-conformity to law, and is no excuse for sin; see Dr. Bushnell’s sermon on “Duty not measured by Ability.” The man with the withered hand would not have been justified in refusing to stretch it forth at Jesus’ command (Mat. 12:10-13). The obligation to obey this law and to be conformed to God’s perfect moral character is based upon man’s original ability and the gifts which God bestowed upon him at the beginning. Created in the image of God, it is man’s duty to render back to God that which God first gave, enlarged and improved by growth and culture (Luke 19:23—“wherefore gavest thou not my money into the bank, and I at my coming should have required it with interest”). This obligation is not impaired by sin and the weakening of man’s powers. To let down the standard would be to misrepresent God. Adolphe Monod would not save himself from shame and remorse by lowering the claims of the law: “Save first the holy law of my God,” he says, “after that you shall save me!” Even salvation is not through violation of law. The moral law is immutable, because it is a transcript of the nature of the immutable God. Shall nature conform to me, or I to nature? If I attempt to resist even physical laws, I am crushed. I can use nature only by obeying her laws. Lord Bacon: “Natura enim non nisi parendo vincitur.” So in the moral realm. We cannot buy off nor escape the moral law of God. God will not, and God can not, change his law by one hair’s breadth, even to save a universe of sinners. Omar Kháyyám, in his Rubáiyát, begs his god to “reconcile the law to my desires.” Marie Corelli says well: “As if a gnat should seek to build a cathedral, and should ask to have the laws of architecture altered to suit its gnat-like capacity.” See Martineau, Types, 2:120.

Secondly, the law of God as the ideal of human nature.—A law thus identical with the eternal and necessary relations of the creature to the Creator, and demanding of the creature nothing less than perfect holiness, as the condition of harmony with the infinite holiness of God, is adapted to man’s finite nature, as needing law; to man’s free nature, as needing moral law; and to man’s progressive nature, as needing ideal law.

Man, as finite, needs law, just as railway cars need a track to guide them—to leap the track is to find, not freedom, but ruin. Railway President: “Our rules are written in blood.” Goethe, Was Wir Bringen, 19 Auftritt: “In vain shall spirits that are all unbound To the pure heights of perfectness aspire; In limitation first the Master shines, And law alone can give us liberty.”—Man, as a free being, needs moral law. He is not an automaton, a creature of necessity, governed only by physical influences. With conscience to command the right, and will to choose or reject it, his true dignity and calling are that he should freely realize the right.—Man, as a progressive being, needs nothing less than an ideal and infinite standard of attainment, a goal which he can never overpass, an end which shall ever attract and urge him forward. This he finds in the holiness of God. The law is a fence, not only for ownership, but for care. God not only demands, but he protects. Law is the transcript of love as well as of holiness. We may reverse the well-known couplet and say: “I slept, and dreamed that life was Duty; I woke and found that life was Beauty.” “Cui servire regnare est.” Butcher, Aspects of Greek Genius, 56—“In Plato’s Crito, the Laws are made to present themselves in person to Socrates in prison, not only as the guardians of his liberty, but as his lifelong friends, his well-wishers, his equals, with whom he had of his own free will entered into binding compact.” It does not harm the scholar to have before him the ideal of perfect scholarship; nor the teacher to have before him the ideal of a perfect school; nor the legislator to have before him the ideal of perfect law. Gordon, The Christ of To-day, 134—“The moral goal must be a flying goal; the standard to which we are to grow must be ever rising; the type to which we are to be conformed must have in it inexhaustible fulness.” John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 2:119—“It is just the best, purest, noblest human souls, who are least satisfied with themselves and their own spiritual attainments; and the reason is that the human is not a nature essentially different from the divine, but a nature which, just because it is in essential affinity with God, can be satisfied with nothing less than a divine perfection.” J. M. Whiton, The Divine Satisfaction: “Law requires being, character, likeness to God. It is automatic, self-operating. Penalty is untransferable. It cannot admit of any other satisfaction than the reëstablishment of the normal relation which it requires. Punishment proclaims that the law has not been satisfied. There is no cancelling of the curse except through the growing up of the normal relation. Blessing and curse ensue upon what we are, not upon what we were. Reparation is within the spirit itself. The atonement is educational, not governmental.” We reply that the atonement is both governmental and educational, and that reparation must first be made to the holiness of God before conscience, the mirror of God’s holiness, can reflect that reparation and be at peace.

The law of God is therefore characterized by:

(a) All-comprehensiveness.—It is over us at all times; it respects our past, our present, our future. It forbids every conceivable sin; it requires every conceivable virtue; omissions as well as commissions are condemned by it.

Ps. 119:96—“I have seen an end of all perfection ... thy commandment is exceeding broad”; Rom. 3:23—“all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God”; James 4:17—“To him therefore that knoweth to do good, and __ doeth it not, to him it is sin.” Gravitation holds the mote as well as the world. God’s law detects and denounces the least sin, so that without atonement it cannot be pardoned. The law of gravitation may be suspended or abrogated, for it has no necessary ground in God’s being; but God’s moral law cannot be suspended or abrogated, for that would contradict God’s holiness. “About right” is not “all right.” “The giant hexagonal pillars of basalt in the Scottish Staffa are identical in form with the microscopic crystals of the same mineral.” So God is our pattern, and goodness is our likeness to him.

(b) Spirituality.—It demands not only right acts and words, but also right dispositions and states. Perfect obedience requires not only the intense and unremitting reign of love toward God and man, but conformity of the whole inward and outward nature of man to the holiness of God.

Mat. 5:22, 28—the angry word is murder; the sinful look is adultery. Mark 12:30, 31—“thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.... Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”; 2 Cor. 10:5—“bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ”; Eph. 5:1—“Be ye therefore imitators of God, as beloved children”; 1 Pet. 1:16—“Ye shall be holy; for I am holy.” As the brightest electric light, seen through a smoked glass against the sun, appears like a black spot, so the brightest unregenerate character is dark, when compared with the holiness of God. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, 235, remarks on Gal. 6:4—“let each man prove his own work, and then shall he have his glorying in regard of himself alone, and not of his neighbor”—“I have a small candle and I compare it with my brother’s taper and come away rejoicing. Why not compare it with the sun? Then I shall lose my pride and uncharitableness.” The distance to the sun from the top of an ant-hill and from the top of Mount Everest is nearly the same. The African princess praised for her beauty had no way to verify the compliments paid her but by looking in the glassy surface of the pool. But the trader came and sold her a mirror. Then she was so shocked at her own ugliness that she broke the mirror in pieces. So we look into the mirror of God’s law, compare ourselves with the Christ who is reflected there, and hate the mirror which reveals us to ourselves (James 1:23, 24).

(c) Solidarity.—It exhibits in all its parts the nature of the one Lawgiver, and it expresses, in its least command, the one requirement of harmony with him.

Mat. 5:48—“Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”; Mark 12:29, 30—“The Lord our God, the Lord is one: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God”; James 2:10—“For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is become guilty of all”; 4:12—“One only is the lawgiver and judge.” Even little rattlesnakes are snakes. One link broken in the chain, and the bucket falls into the well. The least sin separates us from God. The least sin renders us guilty of the whole law, because it shows us to lack the love which is required in all the commandments. Those who send us to the Sermon on the Mount for salvation send us to a tribunal that damns us. The Sermon on the Mount is but a republication of the law given on Sinai, but now in more spiritual and penetrating form. Thunders and lightnings proceed from the N. T., as from the O. T., mount. The Sermon on the Mount is only the introductory lecture of Jesus’ theological course, as John 14-17 is the closing lecture. In it is announced the law, which prepares the way for the gospel. Those who would degrade doctrine by exalting precept will find that they have left men without the motive or the power to keep the precept. Æschylus, Agamemnon: “For there’s no bulwark in man’s wealth to him Who, through a surfeit, kicks—into the dim And disappearing—Right’s great altar.”

Only to the first man, then, was the law proposed as a method of salvation. With the first sin, all hope of obtaining the divine favor by perfect obedience is lost. To sinners the law remains as a means of discovering and developing sin in its true nature, and of compelling a recourse to the mercy provided in Jesus Christ.

2 Chron. 34:19—“And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his clothes”; Job 42:5, 6—“I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear; But now mine eye seeth thee; Wherefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes.” The revelation of God in Is. 6:3, 5—“Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts”—causes the prophet to cry like the leper: “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips.” Rom. 3:20—“by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for through the law cometh the __ knowledge of sin”; 5:20—“the law came in besides, that the trespass might abound”; 7:7, 8—“I had not known sin, except through the law: for I had not known coveting, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet: but sin, finding occasion, wrought in me through the commandment all manner of coveting: for apart from the law sin is dead”; Gal. 3:24—“So that the law is become our tutor,” or attendant-slave, “to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith”—the law trains our wayward boyhood and leads it to Christ the Master, as in old times the slave accompanied children to school. Stevens, Pauline Theology, 177, 178—“The law increases sin by increasing the knowledge of sin and by increasing the activity of sin. The law does not add to the inherent energy of the sinful principle which pervades human nature, but it does cause this principle to reveal itself more energetically in sinful act.” The law inspires fear, but it leads to love. The Rabbins said that, if Israel repented but for one day, the Messiah would appear. No man ever yet drew a straight line or a perfect curve; yet he would be a poor architect who contented himself with anything less. Since men never come up to their ideals, he who aims to live only an average moral life will inevitably fall below the average. The law, then, leads to Christ. He who is the ideal is also the way to attain the ideal. He who is himself the Word and the Law embodied, is also the Spirit of life that makes obedience possible to us (John 14:6—“I am the way, and the truth, and the life”; Rom. 8:2—“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death”). Mrs. Browning, Aurora Leigh: “The Christ himself had been no Lawgiver, Unless he had given the Life too with the Law.” Christ for us upon the Cross, and Christ in us by his Spirit, is the only deliverance from the curse of the law; Gal 3:13—“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.” We must see the claims of the law satisfied and the law itself written on our hearts. We are “reconciled to God through the death of his Son,” but we are also “saved by his life”_ (Rom. 5:10_). Robert Browning, in The Ring and the Book, represents Caponsacchi as comparing himself at his best with the new ideal of “perfect as Father in heaven is perfect” suggested by Pompilia’s purity, and as breaking out into the cry: “O great, just, good God! Miserable me!” In the Interpreter’s House of Pilgrim’s Progress, Law only stirred up the dust in the foul room,—the Gospel had to sprinkle water on the floor before it could be cleansed. E. G. Robinson: “It is necessary to smoke a man out, before you can bring a higher motive to bear upon him.” Barnabas said that Christ was the answer to the riddle of the law. Rom. 10:4—“Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness to every one that believeth.” The railroad track opposite Detroit on the St. Clair River runs to the edge of the dock and seems intended to plunge the train into the abyss. But when the ferry boat comes up, rails are seen upon its deck, and the boat is the end of the track, to carry passengers over to Detroit. So the law, which by itself would bring only destruction, finds its end in Christ who ensures our passage to the celestial city. Law, then, with its picture of spotless innocence, simply reminds man of the heights from which he has fallen. “It is a mirror which reveals derangement, but does not create or remove it.” With its demand of absolute perfection, up to the measure of man’s original endowments and possibilities, it drives us, in despair of ourselves, to Christ as our only righteousness and our only Savior (Rom. 8:3, 4—“For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit”; Phil. 3:8, 9—“that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith”). Thus law must prepare the way for grace, and John the Baptist must precede Christ. When Sarah Bernhardt was solicited to add an eleventh commandment, she declined upon the ground there were already ten too many. It was an expression of pagan contempt of law. In heathendom, sin and insensibility to sin increased together. In Judaism and Christianity, on the contrary, there has been a growing sense of sin’s guilt and condemnableness. McLaren, in S. S. Times, Sept. 23, 1893:600—“Among the Jews there was a far profounder sense of sin than in any other ancient nation. The law written on men’s hearts evoked a lower consciousness of sin, and there are prayers on the Assyrian and Babylonian tablets which may almost stand beside the 51st Psalm. But, on the whole, the deep sense of sin was the product of the revealed law.” See Fairbairn, Revelation of Law and Scripture; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 187-242; Hovey, God with Us, 187-210; Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 1:45-50; Murphy, Scientific Bases of Faith, 53-71; Martineau, Types, 2:120-125.

2. Positive Enactment, or the expression of the will of God in published ordinances. This is also two-fold:

A. General moral precepts.—These are written summaries of the elemental law (Mat. 5:48; 22:37-40), or authorized applications of it to special human conditions (Ex. 20:1-17; Mat. chap. 5-8).

Mat. 5:48—“Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”; 22:37-40—“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.... Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law hangeth and the prophets”; Ex. 20:1-17—the Ten Commandments; Mat., chap. 5-8—the Sermon on the Mount. Cf. Augustine, on Ps. 57:1. Solly, On the Will, 162, gives two illustrations of the fact that positive precepts are merely applications of elemental law or the law of nature: “ ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ is a moral law which may be stated thus: thou shalt not take that for thy own property, which is the property of another. The contradictory of this proposition would be: thou mayest take that for thy own property which is the property of another. But this is a contradiction in terms; for it is the very conception of property, that the owner stands in a peculiar relation to its subject matter; and what is every man’s property is no man’s property, as it is proper to no man. Hence the contradictory of the commandment contains a simple contradiction directly it is made a rule universal; and the commandment itself is established as one of the principles for the harmony of individual wills. “ ‘Thou shalt not tell a lie,’ as a rule of morality, may be expressed generally: thou shall not by thy outward act make another to believe thy thought to be other than it is. The contradictory made universal is: every man may by his outward act make another to believe his thought to be other than it is. Now this maxim also contains a contradiction, and is self-destructive. It conveys a permission to do that which is rendered impossible by the permission itself. Absolute and universal indifference to truth, or the entire mutual independence of the thought and symbol, makes the symbol cease to be a symbol, and the conveyance of thought by its means, an impossibility.” Kant, Metaphysic of Ethics, 48, 90—“Fundamental law of reason: So act, that thy maxims of will might become laws in a system of universal moral legislation.” This is Kant’s categorical imperative. He expresses it in yet another form: “Act from maxims fit to be regarded as universal laws of nature.” For expositions of the Decalogue which bring out its spiritual meaning, see Kurtz, Religionslehre, 9-72; Dick, Theology, 2:513-554; Dwight, Theology, 3:163-560; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 3:259-465.

B. Ceremonial or special injunctions.—These are illustrations of the elemental law, or approximate revelations of it, suited to lower degrees of capacity and to earlier stages of spiritual training (Ez. 20:25; Mat. 19:8; Mark 10:5). Though temporary, only God can say when they cease to be binding upon us in their outward form.

All positive enactments, therefore, whether they be moral or ceremonial, are republications of elemental law. Their forms may change, but the substance is eternal. Certain modes of expression, like the Mosaic system, may be abolished, but the essential demands are unchanging (Mat. 5:17, 18; cf. Eph. 2:15). From the imperfection of human language, no positive enactments are able to express in themselves the whole content and meaning of the elemental law. “It is not the purpose of revelation to disclose the whole of our duties.” Scripture is not a complete code of rules for practical action, but an enunciation of principles, with occasional precepts by way of illustration. Hence we must supplement the positive enactment by the law of being—the moral ideal found in the nature of God.

Ez. 20:25—“Moreover also I gave them statutes that were not good, and ordinances wherein they should not live”; Mat. 19:8—“Moses for your hardness of heart suffered you to put away your wives”; Mark 10:5—“For your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment”; Mat. 5:17, 18—“Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished”; cf. Eph. 2:15—“having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances”; Heb. 8:7—“if that first covenant had been faultless, then would no place have been sought for a second.” Fisher, Nature and Method of Revelation, 90—“After the coming of the new covenant, the keeping up of the old was as needless a burden as winter garments in the mild air of summer, or as the attempt of an adult to wear the clothes of a child.” Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 2:5-35—“Jesus repudiates for himself and for his disciples absolute subjection to O. T. Sabbath law (Mark 2:27 sq.); to O. T. law as to external defilements (Mark 7:15); to O. T. divorce law (Mark 10:2 sq.). He would ‘fulfil’ law and prophets by complete practical performance of the revealed will of God. He would bring out their inner meaning, not by literal and slavish obedience to every minute requirement of the Mosaic law, but by revealing in himself the perfect life and work toward which they tended. He would perfect the O. T. conceptions of God—not keep them intact in their literal form, but in their essential spirit. Not by quantitative extension, but by qualitative renewal, he would fulfil the law and the prophets. He would bring the imperfect expression in the O. T. to perfection, not by servile letter-worship or allegorizing, but through grasp of the divine idea.” Scripture is not a series of minute injunctions and prohibitions such as the Pharisees and the Jesuits laid down. The Koran showed its immeasurable inferiority to the Bible by establishing the letter instead of the spirit, by giving permanent, definite, and specific rules of conduct, instead of leaving room for the growth of the free spirit and for the education of conscience. This is not true either of O. T. or of N. T. law. In Miss Fowler’s novel The Farringdons, Mrs. Herbert wishes “that the Bible had been written on the principle of that dreadful little book called ‘Don’t,’ which gives a list of the solecisms you should avoid; she would have understood it so much better than the present system.” Our Savior’s words about giving to him that asketh, and turning the cheek to the smiter (Mat 5:39-42) must be interpreted by the principle of love that lies at the foundation of the law. Giving to every tramp and yielding to every marauder is not pleasing our neighbor “for that which is good unto edifying” (Rom. 15:2). Only by confounding the divine law with Scripture prohibition could one write as in N. Amer. Rev., Feb. 1890:275—“Sin is the transgression of a divine law; but there is no divine law against suicide; therefore suicide is not sin.” The written law was imperfect because God could, at the time, give no higher to an unenlightened people. “But to say that the scope and design were imperfectly moral, is contradicted by the whole course of the history. We must ask what is the moral standard in which this course of education issues.” And this we find in the life and precepts of Christ. Even the law of repentance and faith does not take the place of the old law of being, but applies the latter to the special conditions of sin. Under the Levitical law, the prohibition of the touching of the dry bone (Num. 19:16), equally with the purifications and sacrifices, the separations and penalties of the Mosaic code, expressed God’s holiness and his repelling from him all that savored of sin or death. The laws with regard to leprosy were symbolic, as well as sanitary. So church polity and the ordinances are not arbitrary requirements, but they publish to dull sense-environed consciences, better than abstract propositions could have done, the fundamental truths of the Christian scheme. Hence they are not to be abrogated “till he come” (1 Cor. 11:26). The Puritans, however, in reënacting the Mosaic code, made the mistake of confounding the eternal law of God with a partial, temporary, and obsolete expression of it. So we are not to rest in external precepts respecting woman’s hair and dress and speech, but to find the underlying principle of modesty and subordination which alone is of universal and eternal validity. Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book, 1:255—“God breathes, not speaks, his verdicts, felt not heard—Passed on successively to each court, I call Man’s conscience, custom, manners, all that make More and more effort to promulgate, mark God’s verdict in determinable words, Till last come human jurists—solidify Fluid results,—what’s fixable lies forged, Statute,—the residue escapes in fume, Yet hangs aloft a cloud, as palpable To the finer sense as word the legist welds. Justinian’s Pandects only make precise What simply sparkled in men’s eyes before, Twitched in their brow or quivered on their lip, Waited the speech they called, but would not come.” See Mozley, Ruling Ideas in Early Ages, 104; Tulloch, Doctrine of Sin, 141-144; Finney, Syst. Theol., 1-40, 135-319; Mansel, Metaphysics, 378, 379; H. B. Smith, System of Theology, 191-195. Paul’s injunction to women to keep silence in the churches (1 Cor. 14:35; 1 Tim. 2:11,12) is to be interpreted by the larger law of gospel equality and privilege (Col. 3:11). Modesty and subordination once required a seclusion of the female sex which is no longer obligatory. Christianity has emancipated woman and has restored her to the dignity which belonged to her at the beginning. “In the old dispensation Miriam and Deborah and Huldah were recognized as leaders of God’s people, and Anna was a notable prophetess in the temple courts at the time of the coming of Christ. Elizabeth and Mary spoke songs of praise for all generations. A prophecy of Joel 2:28 was that the daughters of the Lord’s people should prophesy, under the guidance of the Spirit, in the new dispensation. Philip the evangelist had ‘four virgin daughters, who prophesied’ (Acts 21:9), and Paul cautioned Christian women to have their heads covered when they prayed or prophesied in public (1 Cor. 11:5), but had no words against the work of such women. He brought Priscilla with him to Ephesus, where she aided in training Apollos into better preaching power (Acts 18:26). He welcomed and was grateful for the work of those women who labored with him in the gospel at Philippi (Phil. 4:3). And it is certainly an inference from the spirit and teachings of Paul that we should rejoice in the efficient service and sound words of Christian women to-day in the Sunday School and in the missionary field.” The command “And he that heareth let him say, Come” (Rev. 22:17) is addressed to women also. See Ellen Batelle Dietrick, Women in the Early Christian Ministry; per contra, see G. F. Wilkin, Prophesying of Women, 183-193.

In human government, while law is an expression of the will of the governing power, and so of the nature lying behind the will, it is by no means an exhaustive expression of that will and nature, since it consists only of general ordinances, and leaves room for particular acts of command through the executive, as well as for “the institution of equity, the faculty of discretionary punishment, and the prerogative of pardon.”

Amos, Science of Law, 29-46, shows how “the institution of equity, the faculty of discretionary punishment, and the prerogative of pardon” all involve expressions of will above and beyond what is contained in mere statute. Century Dictionary, on Equity: “English law had once to do only with property in goods, houses and lands. A man who had none of these might have an interest in a salary, a patent, a contract, a copyright, a security, but a creditor could not at common law levy upon these. When the creditor applied to the crown for redress, a chancellor or keeper of the king’s conscience was appointed, who determined what and how the debtor should pay. Often the debtor was required to put his intangible property into the hands of a receiver and could regain possession of it only when the claim against it was satisfied. These chancellors’ courts were called courts of equity, and redressed wrongs which the common law did not provide for. In later times law and equity are administered for the most part by the same courts. The same court sits at one time as a court of law, and at another time as a court of equity.” “Summa lex, summa injuria,” is sometimes true.

Applying now to the divine law this illustration drawn from human law, we remark:

(a) The law of God is a general expression of God’s will, applicable to all moral beings. It therefore does not include the possibility of special injunctions to individuals, and special acts of wisdom and power in creation and providence. The very specialty of these latter expressions of will prevents us from classing them under the category of law.

Lord Bacon, Confession of Faith: “The soul of man was not produced by heaven or earth, but was breathed immediately from God; so the ways and dealings of God with spirits are not included in nature, that is, in the laws of heaven and earth, but are reserved to the law of his secret will and grace.”

(b) The law of God, accordingly, is a partial, not an exhaustive, expression of God’s nature. It constitutes, indeed, a manifestation of that attribute of holiness which is fundamental in God, and which man must possess in order to be in harmony with God. But it does not fully express God’s nature in its aspects of personality, sovereignty, helpfulness, mercy.

The chief error of all pantheistic theology is the assumption that law is an exhaustive expression of God: Strauss, Glaubenslehre, 1:31—“If nature, as the self-realization of the divine essence, is equal to this divine essence, then it is infinite, and there can be nothing above and beyond it.” This is a denial of the transcendence of God (see notes on Pantheism, pages 100-105). Mere law is illustrated by the Buddhist proverb: “As the cartwheel follows the tread of the ox, so punishment follows sin.” Denovan: “Apart from Christ, even if we have never yet broken the law, it is only by steady and perfect obedience for the entire future that we can remain justified. If we have sinned, we can be justified [without Christ] only by suffering and exhausting the whole penalty of the law.”

(c) Mere law, therefore, leaves God’s nature in these aspects of personality, sovereignty, helpfulness, mercy, to be expressed toward sinners in another way, namely, through the atoning, regenerating, pardoning, sanctifying work of the gospel of Christ. As creation does not exclude miracles, so law does not exclude grace (Rom. 8:3—“what the law could not do ... God” did).

Murphy, Scientific Bases, 303-327, esp. 315—“To impersonal law, it is indifferent whether its subjects obey or not. But God desires, not the punishment, but the destruction, of sin.” Campbell, Atonement, Introd., 28—“There are two regions of the divine self-manifestation, one the reign of law, the other the kingdom of God.” C. H. M.: “Law is the transcript of the mind of God as to what man ought to be. But God is not merely law, but love. There is more in his heart than could be wrapped up in the ‘ten words.’ Not the law, but only Christ, is the perfect image of God” (John 1:17—“For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ”). So there is more in man’s heart toward God than exact fulfilment of requirement. The mother who sacrifices herself for her sick child does it, not because she must, but because she loves. To say that we are saved by grace, is to say that we are saved both without merit on our own part, and without necessity on the part of God. Grace is made known in proclamation, offer, command; but in all these it is gospel, or glad-tidings.

(d) Grace is to be regarded, however, not as abrogating law, but as republishing and enforcing it (Rom. 3:31—“we establish the law”). By removing obstacles to pardon in the mind of God, and by enabling man to obey, grace secures the perfect fulfilment of law (Rom. 8:4—“that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us”). Even grace has its law (Rom. 8:2—“the law of the Spirit of life”); another higher law of grace, the operation of individualizing mercy, overbears the “law of sin and of death,”—this last, as in the case of the miracle, not being suspended, annulled, or violated, but being merged in, while it is transcended by, the exertion of personal divine will.

Hooker, Eccl. Polity, 1:155, 185, 194—“Man, having utterly disabled his nature unto those [natural] means, hath had other revealed by God, and hath received from heaven a law to teach him how that which is desired naturally, must now be supernaturally attained. Finally, we see that, because those latter exclude not the former as unnecessary, therefore the law of grace teaches and includes natural duties also, such as are hard to ascertain by the law of nature.” The truth is midway between the Pelagian view, that there is no obstacle to the forgiveness of sins, and the modern rationalistic view, that since law fully expresses God, there can be no forgiveness of sins at all. Greg, Creed of Christendom, 2:217-228—“God is the only being who cannot forgive sins.... Punishment is not the execution of a sentence, but the occurrence of an effect.” Robertson, Lect. on Genesis, 100—“Deeds are irrevocable,—their consequences are knit up with them irrevocably.” So Baden Powell, Law and Gospel, in Noyes’ Theological Essays, 27. All this is true if God be regarded as merely the source of law. But there is such a thing as grace, and grace is more than law. There is no forgiveness in nature, but grace is above and beyond nature. Bradford, Heredity, 233, quotes from Huxley the terrible utterance: “Nature always checkmates, without haste and without remorse, never overlooking a mistake, or making the slightest allowance for ignorance.” Bradford then remarks: “This is Calvinism with God left out. Christianity does not deny or minimize the law of retribution, but it discloses a Person who is able to deliver in spite of it. There is grace, but grace brings salvation to those who accept the terms of salvation—terms strictly in accord with the laws revealed by science.” God revealed himself, we add, not only in law but in life; see Deut. 1:6, 7—“Ye have dwelt long enough in this mountain”—the mountain of the law; “turn you and take your journey”—i. e., see how God’s law is to be applied to life.

(e) Thus the revelation of grace, while it takes up and includes in itself the revelation of law, adds something different in kind, namely, the manifestation of the personal love of the Lawgiver. Without grace, law has only a demanding aspect. Only in connection with grace does it become “the perfect law, the law of liberty” (James 1:25). In fine, grace is that larger and completer manifestation of the divine nature, of which law constitutes the necessary but preparatory stage.

Law reveals God’s love and mercy, but only in their mandatory aspect; it requires in men conformity to the love and mercy of God; and as love and mercy in God are conditioned by holiness, so law requires that love and mercy should be conditioned by holiness in men. Law is therefore chiefly a revelation of holiness: it is in grace that we find the chief revelation of love; though even love does not save by ignoring holiness, but rather by vicariously satisfying its demands. Robert Browning, Saul: “I spoke as I saw. I report as man may of God’s work—All’s Love, yet all’s Law.” Dorner, Person of Christ, 1:64, 78—“The law was a word (λόγος), but it was not a λόγος τέλειος, a plastic word, like the words of God that brought forth the world, for it was only imperative, and there was no reality nor willing corresponding to the command (dem Sollen fehlte das Seyn, das Wollen). The Christian λόγος is λόγος ἀληθειας—νόμος τέλειος τῆς ἐλευθερίας—an operative and effective word, as that of creation.” Chaucer, The Persones Tale: “For sothly the lawe of God is the love of God.” S. S. Times, Sept. 14, 1901:595—“Until a man ceases to be an outsider to the kingdom and knows the liberty of the sons of God, he is apt to think of God as the great Exacter, the great Forbidder, who reaps where he has not sown and gathers where he has not strewn.” Burton, in Bap. Rev., July, 1879:261-273, art.: Law and Divine Intervention; Farrar, Science and Theology, 184; Salmon, Reign of Law; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 1:31.

Section II.—Nature Of Sin.

Sin is lack of conformity to the moral law of God, either in act, disposition, or state.

In explanation, we remark that (a) This definition regards sin as predicable only of rational and voluntary agents. (b) It assumes, however, that man has a rational nature below consciousness, and a voluntary nature apart from actual volition. (c) It holds that the divine law requires moral likeness to God in the affections and tendencies of the nature, as well as in its outward activities. (d) It therefore considers lack of conformity to the divine holiness in disposition or state as a violation of law, equally with the outward act of transgression.

In our discussion of the Will (pages 504-513), we noticed that there are permanent states of the will, as well as of the intellect and of the sensibilities. It is evident, moreover, that these permanent states, unlike man’s deliberate acts, are always very imperfectly conscious, and in many cases are not conscious at all. Yet it is in these very states that man is most unlike God, and so, as law only reflects God (see pages 537-544), most lacking in conformity to God’s law. One main difference between Old School and New School views of sin is that the latter constantly tends to limit sin to mere act, while the former finds sin in the states of the soul. We propose what we think to be a valid and proper compromise between the two. We make sin coëxtensive, not with act, but with activity. The Old School and the New School are not so far apart, when we remember that the New School “choice” is elective preference, exercised so soon as the child is born (Park) and reasserting itself in all the subordinate choices of life; while the Old School “state” is not a dead, passive, mechanical thing, but is a state of active movement, or of tendency to move, toward evil. As God’s holiness is not passive purity but purity willing (pages 268-275), so the opposite to this, sin, is not passive impurity but is impurity willing. The soul may not always be conscious, but it may always be active. At his creation man “became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7), and it may be doubted whether the human spirit ever ceases its activity, any more than the divine Spirit in whose image it is made. There is some reason to believe that even in the deepest sleep the body rests rather than the mind. And when we consider how large a portion of our activity is automatic and continuous, we see the impossibility of limiting the term “sin” to the sphere of momentary act, whether conscious or unconscious. E. G. Robinson: “Sin is not mere act—something foreign to the being. It is a quality of being. There is no such thing as a sin apart from a sinner, or an act apart from an actor. God punishes sinners, not sins. Sin is a mode of being; as an entity by itself it never existed. God punishes sin as a state, not as an act. Man is not responsible for the consequences of his crimes, nor for the acts themselves, except as they are symptomatic of his personal states.” Dorner, Hist. Doct. Person Christ, 5:162—“The knowledge of sin has justly been termed the β and ψ of philosophy.”

Our treatment of Holiness, as belonging to the nature of God (pages 268-275); of Will, as not only the faculty of volitions, but also a permanent state of the soul (pages 504-513); and of Law as requiring the conformity of man’s nature to God’s holiness (pages 537-544); has prepared us for the definition of sin as a state. The chief psychological defect of New School theology, next to its making holiness to be a mere form of love, is its ignoring of the unconscious and subconscious elements in human character. To help our understanding of sin as an underlying and permanent state of the soul, we subjoin references to recent writers of note upon psychology and its relations to theology.

We may preface our quotations by remarking that mind is always greater than its conscious operations. The man is more than his acts. Only the smallest part of the self is manifested in the thoughts, feelings, and volitions. In counting, to put myself to sleep, I find, when my attention has been diverted by other thoughts, that the counting has gone on all the same. Ladd, Philosophy of Mind, 176, speaks of the “dramatic sundering of the ego.” There are dream-conversations. Dr. Johnson was once greatly vexed at being worsted by his opponent in an argument in a dream. M. Maury in a dream corrected the bad English of his real self by the good English of his other unreal self. Spurgeon preached a sermon in his sleep after vainly trying to excogitate one when awake, and his wife gave him the substance of it after he woke. Hegel said that “Life is divided into two realms—a night-life of genius, and a day-life of consciousness.” Du Prel, Philosophy of Mysticism, propounds the thesis: “The ego is not wholly embraced in self-consciousness,” and claims that there is much of psychical activity within us of which our common waking conception of ourselves takes no account. Thus when “dream dramatizes”—when we engage in a dream-conversation in which our interlocutor’s answer comes to us with a shock of surprise—if our own mind is assumed to have furnished that answer, it has done so by a process of unconscious activity. Dwinell, in Bib. Sac., July, 1890:369-389—“The soul is only imperfectly in possession of its organs, and is able to report only a small part of its activities in consciousness.” Thoughts come to us like foundlings laid at our door. We slip in a question to the librarian, Memory, and after leaving it there awhile the answer appears on the bulletin board. Delbœuf, Le Sommeil et les Rêves, 91—“The dreamer is a momentary and involuntary dupe of his own imagination, as the poet is the momentary and voluntary dupe, and the insane man is the permanent and involuntary dupe.” If we are the organs not only of our own past thinking, but, as Herbert Spencer suggests, also the organs of the past thinking of the race, his doctrine may give additional, though unintended, confirmation to a Scriptural view of sin. William James, Will to Believe, 316, quotes from F. W. H. Myers, in Jour. Psych. Research, who likens our ordinary consciousness to the visible part of the solar spectrum; the total consciousness is like that spectrum prolonged by the inclusion of the ultra-red and the ultra-violet rays—1 to 12 and 96. “Each of us,” he says, “is an abiding psychical entity far more extensive than he knows—an individuality which can never express itself completely through any corporeal manifestation. The self manifests itself through the organism; but there is always some part of the self unmanifested, and always, as it seems, some power of organic expression in abeyance or reserve.” William James himself, in Scribner’s Monthly, March, 1890:361-373, sketches the hypnotic investigations of Janet and Binet. There is a secondary, subconscious self. Hysteria is the lack of synthetising power, and consequent disintegration of the field of consciousness into mutually exclusive parts. According to Janet, the secondary and the primary consciousnesses, added together, can never exceed the normally total consciousness of the individual. But Prof. James says: “There are trances which obey another type. I know a non-hysterical woman, who in her trances knows facts which altogether transcend her possible normal consciousness, facts about the lives of people whom she never saw or heard of before.” Our affections are deeper and stronger than we know. We learn how deep and strong they are, when their current is resisted by affliction or dammed up by death. We know how powerful evil passions are, only when we try to subdue them. Our dreams show us our naked selves. On the morality of dreams, the London Spectator remarks: “Our conscience and power of self-control act as a sort of watchdog over our worse selves during the day, but when the watchdog is off duty, the primitive or natural man is at liberty to act as he pleases; our ‘soul’ has left us at the mercy of our own evil nature, and in our dreams we become what, except for the grace of God, we would always be.” Both in conscience and in will there is a self-diremption. Kant’s categorical imperative is only one self laying down the law to the other self. The whole Kantian system of ethics is based on this doctrine of double consciousness. Ladd, in his Philosophy of Mind, 169 sq., speaks of “psychical automatism.” Yet this automatism is possible only to self-conscious and cognitively remembering minds. It is always the “I” that puts itself into “that other.” We could not conceive of the other self except under the figure of the “I.” All our mental operations are ours, and we are responsible for them, because the subconscious and even the unconscious self is the product of past self-conscious thoughts and volitions. The present settled state of our wills is the result of former decisions. The will is a storage battery, charged by past acts, full of latent power, ready to manifest its energy so soon as the force which confines it is withdrawn. On unconscious mental action, see Carpenter, Mental Physiology, 139, 515-543, and criticism of Carpenter, in Ireland, Blot on the Brain, 226-238; Bramwell, Hypnotism, its History, Practice and Theory, 358-398; Porter, Human Intellect, 333, 334; versus Sir Wm. Hamilton, who adopts the maxim: “Non sentimus, nisi sentiamus nos sentire” (Philosophy, ed. Wight, 171). Observe also that sin may infect the body, as well as the soul, and may bring it into a state of non-conformity to God’s law (see H. B. Smith, Syst. Theol., 267).

In adducing our Scriptural and rational proof of the definition of sin as a state, we desire to obviate the objection that this view leaves the soul wholly given over to the power of evil. While we maintain that this is true of man apart from God, we also insist that side by side with the evil bent of the human will there is always an immanent divine power which greatly counteracts the force of evil, and if not resisted leads the individual soul—even when resisted leads the race at large—toward truth and salvation. This immanent divine power is none other than Christ, the eternal Word, the Light which lighteth every man; see John 1:4, 9.

John 1:4, 9—“In him was life, and the life was the light of men.... There was the true light, even the light which lighteth every man.” See a further statement in A. H. Strong, Cleveland Sermon, May, 1904, with regard to the old and the new view as to sin:—“Our fathers believed in total depravity, and we agree with them that man naturally is devoid of love to God and that every faculty is weakened, disordered, and corrupted by the selfish bent of his will. They held to original sin. The selfish bent of man’s will can be traced back to the apostacy of our first parents; and, on account of that departure of the race from God, all men are by nature children of wrath. And all this is true, if it is regarded as a statement of the facts, apart from their relation to Christ. But our fathers did not see, as we do, that man’s relation to Christ antedated the Fall and constituted an underlying and modifying condition of man’s life. Humanity was naturally in Christ, in whom all things were created and in whom they all consist. Even man’s sin did not prevent Christ from still working in him to counteract the evil and to suggest the good. There was an internal, as well as an external, preparation for man’s redemption. In this sense, of a divine principle in man striving against the selfish and godless will, there was a total redemption, over against man’s total depravity; and an original grace, that was even more powerful than original sin. “We have become conscious that total depravity alone is not a sufficient or proper expression of the truth; and the phrase has been outgrown. It has been felt that the old view of sin did not take account of the generous and noble aspirations, the unselfish efforts, the strivings after God, of even unregenerate men. For this reason there has been less preaching about sin, and less conviction as to its guilt and condemnation. The good impulses of men outside the Christian pale have been often credited to human nature, when they should have been credited to the indwelling Spirit of Christ. I make no doubt that one of our radical weaknesses at this present time is our more superficial view of sin. Without some sense of sin’s guilt and condemnation, we cannot feel our need of redemption. John the Baptist must go before Christ; the law must prepare the way for the gospel. “My belief is that the new apprehension of Christ’s relation to the race will enable us to declare, as never before, the lost condition of the sinner; while at the same time we show him that Christ is with him and in him to save. This presence in every man of a power not his own that works for righteousness is a very different doctrine from that ’divinity of man’ which is so often preached. The divinity is not the divinity of man, but the divinity of Christ. And the power that works for righteousness is not the power of man, but the power of Christ. It is a power whose warning, inviting, persuading influence renders only more marked and dreadful the evil will which hampers and resists it. Depravity is all the worse, when we recognize in it the constant antagonist of an ever-present, all-holy, and all-loving Redeemer.”

1. Proof.

As it is readily admitted that the outward act of transgression is properly denominated sin, we here attempt to show only that lack of conformity to the law of God in disposition or state is also and equally to be so denominated.

A. From Scripture.

(a) The words ordinarily translated “sin,” or used as synonyms for it, are as applicable to dispositions and states as to acts (חטאה and ἁμαρτία = a missing, failure, coming short [sc. of God’s will]).

See Num. 15:28—“sinneth unwittingly”; Ps. 51:2—“cleanse me from my sin”; 5—“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity; And in sin did my mother conceive me”; Rom. 7:17—“sin which dwelleth in me”; compare Judges 20:16, where the literal meaning of the word appears: “sling stones at a hair-breadth, and not miss” (חטא). In a similar manner, משע [LXX ἀσέβεια] = separation from, rebellion against [sc. God]; see Lev. 16:16, 21; cf. Delitzsch on Ps. 32:1. עון [LXX ἀδικία] = bending, perversion [sc. of what is right], iniquity; see Lev. 5:17; cf. John 7:18. See also the Hebrew רע, רשע, [= ruin, confusion], and the Greek ἀποστασία, ἐπιθυμία, ἔχθρα, κακία, πονηρία, σάρξ. None of these designations of sin limits it to mere act,—most of them more naturally suggest disposition or state. Ἁμαρτία implies that man in sin does not reach what he seeks therein; sin is a state of delusion and deception (Julius Müller). On the words mentioned, see Girdlestone, O. T. Synonyms; Cremer, Lexicon N. T. Greek; Present Day Tracts, 5: no. 28, pp. 43-47; Trench, N. T. Synonyms, part 2:61, 73.

(b) The New Testament descriptions of sin bring more distinctly to view the states and dispositions than the outward acts of the soul (1 John 3:4—ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐστὶν ἡ ἀνομία, where ἀνομία =, not “transgression of the law,” but, as both context and etymology show, “lack of conformity to law” or “lawlessness”—Rev. Vers.).

See 1 John 5:17—“All unrighteousness is sin”; Rom. 14:23—“whatsoever is not of faith is sin”; James 4:17—“To him therefore that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” Where the sin is that of not doing, sin cannot be said to consist in act. It must then at least be a state.

(c) Moral evil is ascribed not only to the thoughts and affections, but to the heart from which they spring (we read of the “evil thoughts” and of the “evil heart”—Mat. 15:19 and Heb. 3:12).

See also Mat. 5:22—anger in the heart is murder; 28—impure desire is adultery. Luke 6:45—“the evil man out of the evil treasure [of his heart] bringeth forth that which is evil.” Heb. 3:12—“an evil heart of unbelief”; cf. Is. 1:5—“the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint”; Jer. 17:9—“The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt: who can know it?”—here the sin that cannot be known is not sin of act, but sin of the heart. “Below the surface stream, shallow and light, Of what we say we feel; below the stream, As light, of what we think we feel, there flows, With silent current, strong, obscure and deep, The central stream of what we feel indeed.”

(d) The state or condition of the soul which gives rise to wrong desires and acts is expressly called sin (Rom. 7:8—“Sin ... wrought in me ... all manner of coveting”).

John 8:34—“Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin”; Rom. 7:11, 13, 14, 17, 20—“sin ... beguiled me ... working death to me ... I am carnal, sold under sin ... sin which dwelleth in me.” These representations of sin as a principle or state of the soul are incompatible with the definition of it as a mere act. John Byrom, 1691-1763: “Think and be careful what thou art within, For there is sin in the desire of sin. Think and be thankful in a different case, For there is grace in the desire of grace.” Alexander, Theories of the Will, 85—“In the person of Paul is represented the man who has been already justified by faith and who is at peace with God. In the 6th chapter of Romans, the question is discussed whether such a man is obliged to keep the moral law. But in the 7th chapter the question is not, must man keep the moral law? but why is he so incapable of keeping the moral law? The struggle is thus, not in the soul of the unregenerate man who is dead in sin, but in the soul of the regenerate man who has been pardoned and is endeavoring to keep the law.... In a state of sin the will is determined toward the bad; in a state of grace the will is determined toward righteousness; but not wholly so, for the flesh is not at once subdued, and there is a war between the good and bad principles of action in the soul of him who has been pardoned.”

(e) Sin is represented as existing in the soul, prior to the consciousness of it, and as only discovered and awakened by the law (Rom. 7:9, 10—“when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died”—if sin “revived,” it must have had previous existence and life, even though it did not manifest itself in acts of conscious transgression).

Rom. 7:8—“apart from the law sin is dead”—here is sin which is not yet sin of act. Dead or unconscious sin is still sin. The fire in a cave discovers reptiles and stirs them, but they were there before; the light and heat do not create them. Let a beam of light, says Jean Paul Richter, through your window-shutter into a darkened room, and you reveal a thousand motes floating in the air whose existence was before unsuspected. So the law of God reveals our “hidden faults” (Ps. 19:12)—infirmities, imperfections, evil tendencies and desires—which also cannot all be classed as acts of transgression.

(f) The allusions to sin as a permanent power or reigning principle, not only in the individual but in humanity at large, forbid us to define it as a momentary act, and compel us to regard it as being primarily a settled depravity of nature, of which individual sins or acts of transgression are the workings and fruits (Rom. 5:21—“sin reigned in death”; 6:12—“let not therefore sin reign in your mortal body”).

In Rom. 5:21, the reign of sin is compared to the reign of grace. As grace is not an act but a principle, so sin is not an act but a principle. As the poisonous exhalations from a well indicate that there is corruption and death at the bottom, so the ever-recurring thoughts and acts of sin are evidence that there is a principle of sin in the heart,—in other words, that sin exists as a permanent disposition or state. A momentary act cannot “reign” nor “dwell”; a disposition or state can. Maudsley, Sleep, its Psychology, makes the damaging confession: “If we were held responsible for our dreams, there is no living man who would not deserve to be hanged.”

(g) The Mosaic sacrifices for sins of ignorance and of omission, and especially for general sinfulness, are evidence that sin is not to be limited to mere act, but that it includes something deeper and more permanent in the heart and the life (Lev. 1:3; 5:11; 12:8; cf. Luke 2:24).

The sin-offering for sins of ignorance (Lev. 4:14, 20, 31), the trespass-offering for sins of omission (Lev. 5:5, 6), and the burnt offering to expiate general sinfulness (Lev. 1:3; cf. Luke 2:22-24), all witness that sin is not confined to mere act. John 1:29—“the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin,” not the sins, “of the world”. See Oehler, O. T. Theology, 1:233; Schmid, Bib. Theol. N. T., 194, 381, 442, 448, 492, 604; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 3:210-217; Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:259-306; Edwards, Works. 3:16-18. For the New School definition of sin, see Fitch, Nature of Sin, and Park, in Bib. Sac., 7:551.

B. From the common judgment of mankind.

(a) Men universally attribute vice as well as virtue not only to conscious and deliberate acts, but also to dispositions and states. Belief in something more permanently evil than acts of transgression is indicated in the common phrases, “hateful temper,” “wicked pride,” “bad character.”

As the beatitudes (Mat. 5:1-12) are pronounced, not upon acts, but upon dispositions of the soul, so the curses of the law are uttered not so much against single acts of transgression as against the evil affections from which they spring. Compare the “works of the flesh” (Gal. 5:19) with the “fruit of the Spirit” (5:22). In both, dispositions and states predominate.

(b) Outward acts, indeed, are condemned only when they are regarded as originating in, and as symptomatic of, evil dispositions. Civil law proceeds upon this principle in holding crime to consist, not alone in the external act, but also in the evil motive or intent with which it is performed.

The mens rea is essential to the idea of crime. The “idle-word” (Mat 12:36) shall be brought into the judgment, not because it is so important in itself, but because it is a floating straw that indicates the direction of the whole current of the heart and life. Murder differs from homicide, not in any outward respect, but simply because of the motive that prompts it,—and that motive is always, in the last analysis, an evil disposition or state.

(c) The stronger an evil disposition, or in other words, the more it connects itself with, or resolves itself into, a settled state or condition of the soul, the more blameworthy is it felt to be. This is shown by the distinction drawn between crimes of passion and crimes of deliberation.

Edwards: “Guilt consists in having one’s heart wrong, and in doing wrong from the heart.” There is guilt in evil desires, even when the will combats them. But there is greater guilt when the will consents. The outward act may be in each case the same, but the guilt of it is proportioned to the extent to which the evil disposition is settled and strong.

(d) This condemning sentence remains the same, even although the origin of the evil disposition or state cannot be traced back to any conscious act of the individual. Neither the general sense of mankind, nor the civil law in which this general sense is expressed, goes behind the fact of an existing evil will. Whether this evil will is the result of personal transgression or is a hereditary bias derived from generations passed, this evil will is the man himself, and upon him terminates the blame. We do not excuse arrogance or sensuality upon the ground that they are family traits.

The young murderer in Boston was not excused upon the ground of a congenitally cruel disposition. We repent in later years of sins of boyhood, which we only now see to be sins; and converted cannibals repent, after becoming Christians, of the sins of heathendom which they once committed without a thought of their wickedness. The peacock cannot escape from his feet by flying, nor can we absolve ourselves from blame for an evil state of will by tracing its origin to a remote ancestry. We are responsible for what we are. How this can be, when we have not personally and consciously originated it, is the problem of original sin, which we have yet to discuss.

(e) When any evil disposition has such strength in itself, or is so combined with others, as to indicate a settled moral corruption in which no power to do good remains, this state is regarded with the deepest disapprobation of all. Sin weakens man’s power of obedience, but the can-not is a will-not, and is therefore condemnable. The opposite principle would lead to the conclusion that, the more a man weakened his powers by transgression, the less guilty he would be, until absolute depravity became absolute innocence.

The boy who hates his father cannot change his hatred into love by a single act of will; but he is not therefore innocent. Spontaneous and uncontrollable profanity is the worst profanity of all. It is a sign that the whole will, like a subterranean Kentucky river, is moving away from God, and that no recuperative power is left in the soul which can reach into the depths to reverse its course. See Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:110-114; Shedd, Hist. Doct., 2:79-92, 152-157; Richards, Lectures on Theology, 256-301; Edwards, Works, 2:134; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 243-262; Princeton Essays, 2:224-239; Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 394.

C. From the experience of the Christian.

Christian experience is a testing of Scripture truth, and therefore is not an independent source of knowledge. It may, however, corroborate conclusions drawn from the word of God. Since the judgment of the Christian is formed under the influence of the Holy Spirit, we may trust this more implicitly than the general sense of the world. We affirm, then, that just in proportion to his spiritual enlightenment and self-knowledge, the Christian

(a) Regards his outward deviations from God’s law, and his evil inclinations and desires, as outgrowths and revelations of a depravity of nature which lies below his consciousness; and

(b) Repents more deeply for this depravity of nature, which constitutes his inmost character and is inseparable from himself, than for what he merely feels or does.

In proof of these statements we appeal to the biographies and writings of those in all ages who have been by general consent regarded as most advanced in spiritual culture and discernment.

“Intelligentia prima est, ut te noris peccatorem.” Compare David’s experience, Ps. 51:6—“Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: And in the hidden part thou wilt make me to know wisdom”—with Paul’s experience in Rom. 7:24—“Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?”—with Isaiah’s experience (6:5), when in the presence of God’s glory he uses the words of the leper (Lev. 13:45) and calls himself “unclean,” and with Peter’s experience (Luke 5:8) when at the manifestation of Christ’s miraculous power he “fell down at Jesus’ __ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” So the publican cries: “God, be thou merciful to me the sinner”_ (Luke 18:13)_, and Paul calls himself the “chief” of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). It is evident that in none of these cases were there merely single acts of transgression in view; the humiliation and self-abhorrence were in view of permanent states of depravity. Van Oosterzee: “What we do outwardly is only the revelation of our inner nature.” The outcropping and visible rock is but small in extent compared with the rock that is underlying and invisible. The iceberg has eight-ninths of its mass below the surface of the sea, yet icebergs have been seen near Cape Horn from 700 to 800 feet high above the water. It may be doubted whether any repentance is genuine which is not repentance for sin rather than for sins; compare John 16:8—the Holy Spirit “will convict the world in respect of sin/” On the difference between conviction of sins and conviction of sin, see Hare, Mission of the Comforter. Dr. A. J. Gordon, just before his death, desired to be left alone. He was then overheard confessing his sins in such seemingly extravagant terms as to excite fear that he was in delirium. Martensen, Dogmatics, 389—Luther during his early experience “often wrote to Staupitz: ‘Oh, my sins, my sins!’ and yet in the confessional he could name no sins in particular which he had to confess; so that it was clearly a sense of the general depravity of his nature which filled his soul with deep sorrow and pain.” Luther’s conscience would not accept the comfort that he wished to be without sin, and therefore had no real sin. When he thought himself too great a sinner to be saved, Staupitz replied: “Would you have the semblance of a sinner and the semblance of a Savior?” After twenty years of religious experience, Jonathan Edwards wrote (Works 1:22, 23; also 3:16-18): “Often since I have lived in this town I have had very affecting views of my own sinfulness and vileness, very frequently to such a degree as to hold me in a kind of loud weeping, sometimes for a considerable time together, so that I have been often obliged to shut myself up. I have had a vastly greater sense of my own wickedness and the badness of my heart than ever I had before my conversion. It has often appeared to me that if God should mark iniquity against me, I should appear the very worst of all mankind, of all that have been since the beginning of the world to this time; and that I should have by far the lowest place in hell. When others that have come to talk with me about their soul’s concerns have expressed the sense they have had of their own wickedness, by saying that it seemed to them they were as bad as the devil himself; I thought their expressions seemed exceeding faint and feeble to represent my wickedness.” Edwards continues: “My wickedness, as I am in myself, has long appeared to me perfectly ineffable and swallowing up all thought and imagination—like an infinite deluge, or mountains over my head. I know not how to express better what my sins appear to me to be, than by heaping infinite on infinite and multiplying infinite by infinite. Very often for these many years, these expressions are in my mind and in my mouth: ‘Infinite upon infinite—infinite upon infinite!’ When I look into my heart and take a view of my wickedness, it looks like an abyss infinitely deeper than hell. And it appears to me that were it not for free grace, exalted and raised up to the infinite height of all the fulness and glory of the great Jehovah, and the arm of his power and grace stretched forth in all the majesty of his power and in all the glory of his sovereignty, I should appear sunk down in my sins below hell itself, far beyond the sight of everything but the eye of sovereign grace that can pierce even down to such a depth. And yet it seems to me that my conviction of sin is exceeding small and faint; it is enough to amaze me that I have no more sense of my sin. I know certainly that I have very little sense of my sinfulness. When I have had turns of weeping for my sins, I thought I knew at the time that my repentance was nothing to my sin.... It is affecting to think how ignorant I was, when a young Christian, of the bottomless, infinite depths of wickedness, pride, hypocrisy, and deceit left in my heart.” Jonathan Edwards was not an ungodly man, but the holiest man of his time. He was not an enthusiast, but a man of acute, philosophic mind. He was not a man who indulged in exaggerated or random statements, for with his power of introspection and analysis he combined a faculty and habit of exact expression unsurpassed among the sons of men. If the maxim “cuique in arte sua credendum est” is of any value, Edwards’s statements in a matter of religious experience are to be taken as correct interpretations of the facts. H. B. Smith (System. Theol., 275) quotes Thomasius as saying: “It is a striking fact in Scripture that statements of the depth and power of sin are chiefly from the regenerate.” Another has said that “a serpent is never seen at its whole length until it is dead.” Thomas à Kempis (ed. Gould and Lincoln, 142)—“Do not think that thou hast made any progress toward perfection, till thou feelest that thou art less than the least of all human beings.” Young’s Night Thoughts: “Heaven’s Sovereign saves all beings but himself That hideous sight—a naked human heart.” Law’s Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life: “You may justly condemn yourself for being the greatest sinner that you know, 1. Because you know more of the folly of your own heart than of other people’s, and can charge yourself with various sins which you know only of yourself and cannot be sure that others are guilty of them. 2. The greatness of our guilt arises from the greatness of God’s goodness to us. You know more of these aggravations of your sins than you do of the sins of other people. Hence the greatest saints have in all ages condemned themselves as the greatest sinners.” We may add: 3. That, since each man is a peculiar being, each man is guilty of peculiar sins, and in certain particulars and aspects may constitute an example of the enormity and hatefulness of sin, such as neither earth nor hell can elsewhere show. Of Cromwell, as a representative of the Puritans, Green says (Short History of the English People, 454): “The vivid sense of the divine Purity close to such men, made the life of common men seem sin.” Dr. Arnold of Rugby (Life and Corresp., App. D.): “In a deep sense of moral evil, more perhaps than anything else, abides a saving knowledge of God.” Augustine, on his death-bed, had the 32d Psalm written over against him on the wall. For his expressions with regard to sin, see his Confessions, book 10. See also Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 284, note.

2. Inferences.

In the light of the preceding discussion, we may properly estimate the elements of truth and of error in the common definition of sin as “the voluntary transgression of known law.”

(a) Not all sin is voluntary as being a distinct and conscious volition; for evil disposition and state often precede and occasion evil volition, and evil disposition and state are themselves sin. All sin, however, is voluntary as springing either directly from will, or indirectly from those perverse affections and desires which have themselves originated in will. “Voluntary” is a term broader then “volitional,” and includes all those permanent states of intellect and affection which the will has made what they are. Will, moreover, is not to be regarded as simply the faculty of volitions, but as primarily the underlying determination of the being to a supreme end.

Will, as we have seen, includes preference (θέλημα, voluntas, Wille) as well as volition (βουλή, arbitrium, Willkür). We do not, with Edwards and Hodge, regard the sensibilities as states of the will. They are, however, in their character and their objects determined by the will, and so they may be called voluntary. The permanent state of the will (New School “elective preference”) is to be distinguished from the permanent state of the sensibilities (dispositions, or desires). But both are voluntary because both are due to past decisions of the will, and “whatever springs from will we are responsible for” (Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 243). Julius Müller, 2:51—“We speak of self-consciousness and reason as something which the ego has, but we identify the will with the ego. No one would say, ‘my will has decided this or that,’ although we do say, ‘my reason, my conscience teaches me this or that.’ The will is the very man himself, as Augustine says: ‘Voluntas est in omnibus; imo omnes nihil aliud quam voluntates sunt.’ ” For other statements of the relation of disposition to will, see Alexander, Moral Science, 151—“In regard to dispositions, we say that they are in a sense voluntary. They properly belong to the will, taking the word in a large sense. In judging of the morality of voluntary acts, the principle from which they proceed is always included in our view and comes in for a large part of the blame”; see also pages 201, 207, 208. Edwards on the Affections, 3:1-22; on the Will, 3:4—“The affections are only certain modes of the exercise of the will.” A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology, 234—“All sin is voluntary, in the sense that all sin has its root in the perverted dispositions, desires, and affections which constitute the depraved state of the will.” But to Alexander, Edwards, and Hodge, we reply that the first sin was not voluntary in this sense, for there was no such depraved state of the will from which it could spring. We are responsible for dispositions, not upon the ground that they are a part of the will, but upon the ground that they are effects of will, in other words, that past decisions of the will have made them what they are. See pages 504-513.

(b) Deliberate intention to sin is an aggravation of transgression, but it is not essential to constitute any given act or feeling a sin. Those evil inclinations and impulses which rise unbidden and master the soul before it is well aware of their nature, are themselves violations of the divine law, and indications of an inward depravity which in the case of each descendant of Adam is the chief and fontal transgression.

Joseph Cook: “Only the surface-water of the sea is penetrated with light. Beneath is a half-lit region. Still further down is absolute darkness. We are greater than we know.” Weismann, Heredity, 2:8—“At the depth of 170 meters, or 552 feet, there is about as much light as that of a starlight night when there is no moon. Light penetrates as far as 400 meters, or 1,300 feet, but animal life exists at a depth of 4,000 meters, or 13,000 feet. Below 1,300 feet, all animals are blind.” (Cf. Ps. 51:6; 19:12—“the inward parts ... the hidden parts ... hidden faults”—hidden not only from others, but even from ourselves.) The light of consciousness plays only on the surface of the waters of man’s soul.

(c) Knowledge of the sinfulness of an act or feeling is also an aggravation of transgression, but it is not essential to constitute it a sin. Moral blindness is the effect of transgression, and, as inseparable from corrupt affections and desires, is itself condemned by the divine law.

It is our duty to do better than we know. Our duty of knowing is as real as our duty of doing. Sin is an opiate. Some of the most deadly diseases do not reveal themselves in the patient’s countenance, nor has the patient any adequate understanding of his malady. There is an ignorance which is indolence. Men are often unwilling to take the trouble of rectifying their standards of judgment. There is also an ignorance which is intention. Instance many students’ ignorance of College laws. We cannot excuse disobedience by saying: “I forgot.” God’s commandment is: “Remember”—as in Ex. 20:8; cf. 2 Pet. 3:5—“For this they wilfully forget.” “Ignorantia legis neminem excusat.” Rom. 2:12—“as many as have sinned without the law shall also perish without the law”; Luke 12:48—“he that knew not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten [though] with few stripes.” The aim of revelation and of preaching is to bring man “to himself” (cf. Luke 15:17)—to show him what he has been doing and what he is. Goethe: “We are never deceived: we deceive ourselves.” Royce, World and Individual, 2:359—“The sole possible free moral action is then a freedom that relates to the present fixing of attention upon the ideas of the Ought which are already present. To sin is consciously to choose to forget, through a narrowing of the field of attention, an Ought that one already recognizes.”

(d) Ability to fulfill the law is not essential to constitute the non-fulfilment sin. Inability to fulfill the law is a result of transgression, and, as consisting not in an original deficiency of faculty but in a settled state of the affections and will, it is itself condemnable. Since the law presents the holiness of God as the only standard for the creature, ability to obey can never be the measure of obligation or the test of sin.

Not power to the contrary, in the sense of ability to change all our permanent states by mere volition, is the basis of obligation and responsibility; for surely Satan’s responsibility does not depend upon his power at any moment to turn to God and be holy. Definitions of sin—Melanchthon: Defectus vel inclinatio vel actio pugnans cum lege Dei. Calvin: Illegalitas, seu difformitas a lege. Hollaz: Aberratio a lege divina. Hollaz adds: “Voluntariness does not enter into the definition of sin, generically considered. Sin may be called voluntary, either in respect to its cause, as it inheres in the will, or in respect to the act, as it procedes from deliberate volition. Here is the antithesis to the Roman Catholics and to the Socinians, the latter of whom define sin as a voluntary [i. e., a volitional] transgression of law”—a view, says Hase (Hutterus Redivivus, 11th ed., 162-164), “which is derived from the necessary methods of civil tribunals, and which is incompatible with the orthodox doctrine of original sin.” On the New School definition of sin, see Fairchild, Nature of Sin, in Bib. Sac., 25:30-48; Whedon, in Bib. Sac., 19:251, and On the Will, 328. Per contra, see Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:180-190; Lawrence, Old School in N. E. Theol., in Bib. Sac., 20:317-328; Julius Müller, Doc. Sin, 1:40-72; Nitzsch, Christ. Doct., 216; Luthardt, Compendium der Dogmatik, 124-126.

The definition of sin as lack of conformity to the divine law does not exclude, but rather necessitates, an inquiry into the characterizing motive or impelling power which explains its existence and constitutes its guilt. Only three views require extended examination. Of these the first two constitute the most common excuses for sin, although not propounded for this purpose by their authors: Sin is due (1) to the human body, or (2) to finite weakness. The third, which we regard as the Scriptural view, considers sin as (3) the supreme choice of self, or selfishness.

In the preceding section on the Definition of Sin, we showed that sin is a state, and a state of the will. We now ask: What is the nature of this state? and we expect to show that it is essentially a selfish state of the will.

1. Sin as Sensuousness.

This view regards sin as the necessary product of man’s sensuous nature—a result of the soul’s connection with a physical organism. This is the view of Schleiermacher and of Rothe. More recent writers, with John Fiske, regard moral evil as man’s inheritance from a brute ancestry.

For statement of the view here opposed, see Schleiermacher, Der Christliche Glaube, 1:361-364—“Sin is a prevention of the determining power of the spirit, caused by the independence (Selbständigkeit) of the sensuous functions.” The child lives at first a life of sense, in which the bodily appetites are supreme. The senses are the avenues of all temptation, the physical domineers over the spiritual, and the soul never shakes off the body. Sin is, therefore, a malarious exhalation from the low grounds of human nature, or, to use the words of Schleiermacher, “a positive opposition of the flesh to the spirit.” Pfleiderer, Prot. Theol. seit Kant, 113,—says that Schleiermacher here repeats Spinoza’s “inability of the spirit to control the sensuous affections.” Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 1:230—“In the development of man out of naturality, the lower impulses have already won a power of self-assertion and resistance, before the reason could yet come to its valid position and authority. As this propensity of the self-will is grounded in the specific nature of man, it may be designated as inborn, hereditary, or original sinfulness.” Rothe’s view of sin may be found in his Dogmatik, 1:300-302; notice the connection of Rothe’s view of sin with his doctrine of continuous creation (see page 416 of this Compendium). Encyclopædia Britannica, 21:2—“Rothe was a thorough going evolutionist who regarded the natural man as the consummation of the development of physical nature, and regarded spirit as the personal attainment, with divine help, of those beings in whom the further creative process of moral development is carried on. This process of development necessarily takes an abnormal form and passes through the phase of sin. This abnormal condition necessitates a fresh creative act, that of salvation, which was however from the very first a part of the divine plan of development. Rothe, notwithstanding his evolutionary doctrine, believed in the supernatural birth of Christ.” John Fiske, Destiny of Man, 103—“Original sin is neither more nor less than the brute inheritance which every man carries with him, and the process of evolution is an advance toward true salvation.” Thus man is a sphynx in whom the human has not yet escaped from the animal. So Bowne, Atonement, 69, declares that sin is “a relic of the animal not yet outgrown, a resultant of the mechanism of appetite and impulse and reflex action for which the proper inhibitions are not yet developed. Only slowly does it grow into a consciousness of itself as evil.... It would be hysteria to regard the common life of men as rooting in a conscious choice of unrighteousness.”

In refutation of this view, it will be sufficient to urge the following considerations:

(a) It involves an assumption of the inherent evil of matter, at least so far as regards the substance of man’s body. But this is either a form of dualism, and may be met with the objections already brought against that system, or it implies that God, in being the author of man’s physical organism, is also the responsible originator of human sin.

This has been called the “caged-eagle theory” of man’s existence; it holds that the body is a prison only, or, as Plato expressed it, “the tomb of the soul,” so that the soul can be pure only by escaping from the body. But matter is not eternal. God made it, and made it pure. The body was made to be the servant of the spirit. We must not throw the blame of sin upon the senses, but upon the spirit that used the senses so wickedly. To attribute sin to the body is to make God, the author of the body, to be also the author of sin,—which is the greatest of blasphemies. Men cannot “justly accuse Their Maker, or their making, or their fate” (Milton, Paradise Lost, 3:112). Sin is a contradiction within the spirit itself, and not simply between the spirit and the flesh. Sensuous activities are not themselves sinful—this is essential Manichæanism. Robert Burns was wrong when he laid the blame for his delinquencies upon “the passions wild and strong.” And Samuel Johnson was wrong when he said that “Every man is a rascal so soon as he is sick.” The normal soul has power to rise above both passion and sickness and to make them serve its moral development. On the development of the body, as the organ of sin, see Straffen’s Hulsean Lectures on Sin, 33-50. The essential error of this view is its identification of the moral with the physical. If it were true, then Jesus, who came in human flesh, must needs be a sinner.

(b) In explaining sin as an inheritance from the brute, this theory ignores the fact that man, even though derived from a brute ancestry, is no longer brute, but man, with power to recognize and to realize moral ideals, and under no necessity to violate the law of his being.

See A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 163-180, on The Fall and the Redemption of Man, in the Light of Evolution: “Evolution has been thought to be incompatible with any proper doctrine of a fall. It has been assumed by many that man’s immoral course and conduct are simply survivals of his brute inheritance, inevitable remnants of his old animal propensities, yieldings of the weak will to fleshly appetites and passions. This is to deny that sin is truly sin, but it is also to deny that man is truly man.... Sin must be referred to freedom, or it is not sin. To explain it as the natural result of weak will overmastered by lower impulses is to make the animal nature, and not the will, the cause of transgression. And that is to say that man at the beginning is not man, but brute.” See also D. W. Simon, in Bib. Sac., Jan. 1897:1-20—“The key to the strange and dark contrast between man and his animal ancestry is to be found in the fact of the Fall. Other species live normally. No remnant of the reptile hinders the bird. The bird is a true bird. Only man fails to live normally and is a true man only after ages of sin and misery.” Marlowe very properly makes his Faustus to be tempted by sensual baits only after he has sold himself to Satan for power. To regard vanity, deceitfulness, malice, and revenge as inherited from brute ancestors is to deny man’s original innocence and the creatorship of God. B. W. Lockhart: “The animal mind knows not God, is not subject to his law, neither indeed can be, just because it is animal, and as such is incapable of right or wrong.... If man were an animal and nothing more, he could not sin. It is by virtue of being something more, that he becomes capable of sin. Sin is the yielding of the known higher to the known lower. It is the soul’s abdication of its being to the brute.... Hence the need of spiritual forces from the spiritual world of divine revelation, to heal and build and discipline the soul within itself, giving it the victory over the animal passions which constitute the body and over the kingdom of blind desire which constitutes the world. The final purpose of man is growth of the soul into liberty, truth, love, likeness to God. Education is the word that covers the movement, and probation is incident to education.” We add that reparation for past sin and renewing power from above must follow probation, in order to make education possible. Some recent writers hold to a real fall of man, and yet regard that fall as necessary to his moral development. Emma Marie Caillard, in Contemp. Rev., Dec. 1893: 879—“Man passed out of a state of innocence—unconscious of his own imperfection—into a state of consciousness of it. The will became slave instead of master. The result would have been the complete stoppage of his evolution but for redemption, which restored his will and made the continuance of his evolution possible. Incarnation was the method of redemption. But even apart from the fall, this incarnation would have been necessary to reveal to man the goal of his evolution and so to secure his coöperation in it.” Lisle, Evolution of Spiritual Man, 39, and in Bib. Sac., July, 1892: 431-452—“Evolution by catastrophe in the natural world has a striking analogue in the spiritual world.... Sin is primarily not so much a fall from a higher to a lower, as a failure to rise from a lower to a higher; not so much eating of the forbidden tree, as failure to partake of the tree of life. The latter represented communion and correspondence with God, and had innocent man continued to reach out for this, he would not have fallen. Man’s refusal to choose the higher preceded and conditioned his fall to the lower, and the essence of sin is therefore in this refusal, whatever may cause the will to make it.... Man chose the lower of his own free will. Then his centripetal force was gone. His development was swiftly and endlessly away from God. He reverted to his original type of savage animalism; and yet, as a self-conscious and free-acting being, he retained a sense of responsibility that filled him with fear and suffering.” On the development-theory of sin, see W. W. McLane, in New Englander, 1891: 180-188; A. B. Bruce, Apologetics, 60-62; Lyman Abbott, Evolution of Christianity, 203-208; Le Conte, Evolution, 330, 365-375; Henry Drummond, Ascent of Man, 1-13, 329, 342; Salem Wilder, Life, its Nature, 266-273; Wm. Graham, Creed of Science, 38-44; Frank H. Foster, Evolution and the Evangelical System; Chandler, The Spirit of Man, 45-47.

(c) It rests upon an incomplete induction of facts, taking account of sin solely in its aspect of self-degradation, but ignoring the worst aspect of it as self-exaltation. Avarice, envy, pride, ambition, malice, cruelty, revenge, self-righteousness, unbelief, enmity to God, are none of them fleshly sins, and upon this principle are incapable of explanation.

Two historical examples may suffice to show the insufficiency of the sensuous theory of sin. Goethe was not a markedly sensual man; yet the spiritual vivisection which he practised on Friederike Brion, his perfidious misrepresentation of his relations with Kestner’s wife in the “Sorrows of Werther,” and his flattery of Napoleon, when a patriot would have scorned the advances of the invader of his country, show Goethe to have been a very incarnation of heartlessness and selfishness. The patriot Boerne said of him: “Not once has he ever advanced a poor solitary word in his country’s cause—he who from the lofty height he has attained might speak out what none other but himself would dare pronounce.” It has been said that Goethe’s first commandment to genius was: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor and thy neighbor’s wife.” His biographers count up sixteen women to whom he made love and who reciprocated his affection, though it is doubtful whether he contented himself with the doctrine of 16 to 1. As Sainte-Beuve said of Châteaubriand’s attachments: “They are like the stars in the sky,—the longer you look, the more of them you discover.” Christiane Vulpius, after being for seventeen years his mistress, became at last his wife. But the wife was so slighted that she was driven to intemperance, and Goethe’s only son inherited her passion and died of drink. Goethe was the great heathen of modern Christendom, deriding self-denial, extolling self-confidence, attention to the present, the seeking of enjoyment, and the submission of one’s self to the decrees of fate. Hutton calls Goethe “a Narcissus in love with himself.” Like George Eliot’s “Dinah,” in Adam Bede, Goethe’s “Confessions of a Beautiful Soul,” in Wilhelm Meister, are the purely artistic delineation of a character with which he had no inner sympathy. On Goethe, see Hutton, Essays, 2:1-79; Shedd, Dogm. Theology, 1:490; A. H. Strong, Great Poets, 279-331; Principal Shairp, Culture and Religion, 16—“Goethe, the high priest of culture, loathes Luther, the preacher of righteousness”; S. Law Wilson, Theology of Modern Literature, 149-156. Napoleon was not a markedly sensual man, but “his self-sufficiency surpassed the self-sufficiency of common men as the great Sahara desert surpasses an ordinary sand patch.” He wantonly divulged his amours to Josephine, with all the details of his ill-conduct, and when she revolted from them, he only replied: “I have the right to meet all your complaints with an eternal I.” When his wars had left almost no able-bodied men in France, he called for the boys, saying: “A boy can stop a bullet as well as a man,” and so the French nation lost two inches of stature. Before the battle of Leipzig, when there was prospect of unexampled slaughter, he exclaimed: “What are the lives of a million of men, to carry out the will of a man like me?” His most truthful epitaph was: “The little butchers of Ghent to Napoleon the Great” [butcher]. Heine represents Napoleon as saying to the world: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Memoirs of Madame de Rémusat, 1:225—“At a fête given by the city of Paris to the Emperor, the repertory of inscriptions being exhausted, a brilliant device was resorted to. Over the throne which he was to occupy, were placed, in letters of gold, the following words from the Holy Scriptures: ‘I am the I am.’ And no one seemed to be scandalized.” Iago, in Shakespeare’s Othello, is the greatest villain of all literature; but Coleridge, Works, 4:180, calls attention to his passionless character. His sin is, like that of Goethe and of Napoleon, sin not of the flesh but of the intellect and will.

(d) It leads to absurd conclusions,—as, for example, that asceticism, by weakening the power of sense, must weaken the power of sin; that man becomes less sinful as his senses fail with age; that disembodied spirits are necessarily holy; that death is the only Redeemer.

Asceticism only turns the current of sin in other directions. Spiritual pride and tyranny take the place of fleshly desires. The miser clutches his gold more closely as he nears death. Satan has no physical organism, yet he is the prince of evil. Not our own death, but Christ’s death, saves us. But when Rousseau’s Émile comes to die, he calmly declares: “I am delivered from the trammels of the body, and am myself without contradiction.” At the age of seventy-five Goethe wrote to Eckermann: “I have ever been esteemed one of fortune’s favorites, nor can I complain of the course my life has taken. Yet truly there has been nothing but care and toil, and I may say that I have never had four weeks of genuine pleasure.” Shedd, Dogm. Theology, 2:743—“When the authoritative demand of Jesus Christ, to confess sin and beg remission through atoning blood, is made to David Hume, or David Strauss, or John Stuart Mill, none of whom were sensualists, it wakens intense mental hostility.”

(e) It interprets Scripture erroneously. In passages like Rom. 7:18—οὐκ οἰκεῖ ἐν ἐμοί, τοῦτ᾽ ἐστιν ἐν τῇ σαρκί μου, ἀγαθόν—σάρξ, or flesh, signifies, not man’s body, but man’s whole being when destitute of the Spirit of God. The Scriptures distinctly recognize the seat of sin as being in the soul itself, not in its physical organism. God does not tempt man, nor has he made man’s nature to tempt him (James 1:13, 14).

In the use of the term “flesh,” Scripture puts a stigma upon sin, and intimates that human nature without God is as corruptible and perishable as the body would be without the soul to inhabit it. The “carnal mind,” or “mind of the flesh”_ (Rom. 8:7)_, accordingly means, not the sensual mind, but the mind which is not under the control of the Holy Spirit, its true life. See Meyer, on 1 Cor. 1:26—σάρξ—“the purely human element in man, as opposed to the divine principle”; Pope, Theology, 2:65—σάρξ—“the whole being of man, body, soul, and spirit, separated from God and subjected to the creature”; Julius Müller, Proof-texts, 19—σάρξ—“human nature as living in and for itself, sundered from God and opposed to him.” The earliest and best statement of this view of the term σάρξ is that of Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 1:295-333, especially 321. See also Dickson, St. Paul’s Use of the Terms Flesh and Spirit, 270-271—σάρξ—“human nature without the πνεῦμα.... man standing by himself, or left to himself, over against God.... the natural man, conceived as not having yet received grace, or as not yet wholly under its influence.” James 1:14, 15—“desire, when it hath conceived, beareth sin”—innocent desire—for it comes in before the sin—innocent constitutional propensity, not yet of the nature of depravity, is only the occasion of sin. The love of freedom is a part of our nature; sin arises only when the will determines to indulge this impulse without regard to the restraints of the divine law. Luther, Preface to Ep. to Romans: “Thou must not understand ‘flesh’ as though that only were ‘flesh’ which is connected with unchastity. St. Paul uses ‘flesh’ of the whole man, body and soul, reason and all his faculties included, because all that is in him longs and strives after the ‘flesh’.” Melanchthon: “Note that ‘flesh’ signifies the entire nature of man, sense and reason, without the Holy Spirit.” Gould, Bib. Theol. N. T., 76—“The σάρξ of Paul corresponds to the κόσμος of John. Paul sees the divine economy; John the divine nature. That Paul did not hold sin to consist in the possession of a body appears from his doctrine of a bodily resurrection (1 Cor. 15:38-49). This resurrection of the body is an integral part of immortality.” On σάρξ, see Thayer, N. T. Lexicon, 571; Kaftan, Dogmatik, 319.

(f) Instead of explaining sin, this theory virtually denies its existence,—for if sin arises from the original constitution of our being, reason may recognize it as misfortune, but conscience cannot attribute to it guilt.

Sin which in its ultimate origin is a necessary thing is no longer sin. On the whole theory of the sensuous origin of sin, see Neander, Planting and Training, 386, 428; Ernesti, Ursprung der Sünde, 1:29-274; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 2:132-147; Tulloch, Doctrine of Sin, 144—“That which is an inherent and necessary power in the creation cannot be a contradiction of its highest law.” This theory confounds sin with the mere consciousness of sin. On Schleiermacher, see Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 1:341-349. On the sense-theory of sin in general, see John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 2:26-52; N. R. Wood, The Witness of Sin, 79-87.

2. Sin as Finiteness.

This view explains sin as a necessary result of the limitations of man’s finite being. As an incident of imperfect development, the fruit of ignorance and impotence, sin is not absolutely but only relatively evil—an element in human education and a means of progress. This is the view of Leibnitz and of Spinoza. Modern writers, as Schurman and Royce, have maintained that moral evil is the necessary background and condition of moral good.

The theory of Leibnitz may be found in his Théodicée, part 1, sections 20 and 31; that of Spinoza in his Ethics, part 4, proposition 20. Upon this view sin is the blundering of inexperience, the thoughtlessness that takes evil for good, the ignorance that puts its fingers into the fire, the stumbling without which one cannot learn to walk. It is a fruit which is sour and bitter simply because it is immature. It is a means of discipline and training for something better,—it is holiness in the germ, good in the making—“Erhebung des Menschen zur freien Vernunft.” The Fall was a fall up, and not down. John Fiske, in addition to his sense-theory of sin already mentioned, seems to hold this theory also. In his Mystery of Evil, he says: “Its impress upon the human soul is the indispensable background against which shall be set hereafter the eternal joys of heaven”; in other words, sin is necessary to holiness, as darkness is the indispensable contrast and background to light; without black, we should never be able to know white. Schurman, Belief in God, 251 sq.—“The possibility of sin is the correlative of the free initiative God has vacated on man’s behalf.... The essence of sin is the enthronement of self.... Yet, without such self-absorption, there could be no sense of union with God. For consciousness is possible only through opposition. To know A, we must know it through not-A. Alienation from God is the necessary condition of communion with God. And this is the meaning of the Scripture that ‘where sin abounded, grace shall much more abound.’... Modern culture protests against the Puritan enthronement of goodness above truth.... For the decalogue it would substitute the wider new commandment of Goethe: ‘Live resolutely in the Whole, in the Good, in the Beautiful.’ The highest religion can be content with nothing short of the synthesis demanded by Goethe.... God is the universal life in which individual activities are included as movements of a single organism.” Royce, World and Individual, 2:364-384—“Evil is a discord necessary to perfect harmony. In itself it is evil, but in relation to the whole it has value by showing us its own finiteness and imperfection. It is a sorrow to God as much as to us; indeed, all our sorrow is his sorrow. The evil serves the good only by being overcome, thwarted, overruled. Every evil deed must somewhere and at some time be atoned for, by some other than the agent, if not by the agent himself.... All finite life is a struggle with evil. Yet from the final point of view the Whole is good. The temporal order contains at no moment anything that can satisfy. Yet the eternal order is perfect. We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Yet in just our life, viewed in its entirety, the glory of God is completely manifest. These hard sayings are the deepest expressions of the essence of true religion. They are also the most inevitable outcome of philosophy.... Were there no longing in time, there would be no peace in eternity. The prayer that God’s will may be done on earth as it is in heaven is identical with what philosophy regards as simple fact.”

We object to this theory that

(a) It rests upon a pantheistic basis, as the sense-theory rests upon dualism. The moral is confounded with the physical; might is identified with right. Since sin is a necessary incident of finiteness, and creatures can never be infinite, it follows that sin must be everlasting, not only in the universe, but in each individual soul.

Goethe, Carlyle, and Emerson are representatives of this view in literature. Goethe spoke of the “idleness of wishing to jump off from one’s own shadow.” He was a disciple of Spinoza, who believed in one substance with contradictory attributes of thought and extension. Goethe took the pantheistic view of God with the personal view of man. He ignored the fact of sin. Hutton calls him “the wisest man the world has seen who was without humility and faith, and who lacked the wisdom of a child.” Speaking of Goethe’s Faust, Hutton says: “The great drama is radically false in its fundamental philosophy. Its primary notion is that even a spirit of pure evil is an exceedingly useful being, because he stirs into activity those whom he leads into sin, and so prevents them from rusting away in pure indolence. There are other and better means of stimulating the positive affections of men than by tempting them to sin.” On Goethe, see Hutton, Essays, 2:1-79; Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:490; A. H. Strong, Great Poets and their Theology, 279-331. Carlyle was a Scotch Presbyterian minus Christianity. At the age of twenty-five, he rejected miraculous and historical religion, and thenceforth had no God but natural Law. His worship of objective truth became a worship of subjective sincerity, and his worship of personal will became a worship of impersonal force. He preached truth, service, sacrifice, but all in a mandatory and pessimistic way. He saw in England and Wales “twenty-nine millions—mostly fools.” He had no love, no remedy, no hope. In our civil war, he was upon the side of the slaveholder. He claimed that his philosophy made right to be might, but in practice he made might to be right. Confounding all moral distinctions, as he did in his later writings, he was fit to wear the title which he invented for another: “President of the Heaven-and-Hell-Amalgamation Society.” Froude calls him “a Calvinist without the theology”—a believer in predestination without grace. On Carlyle, see S. Law Wilson, Theology of Modern Literature, 131-178. Emerson also is the worshiper of successful force. His pantheism is most manifest in his poems “Cupido” and “Brahma,” and in his Essays on “Spirit” and on “The Over-soul.” Cupido: “The solid, solid universe Is pervious to Love; With bandaged eyes he never errs, Around, below, above. His blinding light He flingeth white On God’s and Satan’s brood, And reconciles by mystic wiles The evil and the good.” Brahma: “If the red slayer thinks he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again. Far or forgot to me is near; Shadow and sunlight are the same; The vanished gods to me appear; And one to me are shame or fame. They reckon ill who leave me out; When me they fly, I am the wings; I am the doubter and the doubt, And I the hymn the Brahmin sings. The strong gods pine for my abode, And pine in vain the sacred Seven; But thou, meek lover of the good, Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.” Emerson taught that man’s imperfection is not sin, and that the cure for it lies in education. “He lets God evaporate into abstract Ideality. Not a Deity in the concrete, nor a superhuman Person, but rather the immanent divinity in things, the essentially spiritual structure of the universe, is the object of the transcendental cult.” His view of Jesus is found in his Essays, 2:263—“Jesus would absorb the race; but Tom Paine, or the coarsest blasphemer, helps humanity by resisting this exuberance of power.” In his Divinity School Address, he banished the person of Jesus from genuine religion. He thought “one could not be a man if he must subordinate his nature to Christ’s nature.” He failed to see that Jesus not only absorbs but transforms, and that we grow only by the impact of nobler souls than our own. Emerson’s essay style is devoid of clear and precise theological statement, and in this vagueness lies its harmfulness. Fisher, Nature and Method of Revelation, xii—“Emerson’s pantheism is not hardened into a consistent creed, for to the end he clung to the belief in personal immortality, and he pronounced the acceptance of this belief ‘the test of mental sanity.’ ” On Emerson, see S. L. Wilson, Theology of Modern Literature, 97-123. We may call this theory the “green-apple theory” of sin. Sin is a green apple, which needs only time and sunshine and growth to bring it to ripeness and beauty and usefulness. But we answer that sin is not a green apple, but an apple with a worm at its heart. The evil of it can never be cured by growth. The fall can never be anything else than downward. Upon this theory, sin is an inseparable factor in the nature of finite things. The highest archangel cannot be without it. Man in moral character is “the asymptote of God,”—forever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. The throne of iniquity is set up forever in the universe. If this theory were true, Jesus, in virtue of his partaking of our finite humanity, must needs be a sinner. His perfect development, without sin, shows that sin was not a necessity of finite progress. Matthews, in Christianity and Evolution, 137—“It was not necessary for the prodigal to go into the far country and become a swineherd, in order to find out the father’s love.” E. H. Johnson, Syst. Theol., 141—“It is not the privilege of the Infinite alone to be good.” Dorner, System, 1:119, speaks of the moral career which this theory describes, as “a progressus in infinitum, where the constant approach to the goal has as its reverse side an eternal separation from the goal.” In his “Transformation,” Hawthorne hints, though rather hesitatingly, that without sin the higher humanity of man could not be taken up at all, and that sin may be essential to the first conscious awakening of moral freedom and to the possibility of progress; see Hutton, Essays, 2:381.

(b) So far as this theory regards moral evil as a necessary presupposition and condition of moral good, it commits the serious error of confounding the possible with the actual. What is necessary to goodness is not the actuality of evil, but only the possibility of evil.

Since we cannot know white except in contrast to black, it is claimed that without knowing actual evil we could never know actual good. George A. Gordon, New Epoch for Faith, 49, 50, has well shown that in that case the elimination of evil would imply the elimination of good. Sin would need to have place in God’s being in order that he might be holy, and thus he would be divinity and devil in one person. Jesus too must needs be evil as well as good. Not only would it be true, as intimated above, that Christ, since his humanity is finite, must be a sinner, but also that we ourselves, who must always be finite, must always be sinners. We grant that holiness, in either God or man, must involve the abstract possibility of its opposite. But we maintain that, as this possibility in God is only abstract and never realized, so in man it should be only abstract and never realized. Man has power to reject this possible evil. His sin is a turning of the merely possible evil, by the decision of his will, into actual evil. Robert Browning is not free from the error above mentioned; see S. Law Wilson, Theology of Modern Literature, 207-210; A. H. Strong, Great Poets and their Theology, 433-444. This theory of sin dates back to Hegel. To him there is no real sin and cannot be. Imperfection there is and must always be, because the relative can never become the absolute. Redemption is only an evolutionary process, indefinitely prolonged, and evil must remain an eternal condition. All finite thought is an element in the infinite thought, and all finite will an element in the infinite will. As good cannot exist without evil as its antithesis, infinite righteousness should have for its counterpart an infinite wickedness. Hegel’s guiding principle was that “What is rational is real, and what is real is rational.” Seth, Hegelianism and Personality, remarks that this principle ignores “the riddle of the painful earth.” The disciples of Hegel thought that nothing remained for history to accomplish, now that the World-spirit had come to know himself in Hegel’s philosophy. Biedermann’s Dogmatik is based upon the Hegelian philosophy. At page 649 we read: “Evil is the finiteness of the world-being which clings to all individual existences by virtue of their belonging to the immanent world-order. Evil is therefore a necessary element in the divinely willed being of the world.” Bradley follows Hegel in making sin to be no reality, but only a relative appearance. There is no free will, and no antagonism between the will of God and the will of man. Darkness is an evil, a destroying agent. But it is not a positive force, as light is. It cannot be attacked and overcome as an entity. Bring light, and darkness disappears. So evil is not a positive force, as good is. Bring good, and evil disappears. Herbert Spencer’s Evolutionary Ethics fits in with such a system, for he says: “A perfect man in an imperfect race is impossible.” On Hegel’s view of sin, a view which denies holiness even to Christ, see J. Müller, Doct. Sin, 1:390-407; Dorner, Hist. Doct. Person of Christ, B. 3:131-162; Stearns, Evidence of Christ. Experience, 92-96; John Caird, Fund. Ideas, 2:1-25; Forrest, Authority of Christ, 13-16.

(c) It is inconsistent with known facts,—as for example, the following: Not all sins are negative sins of ignorance and infirmity; there are acts of positive malignity, conscious transgressions, wilful and presumptuous choices of evil. Increased knowledge of the nature of sin does not of itself give strength to overcome it; but, on the contrary, repeated acts of conscious transgression harden the heart in evil. Men of greatest mental powers are not of necessity the greatest saints, nor are the greatest sinners men of least strength of will and understanding.

Not the weak but the strong are the greatest sinners. We do not pity Nero and Cæsar Borgia for their weakness; we abhor them for their crimes. Judas was an able man, a practical administrator; and Satan is a being of great natural endowments. Sin is not simply a weakness,—it is also a power. A pantheistic philosophy should worship Satan most of all; for he is the truest type of godless intellect and selfish strength. John 12:6—Judas, “having the bag, made away with what was put therein.” Judas was set by Christ to do the work he was best fitted for, and that was best fitted to interest and save him. Some men may be put into the ministry, because that is the only work that will prevent their destruction. Pastors should find for their members work suited to the aptitudes of each. Judas was tempted, or tried, as all men are, according to his native propensity. While his motive in objecting to Mary’s generosity was really avarice, his pretext was charity, or regard for the poor. Each one of the apostles had his own peculiar gift, and was chosen because of it. The sin of Judas was not a sin of weakness, or ignorance, or infirmity. It was a sin of disappointed ambition, of malice, of hatred for Christ’s self-sacrificing purity. E. H. Johnson: “Sins are not men’s limitations, but the active expressions of a perverse nature.” M. F. H. Round, Sec. of Nat. Prison Association, on examining the record of a thousand criminals, found that one quarter of them had an exceptionally fine basis of physical life and strength, while the other three quarters fell only a little below the average of ordinary humanity; see The Forum, Sept. 1893. The theory that sin is only holiness in the making reminds us of the view that the most objectionable refuse can by ingenious processes be converted into butter or at least into oleomargarine. It is not true that “tout comprendre est tout pardonner.” Such doctrine obliterates all moral distinctions. Gilbert, Bab Ballads, “My Dream”: “I dreamt that somehow I had come To dwell in Topsy-Turvydom, Where vice is virtue, virtue vice; Where nice is nasty, nasty nice; Where right is wrong, and wrong is right; Where white is black and black is white.”

(d) like the sense-theory of sin, it contradicts both conscience and Scripture by denying human responsibility and by transferring the blame of sin from the creature to the Creator. This is to explain sin, again, by denying its existence.

Œdipus said that his evil deeds had been suffered, not done. Agamemnon, in the Iliad, says the blame belongs, not to himself, but to Jupiter and to fate. So sin blames everything and everybody but self. Gen. 3:12—“The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” But self-vindicating is God-accusing. Made imperfect at the start, man cannot help his sin. By the very fact of his creation he is cut loose from God. That cannot be sin which is a necessary outgrowth of human nature, which is not our act but our fate. To all this, the one answer is found in Conscience. Conscience testifies that sin is not “das Gewordene,” but “das Gemachte,” and that it was his own act when man by transgression fell. The Scriptures refer man’s sin, not to the limitations of his being, but to the free will of man himself. On the theory here combated, see Müller, Doct. Sin, 1:271-295; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 3:123-131; N. R. Wood, The Witness of Sin, 20-42.

3. Sin as Selfishness.

We hold the essential principle of sin to be selfishness. By selfishness we mean not simply the exaggerated self-love which constitutes the antithesis of benevolence, but that choice of self as the supreme end which constitutes the antithesis of supreme love to God. That selfishness is the essence of sin may be shown as follows:

A. Love to God is the essence of all virtue. The opposite to this, the choice of self as the supreme end, must therefore be the essence of sin.

We are to remember, however, that the love to God in which virtue consists is love for that which is most characteristic and fundamental in God, namely, his holiness. It is not to be confounded with supreme regard for God’s interests or for the good of being in general. Not mere benevolence, but love for God as holy, is the principle and source of holiness in man. Since the love of God required by the law is of this sort, it not only does not imply that love, in the sense of benevolence, is the essence of holiness in God,—it implies rather that holiness, or self-loving and self-affirming purity, is fundamental in the divine nature. From this self-loving and self-affirming purity, love properly so-called, or the self-communicating attribute, is to be carefully distinguished (see vol. 1, pages 271-275).

Bossuet, describing heathendom, says: “Every thing was God but God himself.” Sin goes further than this, and says: “I am myself all things,”—not simply as Louis XVI: “I am the state,” but: “I am the world, the universe, God.” Heinrich Heine: “I am no child. I do not want a heavenly Father any more.” A French critic of Fichte’s philosophy said that it was a flight toward the infinite which began with the ego, and never got beyond it. Kidd, Social Evolution, 75—“In Calderon’s tragic story, the unknown figure, which throughout life is everywhere in conflict with the individual whom it haunts, lifts the mask at last to disclose to the opponent his own features.” Caird, Evolution of Religion, 1:78—“Every self, once awakened, is naturally a despot, and ‘bears, like the Turk, no brother near the throne.’ ” Every one has, as Hobbes said, “an infinite desire for gain or glory,” and can be satisfied with nothing but a whole universe for himself. Selfishness—“homo homini lupus.” James Martineau: “We ask Comte to lift the veil from the holy of holies and show us the all-perfect object of worship,—he produces a looking-glass and shows us ourselves.” Comte’s religion is a “synthetic idealization of our existence”—a worship, not of God, but of humanity; and “the festival of humanity” among Positivists—Walt Whitman’s “I celebrate myself.” On Comte, see Martineau, Types, 1:499. The most thorough discussion of the essential principle of sin is that of Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 1:147-182. He defines sin as “a turning away from the love of God to self-seeking.” N. W. Taylor holds that self-love is the primary cause of all moral action; that selfishness is a different thing, and consists not in making our own happiness our ultimate end, which we must do if we are moral beings, but in love of the world, and in preferring the world to God as our portion or chief good (see N. W. Taylor, Moral Govt., 1:24-26; 2:20-24, and Rev. Theol., 134-162; Tyler, Letters on the New Haven Theology, 72). We claim, on the contrary, that to make our own happiness our ultimate aim is itself sin, and the essence of sin. As God makes his holiness the central thing, so we are to live for that, loving self only in God and for God’s sake. This love for God as holy is the essence of virtue. The opposite to this, or supreme love for self, is sin. As Richard Lovelace writes: “I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honor more,” so Christian friends can say: “Our loves in higher love endure.” The sinner raises some lower object of instinct or desire to supremacy, regardless of God and his law, and this he does for no other reason than to gratify self. On the distinction between mere benevolence and the love required by God’s law, see Hovey, God With Us, 187-200; Hopkins, Works, 1:235; F. W. Robertson, Sermon I. Emerson: “Your goodness must have some edge to it, else it is none.” See Newman Smyth, Christian Ethics, 327-370, on duties toward self as a moral end. Love to God is the essence of all virtue. We are to love God with all the heart. But what God? Surely, not the false God, the God who is indifferent to moral distinctions and who treats the wicked as he treats the righteous. The love which the law requires is love for the true God, the God of holiness. Such love aims at the reproduction of God’s holiness in ourselves and in others. We are to love ourselves only for God’s sake and for the sake of realizing the divine idea in us. We are to love others only for God’s sake and for the sake of realizing the divine idea in them. In our moral progress we, first, love self for our own sake; secondly, God for our own sake; thirdly, God for his own sake; fourthly, ourselves for God’s sake. The first is our state by nature; the second requires prevenient grace; the third, regenerating grace; and the fourth, sanctifying grace. Only the last is reasonable self-love. Balfour, Foundations of Belief, 27—“Reasonable self-love is a virtue wholly incompatible with what is commonly called selfishness. Society suffers, not from having too much of it, but from having too little.” Altruism is not the whole of duty. Self-realization is equally important. But to care only for self, like Goethe, is to miss the true self-realization, which love to God ensures. Love desires only the best for its object, and the best is God. The golden rule bids us give, not what others desire, but what they need. Rom. 15:2—“Let each one of us please his neighbor for that which is good, unto edifying.” Deutsche Liebe: “Nicht Liebe die fragt: Willst du mein sein? Sondern Liebe die sagt: Ich muss dein sein.” Sin consists in taking for one’s self alone and apart from God that in one’s self and in others to which one has a right only in God and for God’s sake. Mrs. Humphrey Ward, David Grieve, 403—“How dare a man pluck from the Lord’s hand, for his wild and reckless use, a soul and body for which he died? How dare he, the Lord’s bondsman, steal his joy, carrying it off by himself into the wilderness, like an animal his prey, instead of asking it at the hands and under the blessing of the Master? How dare he, a member of the Lord’s body, forget the whole, in his greed for the one—eternity in his thirst for the present?” Wordsworth, Prelude, 546—“Delight how pitiable, Unless this love by a still higher love Be hallowed, love that breathes not without awe; Love that adores, but on the knees of prayer. By heaven inspired.... This spiritual love acts not nor can exist Without imagination, which in truth Is but another name for absolute power, And clearest insight, amplitude of mind, And reason in her most exalted mood.” Aristotle says that the wicked have no right to love themselves, but that the good may. So, from a Christian point of view, we may say: No unregenerate man can properly respect himself. Self-respect belongs only to the man who lives in God and who has God’s image restored to him thereby. True self-love is not love for the happiness of the self, but for the worth of the self in God’s sight, and this self-love is the condition of all genuine and worthy love for others. But true self-love is in turn conditioned by love to God as holy, and it seeks primarily, not the happiness, but the holiness, of others. Asquith, Christian Conception of Holiness, 98, 145, 154, 207—“Benevolence or love is not the same with altruism. Altruism is instinctive, and has not its origin in the moral reason. It has utility, and it may even furnish material for reflection on the part of the moral reason. But so far as it is not deliberate, not indulged for the sake of the end, but only for the gratification of the instinct of the moment, it is not moral.... Holiness is dedication to God, the Good, not as an external Ruler, but as an internal controller and transformer of character.... God is a being whose every thought is love, of whose thoughts not one is for himself, save so far as himself is not himself, that is, so far as there is a distinction of persons in the Godhead. Creation is one great unselfish thought—the bringing into being of creatures who can know the happiness that God knows.... To the spiritual man holiness and love are one. Salvation is deliverance from selfishness.” Kaftan, Dogmatik, 319, 320, regards the essence of sin as consisting, not in selfishness, but in turning away from God and so from the love which would cause man to grow in knowledge and likeness to God. But this seems to be nothing else than choosing self instead of God as our object and end.

B. All the different forms of sin can be shown to have their root in selfishness, while selfishness itself, considered as the choice of self as a supreme end, cannot be resolved into any simpler elements.

(a) Selfishness may reveal itself in the elevation to supreme dominion of any one of man’s natural appetites, desires, or affections. Sensuality is selfishness in the form of inordinate appetite. Selfish desire takes the forms respectively of avarice, ambition, vanity, pride, according as it is set upon property, power, esteem, independence. Selfish affection is falsehood or malice, according as it hopes to make others its voluntary servants, or regards them as standing in its way; it is unbelief or enmity to God, according as it simply turns away from the truth and love of God, or conceives of God’s holiness as positively resisting and punishing it.

Augustine and Aquinas held the essence of sin to be pride; Luther and Calvin regarded its essence to be unbelief. Kreibig (Versöhnungslehre) regards it as “world-love”; still others consider it as enmity to God. In opposing the view that sensuality is the essence of sin, Julius Müller says: “Wherever we find sensuality, there we find selfishness, but we do not find that, where there is selfishness, there is always sensuality. Selfishness may embody itself in fleshly lust or inordinate desire for the creature, but this last cannot bring forth spiritual sins which have no element of sensuality in them.” Covetousness or avarice makes, not sensual gratification itself, but the things that may minister thereto, the object of pursuit, and in this last chase often loses sight of its original aim. Ambition is selfish love of power; vanity is selfish love of esteem. Pride is but the self-complacency, self-sufficiency, and self-isolation of a selfish spirit that desires nothing so much as unrestrained independence. Falsehood originates in selfishness, first as self-deception, and then, since man by sin isolates himself and yet in a thousand ways needs the fellowship of his brethren, as deception of others. Malice, the perversion of natural resentment (together with hatred and revenge), is the reaction of selfishness against those who stand, or are imagined to stand, in its way. Unbelief and enmity to God are effects of sin, rather than its essence; selfishness leads us first to doubt, and then to hate, the Lawgiver and Judge. Tacitus: “Humani generis proprium est odisse quem læseris.” In sin, self-affirmation and self-surrender are not coördinate elements, as Dorner holds, but the former conditions the latter. As love to God is love to God’s holiness, so love to man is love for holiness in man and desire to impart it. In other words, true love for man is the longing to make man like God. Over against this normal desire which should fill the heart and inspire the life, there stands a hierarchy of lower desires which may be utilized and sanctified by the higher love, but which may assert their independence and may thus be the occasions of sin. Physical gratification, money, esteem, power, knowledge, family, virtue, are proper objects of regard, so long as these are sought for God’s sake and within the limitations of his will. Sin consists in turning our backs on God and in seeking any one of these objects for its own sake; or, which is the same thing, for our own sake. Appetite gratified without regard to God’s law is lust; the love of money becomes avarice; the desire for esteem becomes vanity; the longing for power becomes ambition; the love for knowledge becomes a selfish thirst for intellectual satisfaction; parental affection degenerates into indulgence and nepotism; the seeking of virtue becomes self-righteousness and self-sufficiency. Kaftan, Dogmatik, 323—“Jesus grants that even the heathen and sinners love those who love them. But family love becomes family pride; patriotism comes to stand for country right or wrong; happiness in one’s calling leads to class distinctions.” Dante, in his Divine Comedy, divides the Inferno into three great sections: those in which are punished, respectively, incontinence, bestiality, and malice. Incontinence—sin of the heart, the emotions, the affections. Lower down is found bestiality—sin of the head, the thoughts, the mind, as infidelity and heresy. Lowest of all is malice—sin of the will, deliberate rebellion, fraud and treachery. So we are taught that the heart carries the intellect with it, and that the sin of unbelief gradually deepens into the intensity of malice. See A. H. Strong, Great Poets and their Theology, 133—“Dante teaches us that sin is the self-perversion of the will. If there is any thought fundamental to his system, it is the thought of freedom. Man is not a waif swept irresistibly downward on the current; he is a being endowed with power to resist, and therefore guilty if he yields. Sin is not misfortune, or disease, or natural necessity; it is wilfulness, and crime, and self-destruction. The Divine Comedy is, beyond all other poems, the poem of conscience; and this could not be, if it did not recognize man as a free agent, the responsible cause of his own evil acts and his own evil state.” See also Harris, in Jour. Spec. Philos., 21:350-451; Dinsmore, Atonement in Literature and Life, 69-86. In Greek tragedy, says Prof. Wm. Arnold Stevens, the one sin which the gods hated and would not pardon was ὕβρις—obstinate self-assertion of mind or will, absence of reverence and humility—of which we have an illustration in Ajax. George MacDonald: “A man may be possessed of himself, as of a devil.” Shakespeare depicts this insolence of infatuation in Shylock, Macbeth, and Richard III. Troilus and Cressida, 4:4—“Something may be done that we will not; And sometimes we are devils to ourselves, When we will tempt the frailty of our powers, Presuming on their changeful potency.” Yet Robert G. Ingersoll said that Shakespeare holds crime to be the mistake of ignorance! N. P. Willis, Parrhasius: “How like a mounting devil in the heart Rules unrestrained ambition!”

(b) Even in the nobler forms of unregenerate life, the principle of selfishness is to be regarded as manifesting itself in the preference of lower ends to that of God’s proposing. Others are loved with idolatrous affection because these others are regarded as a part of self. That the selfish element is present even here, is evident upon considering that such affection does not seek the highest interest of its object, that it often ceases when unreturned, and that it sacrifices to its own gratification the claims of God and his law.

Even in the mother’s idolatry of her child, the explorer’s devotion to science, the sailor’s risk of his life to save another’s, the gratification sought may be that of a lower instinct or desire, and any substitution of a lower for the highest object is non-conformity to law, and therefore sin. H. B. Smith, System Theology, 277—“Some lower affection is supreme.” And the underlying motive which leads to this substitution is self-gratification. There is no such thing as disinterested sin, for “every one that loveth is begotten of God” (1 John 4:7). Thomas Hughes, The Manliness of Christ: Much of the heroism of battle is simply “resolution in the actors to have their way, contempt for ease, animal courage which we share with the bulldog and the weasel, intense assertion of individual will and force, avowal of the rough-handed man that he has that in him which enables him to defy pain and danger and death.” Mozley on Blanco White, in Essays, 2:143: Truth may be sought in order to absorb truth in self, not for the sake of absorbing self in truth. So Blanco White, in spite of the pain of separating from old views and friends, lived for the selfish pleasure of new discovery, till all his early faith vanished, and even immortality seemed a dream. He falsely thought that the pain he suffered in giving up old beliefs was evidence of self-sacrifice with which God must be pleased, whereas it was the inevitable pain which attends the victory of selfishness. Robert Browning, Paracelsus, 81—“I still must hoard, and heap, and class all truths With one ulterior purpose: I must know! Would God translate me to his throne, believe That I should only listen to his words To further my own ends.” F. W. Robertson on Genesis, 57—“He who sacrifices his sense of right, his conscience, for another, sacrifices the God within him; he is not sacrificing self.... He who prefers his dearest friend or his beloved child to the call of duty, will soon show that he prefers himself to his dearest friend, and would not sacrifice himself for his child.” Ib., 91—“In those who love little, love [for finite beings] is a primary affection,—a secondary, in those who love much.... The only true affection is that which is subordinate to a higher.” True love is love for the soul and its highest, its eternal, interests; love that seeks to make it holy; love for the sake of God and for the accomplishment of God’s idea in his creation. Although we cannot, with Augustine, call the virtues of the heathen “splendid vices”—for they were relatively good and useful,—they still, except in possible instances where God’s Spirit wrought upon the heart, were illustrations of a morality divorced from love to God, were lacking in the most essential element demanded by the law, were therefore infected with sin. Since the law judges all action by the heart from which it springs, no action of the unregenerate can be other than sin. The ebony-tree is white in its outer circles of woody fibre; at heart it is black as ink. There is no unselfishness in the unregenerate heart, apart from the divine enlightenment and energizing. Self-sacrifice for the sake of self is selfishness after all. Professional burglars and bank-robbers are often carefully abstemious in their personal habits, and they deny themselves the use of liquor and tobacco while in the active practice of their trade. Herron, The Larger Christ, 47—“It is as truly immoral to seek truth out of mere love of knowing it, as it is to seek money out of love to gain. Truth sought for truth’s sake is an intellectual vice; it is spiritual covetousness. It is an idolatry, setting up the worship of abstractions and generalities in place of the living God.”

(c) It must be remembered, however, that side by side with the selfish will, and striving against it, is the power of Christ, the immanent God, imparting aspirations and impulses foreign to unregenerate humanity, and preparing the way for the soul’s surrender to truth and righteousness.

Rom. 8:7—“the mind of the flesh is enmity against God”; Acts 17:27, 28—“he is not far from each one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being”; Rom. 2:4—“the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance”; John 1:9—“the light which lighteth every man.” Many generous traits and acts of self-sacrifice in the unregenerate must be ascribed to the prevenient grace of God and to the enlightening influence of the Spirit of Christ. A mother, during the Russian famine, gave to her children all the little supply of food that came to her in the distribution, and died that they might live. In her decision to sacrifice herself for her offspring she may have found her probation and may have surrendered herself to God. The impulse to make the sacrifice may have been due to the Holy Spirit, and her yielding may have been essentially an act of saving faith. In Mark 10:21, 22—“And Jesus looking upon him loved him ... he went away sorrowful”—our Lord apparently loved the young man, not only for his gifts, his efforts, and his possibilities, but also for the manifest working in him of the divine Spirit, even while in his natural character he was without God and without love, self-ignorant, self-righteous, and self-seeking. Paul, in like manner, before his conversion, loved and desired righteousness, provided only that this righteousness might be the product and achievement of his own will and might reflect honor on himself; in short, provided only that self might still be uppermost. To be dependent for righteousness upon another was abhorrent to him. And yet this very impulse toward righteousness may have been due to the divine Spirit within him. On Paul’s experience before conversion, see E. D. Burton, Bib. World, Jan. 1893. Peter objected to the washing of his feet by Jesus (John 13:8), not because it humbled the Master too much in the eyes of the disciple, but because it humbled the disciple too much in his own eyes. Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 1:218—“Sin is the violation of the God-willed moral order of the world by the self-will of the individual.” Tophel on the Holy Spirit, 17—“You would deeply wound him [the average sinner] if you told him that his heart, full of sin, is an object of horror to the holiness of God.” The impulse to repentance, as well as the impulse to righteousness, is the product, not of man’s own nature, but of the Christ within him who is moving him to seek salvation. Elizabeth Barrett wrote to Robert Browning after she had accepted his proposal of marriage: “Henceforth I am yours for everything but to do you harm.” George Harris, Moral Evolution, 138—“Love seeks the true good of the person loved. It will not minister in an unworthy way to afford a temporary pleasure. It will not approve or tolerate that which is wrong. It will not encourage the coarse, base passions of the one loved. It condemns impurity, falsehood, selfishness. A parent does not really love his child if he tolerates the self-indulgence, and does not correct or punish the faults, of the child.” Hutton: “You might as well say that it is a fit subject for art to paint the morbid exstasy of cannibals over their horrid feasts, as to paint lust without love. If you are to delineate man at all, you must delineate him with his human nature, and therefore you can never omit from any worthy picture that conscience which is its crown.” Tennyson, in In Memoriam, speaks of “Fantastic beauty such as lurks In some wild poet when he works Without a conscience or an aim.” Such work may be due to mere human nature. But the lofty work of true creative genius, and the still loftier acts of men still unregenerate but conscientious and self-sacrificing, must be explained by the working in them of the immanent Christ, the life and light of men. James Martineau, Study, 1:20—“Conscience may act as human, before it is discovered to be divine.” See J. D. Stoops, in Jour. Philos., Psych., and Sci. Meth., 2:512—“If there is a divine life over and above the separate streams of individual lives, the welling up of this larger life in the experience of the individual is precisely the point of contact between the individual person and God.” Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 2:122—“It is this divine element in man, this relationship to God, which gives to sin its darkest and direst complexion. For such a life is the turning of a light brighter than the sun into darkness, the squandering or bartering away of a boundless wealth, the suicidal abasement, to the things that perish, of a nature destined by its very constitution and structure for participation in the very being and blessedness of God.” On the various forms of sin as manifestations of selfishness, see Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 1:147-182; Jonathan Edwards, Works, 2:268, 269; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 3:5, 6; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 243-262; Stewart, Active and Moral Powers, 11-91; Hopkins, Moral Science, 86-156. On the Roman Catholic “Seven Deadly Sins” (Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony, Lust), see Wetzer und Welte, Kirchenlexikon, and Orby Shipley, Theory about Sin, preface, xvi-xviii.

C. This view accords best with Scripture.

(a) The law requires love to God as its all-embracing requirement. (b) The holiness of Christ consisted in this, that he sought not his own will or glory, but made God his supreme end. (c) The Christian is one who has ceased to live for self. (d) The tempter’s promise is a promise of selfish independence. (e) The prodigal separates himself from his father, and seeks his own interest and pleasure. (f) The “man of sin” illustrates the nature of sin, in “opposing and exalting himself against all that is called God.”

(a) Mat. 22:37-39—the command of love to God and man; Rom. 13:8-10—“love therefore is the fulfilment of the law”; Gal. 5:14—“the whole law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”; James 2:8—“the royal law.” (b) John 5:30—“my judgment is righteous; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of him that sent me”; 7:18—“He that speaketh from himself seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh the glory of him that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him”; Rom. 15:3—“Christ also pleased not himself.” (c) Rom. 14:7—“none of us liveth to himself, and none dieth to himself”; 2 Cor. 5:15—“he died for all, that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again”; Gal. 2:20—“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me.” Contrast 2 Tim. 3:2—“lovers of self.” (d) Gen. 3:5—“ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil.” (e) Luke 15:12, 13—“give me the portion of thy substance ... gathered all together and took his journey into a far country.” (f) 2 Thess. 2:3, 4—“the man of sin ... the son of perdition, he that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshipped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God.” Contrast “the man of sin” who “exalteth himself” (2 Thess. 2:3, 4) with the Son of God who “emptied himself” (Phil. 2:7). On “the man of sin”, see Wm. Arnold Stevens, in Bap. Quar. Rev., July, 1889:328-360. Ritchie, Darwin, and Hegel, 24—“We are conscious of sin, because we know that our true self is God, from whom we are severed. No ethics is possible unless we recognize an ideal for all human effort in the presence of the eternal Self which any account of conduct presupposes.” John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 2:53-73—“Here, as in all organic life, the individual member or organ has no independent or exclusive life, and the attempt to attain to it is fatal to itself.” Milton describes man as “affecting Godhead, and so losing all.” Of the sinner, we may say with Shakespeare, Coriolanus, 5:4—“He wants nothing of a god but eternity and a heaven to throne in.... There is no more mercy in him than there is milk in a male tiger.” No one of us, then, can sign too early “the declaration of dependence.” Both Old School and New School theologians agree that sin is selfishness; see Bellamy, Hopkins, Emmons, the younger Edwards, Finney, Taylor. See also A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 287-292.

Sin, therefore, is not merely a negative thing, or an absence of love to God. It is a fundamental and positive choice or preference of self instead of God, as the object of affection and the supreme end of being. Instead of making God the centre of his life, surrendering himself unconditionally to God and possessing himself only in subordination to God’s will, the sinner makes self the centre of his life, sets himself directly against God, and constitutes his own interest the supreme motive and his own will the supreme rule.

We may follow Dr. E. G. Robinson in saying that, while sin as a state is unlikeness to God, as a principle is opposition to God, and as an act is transgression of God’s law, the essence of it always and everywhere is selfishness. It is therefore not something external, or the result of compulsion from without; it is a depravity of the affections and a perversion of the will, which constitutes man’s inmost character.

See Harris, in Bib. Sac., 18:148—“Sin is essentially egoism or selfism, putting self in God’s place. It has four principal characteristics or manifestations: (1) self-sufficiency, instead of faith; (2) self-will, instead of submission; (3) self-seeking, instead of benevolence; (4) self-righteousness, instead of humility and reverence.” All sin is either explicit or implicit “enmity against God” (Rom. 8:7). All true confessions are like David’s (Ps. 51:4)—“Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, And done that which is evil in thy sight.” Of all sinners it might be said that they “Fight neither with small nor great, save only with the king of Israel” (1 K. 22:31). Not every sinner is conscious of this enmity. Sin is a principle in course of development. It is not yet “full-grown” (James 1:15—“the sin, when it is full-grown, bringeth forth death”). Even now, as James Martineau has said: “If it could be known that God was dead, the news would cause but little excitement in the streets of London and Paris.” But this indifference easily grows, in the presence of threatening and penalty, into violent hatred to God and positive defiance of his law. If the sin which is now hidden in the sinner’s heart were but permitted to develop itself according to its own nature, it would hurl the Almighty from his throne, and would set up its own kingdom upon the ruins of the moral universe. Sin is world-destroying, as well as God-destroying, for it is inconsistent with the conditions which make being as a whole possible; see Royce, World and Individual, 2:366; Dwight, Works, sermon 80.

Section III.—Universality Of Sin.

We have shown that sin is a state, a state of the will, a selfish state of the will. We now proceed to show that this selfish state of the will is universal. We divide our proof into two parts. In the first, we regard sin in its aspect as conscious violation of law; in the second, in its aspect as a bias of the nature to evil, prior to or underlying consciousness.

acts, or cherished dispositions, contrary to the divine law.

1. Proof from Scripture.

The universality of transgression is:

(a) Set forth in direct statements of Scripture.

1 K. 8:46—“there is no man that sinneth not”; Ps. 143:2—“enter not into judgment with thy servant; For in thy sight no man living is righteous”; Prov. 20:9—“Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?”; Eccl. 7:20—“Surely there is not a righteous man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not”; Luke 11:13—“If ye, then, being evil”; Rom. 3:10, 12—“There is none righteous, no, not one.... There is none that doeth good, no, not so much as one”; 19, 20—“that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may be brought under the judgment of God: because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for through the law cometh the knowledge of sin”; 23—“for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God”; Gal. 3:22—“the scripture shut up all things under sin”; James 3:2—“For in many things we all stumble”; 1 John 1:8—“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Compare Mat. 6:12—“forgive us our debts”—given as a prayer for all men; 14—“if ye forgive men their trespasses”—the condition of our own forgiveness.

(b) Implied in declarations of the universal need of atonement, regeneration, and repentance.

Universal need of atonement: Mark 16:16—“He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved” (Mark 16:9-20, though probably not written by Mark, is nevertheless of canonical authority); John 3:16—“God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish”; 6:50—“This is the bread which cometh down out of heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die”; 12:47—“I came not to judge the world, but to save the world”; Acts 4:12—“in none other is there salvation: for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved.” Universal need of regeneration: John 3:3, 5—“Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.... Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” Universal need of repentance: Acts 17:30—“commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent.” Yet Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy, in her “Unity of Good,” speaks of “the illusion which calls sin real and man a sinner needing a Savior.”

(c) Shown from the condemnation resting upon all who do not accept Christ.

John 3:18—“he that believeth not hath been judged already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God”; 36—“he that obeyeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him”; Compare 1 John 5:19—“the whole world lieth in [i. e., in union with] the evil one”; see Annotated Paragraph Bible, in loco. Kaftan, Dogmatik, 318—“Law requires love to God. This implies love to our neighbor, not only abstaining from all injury to him, but righteousness in all our relations, forgiving instead of requiting, help to enemies as well as friends in all salutary ways, self-discipline, avoidance of all sensuous immoderation, subjection of all sensuous activity as means for spiritual ends in the kingdom of God, and all this, not as a matter of outward conduct merely, but from the heart and as the satisfaction of one’s own will and desire. This is the will of God respecting us, which Jesus has revealed and of which he is the example in his life. Instead of this, man universally seeks to promote his own life, pleasure, and honor.”

(d) Consistent with those passages which at first sight seem to ascribe to certain men a goodness which renders them acceptable to God, where a closer examination will show that in each case the goodness supposed is a merely imperfect and fancied goodness, a goodness of mere aspiration and impulse due to preliminary workings of God’s Spirit, or a goodness resulting from the trust of a conscious sinner in God’s method of salvation.

In Mat 9:12—“They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick”—Jesus means those who in their own esteem are whole; cf. 13—“I came not to call the righteous, but sinners”—“if any were truly righteous, they would not need my salvation; if they think themselves so, they will not care to seek it” (An. Par. Bib.). In Luke 10:30-37—the parable of the good Samaritan—Jesus intimates, not that the good Samaritan was not a sinner, but that there were saved sinners outside of the bounds of Israel. In Acts 10:35—“in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is acceptable to him”—Peter declares, not that Cornelius was not a sinner, but that God had accepted him through Christ; Cornelius was already justified, but he needed to know (1) that he was saved, and (2) how he was saved; and Peter was sent to tell him of the fact, and of the method, of his salvation in Christ. In Rom. 2:14—“for when Gentiles that have not the law do by nature the things of the law, these, not having the law, are a law unto themselves”—it is only said that in certain respects the obedience of these Gentiles shows that they have an unwritten law in their hearts; it is not said that they perfectly obey the law and therefore have no sin—for Paul says immediately after (Rom. 3:9)—“we before laid to the charge both of Jews and Greeks, that they are all under sin.” So with regard to the words “perfect” and “upright,” as applied to godly men. We shall see, when we come to consider the doctrine of Sanctification, that the word “perfect,” as applied to spiritual conditions already attained, signifies only a relative perfection, equivalent to sincere piety or maturity of Christian judgment, in other words, the perfection of a sinner who has long trusted in Christ, and in whom Christ has overcome his chief defects of character. See 1 Cor. 2:6—“we speak wisdom among the perfect” (Am. Rev.: “among them that are full-grown”); Phil. 3:15—“let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded”—i. e., to press toward the goal—a goal expressly said by the apostles to be not yet attained (v. 12-14). “Est deus in nobis; agitante calescimus illo.” God is the “spark that fires our clay.” S. S. Times, Sept. 21, 1901:609—“Humanity is better and worse than men have painted it. There has been a kind of theological pessimism in denouncing human sinfulness, which has been blind to the abounding love and patience and courage and fidelity to duty among men.” A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 287-290—“There is a natural life of Christ, and that life pulses and throbs in all men everywhere. All men are created in Christ, before they are recreated in him. The whole race lives, moves, and has its being in him, for he is the soul of its soul and the life of its life.” To Christ then, and not to unaided human nature, we attribute the noble impulses of unregenerate men. These impulses are drawings of his Spirit, moving men to repentance. But they are influences of his grace which, if resisted, leave the soul in more than its original darkness.

2. Proof from history, observation, and the common judgment of mankind.

(a) History witnesses to the universality of sin, in its accounts of the universal prevalence of priesthood and sacrifice.

See references in Luthardt, Fund. Truths, 161-172, 335-339. Baptist Review, 1882:343—“Plutarch speaks of the tear-stained eyes, the pallid and woe-begone countenances which he sees at the public altars, men rolling themselves in the mire and confessing their sins. Among the common people the dull feeling of guilt was too real to be shaken off or laughed away.”

(b) Every man knows himself to have come short of moral perfection, and, in proportion to his experience of the world, recognizes the fact that every other man has come short of it also.

Chinese proverb: “There are but two good men; one is dead, and the other is not yet born.” Idaho proverb: “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” But the proverb applies to the white man also. Dr. Jacob Chamberlain, the missionary, said: “I never but once in India heard a man deny that he was a sinner. But once a Brahmin interrupted me and said: ‘I deny your premisses. I am not a sinner. I do not need to do better.’ For a moment I was abashed. Then I said: ‘But what do your neighbors say?’ Thereupon one cried out: ‘He cheated me in trading horses’; another: ‘He defrauded a widow of her inheritance.’ The Brahmin went out of the house, and I never saw him again.” A great nephew of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, when a child, wrote in a few lines an “Essay on the Life of Man,” which ran as follows: “A man’s life naturally divides itself into three distinct parts: the first when he is contriving and planning all kinds of villainy and rascality,—that is the period of youth and innocence. In the second, he is found putting in practice all the villainy and rascality he has contrived,—that is the flower of mankind and prime of life. The third and last period is that when he is making his soul and preparing for another world,—that is the period of dotage.”

(c) The common judgment of mankind declares that there is an element of selfishness in every human heart, and that every man is prone to some form of sin. This common judgment is expressed in the maxims: “No man is perfect”; “Every man has his weak side”, or “his price”; and every great name in literature has attested its truth.

Seneca, De Ira, 3:26—“We are all wicked. What one blames in another he will find in his own bosom. We live among the wicked, ourselves being wicked”; Ep., 22—“No one has strength of himself to emerge [from this wickedness]; some one must needs hold forth a hand; some one must draw us out.” Ovid, Met., 7:19—“I see the things that are better and I approve them, yet I follow the worse.... We strive even after that which is forbidden, and we desire the things that are denied.” Cicero: “Nature has given us faint sparks of knowledge; we extinguish them by our immoralities.” Shakespeare, Othello, 3:3—“Where’s that palace whereinto foul things Sometimes Intrude not? Who has a breast so pure, But some uncleanly apprehensions keep leets [meetings in court] and law-days, and in sessions sit With meditations lawful?” Henry VI., II:3:3—“Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.” Hamlet, 2:2, compares God’s influence to the sun which “breeds maggots in a dead dog, Kissing carrion,”—that is, God is no more responsible for the corruption in man’s heart and the evil that comes from it, than the sun is responsible for the maggots which its heat breeds in a dead dog; 3:1—“We are arrant knaves all.” Timon of Athens, 1:2—“Who lives that’s not depraved or depraves?” Goethe: “I see no fault committed which I too might not have committed.” Dr. Johnson: “Every man knows that of himself which he dare not tell to his dearest friend.” Thackeray showed himself a master in fiction by having no heroes; the paragons of virtue belonged to a cruder age of romance. So George Eliot represents life correctly by setting before us no perfect characters; all act from mixed motives. Carlyle, hero-worshiper as he was inclined to be, is said to have become disgusted with each of his heroes before he finished his biography. Emerson said that to understand any crime, he had only to look into his own heart. Robert Burns: “God knows I’m no thing I would be, Nor am I even the thing I could be.” Huxley: “The best men of the best epochs are simply those who make the fewest blunders and commit the fewest sins.” And he speaks of “the infinite wickedness” which has attended the course of human history. Matthew Arnold: “What mortal, when he saw, Life’s voyage done, his heavenly Friend, Could ever yet dare tell him fearlessly:—I have kept uninfringed my nature’s law: The inly written chart thou gavest me, to guide me, I have kept by to the end?” Walter Besant, Children of Gibeon: “The men of ability do not desire a system in which they shall not be able to do good to themselves first.” “Ready to offer praise and prayer on Sunday, if on Monday they may go into the market place to skin their fellows and sell their hides.” Yet Confucius declares that “man is born good.” He confounds conscience with will—the sense of right with the love of right. Dean Swift’s worthy sought many years for a method of extracting sunbeams from cucumbers. Human nature of itself is as little able to bear the fruits of God. Every man will grant (1) that he is not perfect in moral character; (2) that love to God has not been the constant motive of his actions, i. e., that he has been to some degree selfish; (3) that he has committed at least one known violation of conscience. Shedd, Sermons to the Natural Man, 86, 87—“Those theorists who reject revealed religion, and remand man to the first principles of ethics and morality as the only religion that he needs, send him to a tribunal that damns him”; for it is simple fact that “no human creature, in any country or grade of civilization, has ever glorified God to the extent of his knowledge of God.”

3. Proof from Christian experience.

(a) In proportion to his spiritual progress does the Christian recognize evil dispositions within him, which but for divine grace might germinate and bring forth the most various forms of outward transgression.

See Goodwin’s experience, in Baird, Elohim Revealed, 409; Goodwin, member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, speaking of his conversion, says: “An abundant discovery was made to me of my inward lusts and concupiscence, and I was amazed to see with what greediness I had sought the gratification of every sin.” Töllner’s experience, in Martensen’s Dogmatics: Töllner, though inclined to Pelagianism, says: “I look into my own heart and I see with penitent sorrow that I must in God’s sight accuse myself of all the offences I have named,”—and he had named only deliberate transgressions;—“he who does not allow that he is similarly guilty, let him look deep into his own heart.” John Newton sees the murderer led to execution, and says: “There, but for the grace of God, goes John Newton.” Count de Maistre: “I do not know what the heart of a villain may be—I only know that of a virtuous man, and that is frightful.” Tholuck, on the fiftieth anniversary of his professorship at Halle, said to his students: “In review of God’s manifold blessings, the thing I seem most to thank him for is the conviction of sin.” Roper Ascham: “By experience we find out a short way, by a long wandering.” Luke 15:25-32 is sometimes referred to as indicating that there are some of God’s children who never wander from the Father’s house. But there were two prodigals in that family. The elder was a servant in spirit as well as the younger. J. J. Murphy, Nat. Selection and Spir. Freedom, 41, 42—“In the wish of the elder son that he might sometimes feast with his own friends apart from his father, was contained the germ of that desire to escape the wholesome restraints of home which, in its full development, had brought his brother first to riotous living, and afterwards to the service of the stranger and the herding of swine. This root of sin is in us all, but in him it was not so full-grown as to bring death. Yet he says: ‘Lo, these many years do I serve thee’ (δουλεύω—as a bondservant), ‘and I never transgressed a commandment of thine.’ Are the father’s commandments grievous? Is service true and sincere, without love from the heart? The elder brother was calculating toward his father and unsympathetic toward his brother.” Sir J. R. Seelye, Ecce Homo: “No virtue can be safe, unless it is enthusiastic.” Wordsworth: “Heaven rejects the love Of nicely calculated less or more.”

(b) Since those most enlightened by the Holy Spirit recognize themselves as guilty of unnumbered violations of the divine law, the absence of any consciousness of sin on the part of unregenerate men must be regarded as proof that they are blinded by persistent transgression.

It is a remarkable fact that, while those who are enlightened by the Holy Spirit and who are actually overcoming their sins see more and more of the evil of their hearts and lives, those who are the slaves of sin see less and less of that evil, and often deny that they are sinners at all. Rousseau, in his Confessions, confesses sin in a spirit which itself needs to be confessed. He glosses over his vices, and magnifies his virtues. “No man,” he says, “can come to the throne of God and say: ‘I am a better man than Rousseau.’... Let the trumpet of the last judgment sound when it will: I will present myself before the Sovereign Judge with this book in my hand, and I will say aloud: ‘Here is what I did, what I thought, and what I was.’ ” “Ah,” said he, just before he expired, “how happy a thing it is to die, when one has no reason for remorse or self-reproach!” And then, addressing himself to the Almighty, he said: “Eternal Being, the soul that I am going to give thee back is as pure at this moment as it was when it proceeded from thee; render it a partaker of thy felicity!” Yet, in his boyhood, Rousseau was a petty thief. In his writings, he advocated adultery and suicide. He lived for more than twenty years in practical licentiousness. His children, most of whom, if not all, were illegitimate, he sent off to the foundling hospital as soon as they were born, thus casting them upon the charity of strangers, yet he inflamed the mothers of France with his eloquent appeals to them to nurse their own babies. He was mean, vacillating, treacherous, hypocritical, and blasphemous. And in his Confessions, he rehearses the exciting scenes of his life in the spirit of the bold adventurer. See N. M. Williams, in Bap. Review, art.: Rousseau, from which the substance of the above is taken. Edwin Forrest, when accused of being converted in a religious revival, wrote an indignant denial to the public press, saying that he had nothing to regret; his sins were those of omission rather than commission; he had always acted upon the principle of loving his friends and hating his enemies; and trusting in the justice as well as the mercy of God, he hoped, when he left this earthly sphere, to “wrap the drapery of his couch about him, and lie down to pleasant dreams.” And yet no man of his time was more arrogant, self-sufficient, licentious, revengeful. John Y. McCane, when sentenced to Sing Sing prison for six years for violating the election laws by the most highhanded bribery and ballot-stuffing, declared that he had never done anything wrong in his life. He was a Sunday School Superintendent, moreover. A lady who lived to the age of 92, protested that, if she had her whole life to live over again, she would not alter a single thing. Lord Nelson, after he had received his death wound at Trafalgar, said: “I have never been a great sinner.” Yet at that very time he was living in open adultery. Tennyson, Sea Dreams: “With all his conscience and one eye askew, So false, he partly took himself for true.” Contrast the utterance of the apostle Paul: 1 Tim. 1:15—“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.” It has been well said that “the greatest of sins is to be conscious of none.” Rowland Hill: “The devil makes little of sin, that he may retain the sinner.” The following reasons may be suggested for men’s unconsciousness of their sins: 1. We never know the force of any evil passion or principle within us, until we begin to resist it. 2. God’s providential restraints upon sin have hitherto prevented its full development. 3. God’s judgments against sin have not yet been made manifest. 4. Sin itself has a blinding influence upon the mind. 5. Only he who has been saved from the penalty of sin is willing to look into the abyss from which he has been rescued.—That a man is unconscious of any sin is therefore only proof that he is a great and hardened transgressor. This is also the most hopeless feature of his case, since for one who never realizes his sin there is no salvation. In the light of this truth, we see the amazing grace of God, not only in the gift of Christ to die for sinners, but in the gift of the Holy Spirit to convince men of their sins and to lead them to accept the Savior. Ps. 90:8—“Thou hast set ... Our secret sins in the light of thy countenance” = man’s inner sinfulness is hidden from himself, until it is contrasted with the holiness of God. Light = a luminary or sun, which shines down into the depths of the heart and brings out its hidden evil into painful relief. See Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:248-259; Edwards, Works, 2:326; John Caird, Reasons for Men’s Unconsciousness of their Sins, in Sermons, 33.

corrupted nature, which is a source of actual sin, and is itself sin.

1. Proof from Scripture.

A. The sinful acts and dispositions of men are referred to, and explained by, a corrupt nature.

By “nature” we mean that which is born in a man, that which he has by birth. That there is an inborn corrupt state, from which sinful acts and dispositions flow, is evident from Luke 6:43-45—“there is no good tree that bringeth forth corrupt fruit.... the evil man out of the evil treasure [of his heart] bringeth forth that which is evil”; Mat. 12:34—“Ye offspring of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things?” Ps. 58:3—“The wicked are estranged from the womb: They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.”

This corrupt nature (a) belongs to man from the first moment of his being; (b) underlies man’s consciousness; (c) cannot be changed by man’s own power; (d) first constitutes him a sinner before God; (e) is the common heritage of the race.

(a) Ps. 51:5—“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity; And in sin did my mother conceive me”—here David is confessing, not his mother’s sin, but his own sin; and he declares that this sin goes back to the very moment of his conception. Tholuck, quoted by H. B. Smith, System, 281—“David confesses that sin begins with the life of man; that not only his works, but the man himself, is guilty before God.” Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:94—“David mentions the fact that he was born sinful, as an aggravation of his particular act of adultery, and not as an excuse for it.” (b) Ps. 19:12—“Who can discern his errors? Clear thou me from hidden faults”; 51:6, 7—“Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts; And in the hidden part thou wilt make me to know wisdom. Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” (c) Jer. 13:23—“Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil”; Rom. 7:24—“Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?” (d) Ps. 51:6—“Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts”; Jer. 17:9—“The heart is deceitful above all things and it is exceedingly corrupt: who can know it? I, Jehovah, search the mind, I try the heart,”—only God can fully know the native and incurable depravity of the human heart; see Annotated Paragraph Bible, in loco, (e) Job 14:4—“Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one”; John 3:6—“That which is born of the flesh is flesh,” i. e., human nature sundered from God. Pope, Theology, 2:53—“Christ, who knew what was in man, says: ‘If ye then, being evil’ (Mat. 7:11), and ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh’ (John 3:6), that is—putting the two together—‘men are evil, because they are born evil.’ ” Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story of The Minister’s Black Veil portrays the isolation of every man’s deepest life, and the awe which any visible assertion of that isolation inspires. C. P. Cranch: “We are spirits clad in veils; Man by man was never seen; All our deep communing fails To remove the shadowy screen.” In the heart of every one of us is that fearful “black drop,” which the Koran says the angel showed to Mohammed. Sin is like the taint of scrofula in the blood, which shows itself in tumors, in consumption, in cancer, in manifold forms, but is everywhere the same organic evil. Byron spoke truly of “This ineradicable taint of sin, this boundless Upas, this all-blasting tree.” E. G. Robinson, Christ. Theol., 161, 162—“The objection that conscience brings no charge of guilt against inborn depravity, however true it may be of the nature in its passive state, is seen, when the nature is roused to activity, to be unfounded. This faculty, on the contrary, lends support to the doctrine it is supposed to overthrow. When the conscience holds intelligent inquisition upon single acts, it soon discovers that these are mere accessories to crime, while the principal is hidden away beyond the reach of consciousness. In following up its inquisition, it in due time extorts the exclamation of David: Ps. 51:5—‘Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity; And in sin did my mother conceive me.’ Conscience traces guilt to its seat in the inherited nature.”

B. All men are declared to be by nature children of wrath (Eph. 2:3). Here “nature” signifies something inborn and original, as distinguished from that which is subsequently acquired. The text implies that: (a) Sin is a nature, in the sense of a congenital depravity of the will. (b) This nature is guilty and condemnable,—since God’s wrath rests only upon that which deserves it. (c) All men participate in this nature and in this consequent guilt and condemnation.

Eph. 2:3—“were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” Shedd: “Nature here is not substance created by God, but corruption of that substance, which corruption is created by man.” “Nature” (from nascor) may denote anything inborn, and the term may just as properly designate inborn evil tendencies and state, as inborn faculties or substance. “By nature” therefore = “by birth”; compare Gal. 2:15—“Jews by nature.” E. G. Robinson: “Nature = not οὐσία, or essence, but only qualification of essence, as something born in us. There is just as much difference in babes, from the beginning of their existence, as there is in adults. If sin is defined as ‘voluntary transgression of known law,’ the definition of course disposes of original sin.” But if sin is a selfish state of the will, such a state is demonstrably inborn. Aristotle speaks of some men as born to be savages (φύσει βάρβαροι), and of others as destined by nature to be slaves (φύσει δοῦλοι). Here evidently is a congenital aptitude and disposition. Similarly we can interpret Paul’s words as declaring nothing less than that men are possessed at birth of an aptitude and disposition which is the object of God’s just displeasure. The opposite view can be found in Stevens, Pauline Theology, 152-157. Principal Fairbairn also says that inherited sinfulness “is not transgression, and is without guilt.” Ritschl, Just. and Recon., 344—“The predicate ‘children of wrath’ refers to the former actual transgression of those who now as Christians have the right to apply to themselves that divine purpose of grace which is the antithesis of wrath.” Meyer interprets the verse; “We become children of wrath by following a natural propensity.” He claims the doctrine of the apostle to be, that man incurs the divine wrath by his actual sin, when he submits his will to the inborn sin principle. So N. W. Taylor, Concio ad Clerum, quoted in H. B. Smith, System, 281—“We were by nature such that we became through our own act children of wrath.” “But,” says Smith, “if the apostle had meant this, he could have said so; there is a proper Greek word for ‘became’; the word which is used can only be rendered ‘were.’ ” So 1 Cor. 7:14—“else were your children unclean”—implies that, apart from the operations of grace, all men are defiled in virtue of their very birth from a corrupt stock. Cloth is first died in the wool, and then dyed again after the weaving. Man is a “double-dyed villain.” He is corrupted by nature and afterwards by practice. The colored physician in New Orleans advertised that his method was “first to remove the disease, and then to eradicate the system.” The New School method of treating this text is of a similar sort. Beginning with a definition of sin which excludes from that category all inborn states of the will, it proceeds to vacate of their meaning the positive statements of Scripture. For the proper interpretation of Eph. 2:3, see Julius Müller, Doct. of Sin, 2:278, and Commentaries of Harless and Olshausen. See also Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 3:212 sq.; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:289; and an excellent note in the Expositor’s Greek N.T., in loco. Per contra, see Reuss, Christ. Theol. in Apost. Age, 2:29, 79-84; Weiss, Bib. Theol. N.T., 239.

C. Death, the penalty of sin, is visited even upon those who have never exercised a personal and conscious choice (Rom. 5:12-14). This text implies that (a) Sin exists in the case of infants prior to moral consciousness, and therefore in the nature, as distinguished from the personal activity. (b) Since infants die, this visitation of the penalty of sin upon them marks the ill-desert of that nature which contains in itself, though undeveloped, the germs of actual transgression. (c) It is therefore certain that a sinful, guilty, and condemnable nature belongs to all mankind.

Rom. 5:12-14—“Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned:—for until the law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam’s transgression”—that is, over those who, like infants, had never personally and consciously sinned. See a more full treatment of these last words in connection with an exegesis of the whole passage—Rom. 5:12-19—under Imputation of Sin, pages 625-627. N. W. Taylor maintained that infants, prior to moral agency, are not subjects of the moral government of God, any more than are animals. In this he disagreed with Edwards, Bellamy, Hopkins, Dwight, Smalley, Griffin. See Tyler, Letters on N. E. Theol., 8, 132-142—“To say that animals die, and therefore death can be no proof of sin in infants, is to take infidel ground. The infidel has just as good a right to say: Because animals die without being sinners, therefore adults may. If death may reign to such an alarming extent over the human race and yet be no proof of sin, then you adopt the principle that death may reign to any extent over the universe, yet never can be made a proof of sin in any case.” We reserve our full proof that physical death is the penalty of sin to the section on Penalty as one of the Consequences of Sin.

2. Proof from Reason.

Three facts demand explanation: (a) The universal existence of sinful dispositions in every mind, and of sinful acts in every life. (b) The preponderating tendencies to evil, which necessitate the constant education of good impulses, while the bad grow of themselves. (c) The yielding of the will to temptation, and the actual violation of the divine law, in the case of every human being so soon as he reaches moral consciousness.

The fundamental selfishness of man is seen in childhood, when human nature acts itself out spontaneously. It is difficult to develop courtesy in children. There can be no true courtesy without regard for man as man and willingness to accord to each man his place and right as a son of God equal with ourselves. But children wish to please themselves without regard to others. The mother asks the child: “Why don’t you do right instead of doing wrong?” and the child answers: “Because it makes me so tired,” or “Because I do wrong without trying.” Nothing runs itself, unless it is going down hill. “No other animal does things habitually that will injure and destroy it, and does them from the love of it. But man does this, and he is born to do it, he does it from birth. As the seedlings of the peach-tree are all peaches, not apples, and those of thorns are all thorns, not grapes, so all the descendants of man are born with evil in their natures. That sin continually comes back to us, like a dog or cat that has been driven away, proves that our hearts are its home.” Mrs. Humphrey Ward’s novel, Robert Elsmere, represents the milk-and-water school of philanthropists. “Give man a chance,” they say; “give him good example and favorable environment and he will turn out well. He is more sinned against than sinning. It is the outward presence of evil that drives men to evil courses.” But God’s indictment is found in Rom. 8:7—“the mind of the flesh is enmity against God.” G. P. Fisher: “Of the ideas of natural religion, Plato, Plutarch and Cicero found in the fact that they are in man’s reason, but not obeyed and realized in man’s will, the most convincing evidence that humanity is at schism with itself, and therefore depraved, fallen, and unable to deliver itself. The reason why many moralists fail and grow bitter and hateful is that they do not take account of this state of sin.”

Reason seeks an underlying principle which will reduce these multitudinous phenomena to unity. As we are compelled to refer common physical and intellectual phenomena to a common physical and intellectual nature, so we are compelled to refer these common moral phenomena to a common moral nature, and to find in it the cause of this universal, spontaneous, and all-controlling opposition to God and his law. The only possible solution of the problem is this, that the common nature of mankind is corrupt, or, in other words, that the human will, prior to the single volitions of the individual, is turned away from God and supremely set upon self-gratification. This unconscious and fundamental direction of the will, as the source of actual sin, must itself be sin; and of this sin all mankind are partakers.

The greatest thinkers of the world have certified to the correctness of this conclusion. See Aristotle’s doctrine of “the slope,” described in Chase’s Introduction to Aristotle’s Ethics, XXXV and 32—“In regard to moral virtue, man stands on a slope. His appetites and passions gravitate downward; his reason attracts him upward. Conflict occurs. A step upward, and reason gains what passion has lost; but the reverse is the case if he steps downward. The tendency in the former case is to the entire subjection of passion; in the latter case, to the entire suppression of reason. The slope will terminate upwards in a level summit where men’s steps will be secure, or downwards in an irretrievable plunge over the precipice. Continual self-control leads to absolute self-mastery; continual failure, to the utter absence of self-control. But all we can see is the slope. No man is ever at the ἠρεμία of the summit, nor can we say that a man has irretrievably fallen into the abyss. How it is that men constantly act against their own convictions of what is right, and their previous determinations to follow right, is a mystery Which Aristotle discusses, but leaves unexplained. “Compare the passage in the Ethics, 1:11—‘Clearly there is in them [men], besides the Reason, some other Inborn principle (πεφυκός) which fights with and strains against the Reason.... There is in the soul also somewhat besides the Reason which is opposed to this and goes against it.’—Compare this passage with Paul, in Rom. 7:23—‘I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.’ But as Aristotle does not explain the cause, so he suggests no cure. Revelation alone can account for the disease, or point out the remedy.” Wuttke, Christian Ethics, 1:102—“Aristotle makes the significant and almost surprising observation, that the character which has become evil by guilt can just as little be thrown off again at mere volition, as the person who has made himself sick by his own fault can become well again at mere volition; once become evil or sick, it stands no longer within his discretion to cease to be so; a stone, when once cast, cannot be caught back from its flight; and so is it with the character that has become evil.” He does not tell “how a reformation in character is possible,—moreover, he does not concede to evil any other than an individual effect,—knows nothing of any natural solidarity of evil in self-propagating, morally degenerated races” (Nic. Eth., 3:6, 7; 5:12; 7:2, 3; 10:10). The good nature, he says, “is evidently not within our power, but is by some kind of divine causality conferred upon the truly happy.” Plato speaks of “that blind, many-headed wild beast of all that is evil within thee.” He repudiates the idea that men are naturally good, and says that, if this were true, all that would be needed to make them holy would be to shut them up, from their earliest years, so that they might not be corrupted by others. Republic, 4 (Jowett’s translation, 11:276)—“There is a rising up of part of the soul against the whole of the soul.” Meno, 89—“The cause of corruption is from our parents, so that we never relinquish their evil way, or escape the blemish of their evil habit.” Horace, Ep., 1:10—“Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.” Latin proverb: “Nemo repente fuit turpissimus.” Pascal: “We are born unrighteous; for each one tends to himself, and the bent toward self is the beginning of all disorder.” Kant, in his Metaphysical Principles of Human Morals, speaks of “the indwelling of an evil principle side by side with the good one, or the radical evil of human nature,” and of “the contest between the good and the evil principles for the control of man.” “Hegel, pantheist as he was, declared that original sin is the nature of every man,—every man begins with it” (H. B. Smith). Shakespeare, Timon of Athens, 4:3—“All is oblique: There’s nothing level in our cursed natures, But direct villainy.” All’s Well, 4:3—“As we are in ourselves, how weak we are! Merely our own traitors.” Measure for Measure, 1:2—“Our natures do pursue, Like rats that ravin down their proper bane, A thirsty evil, and when we drink, we die.” Hamlet, 3:1—“Virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it.” Love’s Labor Lost, 1:1—“Every man with his affects is born, Not by might mastered, but by special grace.” Winter’s Tale, 1:2—“We should have answered Heaven boldly, Not guilty; the imposition cleared Hereditary ours”—that is, provided our hereditary connection with Adam had not made us guilty. On the theology of Shakespeare, see A. H. Strong, Great Poets, 196-211—“If any think it irrational to believe in man’s depravity, guilt, and need of supernatural redemption, they must also be prepared to say that Shakespeare did not understand human nature.” S. T. Coleridge, Omniana, at the end: “It is a fundamental article of Christianity that I am a fallen creature ... that an evil ground existed in my will, previously to any act or assignable moment of time in my consciousness; I am born a child of wrath. This fearful mystery I pretend not to understand. I cannot even conceive the possibility of it; but I know that it is so, ... and what is real must be possible.” A sceptic who gave his children no religious training, with the view of letting them each in mature years choose a faith for himself, reproved Coleridge for letting his garden run to weeds; but Coleridge replied, that he did not think it right to prejudice the soil in favor of roses and strawberries. Van Oosterzee: Rain and sunshine make weeds grow more quickly, but could not draw them out of the soil if the seeds did not lie there already; so evil education and example draw out sin, but do not implant it. Tennyson, Two Voices: “He finds a baseness in his blood, At such strange war with what is good, He cannot do the thing he would.” Robert Browning, Gold Hair: a Legend of Pornic: “The faith that launched point-blank her dart At the head of a lie—taught Original Sin, The corruption of Man’s Heart.” Taine, Ancien Régime: “Savage, brigand and madman each of us harbors, in repose or manacled, but always living, in the recesses of his own heart.” Alexander Maclaren: “A great mass of knotted weeds growing in a stagnant pool is dragged toward you as you drag one filament.” Draw out one sin, and it brings with it the whole matted nature of sin. Chief Justice Thompson, of Pennsylvania: “If those who preach had been lawyers previous to entering the ministry, they would know and say far more about the depravity of the human heart than they do. The old doctrine of total depravity is the only thing that can explain the falsehoods, the dishonesties, the licentiousness, and the murders which are so rife in the world. Education, refinement, and even a high order of talent, cannot overcome the inclination to evil which exists in the heart, and has taken possession of the very fibres of our nature.” See Edwards, Original Sin, in Works, 2:309-510; Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:259-307; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:231-238; Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 226-236.

Section IV.—Origin Of Sin In The Personal Act Of Adam.

With regard to the origin of this sinful nature which is common to the race, and which is the occasion of all actual transgressions, reason affords no light. The Scriptures, however, refer the origin of this nature to that free act of our first parents by which they turned away from God, corrupted themselves, and brought themselves under the penalties of the law.

Chandler, Spirit of Man, 76—“It is vain to attempt to sever the moral life of Christianity from the historical fact in which it is rooted. We may cordially assent to the assertion that the whole value of historical events is in their ideal significance. But in many cases, part of that which the idea signifies is the fact that it has been exhibited in history. The value and interest of the conquest of Greece over Persia lie in the significant idea of freedom and intelligence triumphing over despotic force; but surely a part, and a very important part, of the idea, is the fact that this triumph was won in a historical past, and the encouragement for the present which rests upon that fact. So too, the value of Christ’s resurrection lies in its immense moral significance as a principle of life; but an essential part of that very significance is the fact that the principle was actually realized by One in whom mankind was summed up and expressed, and by whom, therefore, the power of realizing it is conferred on all who receive him.” As it is important for us to know that redemption is not only ideal but actual, so it is important for us to know that sin is not an inevitable accompaniment of human nature, but that it had a historical beginning. Yet no a priori theory should prejudice our examination of the facts. We would preface our consideration of the Scriptural account, therefore, by stating that our view of inspiration would permit us to regard that account as inspired, even if it were mythical or allegorical. As God can use all methods of literary composition, so he can use all methods of instructing mankind that are consistent with essential truth. George Adam Smith observes that the myths and legends of primitive folk-lore are the intellectual equivalents of later philosophies and theories of the universe, and that “at no time has revelation refused to employ such human conceptions for the investiture and conveyance of the higher spiritual truths.” Sylvester Burnham: “Fiction and myth have not yet lost their value for the moral and religious teacher. What a knowledge of his own nature has shown man to be good for his own use, God surely may also have found to be good for his use. Nor would it of necessity affect the value of the Bible if the writer, in using for his purpose myth or fiction, supposed that he was using history. Only when the value of the truth of the teaching depends upon the historicity of the alleged fact, does it become impossible to use myth or fiction for the purpose of teaching.” See vol. 1, page 241 of this work, with quotations from Denney, Studies in Theology, 218, and Gore, in Lux Mundi, 356. Euripides: “Thou God of all! infuse light into the souls of men, whereby they may be enabled to know what is the root from which all their evils spring, and by what means they may avoid them!”

1. Its general, character not mythical or allegorical, but historical.

We adopt this view for the following reasons:—(a) There is no intimation in the account itself that it is not historical. (b) As a part of a historical book, the presumption is that it is itself historical. (c) The later Scripture writers refer to it as a veritable history even in its details. (d) Particular features of the narrative, such as the placing of our first parents in a garden and the speaking of the tempter through a serpent-form, are incidents suitable to man’s condition of innocent but untried childhood. (e) This view that the narrative is historical does not forbid our assuming that the trees of life and of knowledge were symbols of spiritual truths, while at the same time they were outward realities.

See John 8:44—“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and standeth not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father thereof”; 2 Cor. 11:3—“the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness”; Rev. 20:2—“the dragon, the old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan.” H. B. Smith, System, 261—“If Christ’s temptation and victory over Satan were historical events, there seems to be no ground for supposing that the first temptation was not a historical event.” We believe in the unity and sufficiency of Scripture. We moreover regard the testimony of Christ and the apostles as conclusive with regard to the historicity of the account in Genesis. We assume a divine superintendence in the choice of material by its author, and the fulfilment to the apostles of Christ’s promise that they should be guided into the truth. Paul’s doctrine of sin is so manifestly based upon the historical character of the Genesis story, that the denial of the one must naturally lead to the denial of the other. John Milton writes, in his Areopagitica: “It was from out of the rind of one apple tasted that the knowledge of good and evil, as two twins cleaving together, leaped forth into the world. And perhaps this is that doom which Adam fell into, that is to say, of knowing good by evil.” He should have learned to know evil as God knows it—as a thing possible, hateful, and forever rejected. He actually learned to know evil as Satan knows it—by making it actual and matter of bitter experience. Infantile and innocent man found his fit place and work in a garden. The language of appearances is doubtless used. Satan might enter into a brute-form, and might appear to speak through it. In all languages, the stories of brutes speaking show that such a temptation is congruous with the condition of early man. Asiatic myths agree in representing the serpent as the emblem of the spirit of evil. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the symbol of God’s right of eminent domain, and indicated that all belonged to him. It is not necessary to suppose that it was known by this name before the Fall. By means of it man came to know good, by the loss of it; to know evil, by bitter experience; C. H. M.: “To know good, without the power to do it; to know evil, without the power to avoid it.” Bible Com., 1:40—The tree of life was symbol of the fact that “life is to be sought, not from within, from himself, in his own powers or faculties; but from that which is without him, even from him who hath life in himself.” As the water of baptism and the bread of the Lord’s supper, though themselves common things, are symbolic of the greatest truths, so the tree of knowledge and the tree of life were sacramental. McIlvaine, Wisdom of Holy Scripture, 99-141—“The two trees represented good and evil. The prohibition of the latter was a declaration that man of himself could not distinguish between good and evil, and must trust divine guidance. Satan urged man to discern between good and evil by his own wisdom, and so become independent of God. Sin is the attempt of the creature to exercise God’s attribute of discerning and choosing between good and evil by his own wisdom. It is therefore self-conceit, self-trust, self-assertion, the preference of his own wisdom and will to the wisdom and will of God.” McIlvaine refers to Lord Bacon, Works, 1:82, 162. See also Pope, Theology, 2:10, 11; Boston Lectures for 1871:80, 81. Griffith-Jones, Ascent through Christ, 142, on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—“When for the first time man stood face to face with definite conscious temptation to do that which he knew to be wrong, he held in his hand the fruit of that tree, and his destiny as a moral being hung trembling in the balance. And when for the first time he succumbed to temptation and faint dawnings of remorse visited his heart, at that moment he was banished from the Eden of innocence, in which his nature had hitherto dwelt, and he was driven forth from the presence of the Lord.” With the first sin, was started another and a downward course of development. For the mythical or allegorical explanation of the narrative, see also Hase, Hutterus Redivivus, 164, 165, and Nitzsch, Christian Doctrine, 218.

2. The course of the temptation, and the resulting fall.

The stages of the temptation appear to have been as follows:

(a) An appeal on the part of Satan to innocent appetites, together with an implied suggestion that God was arbitrarily withholding the means of their gratification (Gen. 3:1). The first sin was in Eve’s isolating herself and choosing to seek her own pleasure without regard to God’s will. This initial selfishness it was, which led her to listen to the tempter instead of rebuking him or flying from him, and to exaggerate the divine command in her response (Gen. 3:3).

Gen. 3:1—“Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of any tree of the garden?” Satan emphasizes the limitation, but is silent with regard to the generous permission—“Of every tree of the garden [but one] thou mayest freely eat” (2:16). C. H. M., in loco: “To admit the question ‘hath God said?’ is already positive infidelity. To add to God’s word is as bad as to take from it. ‘Hath God said?’ is quickly followed by ‘Ye shall not surely die.’ Questioning whether God has spoken, results in open contradiction of what God has said. Eve suffered God’s word to be contradicted by a creature, only because she had abjured its authority over her conscience and heart.” The command was simply: “thou shalt not eat of it” (Gen. 2:17). In her rising dislike to the authority she had renounced, she exaggerates the command into: “Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it” (Gen. 3:3). Here is already self-isolation, instead of love. Matheson, Messages of the Old Religions, 318—“Ere ever the human soul disobeyed, it had learned to distrust.... Before it violated the existing law, it had come to think of the Lawgiver as one who was jealous of his creatures.” Dr. C. H. Parkhurst: “The first question ever asked in human history was asked by the devil, and the interrogation point still has in it the trail of the serpent.”

(b) A denial of the veracity of God, on the part of the tempter, with a charge against the Almighty of jealousy and fraud in keeping his creatures in a position of ignorance and dependence (Gen. 3:4, 5). This was followed, on the part of the woman, by positive unbelief, and by a conscious and presumptuous cherishing of desire for the forbidden fruit, as a means of independence and knowledge. Thus unbelief, pride, and lust all sprang from the self-isolating, self-seeking spirit, and fastened upon the means of gratifying it (Gen. 3:6).

Gen. 3:4, 5—“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil”; 3:6—“And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat; and she gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat”—so “taking the word of a Professor of Lying, that he does not lie” (John Henry Newman). Hooker, Eccl. Polity, book I—“To live by one man’s will became the cause of all men’s misery.” Godet on John 1:4—“In the words ‘life’ and ‘light’ it is natural to see an allusion to the tree of life and to that of knowledge. After having eaten of the former, man would have been called to feed on the second. John initiates us into the real essence of these primordial and mysterious facts and gives us in this verse, as it were, the philosophy of Paradise.” Obedience is the way to knowledge, and the sin of Paradise was the seeking of light without life; cf. John 7:17—“If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from myself.”

(c) The tempter needed no longer to urge his suit. Having poisoned the fountain, the stream would naturally be evil. Since the heart and its desires had become corrupt, the inward disposition manifested itself in act (Gen. 3:6—“did eat; and she gave also unto her husband with her” = who had been with her, and had shared her choice and longing). Thus man fell inwardly, before the outward act of eating the forbidden fruit,—fell in that one fundamental determination whereby he made supreme choice of self instead of God. This sin of the inmost nature gave rise to sins of the desires, and sins of the desires led to the outward act of transgression (James 1:15).

James 1:15—“Then the lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin.” Baird, Elohim Revealed, 888—“The law of God had already been violated; man was fallen before the fruit had been plucked, or the rebellion had been thus signalized. The law required not only outward obedience but fealty of the heart, and this was withdrawn before any outward token indicated the change.” Would he part company with God, or with his wife? When the Indian asked the missionary where his ancestors were, and was told that they were in hell, he replied that he would go with his ancestors. He preferred hell with his tribe to heaven with God. Sapphira, in like manner, had opportunity given her to part company with her husband, but she preferred him to God; Acts 5:7-11. Philippi, Glaubenslehre: “So man became like God, a setter of law to himself. Man’s self-elevation to godhood was his fall. God’s self-humiliation to manhood was man’s restoration and elevation.... Gen. 3:22—‘The man has become as one of us’ in his condition of self-centered activity,—thereby losing all real likeness to God, which consists in having the same aim with God himself. De te fabula narratur; it is the condition, not of one alone, but of all the race.” Sin once brought into being is self-propagating; its seed is in itself: the centuries of misery and crime that have followed have only shown what endless possibilities of evil were wrapped up in that single sin. Keble: “’Twas but a little drop of sin We saw this morning enter in, And lo, at eventide a world is drowned!” Farrar, Fall of Man: “The guilty wish of one woman has swollen into the irremediable corruption of a world.” See Oehler, O.T. Theology, 1:231; Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:381-385; Edwards, on Original Sin, part 4, chap. 2; Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:168-180.

Adam.

1. How could a holy being fall?

Here we must acknowledge that we cannot understand how the first unholy emotion could have found lodgment in a mind that was set supremely upon God, nor how temptation could have overcome a soul in which there were no unholy propensities to which it could appeal. The mere power of choice does not explain the fact of an unholy choice. The fact of natural desire for sensuous and intellectual gratification does not explain how this desire came to be inordinate. Nor does it throw light upon the matter, to resolve this fall into a deception of our first parents by Satan. Their yielding to such deception presupposes distrust of God and alienation from him. Satan’s fall, moreover, since it must have been uncaused by temptation from without, is more difficult to explain than Adam’s fall.

We may distinguish six incorrect explanations of the origin of sin: 1. Emmons: Sin is due to God’s efficiency—God wrought the sin in man’s heart. This is the “exercise system,” and is essentially pantheistic. 2. Edwards: Sin is due to God’s providence—God caused the sin indirectly by presenting motives. This explanation has all the difficulties of determinism. 3. Augustine: Sin is the result of God’s withdrawal from man’s soul. But inevitable sin is not sin, and the blame of it rests on God who withdrew the grace needed for obedience, 4. Pfleiderer: The fall results from man’s already existing sinfulness. The fault then belongs, not to man, but to God who made man sinful. 5. Hadley: Sin is due to man’s moral insanity. But such concreated ethical defect would render sin impossible. Insanity is the effect of sin, but not its cause. 6. Newman: Sin is due to man’s weakness. It is a negative, not a positive, thing, an incident of finiteness. But conscience and Scripture testify that it is positive as well as negative, opposition to God as well as non-conformity to God. Emmons was really a pantheist: “Since God,” he says, “works in all men both to will and to do of his good pleasure, it is as easy to account for the first offence of Adam as for any other sin.... There is no difficulty respecting the fall of Adam from his original state of perfection and purity into a state of sin and guilt, which is in any way peculiar.... It is as consistent with the moral rectitude of the Deity to produce sinful as holy exercises in the minds of men. He puts forth a positive influence to make moral agents act, in every instance of their conduct, as he pleases.... There is but one satisfactory answer to the question Whence came evil? and that is: It came from the great first Cause of all things”; see Nathaniel Emmons, Works, 2:683. Jonathan Edwards also denied power to the contrary even in Adam’s first sin. God did not immediately cause that sin. But God was active in the region of motives though his action was not seen. Freedom of the Will, 161—“It was fitting that the transaction should so take place that it might not appear to be from God as the apparent fountain.” Yet “God may actually in his providence so dispose and permit things that the event may be certainly and infallibly connected with such disposal and permission”; see Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 304. Encyc. Britannica, 7:690—“According to Edwards, Adam had two principles,—natural and supernatural. When Adam sinned, the supernatural or divine principle was withdrawn from him, and thus his nature became corrupt without God infusing any evil thing into it. His posterity came into being entirely under the government of natural and inferior principles. But this solves the difficulty of making God the author of sin only at the expense of denying to sin any real existence, and also destroys Edwards’s essential distinction between natural and moral ability.” Edwards on Trinity, Fisher’s edition, 44—“The sun does not cause darkness and cold, when these follow infallibly upon the withdrawal of his beams. God’s disposing the result is not a positive exertion on his part.” Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:50—“God did not withdraw the common supporting grace of his Spirit from Adam until after transgression.” To us Adam’s act was irrational, but not impossible; to a determinist like Edwards, who held that men simply act out their characters, Adam’s act should have been not only irrational, but impossible. Edwards nowhere shows how, according to his principles, a holy being could possibly fall. Pfleiderer, Grundriss, 123—“The account of the fall is the first appearance of an already existing sinfulness, and a typical example of the way in which every individual becomes sinful. Original sin is simply the universality and originality of sin. There is no such thing as indeterminism. The will can lift itself from natural unfreedom, the unfreedom of the natural impulses, to real spiritual freedom, only by distinguishing itself from the law which sets before it its true end of being. The opposition of nature to the law reveals an original nature power which precedes all free self-determination. Sin is the evil bent of lawless self-willed selfishness.” Pfleiderer appears to make this sinfulness concreated, and guiltless, because proceeding from God. Hill, Genetic Philosophy, 288—“The wide discrepancy between precept and practice gives rise to the theological conception of sin, which, in low types of religion, is as often a violation of some trivial prescription as it is of an ethical principle. The presence of sin, contrasted with a state of innocence, occasions the idea of a fall, or lapse from a sinless condition. This is not incompatible with man’s derivation from an animal ancestry, which prior to the rise of self-consciousness may be regarded as having been in a state of moral innocence, the sense and reality of sin being impossible to the animal.... The existence of sin, both as an inherent disposition, and as a perverted form of action, may be explained as a survival of animal propensity in human life.... Sin is the disturbance of higher life by the intrusion of lower.” Professor James Hadley: “Every man is more or less insane.” We prefer to say: Every man, so far as he is apart from God, is morally insane. But we must not make sin the result of insanity. Insanity is the result of sin. Insanity, moreover, is a physical disease,—sin is a perversion of the will. John Henry Newman, Idea of a University, 60—“Evil has no substance of its own, but is only the defect, excess, perversion or corruption of that which has substance.” Augustine seems at times to favor this view. He maintains that evil has no origin, inasmuch as it is negative, not positive; that it is merely defect or failure. He illustrates it by the damaged state of a discordant harp; see Moule, Outlines of Theology, 171. So too A. A. Hodge, Popular Lectures, 190, tells us that Adam’s will was like a violin in tune, which through mere inattention and neglect got out of tune at last. But here, too, we must say with E. G. Robinson, Christ. Theology, 124—“Sin explained is sin defended.” All these explanations fail to explain, and throw the blame of sin upon God, as directly or indirectly its cause.

But sin is an existing fact. God cannot be its author, either by creating man’s nature so that sin was a necessary incident of its development, or by withdrawing a supernatural grace which was necessary to keep man holy. Reason, therefore, has no other recourse than to accept the Scripture doctrine that sin originated in man’s free act of revolt from God—the act of a will which, though inclined toward God, was not yet confirmed in virtue and was still capable of a contrary choice. The original possession of such power to the contrary seems to be the necessary condition of probation and moral development. Yet the exercise of this power in a sinful direction can never be explained upon grounds of reason, since sin is essentially unreason. It is an act of wicked arbitrariness, the only motive of which is the desire to depart from God and to render self supreme.

Sin is a “mystery of lawlessness” (2 Thess. 2:7), at the beginning, as well as at the end. Neander, Planting and Training, 388—“Whoever explains sin nullifies it.” Man’s power at the beginning to choose evil does not prove that, now that he has fallen, he has equal power of himself permanently to choose good. Because man has power to cast himself from the top of a precipice to the bottom, it does not follow that he has equal power to transport himself from the bottom to the top. Man fell by wilful resistance to the inworking God. Christ is in all men as he was in Adam, and all good impulses are due to him. Since the Holy Spirit is the Christ within, all men are the subjects of his striving. He does not withdraw from them except upon, and in consequence of, their withdrawing from him. John Milton makes the Almighty say of Adam’s sin: “Whose fault? Whose but his own? Ingrate, he had of me All he could have; I made him just and right, Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall. Such I created all the Etherial Powers, And Spirits, both them who stood and them who failed; Freely they stood who stood, and fell who failed.” The word “cussedness” has become an apt word here. The Standard Dictionary defines it as “1. Cursedness, meanness, perverseness; 2. resolute courage, endurance: ‘Jim Bludsoe’s voice was heard, And they all had trust in his cussedness And knowed he would keep his word.’ ” (John Hay, Jim Bludsoe, stanza 6). Not the last, but the first, of these definitions best describes the first sin. The most thorough and satisfactory treatment of the fall of man in connection with the doctrine of evolution is found in Griffith-Jones, Ascent through Christ, 73-240. Hodge, Essays and Reviews, 30—“There is a broad difference between the commencement of holiness and the commencement of sin, and more is necessary for the former than for the latter. An act of obedience, if it is performed under the mere impulse of self-love, is virtually no act of obedience. It is not performed with any intention to obey, for that is holy, and cannot, according to the theory, precede the act. But an act of disobedience, performed from the desire of happiness, is rebellion. The cases are surely different. If, to please myself, I do what God commands, it is not holiness; but if, to please myself, I do what he forbids, it is sin. Besides, no creature is immutable. Though created holy, the taste for holy enjoyments may be overcome by a temptation sufficiently insidious and powerful, and a selfish motive or feeling excited in the mind. Neither is a sinful character immutable. By the power of the Holy Spirit, the truth may be clearly presented and so effectually applied as to produce that change which is called regeneration; that is, to call into existence a taste for holiness, so that it is chosen for its own sake, and not as a means of happiness.” H. B. Smith, System, 262—“The state of the case, as far as we can enter into Adam’s experience, is this: Before the command, there was the state of love without the thought of the opposite: a knowledge of good only, a yet unconscious goodness: there was also the knowledge that the eating of the fruit was against the divine command. The temptation aroused pride; the yielding to that was the sin. The change was there. The change was not in the choice as an executive act, nor in the result of that act—the eating; but in the choice of supreme love to the world and self, rather than supreme devotion to God. It was an immanent preference of the world,—not a love of the world following the choice, but a love of the world which is the choice itself.” 263—“We cannot account for Adam’s fall, psychologically. In saying this we mean: It is inexplicable by anything outside itself. We must receive the fact as ultimate, and rest there. Of course we do not mean that it was not in accordance with the laws of moral agency—that it was a violation of those laws: but only that we do not see the mode, that we cannot construct it for ourselves in a rational way. It differs from all other similar cases of ultimate preference which we know; viz., the sinner’s immanent preference of the world, where we know there is an antecedent ground in the bias to sin, and the Christian’s regeneration, or immanent preference of God, where we know there is an influence from without, the working of the Holy Spirit.” 264—“We must leave the whole question with the immanent preference standing forth as the ultimate fact in the case, which is not to be constructed philosophically, as far as the processes of Adam’s soul are concerned: we must regard that immanent preference as both a choice and an affection, not an affection the result of a choice, not a choice which is the consequence of an affection, but both together.” In one particular, however, we must differ with H. B. Smith: Since the power of voluntary internal movement is the power of the will, we must regard the change from good to evil as primarily a choice, and only secondarily a state of affection caused thereby. Only by postulating a free and conscious act of transgression on the part of Adam, an act which bears to evil affection the relation not of effect but of cause, do we reach, at the beginning of human development, a proper basis for the responsibility and guilt of Adam and the race. See Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:148-167.

2. How could God justly permit Satanic temptation?

We see in this permission not justice but benevolence.

(a) Since Satan fell without external temptation, it is probable that man’s trial would have been substantially the same, even though there had been no Satan to tempt him.

Angels had no animal nature to obscure the vision; they could not be influenced through sense; yet they were tempted and they fell. As Satan and Adam sinned under the best possible circumstances, we may conclude that the human race would have sinned with equal certainty. The only question at the time of their creation, therefore, was how to modify the conditions so as best to pave the way for repentance and pardon. These conditions are: 1. a material body—which means confinement, limitation, need of self-restraint; 2. infancy—which means development, deliberation, with no memory of the first sin; 3. the parental relation—repressing the wilfulness of the child, and teaching submission to authority.

(b) In this case, however, man’s fall would perhaps have been without what now constitutes its single mitigating circumstance. Self-originated sin would have made man himself a Satan.

Mat. 13:28—“An enemy hath done this.” “God permitted Satan to divide the guilt with man, so that man might be saved from despair.” See Trench, Studies in the Gospels, 16-29. Mason, Faith of the Gospel, 103—“Why was not the tree made outwardly repulsive? Because only the abuse of that which was positively good and desirable could have attractiveness for Adam or could constitute a real temptation.”

(c) As, in the conflict with temptation, it is an advantage to objectify evil under the image of corruptible flesh, so it is an advantage to meet it as embodied in a personal and seducing spirit.

Man’s body, corruptible and perishable as it is, furnishes him with an illustration and reminder of the condition of soul to which sin has reduced him. The flesh, with its burdens and pains, is thus, under God, a help to the distinct recognition and overcoming of sin. So it was an advantage to man to have temptation confined to a single external voice. We may say of the influence of the tempter, as Birks, in his Difficulties of Belief, 101, says of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: “Temptation did not depend upon the tree. Temptation was certain in any event. The tree was a type into which God contracted the possibilities of evil, so as to strip them of delusive vastness, and connect them with definite and palpable warning,—to show man that it was only one of the many possible activities of his spirit which was forbidden, that God had right to all and could forbid all.” The originality of sin was the most fascinating element in it. It afforded boundless range for the imagination. Luther did well to throw his inkstand at the devil. It was an advantage to localize him. The concentration of the human powers upon a definite offer of evil helps our understanding of the evil and increases our disposition to resist it.

(d) Such temptation has in itself no tendency to lead the soul astray. If the soul be holy, temptation may only confirm it in virtue. Only the evil will, self-determined against God, can turn temptation into an occasion of ruin.

As the sun’s heat has no tendency to wither the plant rooted in deep and moist soil, but only causes it to send down its roots the deeper and to fasten itself the more strongly, so temptation has in itself no tendency to pervert the soul. It was only the seeds that “fell upon the rocky places, where they had not much earth” (Mat. 13:5, 6), that “were scorched” when “the sun was risen”; and our Lord attributes their failure, not to the sun, but to their lack of root and of soil: “because they had no root,” “because they had no deepness of earth.” The same temptation which occasions the ruin of the false disciple stimulates to sturdy growth the virtue of the true Christian. Contrast with the temptation of Adam the temptation of Christ. Adam had everything to plead for God, the garden and its delights, while Christ had everything to plead against him, the wilderness and its privations. But Adam had confidence in Satan, while Christ had confidence in God; and the result was in the former case defeat, in the latter victory. See Baird, Elohim Revealed, 385-396. C. H. Spurgeon: “All the sea outside a ship can do it no damage till the water enters and fills the hold. Hence, it is clear, our greatest danger is within. All the devils in hell and tempters on earth could do us no injury, if there were no corruption in our own natures. The sparks will fly harmlessly, if there is no tinder. Alas, our heart is our greatest enemy; this is the little home-born thief. Lord, save me from that evil man, myself!” Lyman Abbott: “The scorn of goody-goody is justified; for goody-goody is innocence, not virtue; and the boy who never does anything wrong because he never does anything at all is of no use in the world.... Sin is not a help in development; it is a hindrance. But temptation is a help; it is an indispensable means.” E. G. Robinson, Christ. Theology, 123—“Temptation in the bad sense and a fall from innocence were no more necessary to the perfection of the first man, than a marring of any one’s character is now necessary to its completeness.” John Milton, Areopagitica: “Many there be that complain of divine providence for suffering Adam to transgress. Foolish tongues! When God gave him reason, he gave him freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing; he had been else a mere artificial Adam, such an Adam as he is in the motions” (puppet shows). Robert Browning, Ring and the Book, 204 (Pope, 1183)—“Temptation sharp? Thank God a second time! Why comes temptation but for man to meet And master and make crouch beneath his foot, And so be pedestaled in triumph? Pray ‘Lead us into no such temptations. Lord’? Yea, but, O thou whose servants are the bold, Lead such temptations by the head and hair, Reluctant dragons, up to who dares fight, That so he may do battle and have praise!”

3. How could a penalty so great be justly connected with disobedience to so slight a command?

To this question we may reply:

(a) So slight a command presented the best test of the spirit of obedience.

Cicero: “Parva res est, at magna culpa.” The child’s persistent disobedience in one single respect to the mother’s command shows that in all his other acts of seeming obedience he does nothing for his mother’s sake, but all for his own,—shows, in other words, that he does not possess the spirit of obedience in a single act. S. S. Times: “Trifles are trifles only to triflers. Awake to the significance of the insignificant! for you are in a world that belongs not alone to the God of the Infinite, but also to the God of the infinitesimal.”

(b) The external command was not arbitrary or insignificant in its substance. It was a concrete presentation to the human will of God’s claim to eminent domain or absolute ownership.

John Hall, Lectures on the Religious rise of Property, 10—“It sometimes happens that owners of land, meaning to give the use of it to others, without alienating it, impose a nominal rent—a quit-rent, the passing of which acknowledges the recipient as owner and the occupier as tenant. This is understood in all lands. In many an old English deed, ‘three barley-corns,’ ‘a fat capon,’ or ‘a shilling,’ is the consideration which permanently recognizes the rights of lordship. God taught men by the forbidden tree that he was owner, that man was occupier. He selected the matter of property to be the test of man’s obedience, the outward and sensible sign of a right state of heart toward God; and when man put forth his hand and did eat, he denied God’s ownership and asserted his own. Nothing remained but to eject him.”

(c) The sanction attached to the command shows that man was not left ignorant of its meaning or importance.

Gen. 2:17—“in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Cf. Gen. 3:3—“the tree which is in the midst of the garden”; and see Dodge, Christian Theology, 206, 207—“The tree was central, as the commandment was central. The choice was between the tree of life and the tree of death,—between self and God. Taking the one was rejecting the other.”

(d) The act of disobedience was therefore the revelation of a will thoroughly corrupted and alienated from God—a will given over to ingratitude, unbelief, ambition, and rebellion.

The motive to disobedience was not appetite, but the ambition to be as God. The outward act of eating the forbidden fruit was only the thin edge of the wedge, behind which lay the whole mass—the fundamental determination to isolate self and to seek personal pleasure regardless of God and his law. So the man under conviction for sin commonly clings to some single passion or plan, only half-conscious of the fact that opposition to God in one thing is opposition in all.

1. Death.

This death was twofold. It was partly:

A. Physical death, or the separation of the soul from the body.—The seeds of death, naturally implanted in man’s constitution, began to develop themselves the moment that access to the tree of life was denied him. Man from that moment was a dying creature.

In a true sense death began at once. To it belonged the pains which both man and woman should suffer in their appointed callings. The fact that man’s earthly existence did not at once end, was due to God’s counsel of redemption. “The law of the Spirit of life” (Rom. 8:2) began to work even then, and grace began to counteract the effects of the Fall. Christ has now “abolished death” (2 Tim. 1:10) by taking its terrors away, and by turning it into the portal of heaven. He will destroy it utterly (1 Cor. 15:26) when by resurrection from the dead, the bodies of the saints shall be made immortal. Dr. William A. Hammond, following a French scientist, declares that there is no reason in a normal physical system why man should not live forever. That death is not a physical necessity is evident if we once remember that life is, not fuel, but fire. Weismann, Heredity, 8, 24, 72, 159—“The organism must not be looked upon as a heap of combustible material, which is completely reduced to ashes in a certain time, the length of which is determined by its size and by the rate at which it burns; but it should be compared to a fire, to which fresh fuel can be continually added, and which, whether it burns quickly or slowly, can be kept burning as long as necessity demands.... Death is not a primary necessity, but it has been acquired secondarily, as an adaptation.... Unicellular organisms, increasing by means of fission, in a certain sense possess immortality. No Amœba has ever lost an ancestor by death.... Each individual now living is far older than mankind, and is almost as old as life itself.... Death is not an essential attribute of living matter.” If we regard man as primarily spirit, the possibility of life without death is plain. God lives on eternally, and the future physical organism of the righteous will have in it no seed of death. Man might have been created without being mortal. That he is mortal is due to anticipated sin. Regard body as simply the constant energizing of God, and we see that there is no inherent necessity of death. Denney, Studies in Theology, 98—“Man, it is said, must die because he is a natural being, and what belongs to nature belongs to him. But we assert, on the contrary, that he was created a supernatural being, with a primacy over nature, so related to God as to be immortal. Death is an intrusion, and it is finally to be abolished.” Chandler, The Spirit of Man, 45-47—“The first stage in the fall was the disintegration of spirit into body and mind; and the second was the enslavement of mind to body.” Some recent writers, however, deny that death is a consequence of the Fall, except in the sense that man’s fear of death results from his sin. Newman Smyth, Place of Death in Evolution, 19-22, indeed, asserts the value and propriety of death as an element of the normal universe. He would oppose to the doctrine of Weismann the conclusions of Maupas, the French biologist, who has followed infusoria through 600 generations. Fission, says Maupas, reproduces for many generations, but the unicellular germ ultimately weakens and dies out. The asexual reproduction must be supplemented by a higher conjugation, the meeting and partial blending of the contents of two cells. This is only occasional, but it is necessary to the permanence of the species. Isolation is ultimate death. Newman Smyth adds that death and sex appear together. When sex enters to enrich and diversify life, all that will not take advantage of it dies out. Survival of the fittest is accompanied by death of that which will not improve. Death is a secondary thing—a consequence of life. A living form acquired the power of giving up its life for another. It died in order that its offspring might survive in a higher form. Death helps life on and up. It does not put a stop to life. It became an advantage to life as a whole that certain primitive forms should be left by the way to perish. We owe our human birth to death in nature. The earth before us has died that we might live. We are the living children of a world that has died for us. Death is a means of life, of increasing specialization of function. Some cells are born to give up their life sacrificially for the organism to which they belong. While we regard Newman Smyth’s view as an ingenious and valuable explanation of the incidental results of death, we do not regard it as an explanation of death’s origin. God has overruled death for good, and we can assent to much of Dr. Smyth’s exposition. But that this good could be gained only by death seems to us wholly unproved and unprovable. Biology shows us that other methods of reproduction are possible, and that death is an incident and not a primary requisite to development. We regard Dr. Smyth’s theory as incompatible with the Scripture representations of death as the consequence of sin, as the sign of God’s displeasure, as a means of discipline for the fallen, as destined to complete abolition when sin itself has been done away. We reserve, however, the full proof that physical death is part of the penalty of sin until we discuss the Consequences of Sin to Adam’s Posterity.

But this death was also, and chiefly,

B. Spiritual death, or the separation of the soul from God.—In this are included: (a) Negatively, the loss of man’s moral likeness to God, or that underlying tendency of his whole nature toward God which constituted his original righteousness. (b) Positively, the depraving of all those powers which, in their united action with reference to moral and religious truth, we call man’s moral and religious nature; or, in other words, the blinding of his intellect, the corruption of his affections, and the enslavement of his will.

Seeking to be a god, man became a slave; seeking independence, he ceased to be master of himself. Once his intellect was pure,—he was supremely conscious of God, and saw all things also in God’s light. Now he was supremely conscious of self, and saw all things as they affected self. This self-consciousness—how unlike the objective life of the first apostles, of Christ and of every loving soul! Once man’s affections were pure,—he loved God supremely, and other things in subordination to God’s will. Now he loved self supremely, and was ruled by inordinate affections toward the creatures which could minister to his selfish gratification. Now man could do nothing pleasing to God, because he lacked the love which is necessary to all true obedience. G. F. Wilkin, Control in Evolution, shows that the will may initiate a counter-evolution which shall reverse the normal course of man’s development. First comes an act, then a habit, of surrender to animalism; then subversion of faith in the true and the good; then active championship of evil; then transmission of evil disposition and tendencies to posterity. This subversion of the rational will by an evil choice took place very early, indeed in the first man. All human history has been a conflict between these two antagonistic evolutions, the upward and the downward. Biological rather than moral phenomena predominate. No human being escapes transgressing the law of his evolutionary nature. There is a moral deadness and torpor resulting. The rational will must be restored before man can go right again. Man must commit himself to a true life; then to the restoration of other men to that same life; then there must be coöperation of society; this work must extend to the limits of the human species. But this will be practicable and rational only as it is shown that the unfolding plan of the universe has destined the righteous to a future incomparably more desirable than that of the wicked; in other words, immortality is necessary to evolution. “If immortality be necessary to evolution, then immortality becomes scientific. Jesus has the authority and omnipresence of the power behind evolution. He imposes upon his followers the same normal evolutionary mission that sent him into the world. He organizes them into churches. He teaches a moral evolution of society through the united voluntary efforts of his followers. They are ‘the good seed ... the sons of the kingdom’ (Mat. 13:38). Theism makes a definite attempt to counteract the evil of the counter-evolution, and the attempt justifies itself by its results. Christianity is scientific (1) in that it satisfies the conditions of knowledge: the persisting and comprehensive harmony of phenomena, and the interpretation of all the facts; (2) in its aim, the moral regeneration of the world; (3) in its methods, adapting itself to man as an ethical being, capable of endless progress; (4) in its conception of normal society, as of sinners uniting together to help one another to depend on God and conquer self, so recognizing the ethical bond as the most essential. This doctrine harmonizes science and religion, revealing the new species of control which marks the highest stage of evolution; shows that the religion of the N. T. is essentially scientific and its truths capable of practical verification; that Christianity is not any particular church, but the teachings of the Bible; that Christianity is the true system of ethics, and should be taught in public institutions; that cosmic evolution comes at last to depend on the wisdom and will of man, the immanent God working in finite and redeemed humanity.”

In fine, man no longer made God the end of his life, but chose self instead. While he retained the power of self-determination in subordinate things, he lost that freedom which consisted in the power of choosing God as his ultimate aim, and became fettered by a fundamental inclination of his will toward evil. The intuitions of the reason were abnormally obscured, since these intuitions, so far as they are concerned with moral and religious truth, are conditioned upon a right state of the affections; and—as a necessary result of this obscuring of reason—conscience, which, as the normal judiciary of the soul, decides upon the basis of the law given to it by reason, became perverse in its deliverances. Yet this inability to judge or act aright, since it was a moral inability springing ultimately from will, was itself hateful and condemnable.

See Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 3:61-73; Shedd, Sermons to the Natural Man, 202-230, esp. 205—“Whatsoever springs from will we are responsible for. Man’s inability to love God supremely results from his intense self-will and self-love, and therefore his impotence is a part and element of his sin, and not an excuse for it.” And yet the question “Adam, where art thou?” (Gen. 3:9), says C. J. Baldwin, “was, (1) a question, not as to Adam’s physical locality, but as to his moral condition; (2) a question, not of justice threatening, but of love inviting to repentance and return; (3) a question, not to Adam as an individual only, but to the whole humanity of which he was the representative.” Dale, Ephesians, 40—“Christ is the eternal Son of God; and it was the first, the primeval purpose of the divine grace that his life and sonship should be shared by all mankind; that through Christ all men should rise to a loftier rank than that which belonged to them by their creation; should be ‘partakers of the divine nature’ (2 Pet. 1:4), and share the divine righteousness and joy. Or rather, the race was actually created in Christ; and it was created that the whole race might in Christ inherit the life and glory of God. The divine purpose has been thwarted and obstructed and partially defeated by human sin. But it is being fulfilled in all who are ‘in Christ’ (Eph. 1:3).”

2. Positive and formal exclusion from God’s presence.

This included:

(a) The cessation of man’s former familiar intercourse with God, and the setting up of outward barriers between man and his Maker (cherubim and sacrifice).

“In die Welt hinausgestossen, Steht der Mensch verlassen da.” Though God punished Adam and Eve, he did not curse them as he did the serpent. Their exclusion from the tree of life was a matter of benevolence as well as of justice, for it prevented the immortality of sin.

(b) Banishment from the garden, where God had specially manifested his presence.—Eden was perhaps a spot reserved, as Adam’s body had been, to show what a sinless world would be. This positive exclusion from God’s presence, with the sorrow and pain which it involved, may have been intended to illustrate to man the nature of that eternal death from which he now needed to seek deliverance.

At the gates of Eden, there seems to have been a manifestation of God’s presence, in the cherubim, which constituted the place a sanctuary. Both Cain and Abel brought offerings “unto the Lord” (Gen. 4:3, 4), and when Cain fled, he is said to have gone out “from the presence of the Lord” (Gen. 4:16). On the consequences of the Fall to Adam, see Edwards, Works, 2:390-405; Hopkins, Works, 1:206-246; Dwight, Theology, 1:393-434; Watson, Institutes, 2:19-42; Martensen, Dogmatics, 155-173; Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 402-412.

Section V.—Imputation Of Adam’s Sin To His Posterity.

We have seen that all mankind are sinners; that all men are by nature depraved, guilty, and condemnable; and that the transgression of our first parents, so far as respects the human race, was the first sin. We have still to consider the connection between Adam’s sin and the depravity, guilt, and condemnation of the race.

(a) The Scriptures teach that the transgression of our first parents constituted their posterity sinners (Rom. 5:19—“through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners”), so that Adam’s sin is imputed, reckoned, or charged to every member of the race of which he was the germ and head (Rom. 5:16—“the judgment came of one [offence] unto condemnation”). It is because of Adam’s sin that we are born depraved and subject to God’s penal inflictions (Rom. 5:12—“through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin”; Eph. 2:3—“by nature children of wrath”). Two questions demand answer,—first, how we can be responsible for a depraved nature which we did not personally and consciously originate; and, secondly, how God can justly charge to our account the sin of the first father of the race. These questions are substantially the same, and the Scriptures intimate the true answer to the problem when they declare that “in Adam all die” (1 Cor. 15:22) and “that death passed unto all men, for that all sinned” when “through one man sin entered into the world” (Rom. 5:12). In other words, Adam’s sin is the cause and ground of the depravity, guilt, and condemnation of all his posterity, simply because Adam and his posterity are one, and, by virtue of their organic unity, the sin of Adam is the sin of the race.

Amiel says that “the best measure of the profundity of any religious doctrine is given by its conception of sin and of the cure of sin.” We have seen that sin is a state; a state of the will; a selfish state of the will; a selfish state of the will inborn and universal; a selfish state of the will inborn and universal by reason of man’s free act. Connecting the present discussion with the preceding doctrines of theology, the steps of our treatment thus far are as follows: 1. God’s holiness is purity of nature. 2. God’s law demands purity of nature. 3. Sin is impure nature. 4. All men have this impure nature. 5. Adam originated this impure nature. In the present section we expect to add: 6. Adam and we are one; and, in the succeeding section, to complete the doctrine with: 7. The guilt and penalty of Adam’s sin are ours.

(b) According as we regard this twofold problem from the point of view of the abnormal human condition, or of the divine treatment of it, we may call it the problem of original sin, or the problem of imputation. Neither of these terms is objectionable when its meaning is defined. By imputation of sin we mean, not the arbitrary and mechanical charging to a man of that for which he is not naturally responsible, but the reckoning to a man of a guilt which is properly his own, whether by virtue of his individual acts, or by virtue of his connection with the race. By original sin we mean that participation in the common sin of the race with which God charges us, in virtue of our descent from Adam, its first father and head.

We should not permit our use of the term “imputation” to be hindered or prejudiced by the fact that certain schools of theology, notably the Federal school, have attached to it an arbitrary, external, and mechanical meaning—holding that God imputes sin to men, not because they are sinners, but upon the ground of a legal fiction whereby Adam, without their consent, was made their representative. We shall see, on the contrary, that (1) in the case of Adam’s sin imputed to us, (2) in the case of our sins imputed to Christ, and (3) in the case of Christ’s righteousness imputed to the believer, there is always a realistic basis for the imputation, namely, a real union, (1) between Adam and his descendants, (2) between Christ and the race, and (3) between believers and Christ, such as gives in each case community of life, and enables us to say that God imputes to no man what does not properly belong to him. Dr. E. G. Robinson used to say that “imputed righteousness and imputed sin are as absurd as any notion that ever took possession of human nature.” He had in mind, however, only that constructive guilt and merit which was advocated by Princeton theologians. He did not mean to deny the imputation to men of that which is their own. He recognized the fact that all men are sinners by inheritance as well as by voluntary act, and he found this taught in Scripture, both in the O. T. and in the N. T.; e. g., Neh. 1:6—“I confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee. Yea, I and my father’s house have sinned”; Jer. 3:25—“Let us lie down in our shame, and let our confusion cover us; for we have sinned against Jehovah our God, we and our fathers”; 14:20—“We acknowledge, O Jehovah, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers; for we have sinned against thee.” The word “imputed” is itself found in the N. T.; e. g., 2 Tim. 4:16—“At my first defence no one took my part: may it not be laid to their account,” or “imputed to them”—μὴ αὐτοῖς λογισθείη. Rom. 5:13—“sin is not imputed when there is no law”—οὐκ ἐλλογᾶται. Not only the saints of Scripture times, but modern saints also, have imputed to themselves the sins of others, of their people, of their times, of the whole world. Jonathan Edwards, Resolutions, quoted by Allen, 28—“I will take it for granted that no one is so evil as myself; I will identify myself with all men and act as if their evil were my own, as if I had committed the same sins and had the same infirmities, so that the knowledge of their failings will promote in me nothing but a sense of shame.” Frederick Denison Maurice: “I wish to confess the sins of the time as my own.” Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 87—“The phrase ‘solidarity of humanity’ is growing every day in depth and significance. Whatever we do, we do not for ourselves alone. It is not as an individual alone that I can be measured or judged.” Royce, World and Individual, 2:404—“The problem of evil indeed demands the presence of free will in the world; while, on the other hand, it is equally true that no moral world whatever can be made consistent with the realistic thesis according to which free will agents are, in fortune and in penalty, independent of the deeds of other moral agents. It follows that, in our moral world, the righteous can suffer without individually deserving their suffering, just because their lives have no independent being, but are linked with all life—God himself also sharing in their suffering.” The above quotations illustrate the belief in a human responsibility that goes beyond the bounds of personal sins. What this responsibility is, and what its limits are, we have yet to define. The problem is stated, but not solved, by A. H. Bradford, Heredity, 198, and The Age of Faith, 235—“Stephen prays: ‘Lord, lay not this sin to their charge’ (Acts 7:60). To whose charge then? We all have a share in one another’s sins. We too stood by and consented, as Paul did. ‘My sins gave sharpness to the nails, And pointed every thorn’ that pierced the brow of Jesus.... Yet in England and Wales the severer forms of this teaching [with regard to sin] have almost disappeared; not because of more thorough study of the Scripture, but because the awful congestion of population, with its attendant miseries, has convinced the majority of Christian thinkers that the old interpretations were too small for the near and terrible facts of human life, such as women with babies in their arms at the London gin-shops giving the infants sips of liquor out of their glasses, and a tavern keeper setting his four or five year old boy upon the counter to drink and swear and fight in imitation of his elders.”

(c) There are two fundamental principles which the Scriptures already cited seem clearly to substantiate, and which other Scriptures corroborate. The first is that man’s relations to moral law extend beyond the sphere of conscious and actual transgression, and embrace those moral tendencies and qualities of his being which he has in common with every other member of the race. The second is, that God’s moral government is a government which not only takes account of persons and personal acts, but also recognizes race responsibilities and inflicts race-penalties; or, in other words, judges mankind, not simply as a collection of separate individuals, but also as an organic whole, which can collectively revolt from God and incur the curse of the violated law.

On race-responsibility, see H. R. Smith, System of Theology, 288-302—“No one can apprehend the doctrine of original sin, nor the doctrine of redemption, who insists that the whole moral government of God has respect only to individual desert, who does not allow that the moral government of God, as moral, has a wider scope and larger relations, so that God may dispense suffering and happiness (in his all-wise and inscrutable providence) on other grounds than that of personal merit and demerit. The dilemma here is: the facts connected with native depravity and with the redemption through Christ either belong to the moral government of God, or not. If they do, then that government has to do with other considerations than those of personal merit and demerit (since our disabilities in consequence of sin and the grace offered in Christ are not in any sense the result of our personal choice, though we do choose in our relations to both). If they do not belong to the moral government of God, where shall we assign them? To the physical? That certainly can not be. To the divine sovereignty? But that does not relieve any difficulty; for the question still remains, Is that sovereignty, as thus exercised, just or unjust? We must take one or the other of these. The whole (of sin and grace) is either a mystery of sovereignty—of mere omnipotence—or a proceeding of moral government. The question will arise with respect to grace as well as to sin: How can the theory that all moral government has respect only to the merit or demerit of personal acts be applied to our justification? If all sin is in sinning, with a personal desert of everlasting death, by parity of reasoning all holiness must consist in a holy choice with personal merit of eternal life. We say then, generally, that all definitions of sin which mean a sin are irrelevant here.” Dr. Smith quotes Edwards, 2:309—“Original sin, the innate sinful depravity of the heart, includes not only the depravity of nature but the imputation of Adam’s first sin, or, in other words, the liableness or exposedness of Adam’s posterity, in the divine judgment, to partake of the punishment of that sin.” The watchword of a large class of theologians—popularly called “New School”—is that “all sin consists in sinning,”—that is, all sin is sin of act. But we have seen that the dispositions and states in which a man is unlike God and his purity are also sin according to the meaning of the law. We have now to add that each man is responsible also for that sin of our first father in which the human race apostatized from God. In other words, we recognize the guilt of race-sin as well as of personal sin. We desire to say at the outset, however, that our view, and, as we believe, the Scriptural view, requires us also to hold to certain qualifications of the doctrine which to some extent alleviate its harshness and furnish its proper explanation. These qualifications we now proceed to mention.

(d) In recognizing the guilt of race-sin, we are to bear in mind: (1) that actual sin, in which the personal agent reaffirms the underlying determination of his will, is more guilty than original sin alone; (2) that no human being is finally condemned solely on account of original sin; but that all who, like infants, do not commit personal transgressions, are saved through the application of Christ’s atonement; (3) that our responsibility for inborn evil dispositions, or for the depravity common to the race, can be maintained only upon the ground that this depravity was caused by an original and conscious act of free will, when the race revolted from God in Adam; (4) that the doctrine of original sin is only the ethical interpretation of biological facts—the facts of heredity and of universal congenital ills, which demand an ethical ground and explanation; and (5) that the idea of original sin has for its correlate the idea of original grace, or the abiding presence and operation of Christ, the immanent God, in every member of the race, in spite of his sin, to counteract the evil and to prepare the way, so far as man will permit, for individual and collective salvation.

Over against the maxim: “All sin consists in sinning,” we put the more correct statement: Personal sin consists in sinning, but in Adam’s first sinning the race also sinned, so that “in Adam all die” (1 Cor. 15:22). Denney, Studies in Theology, 86—“Sin is not only personal but social; not only social but organic; character and all that is involved in character are capable of being attributed not only to individuals but to societies, and eventually to the human race itself; in short, there are not only isolated sins and individual sinners, but what has been called a kingdom of sin upon earth.” Leslie Stephen: “Man not dependent on a race is as meaningless a phrase as an apple that does not grow on a tree.” “Yet Aaron Burr and Abraham Lincoln show how a man may throw away every advantage of the best heredity and environment, while another can triumph over the worst. Man does not take his character from external causes, but shapes it by his own willing submission to influences from beneath or from above.” Wm. Adams Brown: “The idea of inherited guilt can be accepted only if paralleled by the idea of inherited good. The consequences of sin have often been regarded as social, while the consequences of good have been regarded as only individual. But heredity transmits both good and evil.” Mrs. Lydia Avery Coonley Ward: “Why bowest thou, O soul of mine, Crushed by ancestral sin? Thou hast a noble heritage, That bids thee victory win. The tainted past may bring forth flowers, As blossomed Aaron’s rod: No legacy of sin annuls Heredity from God.” For further statements with regard to race-responsibility, see Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:29-39 (System Doctrine, 2:324-333). For the modern view of the Fall, and its reconciliation with the doctrine of evolution, see J. H. Bernard, art.: The Fall, in Hastings’ Dict. of Bible; A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 163-180; Griffith-Jones, Ascent through Christ.

(e) There is a race-sin, therefore, as well as a personal sin; and that race-sin was committed by the first father of the race, when he comprised the whole race in himself. All mankind since that time have been born in the state into which he fell—a state of depravity, guilt, and condemnation. To vindicate God’s justice in imputing to us the sin of our first father, many theories have been devised, a part of which must be regarded as only attempts to evade the problem by denying the facts set before us in the Scriptures. Among these attempted explanations of the Scripture statements, we proceed to examine the six theories which seem most worthy of attention.

The first three of the theories which we discuss may be said to be evasions of the problem of original sin; all, in one form or another, deny that God imputes to all men Adam’s sin, in such a sense that all are guilty for it. These theories are the Pelagian, the Arminian, and the New School. The last three of the theories which we are about to treat, namely, the Federal theory, the theory of Mediate Imputation, and the theory of Adam’s Natural Headship, are all Old School theories, and have for their common characteristic that they assert the guilt of inborn depravity. All three, moreover, hold that we are in some way responsible for Adam’s sin, though they differ as to the precise way in which we are related to Adam. We must grant that no one, even of these latter theories, is wholly satisfactory. We hope, however, to show that the last of them—the Augustinian theory, the theory of Adam’s natural headship, the theory that Adam and his descendants are naturally and organically one—explains the largest number of facts, is least open to objection, and is most accordant with Scripture.

1. The Pelagian Theory, or Theory of Man’s natural Innocence.

Pelagius, a British monk, propounded his doctrines at Rome, 409. They were condemned by the Council of Carthage, 418. Pelagianism, however, as opposed to Augustinianism, designates a complete scheme of doctrine with regard to sin, of which Pelagius was the most thorough representative, although every feature of it cannot be ascribed to his authorship. Socinians and Unitarians are the more modern advocates of this general scheme.

According to this theory, every human soul is immediately created by God, and created as innocent, as free from depraved tendencies, and as perfectly able to obey God, as Adam was at his creation. The only effect of Adam’s sin upon his posterity is the effect of evil example; it has in no way corrupted human nature; the only corruption of human nature is that habit of sinning which each individual contracts by persistent transgression of known law.

Adam’s sin therefore injured only himself; the sin of Adam is imputed only to Adam,—it is imputed in no sense to his descendants; God imputes to each of Adam’s descendants only those acts of sin which he has personally and consciously committed. Men can be saved by the law as well as by the gospel; and some have actually obeyed God perfectly, and have thus been saved. Physical death is therefore not the penalty of sin, but an original law of nature; Adam would have died whether he had sinned or not; in Rom. 5:12, “death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,” signifies: “all incurred eternal death by sinning after Adam’s example.”

Wiggers, Augustinism and Pelagianism, 59, states the seven points of the Pelagian doctrine as follows: (1) Adam was created mortal, so that he would have died even if he had not sinned; (2) Adam’s sin injured, not the human race, but only himself; (3) new-born infants are in the same condition as Adam before the Fall; (4) the whole human race neither dies on account of Adam’s sin, nor rises on account of Christ’s resurrection; (5) infants, even though not baptized, attain eternal life; (6) the law is as good a means of salvation as the gospel; (7) even before Christ some men lived who did not commit sin. In Pelagius’ Com. on Rom. 5:12, published in Jerome’s Works, vol. xi, we learn who these sinless men were, namely, Abel, Enoch, Joseph, Job, and, among the heathen, Socrates, Aristides, Numa. The virtues of the heathen entitle them to reward. Their worthies were not indeed without evil thoughts and inclinations; but, on the view of Pelagius that all sin consists in act, these evil thoughts and inclinations were not sin. “Non pleni nascimur”: we are born, not full, but vacant, of character. Holiness, Pelagius thought, could not be concreated. Adam’s descendants are not weaker, but stronger, than he; since they have fulfilled many commands, while he did not fulfil so much as one. In every man there is a natural conscience; he has an ideal of life; he forms right resolves; he recognizes the claims of law; he accuses himself when he sins,—all these things Pelagius regards as indications of a certain holiness in all men, and misinterpretation of these facts gives rise to his system; he ought to have seen in them evidences of a divine influence opposing man’s bent to evil and leading him to repentance. Grace, on the Pelagian theory, is simply the grace of creation—God’s originally endowing man with his high powers of reason and will. While Augustinianism regards human nature as dead, and Semi-Pelagianism regards it as sick, Pelagianism proper declares it to be well. Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:43 (Syst. Doct., 2:338)—“Neither the body, man’s surroundings, nor the inward operation of God, have any determining influence upon the will. God reaches man only through external means, such as Christ’s doctrine, example, and promise. This clears God of the charge of evil, but also takes from him the authorship of good. It is Deism, applied to man’s nature. God cannot enter man’s being if he would, and he would not if he could. Free will is everything.” Ib., 1:626 (Syst. Doct., 2:188, 189)—“Pelagianism at one time counts it too great an honor that man should be directly moved upon by God, and at another, too great a dishonor that man should not be able to do without God. In this inconsistent reasoning, it shows its desire to be rid of God as much as possible. The true conception of God requires a living relation to man, as well as to the external universe. The true conception of man requires satisfaction of his longings and powers by reception of impulses and strength from God. Pelagianism, in seeking for man a development only like that of nature, shows that its high estimate of man is only a delusive one; it really degrades him, by ignoring his true dignity and destiny.” See Ib., 1:124, 125 (Syst. Doct., 1:136, 137); 2:43-45 (Syst. Doct., 2:338, 339); 2:148 (Syst. Doct., 3:44). Also Schaff, Church History, 2:783-856; Doctrines of the Early Socinians, in Princeton Essays, 1:194-211; Wörter, Pelagianismus. For substantially Pelagian statements, see Sheldon, Sin and Redemption; Ellis, Half Century of Unitarian Controversy, 76.

Of the Pelagian theory of sin, we may say:

A. It has never been recognized as Scriptural, nor has it been formulated in confessions, by any branch of the Christian church. Held only sporadically and by individuals, it has ever been regarded by the church at large as heresy. This constitutes at least a presumption against its truth.

As slavery was “the sum of all villainy,” so the Pelagian doctrine may be called the sum of all false doctrine. Pelagianism is a survival of paganism, in its majestic egoism and self-complacency. “Cicero, in his Natura Deorum, says that men thank the gods for external advantages, but no man ever thanks the gods for his virtues—that he is honest or pure or merciful. Pelagius was first roused to opposition by hearing a bishop in the public services of the church quote Augustine’s prayer: ‘Da quod jubes, et jube quod vis’—‘Give what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt.’ From this he was led to formulate the gospel according to St. Cicero, so perfectly does the Pelagian doctrine reproduce the Pagan teaching.” The impulse of the Christian, on the other hand, is to refer all gifts and graces to a divine source in Christ and in the Holy Spirit. Eph. 2:10—“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them”; John 15:16—“Ye did not choose me, but I chose you”; 1:13—“who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” H. Auber: “And every virtue we possess, And every victory won, And every thought of holiness, Are his alone.” Augustine had said that “Man is most free when controlled by God alone”—“[Deo] solo dominante, liberrimus” (De Mor. Eccl., xxi). Gore, in Lux Mundi, 320—“In Christ humanity is perfect, because in him it retains no part of that false independence which, in all its manifold forms, is the secret of sin.” Pelagianism, on the contrary, is man’s declaration of independence. Harnack, Hist. Dogma, 5:200—“The essence of Pelagianism, the key to its whole mode of thought, lies in this proposition of Julian: ‘Homo libero arbitrio emancipatus a Deo’—man, created free, is in his whole being independent of God. He has no longer to do with God, but with himself alone. God reënters man’s life only at the end, at the judgment,—a doctrine of the orphanage of humanity.”

B. It contradicts Scripture in denying: (a) that evil disposition and state, as well as evil acts, are sin; (b) that such evil disposition and state are inborn in all mankind; (c) that men universally are guilty of overt transgression so soon as they come to moral consciousness; (d) that no man is able without divine help to fulfil the law; (e) that all men, without exception, are dependent for salvation upon God’s atoning, regenerating, sanctifying grace; (f) that man’s present state of corruption, condemnation, and death, is the direct effect of Adam’s transgression.

The Westminster Confession, ch. vi. § 4, declares that “we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil.” To Pelagius, on the contrary, sin is a mere incident. He knows only of sins, not of sin. He holds the atomic, or atomistic, theory of sin, which regards it as consisting in isolated volitions. Pelegianism, holding, as it does, that virtue and vice consist only in single decisions, does not account for character at all. There is no such thing as a state of sin, or a self-propagating power of sin. And yet upon these the Scriptures lay greater emphasis than upon mere acts of transgression. John 3:6—“That which is born of the flesh is flesh”—“that which comes of a sinful and guilty stock is itself, from the very beginning, sinful and guilty” (Dorner). Witness the tendency to degradation in families and nations. Amiel says that the great defect of liberal Christianity is its superficial conception of sin. The tendency dates far back: Tertullian spoke of the soul as naturally Christian—“anima naturaliter Christiana.” The tendency has come down to modern times: Crane, The Religion of To-morrow, 246—“It is only when children grow up, and begin to absorb their environment, that they lose their artless loveliness.” A Rochester Unitarian preacher publicly declared it to be as much a duty to believe in the natural purity of man, as to believe in the natural purity of God. Dr. Lyman Abbott speaks of “the shadow which the Manichæan theology of Augustine, borrowed by Calvin, cast upon all children, in declaring them born to an inheritance of wrath as a viper’s brood.” Dr. Abbott forgets that Augustine was the greatest opponent of Manichæanism, and that his doctrine of inherited guilt may be supplemented by a doctrine of inherited divine influences tending to salvation. Prof. G. A. Coe tells us that “all children are within the household of God”; that “they are already members of his kingdom”; that “the adolescent change” is “a step not into the Christian life, but within the Christian life.” We are taught that salvation is by education. But education is only a way of presenting truth. It still remains needful that the soul should accept the truth. Pelagianism ignores or denies the presence in every child of a congenital selfishness which hinders acceptance of the truth, and which, without the working of the divine Spirit, will absolutely counteract the influence of the truth. Augustine was taught his guilt and helplessness by transgression, while Pelagius remained ignorant of the evil of his own heart. Pelagius might have said with Wordsworth, Prelude, 534—“I had approached, like other youths, the shield Of human nature from the golden side; And would have fought, even unto the death, to attest The quality of the metal which I saw.” Schaff, on the Pelagian controversy, in Bib. Sac., 5:205-243—The controversy “resolves itself into the question whether redemption and sanctification are the work of man or of God. Pelagianism in its whole mode of thinking starts from man and seeks to work itself upward gradually, by means of an imaginary good-will, to holiness and communion with God. Augustinianism pursues the opposite way, deriving from God’s unconditioned and all-working grace a new life and all power of working good. The first is led from freedom into a legal, self-righteous piety; the other rises from the slavery of sin to the glorious liberty of the children of God. For the first, revelation is of force only as an outward help, or the power of a high example; for the last, it is the inmost life, the very marrow and blood of the new man. The first involves an Ebionitic view of Christ, as noble man, not high-priest or king; the second finds in him one in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. The first makes conversion a process of gradual moral purification on the ground of original nature; with the last, it is a total change, in which the old passes away and all becomes new.... Rationalism is simply the form in which Pelagianism becomes theoretically complete. The high opinion which the Pelagian holds of the natural will is transferred with equal right by the Rationalist to the natural reason. The one does without grace, as the other does without revelation. Pelagian divinity is rationalistic. Rationalistic morality is Pelagian.” See this Compendium, page 89. Allen, Religious Progress, 98-100—“Most of the mischief of religious controversy springs from the desire and determination to impute to one’s opponent positions which he does not hold, or to draw inferences from his principles, insisting that he shall be held responsible for them, even though he declares that he does not teach them. We say that he ought to accept them; that he is bound logically to do so; that they are necessary deductions from his system; that the tendency of his teaching is in these directions; and then we denounce and condemn him for what he disowns. It was in this way that Augustine filled out for Pelagius the gaps in his scheme, which he thought it necessary to do, in order to make Pelagius’s teaching consistent and complete; and Pelagius, in his turn, drew inferences from the Augustinian theology, about which Augustine would have preferred to maintain a discreet silence. Neither Augustine nor Calvin was anxious to make prominent the doctrine of the reprobation of the wicked to damnation, but preferred to dwell on the more attractive, more rational tenet of the elect to salvation, as subjects of the divine choice and approbation; substituting for the obnoxious word reprobation the milder, euphemistic word preterition. It was their opponents who were bent on forcing them out of their reserve, pushing them into what seemed the consistent sequence of their attitude, and then holding it up before the world for execration. And the same remark would apply to almost every theological contention that has embittered the church’s experience.”

C. It rests upon false philosophical principles; as, for example: (a) that the human will is simply the faculty of volitions; whereas it is also, and chiefly, the faculty of self-determination to an ultimate end; (b) that the power of a contrary choice is essential to the existence of will; whereas the will fundamentally determined to self-gratification has this power only with respect to subordinate choices, and cannot by a single volition reverse its moral state; (c) that ability is the measure of obligation,—a principle which would diminish the sinner’s responsibility, just in proportion to his progress in sin; (d) that law consists only in positive enactment; whereas it is the demand of perfect harmony with God, inwrought into man’s moral nature; (e) that each human soul is immediately created by God, and holds no other relations to moral law than those which are individual; whereas all human souls are organically connected with each other, and together have a corporate relation to God’s law, by virtue of their derivation from one common stock.

(a) Neander, Church History, 2:564-625, holds one of the fundamental principles of Pelagianism to be “the ability to choose, equally and at any moment, between good and evil.” There is no recognition of the law by which acts produce states; the power which repeated acts of evil possess to give a definite character and tendency to the will itself.—“Volition is an everlasting ‘tick,’ ‘tick,’ and swinging of the pendulum, but no moving forward of the hands of the clock follows.” “There is no continuity of moral life—no character, in man, angel, devil, or God.”—(b) See art. on Power of Contrary Choice, in Princeton Essays, 1:212-233; Pelagianism holds that no confirmation in holiness is possible. Thornwell, Theology: “The sinner is as free as the saint; the devil as the angel.” Harris, Philos. Basis of Theism, 399—“The theory that indifference is essential to freedom implies that will never acquires character; that voluntary action is atomistic, every act disintegrated from every other; that character, if acquired, would be incompatible with freedom.” “By mere volition the soul now a plenum can become a vacuum, or now a vacuum can become a plenum.” On the Pelagian view of freedom, see Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 37-44.

(c) Ps. 79:8—“Remember not against us the iniquities of our forefathers”; 106:6—“We have sinned with our fathers.” Notice the analogy of individuals who suffer from the effects of parental mistakes or of national transgression. Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:316, 317—“Neither the atomistic nor the organic view of human nature is the complete truth.” Each must be complemented by the other. For statement of race-responsibility, see Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:30-39, 51-64, 161, 162 (System of Doctrine, 2:324-334, 345-359; 3:50-54)—“Among the Scripture proofs of the moral connection of the individual with the race are the visiting of the sins of the fathers upon the children; the obligation of the people to punish the sin of the individual, that the whole land may not incur guilt; the offering of sacrifice for a murder, the perpetrator of which is unknown. Achan’s crime is charged to the whole people. The Jewish race is the better for its parentage, and other nations are the worse for theirs. The Hebrew people become a legal personality. “Is it said that none are punished for the sins of their fathers unless they are like their fathers? But to be unlike their fathers requires a new heart. They who are not held accountable for the sins of their fathers are those who have recognized their responsibility for them, and have repented for their likeness to their ancestors. Only the self-isolating spirit says: ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ (Gen. 4:9), and thinks to construct a constant equation between individual misfortune and individual sin. The calamities of the righteous led to an ethical conception of the relation of the individual to the community. Such sufferings show that men can love God disinterestedly, that the good has unselfish friends. These sufferings are substitutionary, when borne as belonging to the sufferer, not foreign to him, the guilt of others attaching to him by virtue of his national or race-relation to them. So Moses in Ex. 34:9, David in Ps. 51:6, Isaiah in Is. 59:9-16, recognize the connection between personal sin and race-sin. “Christ restores the bond between man and his fellows, turns the hearts of the fathers to the children. He is the creator of a new race-consciousness. In him as the head we see ourselves bound to, and responsible for others. Love finds it morally impossible to isolate itself. It restores the consciousness of unity and the recognition of common guilt. Does every man stand for himself in the N. T.? This would be so, only if each man became a sinner solely by free and conscious personal decision, either in the present, or in a past state of existence. But this is not Scriptural. Something comes before personal transgression: ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh’ (John 3:6). Personality is the stronger for recognizing the race-sin. We have common joy in the victories of the good; so in shameful lapses we have sorrow. These are not our worst moments, but our best,—there is something great in them. Original sin must be displeasing to God; for it perverts the reason, destroys likeness to God, excludes from communion with God, makes redemption necessary, leads to actual sin, influences future generations. But to complain of God for permitting its propagation is to complain of his not destroying the race,—that is, to complain of one’s own existence.” See Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 2:93-110; Hagenbach, Hist. Doctrine, 1:287, 296-310; Martensen, Dogmatics, 354-362; Princeton Essays, 1:74-97; Dabney, Theology, 296-302, 314, 315.

2. The Arminian Theory, or Theory of voluntarily appropriated Depravity.

Arminius (1560-1609), professor in the University of Leyden, in South Holland, while formally accepting the doctrine of the Adamic unity of the race propounded both by Luther and Calvin, gave a very different interpretation to it—an interpretation which verged toward Semi-Pelagianism and the anthropology of the Greek Church. The Methodist body is the modern representative of this view.

According to this theory, all men, as a divinely appointed sequence of Adam’s transgression, are naturally destitute of original righteousness, and are exposed to misery and death. By virtue of the infirmity propagated from Adam to all his descendants, mankind are wholly unable without divine help perfectly to obey God or to attain eternal life. This inability, however, is physical and intellectual, but not voluntary. As matter of justice, therefore, God bestows upon each individual from the first dawn of consciousness a special influence of the Holy Spirit, which is sufficient to counteract the effect of the inherited depravity and to make obedience possible, provided the human will coöperates, which it still has power to do.

The evil tendency and state may be called sin; but they do not in themselves involve guilt or punishment; still less are mankind accounted guilty of Adam’s sin. God imputes to each man his inborn tendencies to evil, only when he consciously and voluntarily appropriates and ratifies these in spite of the power to the contrary, which, in justice to man, God has specially communicated. In Rom. 5:12, “death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,” signifies that physical and spiritual death is inflicted upon all men, not as the penalty of a common sin in Adam, but because, by divine decree, all suffer the consequences of that sin, and because all personally consent to their inborn sinfulness by acts of transgression.

See Arminius, Works, 1:252-254, 317-324, 325-327, 523-531, 575-583. The description given above is a description of Arminianism proper. The expressions of Arminius himself are so guarded that Moses Stuart (Bib. Repos., 1831) found it possible to construct an argument to prove that Arminius was not an Arminian. But it is plain that by inherited sin Arminius meant only inherited evil, and that it was not of a sort to justify God’s condemnation. He denied any inbeing in Adam, such as made us justly chargeable with Adam’s sin, except in the sense that we are obliged to endure certain consequences of it. This Shedd has shown in his History of Doctrine, 2:178-196. The system of Arminius was more fully expounded by Limborch and Episcopius. See Limborch, Theol. Christ., 3:4:6 (p. 189). The sin with which we are born “does not inhere in the soul, for this [soul] is immediately created by God, and therefore, if it were infected with sin, that sin would be from God.” Many so-called Arminians, such as Whitby and John Taylor, were rather Pelagians. John Wesley, however, greatly modified and improved the Arminian doctrine. Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:329, 330—“Wesleyanism (1) admits entire moral depravity; (2) denies that men in this state have any power to coöperate with the grace of God; (3) asserts that the guilt of all through Adam was removed by the justification of all through Christ; (4) ability to coöperate is of the Holy Spirit, through the universal influence of the redemption of Christ. The order of the decrees is (1) to permit the fall of man; (2) to send the Son to be a full satisfaction for the sins of the whole world; (3) on that ground to remit all original sin, and to give such grace as would enable all to attain eternal life; (4) those who improve that grace and persevere to the end are ordained to be saved.” We may add that Wesley made the bestowal upon our depraved nature of ability to coöperate with God to be a matter of grace, while Arminius regarded it as a matter of justice, man without it not being accountable. Wesleyanism was systematized by Watson, who, in his Institutes, 2:53-55, 59, 77, although denying the imputation of Adam’s sin in any proper sense, yet declares that “Limborch and others materially departed from the tenets of Arminius in denying inward lusts and tendencies to be sinful till complied with and augmented by the will. But men universally choose to ratify these tendencies; therefore they are corrupt in heart. If there be a universal depravity of will previous to the actual choice, then it inevitably follows that though infants do not commit actual sin, yet that theirs is a sinful nature....As to infants, they are not indeed born justified and regenerate; so that to say original sin is taken away, as to infants, by Christ, is not the correct view of the case, for the reasons before given; but they are all born under ‘the free gift,’ the effects of the ‘righteousness’ of one, which is extended to all men; and this free gift is bestowed on them in order to justification of life, the adjudging of the condemned to live....Justification in adults is connected with repentance and faith; in infants, we do not know how. The Holy Spirit may be given to children. Divine and effectual influence may be exerted on them, to cure the spiritual death and corrupt tendency of their nature.” It will be observed that Watson’s Wesleyanism is much more near to Scripture than what we have described, and properly described, as Arminianism proper. Pope, in his Theology, follows Wesley and Watson, and (2:70-86) gives a valuable synopsis of the differences between Arminius and Wesley. Whedon and Raymond, in America, better represent original Arminianism. They hold that God was under obligation to restore man’s ability, and yet they inconsistently speak of this ability as a gracious ability. Two passages from Raymond’s Theology show the inconsistency of calling that “grace,” which God is bound in justice to bestow, in order to make man responsible: 2:84-86—“The race came into existence under grace. Existence and justification are secured for it only through Christ; for, apart from Christ, punishment and destruction would have followed the first sin. So all gifts of the Spirit necessary to qualify him for the putting forth of free moral choices are secured for him through Christ. The Spirit of God is not a bystander, but a quickening power. So man is by grace, not by his fallen nature, a moral being capable of knowing, loving, obeying, and enjoying God. Such he ever will be, if he does not frustrate the grace of God. Not till the Spirit takes his final flight is he in a condition of total depravity.” Compare with this the following passage of the same work in which this “grace” is called a debt: 2:317—“The relations of the posterity of Adam to God are substantially those of newly created beings. Each individual person is obligated to God, and God to him, precisely the same as if God had created him such as he is. Ability must equal obligation. God was not obligated to provide a Redeemer for the first transgressors, but having provided Redemption for them, and through it having permitted them to propagate a degenerate race, an adequate compensation is due. The gracious influences of the Spirit are then a debt due to man—a compensation for the disabilities of inherited depravity.” McClintock and Strong (Cyclopædia, art.: Arminius) endorse Whedon’s art. in the Bib. Sac., 19:241, as an exhibition of Arminianism, and Whedon himself claims it to be such. See Hagenbach, Hist. Doct., 2:214-216.

With regard to the Arminian theory we remark:

A. We grant that there is a universal gift of the Holy Spirit, if by the Holy Spirit is meant the natural light of reason and conscience, and the manifold impulses to good which struggle against the evil of man’s nature. But we regard as wholly unscriptural the assumptions: (a) that this gift of the Holy Spirit of itself removes the depravity or condemnation derived from Adam’s fall; (b) that without this gift man would not be responsible for being morally imperfect; and (c) that at the beginning of moral life men consciously appropriate their inborn tendencies to evil.

John Wesley adduced in proof of universal grace the text: John 1:9—“the light which lighteth every man”—which refers to the natural light of reason and conscience which the preincarnate Logos bestowed on all men, though in different degrees, before his coming in the flesh. This light can be called the Holy Spirit, because it was “the Spirit of Christ” (1 Pet. 1:11). The Arminian view has a large element of truth in its recognition of an influence of Christ, the immanent God, which mitigates the effects of the Fall and strives to prepare men for salvation. But Arminianism does not fully recognize the evil to be removed, and it therefore exaggerates the effect of this divine working. Universal grace does not remove man’s depravity or man’s condemnation; as is evident from a proper interpretation of Rom. 5:12-19 and of Eph. 2:3; it only puts side by side with that depravity and condemnation influences and impulses which counteract the evil and urge the sinner to repentance: John 1:5—“the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not.” John Wesley also referred to Rom. 5:18—“through one act of righteousness the free gift came unto all men to justification of life”—but here the “all men” is conterminous with “the many” who are “made righteous” in verse 19, and with the “all” who are “made alive” in 1 Cor. 15:22; in other words, the “all” in this case is “all believers”: else the passage teaches, not universal gift of the Spirit, but universal salvation. Arminianism holds to inherited sin, in the sense of infirmity and evil tendency, but not to inherited guilt. John Wesley, however, by holding also that the giving of ability is a matter of grace and not of justice, seems to imply that there is a common guilt as well as a common sin, before consciousness. American Arminians are more logical, but less Scriptural. Sheldon, Syst. Christian Doctrine, 321, tells us that “guilt cannot possibly be a matter of inheritance, and consequently original sin can be affirmed of the posterity of Adam only in the sense of hereditary corruption, which first becomes an occasion of guilt when it is embraced by the will of the individual.” How little the Arminian means by “sin,” can be inferred from the saying of Bishop Simpson that “Christ inherited sin.” He meant of course only physical and intellectual infirmity, without a tinge of guilt. “A child inherits its parent’s nature,” it is said, “not as a punishment, but by natural law.” But we reply that this natural law is itself an expression of God’s moral nature, and the inheritance of evil can be justified only upon the ground of a common non-conformity to God in both the parent and the child, or a participation of each member in the common guilt of the race. In the light of our preceding treatment, we can estimate the element of good and the element of evil in Pfleiderer, Philos. Religion, 1:232—“It is an exaggeration when original sin is considered as personally imputable guilt; and it is going too far when it is held to be the whole state of the natural man, and yet the actually present good, the ‘original grace,’ is overlooked....We may say, with Schleiermacher, that original sin is the common deed and common guilt of the human race. But the individual always participates in this collective guilt in the measure in which he takes part with his personal doing in the collective act that is directed to the furtherance of the bad.” Dabney, Theology, 315, 316—“Arminianism is orthodox as to the legal consequences of Adam’s sin to his posterity; but what it gives with one hand, it takes back with the other, attributing to grace the restoration of this natural ability lost by the Fall. If the effects of Adam’s Fall on his posterity are such that they would have been unjust if not repaired by a redeeming plan that was to follow it, then God’s act in providing a Redeemer was not an act of pure grace. He was under obligation to do some such thing,—salvation is not grace, but debt.” A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 187 sq., denies the universal gift of the Spirit, quoting John 14:17—“whom the world cannot receive; for it beholdeth him not, neither knoweth him”; 16:7—“if I go, I will send him unto you”; i. e., Christ’s disciples were to be the recipients and distributers of the Holy Spirit, and his church the mediator between the Spirit and the world. Therefore Mark 16:15—“Go ye into all the world, and preach,” implies that the Spirit shall go only with them. Conviction of the Spirit does not go beyond the church’s evangelizing. But we reply that Gen. 6:3 implies a wider striving of the Holy Spirit.

B. It contradicts Scripture in maintaining: (a) that inherited moral evil does not involve guilt; (b) that the gift of the Spirit, and the regeneration of infants, are matters of justice; (c) that the effect of grace is simply to restore man’s natural ability, instead of disposing him to use that ability aright; (d) that election is God’s choice of certain men to be saved upon the ground of their foreseen faith, instead of being God’s choice to make certain men believers; (e) that physical death is not the just penalty of sin, but is a matter of arbitrary decree.

(a) See Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:58 (System of Doctrine, 2:352-359)—“With Arminius, original sin is original evil only, not guilt. He explained the problem of original sin by denying the fact, and turning the native sinfulness into a morally indifferent thing. No sin without consent; no consent at the beginning of human development; therefore, no guilt in evil desire. This is the same as the Romanist doctrine of concupiscence, and like that leads to blaming God for an originally bad constitution of our nature....Original sin is merely an enticement to evil addressed to the free will. All internal disorder and vitiosity is morally indifferent, and becomes sin only through appropriation by free will. But involuntary, loveless, proud thoughts are recognized in Scripture as sin; yet they spring from the heart without our conscious consent. Undeliberate and deliberate sins run into each other, so that it is impossible to draw a line between them. The doctrine that there is no sin without consent implies power to withhold consent. But this contradicts the universal need of redemption and our observation that none have ever thus entirely withheld consent from sin.” (b) H. B. Smith’s Review of Whedon on the Will, in Faith and Philosophy, 359-399—“A child, upon the old view, needs only growth to make him guilty of actual sin; whereas, upon this view, he needs growth and grace too.” See Bib. Sac., 20:327, 328. According to Whedon, Com. on Rom. 5:12, “the condition of an infant apart from Christ is that of a sinner, as one sure to sin, yet never actually condemned before personal apostasy. This would be its condition, rather, for in Christ the infant is regenerate and justified and endowed with the Holy Spirit. Hence all actual sinners are apostates from a state of grace.” But we ask: 1. Why then do infants die before they have committed actual sin? Surely not on account of Adam’s sin, for they are delivered from all the evils of that, through Christ. It must be because they are still somehow sinners. 2. How can we account for all infants sinning so soon as they begin morally to act, if, before they sin, they are in a state of grace and sanctification? It must be because they were still somehow sinners. In other words, the universal regeneration and justification of infants contradict Scripture and observation. (c) Notice that this “gracious” ability does not involve saving grace to the recipient, because it is given equally to all men. Nor is it more than a restoring to man of his natural ability lost by Adam’s sin. It is not sufficient to explain why one man who has the gracious ability chooses God, while another who has the same gracious ability chooses self. 1 Cor. 4:7—“who maketh thee to differ?” Not God, but thyself. Over against this doctrine of Arminians, who hold to universal, resistible grace, restoring natural ability, Calvinists and Augustinians hold to particular, irresistible grace, giving moral ability, or, in other words, bestowing the disposition to use natural ability aright. “Grace” is a word much used by Arminians. Methodist Doctrine and Discipline, Articles of Religion, viii—“The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and works, to faith, and calling upon God; wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will.” It is important to understand that, in Arminian usage, grace is simply the restoration of man’s natural ability to act for himself; it never actually saves him, but only enables him to save himself—if he will. Arminian grace is evenly bestowed grace of spiritual endowment, as Pelagian grace is evenly bestowed grace of creation. It regards redemption as a compensation for innate and consequently irresponsible depravity. (d) In the Arminian system, the order of salvation is, (1) faith—by an unrenewed but convicted man; (2) justification; (3) regeneration, or a holy heart. God decrees not to originate faith, but to reward it. Hence Wesleyans make faith a work, and regard election as God’s ordaining those who, he foresees, will of their own accord believe. The Augustinian order, on the contrary, is (1) regeneration; (2) faith; (3) justification. Memoir of Adolph Saphir, 255—“My objection to the Arminian or semi-Arminian is not that they make the entrance very wide; but that they do not give you anything definite, safe and real, when you have entered.... Do not believe the devil’s gospel, which is a chance of salvation: chance of salvation is chance of damnation.” Grace is not a reward for good deeds done, but a power enabling us to do them. Francis Rous of Truro, in the Parliament of 1629, spoke as a man nearly frantic with horror at the increase of that “error of Arminianism which makes the grace of God lackey it after the will of man”; see Masson, Life of Milton, 1:277. Arminian converts say: “I gave my heart to the Lord”; Augustinian converts say: “The Holy Spirit convicted me of sin and renewed my heart.” Arminianism tends to self-sufficiency; Augustinianism promotes dependence upon God.

C. It rests upon false philosophical principles, as for example: (a) That the will is simply the faculty of volitions. (b) That the power of contrary choice, in the sense of power by a single act to reverse one’s moral state, is essential to will. (c) That previous certainty of any given moral act is incompatible with its freedom. (d) That ability is the measure of obligation. (e) That law condemns only volitional transgression. (f) That man has no organic moral connection with the race.

(b) Raymond says: “Man is responsible for character, but only so far as that character is self-imposed. We are not responsible for character irrespective of its origin. Freedom from an act is as essential to responsibility as freedom to it. If power to the contrary is impossible, then freedom does not exist in God or man. Sin was a necessity, and God was the author of it.” But this is a denial that there is any such thing as character; that the will can give itself a bent which no single volition can change; that the wicked man can become the slave of sin; that Satan, though without power now in himself to turn to God, is yet responsible for his sin. The power of contrary choice which Adam had exists no longer in its entirety; it is narrowed down to a power to the contrary in temporary and subordinate choices; it no longer is equal to the work of changing the fundamental determination of the being to selfishness as an ultimate end. Yet for this very inability, because originated by will, man is responsible. Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:28—“Formal freedom leads the way to real freedom. The starting-point is a freedom which does not yet involve an inner necessity, but the possibility of something else; the goal is the freedom which is identical with necessity. The first is a means to the last. When the will has fully and truly chosen, the power of acting otherwise may still be said to exist in a metaphysical sense; but morally, i. e., with reference to the contrast of good and evil, it is entirely done away. Formal freedom is freedom of choice, in the sense of volition with the express consciousness of other possibilities.” Real freedom is freedom to choose the good only, with no remaining possibility that evil will exert a counter attraction. But as the will can reach a “moral necessity” of good, so it can through sin reach a “moral necessity” of evil. (c) Park: “The great philosophical objection to Arminianism is its denial of the certainty of human action—the idea that a man may act either way without certainty how he will act—power of a contrary choice in the sense of a moral indifference which can choose without motive, or contrary to the strongest motive. The New School view is better than this, for that holds to the certainty of wrong choice, while yet the soul has power to make a right one.... The Arminians believe that it is objectively uncertain whether a man shall act in this way or in that, right or wrong. There is nothing, antecedently to choice, to decide the choice. It was the whole aim of Edwards to refute the idea that man would not certainly sin. The old Calvinists believe that antecedently to the Fall Adam was in this state of objective uncertainty, but that after the Fall it was certain he would sin, and his probation therefore was closed. Edwards affirms that no such objective uncertainty or power to the contrary ever existed, and that man now has all the liberty he ever had or could have. The truth in ‘power to the contrary’ is simply the power of the will to act contrary to the way it does act. President Edwards believed in this, though he is commonly understood as reasoning to the contrary. The false ‘power to the contrary’ is uncertainty how one will act, or a willingness to act otherwise than one does act. This is the Arminian power to the contrary, and it is this that Edwards opposes.” (e) Whedon, On the Will, 338-360, 388-395—“Prior to free volition, man may be unconformed to law, yet not a subject of retribution. The law has two offices, one judicatory and critical, the other retributive and penal. Hereditary evil may not be visited with retribution, as Adam’s concreated purity was not meritorious. Passive, prevolitional holiness is moral rectitude, but not moral desert. Passive, prevolitional impurity needs concurrence of active will to make it condemnable.”

D. It renders uncertain either the universality of sin or man’s responsibility for it. If man has full power to refuse consent to inborn depravity, then the universality of sin and the universal need of a Savior are merely hypothetical. If sin, however, be universal, there must have been an absence of free consent; and the objective certainty of man’s sinning, according to the theory, destroys his responsibility.

Raymond, Syst. Theol., 2:86-89, holds it “theoretically possible that a child may be so trained and educated in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, as that he will never knowingly and willingly transgress the law of God; in which case he will certainly grow up into regeneration and final salvation. But it is grace that preserves him from sin—[common grace?]. We do not know, either from experience or Scripture, that none have been free from known and wilful transgressions.” J. J. Murphy, Nat. Selection and Spir. Freedom, 26-33—“It is possible to walk from the cradle to the grave, not indeed altogether without sin, but without any period of alienation from God, and with the heavenly life developing along with the earthly, as it did in Christ, from the first.” But, since grace merely restores ability without giving the disposition to use that ability aright, Arminianism does not logically provide for the certain salvation of any infant. Calvinism can provide for the salvation of all dying in infancy, for it knows of a divine power to renew the will, but Arminianism knows of no such power, and so is furthest from a solution of the problem of infant salvation. See Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:320-326; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 479-494; Bib. Sac. 23:206; 28:279; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 3:56 sq.

3. The New School Theory, or Theory of uncondemnable Vitiosity.

This theory is called New School, because of its recession from the old Puritan anthropology of which Edwards and Bellamy in the last century were the expounders. The New School theory is a general scheme built up by the successive labors of Hopkins, Emmons, Dwight, Taylor, and Finney. It is held at present by New School Presbyterians, and by the larger part of the Congregational body.

According to this theory, all men are born with a physical and moral constitution which predisposes them to sin, and all men do actually sin so soon as they come to moral consciousness. This vitiosity of nature may be called sinful, because it uniformly leads to sin; but it is not itself sin, since nothing is to be properly denominated sin but the voluntary act of transgressing known law.

God imputes to men only their own acts of personal transgression; he does not impute to them Adam’s sin; neither original vitiosity nor physical death are penal inflictions; they are simply consequences which God has in his sovereignty ordained to mark his displeasure at Adam’s transgression, and subject to which evils God immediately creates each human soul. In Rom. 5:12, “death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,” signifies: “spiritual death passed on all men, because all men have actually and personally sinned.”

Edwards held that God imputes Adam’s sin to his posterity by arbitrarily identifying them with him,—identity, on the theory of continuous creation (see pages 415-418), being only what God appoints. Since this did not furnish sufficient ground for imputation, Edwards joined the Placean doctrine to the other, and showed the justice of the condemnation by the fact that man is depraved. He adds, moreover, the consideration that man ratifies this depravity by his own act. So Edwards tried to combine three views. But all were vitiated by his doctrine of continuous creation, which logically made God the only cause in the universe, and left no freedom, guilt, or responsibility to man. He held that preservation is a continuous series of new divine volitions, personal identity consisting in consciousness or rather memory, with no necessity for identity of substance. He maintained that God could give to an absolutely new creation the consciousness of one just annihilated, and thereby the two would be identical. He maintained this not only as a possibility, but as the actual fact. See Lutheran Quarterly, April, 1901:149-169; and H. N. Gardiner, in Philos. Rev., Nov. 1900:573-596. The idealistic philosophy of Edwards enables us to understand his conception of the relation of the race to Adam. He believed in “a real union between the root and the branches of the world of mankind, established by the author of the whole system of the universe ... the full consent of the hearts of Adam’s posterity to the first apostasy ... and therefore the sin of the apostasy is not theirs merely because God imputes it to them, but it is truly and properly theirs, and on that ground God imputes it to them.” Hagenbach, Hist. Doct., 2:435-448, esp. 436, quotes from Edwards: “The guilt a man has upon his soul at his first 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.” Interpret this by other words of Edwards: “The child and the acorn, which come into existence in the course of nature, are truly immediately created by God”—i. e., continuously created (quoted by Dodge, Christian Theology, 188). Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 310—“It required but a step from the principle that each individual has an identity of consciousness with Adam, to reach the conclusion that each individual is Adam and repeats his experience. Of every man it might be said that like Adam he comes into the world attended by the divine nature, and like him sins and falls. In this sense the sin of every man becomes original sin.” Adam becomes not the head of humanity but its generic type. Hence arises the New School doctrine of exclusively individual sin and guilt. Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 2:25, claims Edwards as a Traducianist. But Fisher, Discussions, 240, shows that he was not. As we have seen (Prolegomena, pages 48, 49), Edwards thought too little of nature. He tended to Berkeleyanism as applied to mind. Hence the chief good was in happiness—a form of sensibility. Virtue is voluntary choice of this good. Hence union of acts and exercises with Adam was sufficient. This God’s will might make identity of being with him. Baird, Elohim Revealed, 250 sq., says well, that “Edwards’s idea that the character of an act was to be sought somewhere else than in its cause involves the fallacious assumption that acts have a subsistence and moral agency of their own apart from that of the actor.” This divergence from the truth led to the Exercise-system of Hopkins and Emmons, who not only denied moral character prior to individual choices (i. e., denied sin of nature), but attributed all human acts and exercises to the direct efficiency of God. Hopkins declared that Adam’s act, in eating the forbidden fruit, was not the act of his posterity; therefore they did not sin at the same time that he did. The sinfulness of that act could not be transferred to them afterwards; because the sinfulness of an act can no more be transferred from one person to another than an act itself. Therefore, though men became sinners by Adam, according to divine constitution, yet they have, and are accountable for, no sins but personal. See Woods, History of Andover Theological Seminary, 33. So the doctrine of continuous creation led to the Exercise-system, and the Exercise-system led to the theology of acts. On Emmons, see Works, 4:502-507, and Bib. Sac., 7:479; 20:317; also H. B. Smith, in Faith and Philosophy, 215-263. N. W. Taylor, of New Haven, agreed with Hopkins and Emmons that there is no imputation of Adam’s sin or of inborn depravity. He called that depravity physical, not moral. But he repudiated the doctrine of divine efficiency in the production of man’s acts and exercises, and made all sin to be personal. He held to the power of contrary choice. Adam had it, and contrary to the belief of Augustinians, he never lost it. Man “not only can if he will, but he can if he won’t.” He can, but, without the Spirit, will not. He said: “Man can, whatever the Holy Spirit does or does not do”; but also: “Man will not, unless the Holy Spirit helps”; “If I were as eloquent as the Holy Ghost, I could convert sinners as fast as he.” Yet he did not hold to the Arminian liberty of indifference or contingence. He believed in the certainty of wrong action, yet in power to the contrary. See Moral Government, 2:132—“The error of Pelagius was not in asserting that man can obey God without grace, but in saying that man does actually obey God without grace.” There is a part of the sinner’s nature to which the motives of the gospel may appeal—a part of his nature which is neither holy nor unholy, viz., self-love, or innocent desire for happiness. Greatest happiness is the ground of obligation. Under the influence of motives appealing to happiness, the sinner can suspend his choice of the world as his chief good, and can give his heart to God. He can do this, whatever the Holy Spirit does, or does not do; but the moral inability can be overcome only by the Holy Spirit, who moves the soul, without coercing, by means of the truth. On Dr. Taylor’s system, and its connection with prior New England theology, see Fisher, Discussions, 285-354. This form of New School doctrine suggests the following questions: 1. Can the sinner suspend his selfishness before he is subdued by divine grace? 2. Can his choice of God from mere self-love be a holy choice? 3. Since God demands love in every choice, must it not be a positively unholy choice? 4. If it is not itself a holy choice, how can it be a beginning of holiness? 5. If the sinner can become regenerate by preferring God on the ground of self-interest, where is the necessity of the Holy Spirit to renew the heart? 6. Does not this asserted ability of the sinner to turn to God contradict consciousness and Scripture? For Taylor’s Views, see his Revealed Theology, 134-309. For criticism of them, see Hodge, in Princeton Rev., Jan. 1868:63 sq., and 368-398; also, Tyler, Letters on the New Haven Theology. Neither Hopkins and Emmons on the one hand, nor Taylor on the other, represent most fully the general course of New England theology. Smalley, Dwight, Woods, all held to more conservative views than Taylor, or than Finney, whose system had much resemblance to Taylor’s. All three of these denied the power of contrary choice which Dr. Taylor so strenuously maintained, although all agreed with him in denying the imputation of Adam’s sin or of our hereditary depravity. These are not sinful, except in the sense of being occasions of actual sin. Dr. Park, of Andover, was understood to teach that the disordered state of the sensibilities and faculties with which we are born is the immediate occasion of sin, while Adam’s transgression is the remote occasion of sin. The will, though influenced by an evil tendency, is still free; the evil tendency itself is not free, and therefore is not sin. The Statement of New School doctrine given in the text is intended to represent the common New England doctrine, as taught by Smalley, Dwight, Woods and Park; although the historical tendency, even among these theologians, has been to emphasize less and less the depraved tendencies prior to actual sin, and to maintain that moral character begins only with individual choice, most of them, however, holding that this individual choice begins at birth. See Bib. Sac., 7:552, 567; 8:607-647; 20:462-471, 576-593; Van Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, 407-412; Foster, Hist. N. E. Theology. Both Ritschl and Pfleiderer lean toward the New School interpretation of sin. Ritschl, Unterricht, 25—“Universal death was the consequence of the sin of the first man, and the death of his posterity proved that they too had sinned.” Thus death is universal, not because of natural generation from Adam, but because of the individual sins of Adam’s posterity. Pfleiderer, Grundriss, 122—“Sin is a direction of the will which contradicts the moral Idea. As preceding personal acts of the will, it is not personal guilt but imperfection or evil. When it persists in spite of awaking moral consciousness, and by indulgence become habit, it is guilty abnormity.”

To the New School theory we object as follows:

A. It contradicts Scripture in maintaining or implying: (a) That sin consists solely in acts, and in the dispositions caused in each case by man’s individual acts, and that the state which predisposes to acts of sin is not itself sin. (b) That the vitiosity which predisposes to sin is a part of each man’s nature as it proceeds from the creative hand of God. (c) That physical death in the human race is not a penal consequence of Adam’s transgression. (d) That infants, before moral consciousness, do not need Christ’s sacrifice to save them. Since they are innocent, no penalty rests upon them, and none needs to be removed. (e) That we are neither condemned upon the ground of actual inbeing in Adam, nor justified upon the ground of actual inbeing in Christ.

If a child may not be unholy before he voluntarily transgresses, then, by parity of reasoning, Adam could not have been holy before he obeyed the law, nor can a change of heart precede Christian action. New School principles would compel us to assert that right action precedes change of heart, and that obedience in Adam must have preceded his holiness. Emmons held that, if children die before they become moral agents, it is most rational to conclude that they are annihilated. They are mere animals. The common New School doctrine would regard them as saved either on account of their innocence, or because the atonement of Christ avails to remove the consequences as well as the penalty of sin. But to say that infants are pure contradicts Rom. 5:12—“all sinned”; 1 Cor. 7:14—“else were your children unclean”; Eph. 2:3—“by nature children of wrath.” That Christ’s atonement removes natural consequences of sin is nowhere asserted or implied in Scripture. See, per contra, H. B. Smith, System, 271, where, however, it is only maintained that Christ saves from all the just consequences of sin. But all just consequences are penalty, and should be so called. The exigencies of New School doctrine compel it to put the beginning of sin in the infant at the very first moment of its separate existence,—in order not to contradict those Scriptures which speak of sin as being universal, and of the atonement as being needed by all. Dr. Park held that infants sin so soon as they are born. He was obliged to hold this, or else to say that some members of the human race exist who are not sinners. But by putting sin thus early in human experience, all meaning is taken out of the New School definition of sin as the “voluntary transgression of known law.” It is difficult to say, upon this theory, what sort of a choice the infant makes of sin, or what sort of a known law it violates. The first need in a theory of sin is that of satisfying the statements of Scripture. The second need is that it should point out an act of man which will justify the infliction of pain, suffering, and death upon the whole human race. Our moral sense refuses to accept the conclusion that all this is a matter of arbitrary sovereignty. We cannot find the act in each man’s conscious transgression, nor in sin committed at birth. We do find such a voluntary transgression of known law in Adam; and we claim that the New School definition of sin is much more consistent with this last explanation of sin’s origin than is the theory of a multitude of individual transgressions. The final test of every theory, however, is its conformity to Scripture. We claim that a false philosophy prevents the advocates of New School doctrine from understanding the utterances of Paul. Their philosophy is a modified survival of atomistic Pelagianism. They ignore nature in both God and man, and resolve character into transient acts. The unconscious or subconscious state of the will they take little or no account of, and the possibility of another and higher life interpenetrating and transforming our own life is seldom present to their minds. They have no proper idea of the union of the believer with Christ, and so they have no proper idea of the union of the race with Adam. They need to learn that, as all the spiritual life of the race was in Christ, the second Adam, so all the natural life of the race was in the first Adam; as we derive righteousness from the former, so we derive corruption from the latter. Because Christ’s life is in them, Paul can say that all believers rose in Christ’s resurrection; because Adam’s life is in them, he can say that in Adam all die. We should prefer to say with Pfleiderer that Paul teaches this doctrine but that Paul is no authority for us, rather than to profess acceptance of Paul’s teaching while we ingeniously evade the force of his argument. We agree with Stevens, Pauline Theology, 135, 136, that all men “sinned in the same sense in which believers were crucified to the world and died unto sin when Christ died upon the cross.” But we protest that to make Christ’s death the mere occasion of the death of the believer, and Adam’s sin the mere occasion of the sins of men, is to ignore the central truths of Paul’s teaching—the vital union of the believer with Christ, and the vital union of the race with Adam.

B. It rests upon false philosophical principles, as for example: (a) That the soul is immediately created by God. (b) That the law of God consists wholly in outward command. (c) That present natural ability to obey the law is the measure of obligation. (d) That man’s relations to moral law are exclusively individual. (e) That the will is merely the faculty of individual and personal choices. (f) That the will, at man’s birth, has no moral state or character.

See Baird, Elohim Revealed, 250 sq.—“Personality is inseparable from nature. The one duty is love. Unless any given duty is performed through the activity of a principle of love springing up in the nature, it is not performed at all. The law addresses the nature. The efficient cause of moral action is the proper subject of moral law. It is only in the perversity of unscriptural theology that we find the absurdity of separating the moral character from the substance of the soul, and tying it to the vanishing deeds of life. The idea that responsibility and sin are predicable of actions merely is only consistent with an utter denial that man’s nature as such owes anything to God, or has an office to perform in showing forth his glory. It ignores the fact that actions are empty phenomena, which in themselves have no possible value. It is the heart, soul, might, mind, strength, with which we are to love. Christ conformed to the law, by being ‘that holy thing’ (Luke 1:35, marg.).” Erroneous philosophical principles lie at the basis of New School interpretations of Scripture. The solidarity of the race is ignored, and all moral action is held to be individual. In our discussion of the Augustinian theory of sin, we shall hope to show that underlying Paul’s doctrine there is quite another philosophy. Such a philosophy together with a deeper Christian experience would have corrected the following statement of Paul’s view of sin, by Orello Cone, in Am. Jour. Theology, April, 1898:241-267. On the phrase Rom. 5:12—“for that all sinned,” he remarks: “If under the new order men do not become righteous simply because of the righteousness of Christ and without their choice, neither under the old order did Paul think them to be subject to death without their own acts of sin. Each representative head is conceived only as the occasion of the results of his work, on the one hand in the tragic order of death, and on the other hand in the blessed order of life—the occasion indispensable to all that follows in either order.... It may be questioned whether Pfleiderer does not state the case too strongly when he says that the sin of Adam’s posterity is regarded as ‘the necessary consequence’ of the sin of Adam. It does not follow from the employment of the aorist ἥμαρτον that the sinning of all is contained in that of Adam, although this sense must be considered as grammatically possible. It is not however the only grammatically defensible sense. In Rom. 3:23, ἥμαρτον certainly does not denote such a definite past act filling only one point of time.” But we reply that the context determines that in Rom. 5:12, ἥμαρτον does denote such a definite past act; see our interpretation of the whole passage, under the Augustinian Theory, pages 625-627.

C. It impugns the justice of God:

(a) By regarding him as the direct creator of a vicious nature which infallibly leads every human being into actual transgression. To maintain that, in consequence of Adam’s act, God brings it about that all men become sinners, and this, not by virtue of inherent laws of propagation, but by the direct creation in each case of a vicious nature, is to make God indirectly the author of sin.

(b) By representing him as the inflicter of suffering and death upon millions of human beings who in the present life do not come to moral consciousness, and who are therefore, according to the theory, perfectly innocent. This is to make him visit Adam’s sin on his posterity, while at the same time it denies that moral connection between Adam and his posterity which alone could make such visitation just.

(c) By holding that the probation which God appoints to men is a separate probation of each soul, when it first comes to moral consciousness and is least qualified to decide aright. It is much more consonant with our ideas of the divine justice that the decision should have been made by the whole race, in one whose nature was pure and who perfectly understood God’s law, than that heaven and hell should have been determined for each of us by a decision made in our own inexperienced childhood, under the influence of a vitiated nature.

On this theory, God determines, in his mere sovereignty, that because one man sinned, all men should be called into existence depraved, under a constitution which secures the certainty of their sinning. But we claim that it is unjust that any should suffer without ill-desert. To say that God thus marks his sense of the guilt of Adam’s sin is to contradict the main principle of the theory, namely, that men are held responsible only for their own sins. We prefer to justify God by holding that there is a reason for this infliction, and that this reason is the connection of the infant with Adam. If mere tendency to sin is innocent, then Christ might have taken it, when he took our nature. But if he had taken it, it would not explain the fact of the atonement, for upon this theory it would not need to be atoned for. To say that the child inherits a sinful nature, not as penalty, but by natural law, is to ignore the fact that this natural law is simply the regular action of God, the expression of his moral nature, and so is itself penalty. “Man kills a snake,” says Raymond, “because it is a snake, and not because it is to blame for being a snake,”—which seems to us a new proof that the advocates of innocent depravity regard infants, not as moral beings, but as mere animals. “We must distinguish automatic excellence or badness,” says Raymond again, “from moral desert, whether good or ill.” This seems to us a doctrine of punishment without guilt. Princeton Essays, 1:138, quote Coleridge: “It is an outrage on common sense to affirm that it is no evil for men to be placed on their probation under such circumstances that not one of ten thousand millions ever escapes sin and condemnation to eternal death. There is evil inflicted on us, as a consequence of Adam’s sin, antecedent to our personal transgressions. It matters not what this evil is, whether temporal death, corruption of nature, certainty of sin, or death in its more extended sense; if the ground of the evil’s coming on us is Adam’s sin, the principle is the same.” Baird, Elohim Revealed, 488—So, it seems, “if a creature is punished, it implies that some one has sinned, but does not necessarily intimate the sufferer to be the sinner! But this is wholly contrary to the argument of the apostle in Rom. 5:12-19, which is based upon the opposite doctrine, and it is also contrary to the justice of God, who punishes only those who deserve it.” See Julius Müller, Doct. Sin. 2:67-74.

D. Its limitation of responsibility to the evil choices of the individual and the dispositions caused thereby is inconsistent with the following facts:

(a) The first moral choice of each individual is so undeliberate as not to be remembered. Put forth at birth, as the chief advocates of the New School theory maintain, it does not answer to their definition of sin as a voluntary transgression of known law. Responsibility for such choice does not differ from responsibility for the inborn evil state of the will which manifests itself in that choice.

(b) The uniformity of sinful action among men cannot be explained by the existence of a mere faculty of choices. That men should uniformly choose may be thus explained; but that men should uniformly choose evil requires us to postulate an evil tendency or state of the will itself, prior to these separate acts of choice. This evil tendency or inborn determination to evil, since it is the real cause of actual sins, must itself be sin, and as such must be guilty and condemnable.

(c) Power in the will to prevent the inborn vitiosity from developing itself is upon this theory a necessary condition of responsibility for actual sins. But the absolute uniformity of actual transgression is evidence that the will is practically impotent. If responsibility diminishes as the difficulties in the way of free decision increase, the fact that these difficulties are insuperable shows that there can be no responsibility at all. To deny the guilt of inborn sin is therefore virtually to deny the guilt of the actual sin which springs therefrom.

The aim of all the theories is to find a decision of the will which will justify God in condemning men. Where shall we find such a decision? At the age of fifteen, ten, five? Then all who die before this age are not sinners, cannot justly be punished with death, do not need a Savior. Is it at birth? But decision at such a time is not such a conscious decision against God as, according to this theory, would make it the proper determiner of our future destiny. We claim that the theory of Augustine—that of a sin of the race in Adam—is the only one that shows a conscious transgression fit to be the cause and ground of man’s guilt and condemnation. Wm. Adams Brown: “Who can tell how far his own acts are caused by his own will, and how far by the nature he has inherited? Men do feel guilty for acts which are largely due to their inherited natures, which inherited corruption is guilt, deserving of punishment and certain to receive it.” H. B. Smith, System, 350, note—“It has been said, in the way of a taunt against the older theology, that men are very willing to speculate about sinning in Adam, so as to have their attention diverted from the sense of personal guilt. But the whole history of theology bears witness that those who have believed most fully in our native and strictly moral corruption—as Augustine, Calvin, and Edwards—have ever had the deepest sense of their personal demerit. We know the full evil of sin only when we know its roots as well as its fruits.” “Causa causæ est causa causati.” Inborn depravity is the cause of the first actual sin. The cause of inborn depravity is the sin of Adam. If there be no guilt in original sin, then the actual sin that springs therefrom cannot be guilty. There are subsequent presumptuous sins in which the personal element overbears the element of race and heredity. But this cannot be said of the first acts which make man a sinner. These are so naturally and uniformly the result of the inborn determination of the will, that they cannot be guilty, unless that inborn determination is also guilty. In short, not all sin is personal. There must be a sin of nature—a race-sin—or the beginnings of actual sin cannot be accounted for or regarded as objects of God’s condemnation. Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:320-328, 341—“If the deep-rooted depravity which we bring with us into the world be not our sin, it at once becomes an excuse for our actual sins.” Princeton Essays, 1:138, 139—Alternative: 1. May a man by his own power prevent the development of this hereditary depravity? Then we do not know that all men are sinners, or that Christ’s salvation is needed by all. 2. Is actual sin a necessary consequence of hereditary depravity? Then it is, on this theory, a free act no longer, and is not guilty, since guilt is predicable only of voluntary transgression of known law. See Baird, Elohim Revealed, 256 sq.; Hodge, Essays, 571-638; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 2:61-73; Edwards on the Will, part iii, sec. 4; Bib. Sac., 20:317-320.

4. The Federal Theory, or Theory of Condemnation by Covenant.

The Federal theory, or theory of the Covenants, had its origin with Cocceius (1608-1669), professor at Leyden, but was more fully elaborated by Turretin (1623-1687). It has become a tenet of the Reformed as distinguished from the Lutheran church, and in this country it has its main advocates in the Princeton school of theologians, of whom Dr. Charles Hodge was the representative.

According to this view, Adam was constituted by God’s sovereign appointment the representative of the whole human race. With Adam as their representative, God entered into covenant, agreeing to bestow upon them eternal life on condition of his obedience, but making the penalty of his disobedience to be the corruption and death of all his posterity. In accordance with the terms of this covenant, since Adam sinned, God accounts all his descendants as sinners, and condemns them because of Adam’s transgression.

In execution of this sentence of condemnation, God immediately creates each soul of Adam’s posterity with a corrupt and depraved nature, which infallibly leads to sin, and which is itself sin. The theory is therefore a theory of the immediate imputation of Adam’s sin to his posterity, their corruption of nature not being the cause of that imputation, but the effect of it. In Rom. 5:12, “death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,” signifies: “physical, spiritual, and eternal death came to all, because all were regarded and treated as sinners.”

Fisher, Discussions, 355-409, compares the Augustinian and Federal theories of Original Sin. His account of the Federal theory and its origin is substantially as follows: The Federal theory is a theory of the covenants (fœdus, a covenant). 1. The covenant is a sovereign constitution imposed by God. 2. Federal union is the legal ground of imputation, though kinship to Adam is the reason why Adam and not another was selected as our representative. 3. Our guilt for Adam’s sin is simply a legal responsibility. 4. That imputed sin is punished by inborn depravity, and that inborn depravity by eternal death. Augustine could not reconcile inherent depravity with the justice of God; hence he held that we sinned in Adam. So Anselm says: “Because the whole human nature was in them (Adam and Eve), and outside of them there was nothing of it, the whole was weakened and corrupted.” After the first sin “this nature was propagated just as it had made itself by sinning.” All sin belongs to the will; but this is a part of our inheritance. The descendants of Adam were not in him as individuals; yet what he did as a person, he did not do sine natura, and this nature is ours as well as his. So Peter Lombard. Sins of our immediate ancestors, because they are qualities which are purely personal, are not propagated. After Adam’s first sin, the actual qualities of the first parent or of other later parents do not corrupt the nature as concerns its qualities, but only as concerns the qualities of the person. Calvin maintained two propositions: 1. We are not condemned for Adam’s sin apart from our own inherent depravity which is derived from him. The sin for which we are condemned is our own sin. 2. This sin is ours, for the reason that our nature is vitiated in Adam, and we receive it in the condition in which it was put by the first transgression. Melanchthon also held to an imputation of the first sin conditioned upon our innate depravity. The impulse to Federalism was given by the difficulty, on the pure Augustinian theory, of accounting for the non-imputation of Adam’s subsequent sins, and those of his posterity. Cocceius (Dutch, Coch: English, Cook), the author of the covenant-theory, conceived that he had solved this difficulty by making Adam’s sin to be imputed to us upon the ground of a covenant between God and Adam, according to which Adam was to stand as the representative of his posterity. In Cocceius’s use of the term, however, the only difference between covenant and command is found in the promise attached to the keeping of it. Fisher remarks on the mistake, in modern defenders of imputation, of ignoring the capital fact of a true and real participation in Adam’s sin. The great body of Calvinistic theologians in the 17th century were Augustinians as well as Federalists. So Owen and the Westminster Confession. Turretin, however, almost merged the natural relation to Adam in the federal. Edwards fell back on the old doctrine of Aquinas and Augustine. He tried to make out a real participation in the first sin. The first rising of sinful inclination, by a divinely constituted identity, is this participation. But Hopkins and Emmons regarded the sinful inclination, not as a real participation, but only as a constructive consent to Adam’s first sin. Hence the New School theology, in which the imputation of Adam’s sin was given up. On the contrary, Calvinists of the Princeton school planted themselves on the Federal theory, and taking Turretin as their text book, waged war on New England views, not wholly sparing Edwards himself. After this review of the origin of the theory, for which we are mainly indebted to Fisher, it can be easily seen how little show of truth there is in the assumption of the Princeton theologians that the Federal theory is “the immemorial doctrine of the church of God.” Statements of the theory are found in Cocceius, Summa Doctrinæ de Fœdere, cap. 1, 5; Turretin, Inst., loc. 9, quæs. 9; Princeton Essays, 1:98-185. esp. 120—“In imputation there is, first, an ascription of something to those concerned; secondly, a determination to deal with them accordingly.” The ground for this imputation is “the union between Adam and his posterity, which is twofold,—a natural union, as between father and children, and the union of representation, which is the main idea here insisted on.” 123—“As in Christ we are constituted righteous by the imputation of righteousness, so in Adam we are made sinners by the imputation of his sin.... Guilt is liability or exposedness to punishment; it does not in theological usage imply moral turpitude or criminality.” 162—Turretin is quoted: “The foundation, therefore, of imputation is not merely the natural connection which exists between us and Adam—for, were this the case, all his sins would be imputed to us, but principally the moral and federal, on the ground of which God entered into covenant with him as our head. Hence in that sin Adam acted not as a private but a public person and representative.” The oneness results from contract; the natural union is frequently not mentioned at all. Marck: All men sinned in Adam, “eos representante.” The acts of Adam and of Christ are ours “jure representationis.” G. W. Northrup makes the order of the Federal theory to be: “(1) imputation of Adam’s guilt; (2) condemnation on the ground of this imputed guilt; (3) corruption of nature consequent upon treatment as condemned. So judicial imputation of Adam’s sin is the cause and ground of innate corruption.... All the acts, with the single exception of the sin of Adam, are divine acts: the appointment of Adam, the creation of his descendants, the imputation of his guilt, the condemnation of his posterity, their consequent corruption. Here we have guilt without sin, exposure to divine wrath without ill-desert, God regarding men as being what they are not, punishing them on the ground of a sin committed before they existed, and visiting them with gratuitous condemnation and gratuitous reprobation. Here are arbitrary representation, fictitious imputation, constructive guilt, limited atonement.” The Presb. Rev., Jan. 1882:30, claims that Kloppenburg (1642) preceded Cocceius (1648) in holding to the theory of the Covenants, as did also the Canons of Dort. For additional statements of Federalism, see Hodge, Essays, 49-86, and Syst. Theol., 2:192-204; Bib. Sac., 21:95-107; Cunningham, Historical Theology.

To the Federal theory we object:

A. It is extra-Scriptural, there being no mention of such a covenant with Adam in the account of man’s trial. The assumed allusion to Adam’s apostasy in Hosea 6:7, where the word “covenant” is used, is too precarious and too obviously metaphorical to afford the basis for a scheme of imputation (see Henderson, Com. on Minor Prophets, in loco). In Heb. 8:8—“new covenant”—there is suggested a contrast, not with an Adamic, but with the Mosaic, covenant (cf. verse 9).

In Hosea 6:7—“they like Adam [marg. “men”] have transgressed the covenant” (Rev. Ver.)—the correct translation is given by Henderson, Minor Prophets: “But they, like men that break a covenant, there they proved false to me.” LXX: αὐτοὶ δέ εἰσιν ὡς ἄνθρωπος παραβαίνων διαθήκην. De Wette: “Aber sie übertreten den Bund nach Menschenart; daselbst sind sie mir treulos.” Here the word adam, translated “man,” either means “a man,” or “man,” i. e., generic man. “Israel had as little regard to their covenants with God as men of unprincipled character have for ordinary contracts.” “Like a man”—as men do. Compare Ps. 82:7—“ye shall die like men”; Hosea 8:1, 2—“they have transgressed my covenant”—an allusion to the Abrahamic or Mosaic covenant. Heb. 8:9—“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them forth out of the land of Egypt.”

B. It contradicts Scripture, in making the first result of Adam’s sin to be God’s regarding and treating the race as sinners. The Scripture, on the contrary, declares that Adam’s offense constituted us sinners (Rom. 5:19). We are not sinners simply because God regards and treats us as such, but God regards us as sinners because we are sinners. Death is said to have “passed unto all men,” not because all were regarded and treated as sinners, but “because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12).

For a full exegesis of the passage Rom. 5:12-19, see note to the discussion of the Theory of Adam’s Natural Headship, pages 625-627. Dr. Park gave great offence by saying that the so-called “covenants” of law and of grace, referred in the Westminster Confession as made by God with Adam and Christ respectively, were really “made in Holland.” The word fœdus, in such a connection, could properly mean nothing more than “ordinance”; see Vergil, Georgics, 1:60-63—“eterna fœdera.” E. G. Robinson, Christ. Theol., 185—“God’s ‘covenant’ with men is simply his method of dealing with them according to their knowledge and opportunities.”

C. It impugns the justice of God by implying:

(a) That God holds men responsible for the violation of a covenant which they had no part in establishing. The assumed covenant is only a sovereign decree; the assumed justice, only arbitrary will.

We not only never authorized Adam to make such a covenant, but there is no evidence that he ever made one at all. It is not even certain that Adam knew he should have posterity. In the case of the imputation of our sins to Christ, Christ covenanted voluntarily to bear them, and joined himself to our nature that he might bear them. In the case of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us, we first become one with Christ, and upon the ground of our union with him are justified. But upon the Federal theory, we are condemned upon the ground of a covenant which we neither instituted, nor participated in, nor assented to.

(b) That upon the basis of this covenant God accounts men as sinners who are not sinners. But God judges according to truth. His condemnations do not proceed upon a basis of legal fiction. He can regard as responsible for Adam’s transgression only those who in some real sense have been concerned, and have had part, in that transgression.

See Baird, Elohim Revealed, 544—“Here is a sin, which is no crime, but a mere condition of being regarded and treated as sinners; and a guilt, which is devoid of sinfulness, and which does not imply moral demerit or turpitude,”—that is, a sin which is no sin, and a guilt which is no guilt. Why might not God as justly reckon Adam’s sin to the account of the fallen angels, and punish them for it? Dorner, System Doct., 2:351; 3:53, 54—“Hollaz held that God treats men in accordance with what he foresaw all would do, if they were in Adam’s place” (scientia media and imputatio metaphysica). Birks, Difficulties of Belief, 141—“Immediate imputation is as unjust as imputatio metaphysica, i. e., God’s condemning us for what he knew we would have done in Adam’s place. On such a theory there is no need of a trial at all. God might condemn half the race at once to hell without probation, on the ground that they would ultimately sin and come thither at any rate.” Justification can be gratuitous, but not condemnation. “Like the social-compact theory of government, the covenant-theory of sin is a mere legal fiction. It explains, only to belittle. The theory of New England theology, which attributes to mere sovereignty God’s making us sinners in consequence of Adam’s sin, is more reasonable than the Federal theory” (Fisher). Professor Moses Stuart characterized this theory as one of “fictitious guilt, but veritable damnation.” The divine economy admits of no fictitious substitutions nor forensic evasions. No legal quibbles can modify eternal justice. Federalism reverses the proper order, and puts the effect before the cause, as is the case with the social-compact theory of government. Ritchie, Darwin and Hegel, 27—“It is illogical to say that society originated in a contract; for contract presupposes society.” Unus homo, nullus homo—without society, no persons. T. H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, 351—“No individual can make a conscience for himself. He always needs a society to make it for him....” 200—“Only through society is personality actualized.” Boyce, Spirit of Modern Philosophy, 209, note—“Organic Interrelationship of individuals is the condition even of their relatively independent selfhood.” We are “members one of another” (Rom. 12:15). Schurman, Agnosticism, 176—“The individual could never have developed into a personality but for his training through society and under law.” Imagine a theory that the family originated in a compact! We must not define the state by its first crude beginnings, any more than we define the oak by the acorn. On the theory of a social-compact, see Lowell, Essays on Government, 136-188.

(c) That, after accounting men to be sinners who are not sinners, God makes them sinners by immediately creating each human soul with a corrupt nature such as will correspond to his decree. This is not only to assume a false view of the origin of the soul, but also to make God directly the author of sin. Imputation of sin cannot precede and account for corruption; on the contrary, corruption must precede and account for imputation.

By God’s act we became depraved, as a penal consequence of Adam’s act imputed to us solely as peccatum alienum. Dabney, Theology, 342, says the theory regards the soul as originally pure until imputation. See Hodge on Rom. 5:13; Syst. Theol., 2:203, 210; Thornwell, Theology, 1:343-349; Chalmers, Institutes, 1:485, 487. The Federal theory “makes sin in us to be the penalty of another’s sin, instead of being the penalty of our own sin, as on the Augustinian scheme, which regards depravity in us as the punishment of our own sin in Adam.... It holds to a sin which does not bring eternal punishment, but for which we are legally responsible as truly as Adam.” It only remains to say that Dr. Hodge always persistently refused to admit the one added element which might have made his view less arbitrary and mechanical, namely, the traducian theory of the origin of the soul. He was a creatianist, and to the end maintained that God immediately created the soul, and created it depraved. Acceptance of the traducian theory would have compelled him to exchange his Federalism for Augustinianism. Creatianism was the one remaining element of Pelagian atomism in an otherwise Scriptural theory. Yet Dr. Hodge regarded this as an essential part of Biblical teaching. His unwavering confidence was like that of Fichte, whom Caroline Schelling represented as saying: “Zweifle an der Sonne Klarheit, Zweifle an der Sterne Licht, Leser, nur an meiner Wahrheit Und an deiner Dummheit, nicht.” As a corrective to the atomistic spirit of Federalism we may quote a view which seems to us far more tenable, though it perhaps goes to the opposite extreme. Dr. H. H. Bawden writes: “The self is the product of a social environment. An ascetic self is so far forth not a self. Selfhood and consciousness are essentially social. We are members one of another. The biological view of selfhood regards it as a function, activity, process, inseparable from the social matrix out of which it has arisen. Consciousness is simply the name for the functioning of an organism. Not that the soul is a secretion of the brain, as bile is a secretion of the liver; not that the mind is a function of the body in any such materialistic sense. But that mind or consciousness is only the growing of an organism, while, on the other hand, the organism is just that which grows. The psychical is not a second, subtle, parallel form of energy causally interactive with the physical; much less is it a concomitant series, as the parallelists hold. Consciousness is not an order of existence or a thing, but rather a function. It is the organization of reality, the universe coming to a focus, flowering, so to speak, in a finite centre. Society is an organism in the same sense as the human body. The separation of the units of society is no greater than the separation of the unit factors of the body,—in the microscope the molecules are far apart. Society is a great sphere with many smaller spheres within it. “Each self is not impervious to other selves. Selves are not water-tight compartments, each one of which might remain complete in itself, even if all the others were destroyed. But there are open sluiceways between all the compartments. Society is a vast plexus of interweaving personalities. We are members one of another. What affects my neighbor affects me, and what affects me ultimately affects my neighbor. The individual is not an impenetrable atomic unit.... The self is simply the social whole coming to consciousness at some particular point. Every self is rooted in the social organism of which it is but a local and individual expression. A self is a mere cipher apart from its social relations. As the old Greek adage has it: ‘He who lives quite alone is either a beast or a god.’ ” While we regard this exposition of Dr. Bawden as throwing light upon the origin of consciousness and so helping our contention against the Federal theory of sin, we do not regard it as proving that consciousness, once developed, may not become relatively independent and immortal. Back of society, as well as back of the individual, lies the consciousness and will of God, in whom alone is the guarantee of persistence. For objections to the Federal theory, see Fisher, Discussions, 401 sq.; Bib. Sac., 20:455-462, 577; New Englander, 1868:551-603; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 305-334, 435-450; Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:336; Dabney, Theology, 341-351.

5. Theory of Mediate Imputation, or Theory of Condemnation for Depravity.

This theory was first maintained by Placeus (1606-1655), professor of Theology at Saumur in France. Placeus originally denied that Adam’s sin was in any sense imputed to his posterity, but after his doctrine was condemned by the Synod of the French Reformed Church at Charenton in 1644, he published the view which now bears his name.

According to this view, all men are born physically and morally depraved; this native depravity is the source of all actual sin, and is itself sin; in strictness of speech, it is this native depravity, and this only, which God imputes to men. So far as man’s physical nature is concerned, this inborn sinfulness has descended by natural laws of propagation from Adam to all his posterity. The soul is immediately created by God, but it becomes actively corrupt so soon as it is united to the body. Inborn sinfulness is the consequence, though not the penalty, of Adam’s transgression.

There is a sense, therefore, in which Adam’s sin may be said to be imputed to his descendants,—it is imputed, not immediately, as if they had been in Adam or were so represented in him that it could be charged directly to them, corruption not intervening,—but it is imputed mediately, through and on account of the intervening corruption which resulted from Adam’s sin. As on the Federal theory imputation is the cause of depravity, so on this theory depravity is the cause of imputation. In Rom. 5:12, “death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,” signifies: “death physical, spiritual, and eternal passed upon all men, because all sinned by possessing a depraved nature.”

See Placeus, De Imputatione Primi Peccati Adami, in Opera, 1:709—“The sensitive soul is produced from the parent; the intellectual or rational soul is directly created. The soul, on entering the corrupted physical nature, is not passively corrupted, but becomes corrupt actively, accommodating itself to the other part of human nature in character.” 710—So this soul “contracts from the vitiosity of the dispositions of the body a corresponding vitiosity, not so much by the action of the body upon the soul, as by that essential appetite of the soul by which it unites itself to the body in a way accommodated to the dispositions of the body, as liquid put into a bowl accommodates itself to the figure of a bowl—sicut vinum in vase acetoso. God was therefore neither the author of Adam’s fall, nor of the propagation of sin.” Herzog, Encyclopædia, art.: Placeus—“In the title of his works we read ‘Placæus’; he himself, however, wrote ‘Placeus,’ which is the more correct Latin form [of the French ‘de la Place’]. In Adam’s first sin, Placeus distinguished between the actual sinning and the first habitual sin (corrupted disposition). The former was transient; the latter clung to his person, and was propagated to all. It is truly sin, and it is imputed to all, since it makes all condemnable. Placeus believes in the imputation of this corrupted disposition, but not in the imputation of the first act of Adam, except mediately, through the imputation of the inherited depravity.” Fisher, Discussions, 389—“Mere native corruption is the whole of original sin. Placeus justifies his use of the term ‘imputation’ by Rom. 2:26—‘If therefore the uncircumcision keep the ordinances of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be reckoned [imputed] for circumcision?’ Our own depravity is the necessary condition of the imputation of Adam’s sin, just as our own faith is the necessary condition of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.” Advocates of Mediate Imputation are, in Great Britain, G. Payne, in his book entitled: Original Sin; John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 1:196-332; and James S. Candlish, Biblical Doctrine of Sin, 111-122; in America, H. B. Smith, in his System of Christian Doctrine, 169, 284, 285, 314-323; and E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology. The editor of Dr. Smith’s work says: “On the whole, he favored the theory of Mediate Imputation. There is a note which reads thus: ‘Neither Mediate nor Immediate Imputation is wholly satisfactory.’ Understand by ‘Mediate Imputation’ a full statement of the facts in the case, and the author accepted it; understand by it a theory professing to give the final explanation of the facts, and it was ‘not wholly satisfactory.’ ” Dr. Smith himself says, 316—“Original sin is a doctrine respecting the moral conditions of human nature as from Adam—generic: and it is not a doctrine respecting personal liabilities and desert. For the latter, we need more and other circumstances. Strictly speaking, it is not sin, which is ill-deserving, but only the sinner. The ultimate distinction is here: There is a well-grounded difference to be made between personal desert, strictly personal character and liabilities (of each individual under the divine law, as applied specifically, e. g., in the last adjudication), and a generic moral condition—the antecedent ground of such personal character. “The distinction, however, is not between what has moral quality and what has not, but between the moral state of each as a member of the race, and his personal liabilities and desert as an individual. This original sin would wear to us only the character of evil, and not of sinfulness, were it not for the fact that we feel guilty in view of our corruption when it becomes known to us in our own acts. Then there is involved in it not merely a sense of evil and misery, but also a sense of guilt; moreover, redemption is also necessary to remove it, which shows that it is a moral state. Here is the point of junction between the two extreme positions, that we sinned in Adam, and that all sin consists in sinning. The guilt of Adam’s sin is—this exposure, this liability on account of such native corruption, our having the same nature in the same moral bias. The guilt of Adam’s sin is not to be separated from the existence of this evil disposition. And this guilt is what is imputed to us.” See art. on H. B. Smith, in Presb. Rev., 1881; “He did not fully acquiesce in Placeus’s view, which makes the corrupt nature by descent the only ground of imputation.”

The theory of Mediate Imputation is exposed to the following objections:

A. It gives no explanation of man’s responsibility for his inborn depravity. No explanation of this is possible, which does not regard man’s depravity as having had its origin in a free personal act, either of the individual, or of collective human nature in its first father and head. But this participation of all men in Adam’s sin the theory expressly denies.

The theory holds that we are responsible for the effect, but not for the cause—“post Adamum, non propter Adamum.” But, says Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:209, 331—“If this sinful tendency be in us solely through the act of others, and not through our own deed, they, and not we, are responsible for it,—it is not our guilt, but our misfortune. And even as to actual sins which spring from this inherent sinful tendency, these are not strictly our own, but the acts of our first parents through us. Why impute them to us as actual sins, for which we are to be condemned? Thus, if we deny the existence of guilt, we destroy the reality of sin, and vice versa.” Thornwell, Theology, 1:348, 349—This theory “does not explain the sense of guilt, as connected with depravity of nature,—how the feeling of ill-desert can arise in relation to a state of mind of which we have been only passive recipients. The child does not reproach himself for the afflictions which a father’s follies have brought upon him. But our inward corruption we do feel to be our own fault,—it is our crime as well as our shame.”

B. Since the origination of this corrupt nature cannot be charged to the account of man, man’s inheritance of it must be regarded in the light of an arbitrary divine infliction—a conclusion which reflects upon the justice of God. Man is not only condemned for a sinfulness of which God is the author, but is condemned without any real probation, either individual or collective.

Dr. Hovey, Outlines of Theology, objects to the theory of Mediate Imputation, because: “1. It casts so faint a light on the justice of God in the imputation of Adam’s sin to adults who do as he did. 2. It casts no light on the justice of God in bringing into existence a race inclined to sin by the fall of Adam. The inherited bias is still unexplained, and the imputation of it is a riddle, or a wrong, to the natural understanding.” It is unjust to hold us guilty of the effect, if we be not first guilty of the cause.

C. It contradicts those passages of Scripture which refer the origin of human condemnation, as well as of human depravity, to the sin of our first parents, and which represent universal death, not as a matter of divine sovereignty, but as a judicial infliction of penalty upon all men for the sin of the race in Adam (Rom. 5:16, 18). It moreover does violence to the Scripture in its unnatural interpretation of “all sinned,” in Rom. 5:12—words which imply the oneness of the race with Adam, and the causative relation of Adam’s sin to our guilt.

Certain passages which Dr. H. B. Smith, System, 317, quotes from Edwards, as favoring the theory of Mediate Imputation, seem to us to favor quite a different view. See Edwards, 2:482 sq.—“The first existing of a corrupt disposition in their hearts is not to be looked upon as sin belonging to them distinct from their participation in Adam’s first sin; it is, as it were, the extended pollution of that sin through the whole tree, by virtue of the constituted union of the branches with the root.... I am humbly of the opinion 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 considered the matter.” And afterwards: “Derivation of evil disposition (or rather co-existence) is in consequence of the union,”—but “not properly a consequence of the imputation of his sin; nay, rather antecedent to it, as it was in Adam himself. The first depravity of heart, and the imputation of that sin, are both the consequences of that established union; but yet in such order, that the evil disposition is first, and the charge of guilt consequent, as it was in the case of Adam himself.” Edwards quotes Stapfer: “The Reformed divines do not hold immediate and mediate imputation separately, but always together.” And still further, 2:493—“And therefore the sin of the apostasy is not theirs, merely because God imputes it to them; but it is truly and properly theirs, and on that ground God imputes it to them.” It seems to us that Dr. Smith mistakes the drift of these passages from Edwards, and that in making the identification with Adam primary, and imputation of his sin secondary, they favor the theory of Adam’s Natural Headship rather than the theory of Mediate Imputation. Edwards regards the order as (1) apostasy; (2) depravity; (3) guilt;—but in all three, Adam and we are, by divine constitution, one. To be guilty of the depravity, therefore, we must first be guilty of the apostasy. For the reasons above mentioned we regard the theory of Mediate Imputation as a half-way house where there is no permanent lodgment. The logical mind can find no satisfaction therein, but is driven either forward, to the Augustinian doctrine which we are next to consider, or backward, to the New School doctrine with its atomistic conception of man and its arbitrary sovereignty of God. On the theory of Mediate Imputation, see Cunningham, Historical Theology, 1:496-639; Princeton Essays, 1:129, 154, 168; Hodge, Syst. Theology, 2:205-214; Shedd, History of Doctrine, 2:158; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 46, 47, 474-479, 504-507.

6. The Augustinian Theory, or Theory of Adam’s Natural Headship.

This theory was first elaborated by Augustine (354-430), the great opponent of Pelagius; although its central feature appears in the writings of Tertullian (died about 220), Hilary (350), and Ambrose (374). It is frequently designated as the Augustinian view of sin. It was the view held by the Reformers, Zwingle excepted. Its principal advocates in this country are Dr. Shedd and Dr. Baird.

It holds that God imputes the sin of Adam immediately to all his posterity, in virtue of that organic unity of mankind by which the whole race at the time of Adam’s transgression existed, not individually, but seminally, in him as its head. The total life of humanity was then in Adam; the race as yet had its being only in him. Its essence was not yet individualized; its forces were not yet distributed; the powers which now exist in separate men were then unified and localized in Adam; Adam’s will was yet the will of the species. In Adam’s free act, the will of the race revolted from God and the nature of the race corrupted itself. The nature which we now possess is the same nature that corrupted itself in Adam—“not the same in kind merely, but the same as flowing to us continuously from him.”

Adam’s sin is imputed to us immediately, therefore, not as something foreign to us, but because it is ours—we and all other men having existed as one moral person or one moral whole, in him, and, as the result of that transgression, possessing a nature destitute of love to God and prone to evil. In Rom. 5:12—“death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,” signifies: “death physical, spiritual, and eternal passed unto all men, because all sinned in Adam their natural head.”

Milton, Par. Lost, 9:414—“Where likeliest he [Satan] might find The only two of mankind, but in them The whole included race, his purpos’d prey.” Augustine, De Pec. Mer. et Rem., 3:7—“In Adamo omnes tune peccaverunt, quando in ejus natura adhuc omnes ille unus fuerunt”; De Civ. Dei, 13, 14—“Omnes enim fuimus in illo uno, quando omnes fuimus ille unus.... Nondum erat nobis singillatim creata et distributa forma in qua singuli viveremus, sed jam natura erat seminalis ex qua propagaremur.” On Augustine’s view, see Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2; 43-45 (System Doct., 2:338, 339)—In opposition to Pelagius who made sin to consist in single acts, “Augustine emphasized the sinful state. This was a deprivation of original righteousness + inordinate love. Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilarius, Ambrose had advocated traducianism, according to which, without their personal participation, the sinfulness of all is grounded in Adam’s free act. They incur its consequences as an evil which is, at the same time, punishment of the inherited fault. But Irenæus, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, say Adam was not simply a single individual, but the universal man. We were comprehended in him, so that in him we sinned. On the first view, the posterity were passive; on the second, they were active, in Adam’s sin. Augustine represents both views, desiring to unite the universal sinfulness involved in traducianism with the universal will and guilt involved in cooperation with Adam’s sin. Adam, therefore, to him, is a double conception, and = individual + race.” Mozley on Predestination, 402—“In Augustine, some passages refer all wickedness to original sin; some account for different degrees of evil by different degrees of original sin (Op. imp. cont. Julianum, 4:128—‘Malitia naturalis.... in aliis minor, in aliis major est’); in some, the individual seems to add to original sin (De Correp. et Gratia, c. 13—‘Per liberum arbitrium alia insuper addiderunt, alii majus, alii minus, sed omnes mali.’ De Grat. et Lib. Arbit., 2:1—‘Added to the sin of their birth sins of their own commission’; 2:4—‘Neither denies our liberty of will, whether to choose an evil or a good life, nor attributes to it so much power that it can avail anything without God’s grace, or that it can change itself from evil to good’).” These passages seem to show that, side by side with the race-sin and its development, Augustine recognized a domain of free personal decision, by which each man could to some extent modify his character, and make himself more or less depraved. The theory of Augustine was not the mere result of Augustine’s temperament or of Augustine’s sins. Many men have sinned like Augustine, but their intellects have only been benumbed and have been led into all manner of unbelief. It was the Holy Spirit who took possession of the temperament, and so overruled the sin as to make it a glass through which Augustine saw the depths of his nature. Nor was his doctrine one of exclusive divine transcendence, which left man a helpless worm at enmity with infinite justice. He was also a passionate believer in the immanence of God. He writes: “I could not be, O my God, could not be at all, wert not thou in me; rather, were not I in thee, of whom are all things, by whom are all things, in whom are are all things.... O God, thou hast made us for thyself, and our heart is restless, till it find rest in thee.—The will of God is the very nature of things—Dei voluntas rerum natura est.” Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought, Introduction, very erroneously declares that “the Augustinian theology rests upon the transcendence of Deity as its controlling principle, and at every point appears as an inferior rendering of the earlier interpretation of the Christian faith.” On the other hand, L. L. Paine, Evolution of Trinitarianism, 69, 368-397, shows that, while Athanasius held to a dualistic transcendence, Augustine held to a theistic immanence: “Thus the Stoic, Neo-Platonic immanence, with Augustine, supplants the Platonico-Aristotelian and Athanasian transcendence.” Alexander, Theories of the Will, 90—“The theories of the early Fathers were indeterministic, and the pronounced Augustinianism of Augustine was the result of the rise into prominence of the doctrine of original sin.... The early Fathers thought of the origin of sin in angels and in Adam as due to free will. Augustine thought of the origin of sin in Adam’s posterity as due to inherited evil will.” Harnack, Wesen des Christenthums, 161—“To this day in Catholicism inward and living piety and the expression of it is in essence wholly Augustinian.” Calvin was essentially Augustinian and realistic; see his Institutes, book 2, chap. 1-3; Hagenbach, Hist. Doct., 1:505, 506, with the quotations and references. Zwingle was not an Augustinian. He held that native vitiosity, although it is the uniform occasion of sin, is not itself sin: “It is not a crime, but a condition and a disease.” See Hagenbach, Hist. Doct. 2:256, with references. Zwingle taught that every new-born child—thanks to Christ’s making alive of all those who had died in Adam—is as free from any taint of sin as Adam was before the fall. The Reformers, however, with the single exception of Zwingle, were Augustinians, and accounted for the hereditary guilt of mankind, not by the fact that all men were represented in Adam, but that all men participated in Adam’s sin. This is still the doctrine of the Lutheran church. The theory of Adam’s Natural Headship regards humanity at large as the outgrowth of one germ. Though the leaves of a tree appear as disconnected units when we look down upon them from above, a view from beneath will discern the common connection with the twigs, branches, trunk, and will finally trace their life to the root, and to the seed from which it originally sprang. The race of man is one because it sprang from one head. Its members are not to be regarded atomistically, as segregated individuals; the deeper truth is the truth of organic unity. Yet we are not philosophical realists; we do not believe in the separate existence of universals. We hold, not to universalia ante rem, which is extreme realism; nor to universalia post rem, which is nominalism; but to universalia in re, which is moderate realism. Extreme realism cannot see the trees for the wood; nominalism cannot see the wood for the trees; moderate realism sees the wood in the trees. We hold to “universalia in re, but insist that the universals must be recognized as realities, as truly as the individuals are” (H. B. Smith, System, 319, note). Three acorns have a common life, as three spools have not. Moderate realism is true of organic things; nominalism is true only of proper names. God has not created any new tree nature since he created the first tree; nor has he created any new human nature since he created the first man. I am but a branch and outgrowth of the tree of humanity. Our realism then only asserts the real historical connection of each member of the race with its first father and head, and such a derivation of each from him as makes us partakers of the character which he formed. Adam was once the race; and when he fell, the race fell. Shedd: “We all existed in Adam in our elementary invisible substance. The Seyn of all was there, though the Daseyn was not; the noumenon, though not the phenomenon, was in existence.” On realism, see Koehler, Realismus und Nominalismus; Neander, Ch. Hist., 4:356; Dorner, Person Christ, 2:377; Hase, Anselm, 2:77; F. E. Abbott, Scientific Theism, Introd., 1-29, and in Mind, Oct. 1882:476, 477; Raymond, Theology, 2:30-33; Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:69-74; Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 129-132; Ten Broeke, in Baptist Quar. Rev., Jan. 1892:1-26; Baldwin, Psychology, 280, 281; D. J. Hill, Genetic Philosophy, 186; Hours with the Mystics, 1:213; Case, Physical Realism, 17-19; Fullerton, Sameness and Identity, 88, 89, and Concept of the Infinite, 95-114. The new conceptions of the reign of law and of the principle of heredity which prevail in modern science are working to the advantage of Christian theology. The doctrine of Adam’s Natural Headship is only a doctrine of the hereditary transmission of character from the first father of the race to his descendants. Hence we use the word “imputation” in its proper sense—that of a reckoning or charging to us of that which is truly and properly ours. See Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:259-357, esp. 328—“The problem is: We must allow that the depravity, which all Adam’s descendants inherit by natural generation, nevertheless involves personal guilt; and yet this depravity, so far as it is natural, wants the very conditions on which guilt depends. The only satisfactory explanation of this difficulty is the Christian doctrine of original sin. Here alone, if its inner possibility can be maintained, can the apparently contradictory principles be harmonized, viz.: the universal and deep-seated depravity of human nature, as the source of actual sin, and individual responsibility and guilt.” These words, though written by one who advocates a different theory, are nevertheless a valuable argument in corroboration of the theory of Adam’s Natural Headship. Thornwell, Theology, 1:343—“We must contradict every Scripture text and every Scripture doctrine which makes hereditary impurity hateful to God and punishable in his sight, or we must maintain that we sinned in Adam in his first transgression.” Secretan, in his Work on Liberty, held to a collective life of the race in Adam. He was answered by Naville, Problem of Evil: “We existed in Adam, not individually, but seminally. Each of us, as an individual, is responsible only for his personal acts, or, to speak more exactly, for the personal part of his acts. But each of us, as he is man, is jointly and severally (solidairement) responsible for the fall of the human race.” Bersier, The Oneness of the Race, in its Fall and in its Future: “If we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves, it is because our neighbor is ourself.” See Edwards, Original Sin, part 4, chap. 3; Shedd, on Original Sin, in Discourses and Essays, 218-271, and references, 261-263, also Dogm. Theol., 2:181-195; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 410-435, 451-460, 494; Schaff, in Bib. Sac., 5:220, and in Lange’s Com., on Rom. 5:12; Auberlen, Div. Revelation, 175-180; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 3:28-38, 204-236; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:269-400; Martensen, Dogmatics, 173-183; Murphy, Scientific Bases, 262 sq., cf. 101; Birks, Difficulties of Belief, 135; Bp. Reynolds, Sinfulness of Sin, in Works, 1:102-350; Mozley on Original Sin, in Lectures, 136-152; Kendall, on Natural Heirship, or All the World Akin, in Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1885:614-626. Per contra, see Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:157-164, 227-257; Haven, in Bib. Sac., 20:451-455; Criticism of Baird’s doctrine, in Princeton Rev., Apr. 1880:335-376; of Schaff’s doctrine, in Princeton Rev., Apr. 1870:239-262.

We regard this theory of the Natural Headship of Adam as the most satisfactory of the theories mentioned, and as furnishing the most important help towards the understanding of the great problem of original sin. In its favor may be urged the following considerations:

A. It puts the most natural interpretation upon Rom. 5:12-21. In verse 12 of this passage—“death passed unto all men, for that all sinned”—the great majority of commentators regard the word “sinned” as describing a common transgression of the race in Adam. The death spoken of is, as the whole context shows, mainly though not exclusively physical. It has passed upon all—even upon those who have committed no conscious and personal transgression whereby to explain its infliction (verse 14). The legal phraseology of the passage shows that this infliction is not a matter of sovereign decree, but of judicial penalty (verses 13, 14, 15, 16, 18—“law,” “transgression,” “trespass,” “judgment ... of one unto condemnation,” “act of righteousness,” “justification”). As the explanation of this universal subjection to penalty, we are referred to Adam’s sin. By that one act (“so,” verse 12)—the “trespass of the one” man (v. 15, 17), the “one trespass” (v. 18)—death came to all men, because all [not “have sinned”, but] sinned (πάντες ἥμαρτον—aorist of instantaneous past action)—that is, all sinned in “the one trespass” of “the one” man. Compare 1 Cor. 15:22—“As in Adam all die”—where the contrast with physical resurrection shows that physical death is meant; 2 Cor. 5:14—“one died for all, therefore all died.” See Commentaries of Meyer, Bengel, Olshausen, Philippi, Wordsworth, Lange, Godet, Shedd. This is also recognized as the correct interpretation of Paul’s words by Beyschlag, Ritschl, and Pfleiderer, although no one of these three accepts Paul’s doctrine as authoritative.

Beyschlag, N. T. Theology, 2:58-60—“To understand the apostle’s view, we must follow the exposition of Bengel (which is favored also by Meyer and Pfleiderer): ‘Because they—viz., in Adam—all have sinned’; they all, namely, who were included in Adam according to the O. T. view which sees the whole race to its founder, acted in his action.” Ritschl: “Certainly Paul treated the universal destiny of death as due to the sin of Adam. Nevertheless it is not yet suited for a theological rule just for the reason that the apostle has formed this idea;” in other words, Paul’s teaching it does not make it binding upon our faith. Philippi, Com. on Rom., 168—Interpret Rom. 5:12—“one sinned for all, therefore all sinned,” by 2 Cor. 5:15—“one died for all, therefore all died.” Evans, in Presb. Rev., 1883:294—“by the trespass of the one the many died,” “by the trespass of the one, death reigned __ through the one,” “through the one man’s disobedience”—all these phrases, and the phrases with respect to salvation which correspond to them, indicate that the fallen race and the redeemed race are each regarded as a multitude, a totality. So οἱ πάντεσ in 2 Cor. 5:14 indicates a corresponding conception of the organic unity of the race. Prof. George B. Stevens, Pauline Theology, 32-40, 129-139, denies that Paul taught the sinning of all men in Adam: “They sinned in the same sense in which believers were crucified to the world and died unto sin when Christ died upon the cross. The believer’s renewal is conceived as wrought in advance by those acts and experiences of Christ in which it has its ground. As the consequences of his vicarious sufferings are traced back to their cause, so are the consequences which flowed from the beginning of sin in Adam traced back to that original fount of evil and identified with it; but the latter statement should no more be treated as a rigid logical formula than the former, its counterpart.... There is a mystical identification of the procuring cause with its effect,—both in the case of Adam and of Christ.” In our treatment of the New School theory of sin we have pointed out that the inability to understand the vital union of the believer with Christ incapacitates the New School theologian from understanding the organic union of the race with Adam. Paul’s phrase “in Christ” meant more than that Christ is the type and beginner of salvation, and sinning in Adam meant more to Paul than following the example or acting in the spirit of our first father. In 2 Cor. 5:14 the argument is that since Christ died, all believers died to sin and death in him. Their resurrection-life is the same life that died and rose again in his death and resurrection. So Adam’s sin is ours because the same life which transgressed and became corrupt in him has come down to us and is our possession. In Rom. 5:14, the individual and conscious sins to which the New School theory attaches the condemning sentence are expressly excluded, and in verses 15-19 the judgment is declared to be “of one trespass.” Prof. Wm. Arnold Stevens, of Rochester, says well: “Paul teaches that Adam’s sin is ours, not potentially, but actually.” Of ἥμαρτον, he says: “This might conceivably be: (1) the historical aorist proper, used in its momentary sense; (2) the comprehensive or collective aorist, as in διῆλθεν in the same verse; (3) the aorist used in the sense of the English perfect, as in Rom. 3:23—πάντες γὰρ ἥμαρτον καὶ ὑστεροῦνται. In 5:12, the context determines with great probability that the aorist is used in the first of these senses.” We may add that interpreters are not wanting who so take ἥμαρτον in 3:23; see also margin of Rev. Version. But since the passage Rom. 5:12-19 is so important, we reserve to the close of this section a treatment of it in greater detail.

B. It permits whatever of truth there may be in the Federal theory and in the theory of Mediate Imputation to be combined with it, while neither of these latter theories can be justified to reason unless they are regarded as corollaries or accessories of the truth of Adam’s Natural Headship. Only on this supposition of Natural Headship could God justly constitute Adam our representative, or hold us responsible for the depraved nature we have received from him. It moreover justifies God’s ways, in postulating a real and a fair probation of our common nature as preliminary to imputation of sin—a truth which the theories just mentioned, in common with that of the New School, virtually deny,—while it rests upon correct philosophical principles with regard to will, ability, law, and accepts the Scriptural representations of the nature of sin, the penal character of death, the origin of the soul, and the oneness of the race in the transgression.

John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 1:196-232, favors the view that sin consists simply in an inherited bias of our nature to evil, and that we are guilty from birth because we are sinful from birth. But he recognizes in Augustinianism the truth of the organic unity of the race and the implication of every member in its past history. He tells us that we must not regard man simply as an abstract or isolated individual. The atomistic theory regards society as having no existence other than that of the individuals who compose it. But it is nearer the truth to say that it is society which creates the individual, rather than that the individual creates society. Man does not come into existence a blank tablet on which external agencies may write whatever record they will. The individual is steeped in influences which are due to the past history of his kind. The individualistic theory runs counter to the most obvious facts of observation and experience. As a philosophy of life, Augustinianism has a depth and significance which the individualistic theory cannot claim. Alvah Hovey, Manual of Christian Theology, 175 (2d ed.)—“Every child of Adam is accountable for the degree of sympathy which he has for the whole system of evil in the world, and with the primal act of disobedience among men. If that sympathy is full, whether expressed by deed or thought, if the whole force of his being is arrayed against heaven and on the side of hell, it is difficult to limit his responsibility.” Schleiermacher held that the guilt of original sin attached, not to the individual as an individual, but as a member of the race, so that the consciousness of race-union carried with it the consciousness of race-guilt. He held all men to be equally sinful and to differ only in their different reception of or attitude toward grace, sin being the universal malum metaphysicum of Spinoza; see Pfleiderer, Prot. Theol. seit Kant, 113.

C. While its fundamental presupposition—a determination of the will of each member of the race prior to his individual consciousness—is an hypothesis difficult in itself, it is an hypothesis which furnishes the key to many more difficulties than it suggests. Once allow that the race was one in its first ancestor and fell in him, and light is thrown on a problem otherwise insoluble—the problem of our accountability for a sinful nature which we have not personally and consciously originated. Since we cannot, with the three theories first mentioned, deny either of the terms of this problem—inborn depravity or accountability for it,—we accept this solution as the best attainable.

Sterrett, Reason and Authority in Religion, 20—“The whole swing of the pendulum of thought of to-day is away from the individual and towards the social point of view. Theories of society are supplementing theories of the individual. The solidarity of man is the regnant thought in both the scientific and the historical study of man. It is even running into the extreme of a determinism that annihilates the individual.” Chapman, Jesus Christ and the Present Age, 43—“It was never less possible to deny the truth to which theology gives expression in its doctrine of original sin than in the present age. It is only one form of the universally recognized fact of heredity. There is a collective evil, for which the responsibility rests on the whole race of man. Of this common evil each man inherits his share; it is organized in his nature; it is established in his environment.” E. G. Robinson: “The tendency of modern theology [in the last generation] was to individualization, to make each man ‘a little Almighty.’ But the human race is one in kind, and in a sense is numerically one. The race lay potentially in Adam. The entire developing force of the race was in him. There is no carrying the race up, except from the starting-point of a fallen and guilty humanity.” Goethe said that while humanity ever advances, individual man remains the same. The true test of a theory is, not that it can itself be explained, but that it is capable of explaining. The atomic theory in chemistry, the theory of the ether in physics, the theory of gravitation, the theory of evolution, are all in themselves indemonstrable hypotheses, provisionally accepted simply because, if granted, they unify great aggregations of facts. Coleridge said that original sin is the one mystery that makes all other things clear. In this mystery, however, there is nothing self-contradictory or arbitrary. Gladden, What is Left? 131—“Heredity is God working in us, and environment is God working around us.” Whether we adopt the theory of Augustine or not, the facts of universal moral obliquity and universal human suffering confront us. We are compelled to reconcile these facts with our faith in the righteousness and goodness of God. Augustine gives us a unifying principle which, better than any other, explains these facts and justifies them. On the solidarity of the race, see Bruce, The Providential Order, 280-310, and art. on Sin, by Bernard, in Hastings’ Bible Dictionary.

D. This theory finds support in the conclusions of modern science: with regard to the moral law, as requiring right states as well as right acts; with regard to the human will, as including subconscious and unconscious bent and determination; with regard to heredity, and the transmission of evil character; with regard to the unity and solidarity of the human race. The Augustinian theory may therefore be called an ethical or theological interpretation of certain incontestable and acknowledged biological facts.

Ribot, Heredity, 1—“Heredity is that biological law by which all beings endowed with life tend to repeat themselves in their descendants; it is for the species what personal identity is for the individual. By it a groundwork remains unchanged amid incessant variations. By it nature ever copies and imitates herself.” Griffith-Jones, Ascent through Christ, 202-218—“In man’s moral condition we find arrested development; reversion to a savage type; hypocritical and self-protective mimicry of virtue; parasitism; physical and moral abnormality; deep-seated perversion of faculty.” Simon, Reconciliation, 154 sq.—“The organism was affected before the individuals which are its successive differentiations and products were affected.... Humanity as an organism received an injury from sin. It received that injury at the very beginning.... At the moment when the seed began to germinate disease entered and it was smitten with death on account of sin.” Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 134—“A general notion has no actual or possible metaphysical existence. All real existence is necessarily singular and individual. The only way to give the notion any metaphysical significance is to turn it into a law inherent in reality, and this attempt will fail unless we finally conceive this law as a rule according to which a basal intelligence proceeds in positing individuals.” Sheldon, in the Methodist Review, March, 1901:214-227, applies this explanation to the doctrine of original sin. Men have a common nature, he says, only in the sense that they are resembling personalities. If we literally died in Adam, we also literally died in Christ. There is no all-inclusive Christ, any more than there is an all-inclusive Adam. We regard this argument as proving the precise opposite of its intended conclusion. There is an all-inclusive Christ, and the fundamental error of most of those who oppose Augustinianism is that they misconceive the union of the believer with Christ. “A basal intelligence” here “posits individuals.” And so with the relation of men to Adam. Here too there is “a law inherent in reality”—the regular working of the divine will, according to which like produces like, and a sinful germ reproduces itself.

E. We are to remember, however, that while this theory of the method of our union with Adam is merely a valuable hypothesis, the problem which it seeks to explain is, in both its terms, presented to us both by conscience and by Scripture. In connection with this problem a central fact is announced in Scripture, which we feel compelled to believe upon divine testimony, even though every attempted explanation should prove unsatisfactory. That central fact, which constitutes the substance of the Scripture doctrine of original sin, is simply this: that the sin of Adam is the immediate cause and ground of inborn depravity, guilt and condemnation to the whole human race.

Three things must be received on Scripture testimony: (1) inborn depravity; (2) guilt and condemnation therefor; (3) Adam’s sin the cause and ground of both. From these three positions of Scripture it seems not only natural, but inevitable, to draw the inference that we “all sinned” in Adam. The Augustinian theory simply puts in a link of connection between two sets of facts which otherwise would be difficult to reconcile. But, in putting in that link of connection, it claims that it is merely bringing out into clear light an underlying but implicit assumption of Paul’s reasoning, and this it seeks to prove by showing that upon no other assumption can Paul’s reasoning be understood at all. Since the passage in Rom. 5:12-19 is so important, we proceed to examine it in greater detail. Our treatment is mainly a reproduction of the substance of Shedd’s Commentary, although we have combined with it remarks from Meyer, Schaff, Moule, and others. Exposition of Rom. 5:12-19.—Parallel between the salvation in Christ and the ruin that has come through Adam, in each case through no personal act of our own, neither by our earning salvation in the case of the life received through Christ, nor by our individually sinning in the case of the death received through Adam. The statement of the parallel is begun in Verse 12: “as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,” so (as we may complete the interrupted sentence) by one man righteousness entered into the world, and life by righteousness, and so life passed upon all men, because all became partakers of this righteousness. Both physical and spiritual death is meant. That it is physical is shown (1) from verse 14; (2) from the allusion to Gen. 3:19; (3) from the universal Jewish and Christian assumption that physical death was the result of Adam’s sin. See Wisdom 2:23, 24; Sirach 25:24; 2 Esdras 3:7, 21; 7:11, 46, 48, 118; 9:19; John 8:44; 1 Cor. 15:21. That it is spiritual, is evident from Rom. 5:18, 21, where ζωή is the opposite of θάνατος, and from 2 Tim. 1:10, where the same contrast occurs. The οὔτος in verse 12 shows the mode in which historically death has come to all, namely, that the one sinned, and thereby brought death to all; in other words, death is the effect, of which the sin of the one is the cause. By Adam’s act, physical and spiritual death passed upon all men, because all sinned. ἐφ᾽ ᾦ = because, on the ground of the fact that, for the reason that, all sinned. πάντες = all, without exception, infants included, as verse 14 teaches. Ἥμαρτον mentions the particular reason why all men died, viz., because all men sinned. It is the aorist of momentary past action—sinned when, through the one, sin entered into the world. It is as much as to say, “because, when Adam sinned, all men sinned in and with him.” This is proved by the succeeding explanatory context (verses 15-19), in which it is reiterated five times in succession that one and only one sin is the cause of the death that befalls all men. Compare 1 Cor. 15:22. The senses “all were sinful,” “all became sinful,” are inadmissible, for ἁμαρτάνειν is not ἁμαρτωλὸν γίγνεσθαι or εἶναι. The sense “death passed upon all men, because all have consciously and personally sinned,” is contradicted (1) by verse 14, in which it is asserted that certain persons who are a part of πάντες, the subject of ἥμαρτον, and who suffer the death which is the penalty of sin, did not commit sins resembling Adam’s first sin, i. e., individual and conscious transgressions; and (2) by verses 15-19, in which it is asserted repeatedly that only one sin, and not millions of transgressions, is the cause of the death of all men. This sense would seem to require ἐφ᾽ ᾧ πάντες ἁμαρτάνουσιν. Neither can ἥμαρτον have the sense “were accounted and treated as sinners”; for (1) there is no other instance in Scripture where this active verb has a passive signification; and (2) the passive makes ἥμαρτον to denote God’s action, and not man’s. This would not furnish the justification of the infliction of death, which Paul is seeking, Verse 13 begins a demonstration of the proposition, in Verse 12, that death comes to all, because all men sinned the one sin of the one man. The argument is as follows: Before the law sin existed; for there was death, the penalty of sin. But this sin was not sin committed against the Mosaic law, because that law was not yet in existence. The death in the world prior to that law proves that there must have been some other law, against which sin had been committed. Verse 14. Nor could it have been personal and conscious violation of an unwritten law, for which death was inflicted; for death passed upon multitudes, such as infants and idiots, who did not sin in their own persons, as Adam did, by violating some known commandment. Infants are not specifically named here, because the intention is to include others who, though mature in years, have not reached moral consciousness. But since death is everywhere and always the penalty of sin, the death of all must have been the penalty of the common sin of the race, when πάντες ἥμαρτον in Adam. The law which they violated was the Eden statute, Gen. 2:17. The relation between their sin and Adam’s is not that of resemblance, but of identity. Had the sin by which death came upon them been one like Adam’s, there would have been as many sins, to be the cause of death and to account for it, as there were individuals. Death would have come into the world through millions of men, and not “through one man” (verse 12), and judgment would have come upon all men to condemnation through millions of trespasses, and not “through one trespass” (v. 18). The object, then, of the parenthetical digression in verses 13 and 14 is to prevent the reader from supposing, from the statement that “all men sinned,” that the individual transgressions of all men are meant, and to make it clear that only the one first sin of the one first man is intended. Those who died before Moses must have violated some law. The Mosaic law, and the law of conscience, have been ruled out of the case. These persons must, therefore, have sinned against the commandment in Eden, the probationary statute; and their sin was not similar (ὁμοίος) to Adam’s, but Adam’s identical sin, the very same sin numerically of the “one man.” They did not, in their own persons and consciously, sin as Adam did; yet in Adam, and in the nature common to him and them, they sinned and fell (versus Current Discussions in Theology, 5:277, 278). They did not sin like Adam, but they “sinned in him, and fell with him, in that first transgression” (Westminster Larger Catechism, 22). Verses 15-17 show how the work of grace differs from, and surpasses, the work of sin. Over against God’s exact justice in punishing all for the first sin which all committed in Adam, is set the gratuitous justification of all who are in Christ. Adam’s sin is the act of Adam and his posterity together; hence the imputation to the posterity is just, and merited. Christ’s obedience is the work of Christ alone; hence the imputation of it to the elect is gracious and unmerited. Here τοὺς πολλούς is not of equal extent with οἱ πολλοί in the first clause, because other passages teach that “the many” who die in Adam are not conterminous with “the many” who live in Christ; see 1 Cor. 15:22; Mat. 25:46; also, see note on verse 18, below. Τοὺς πολλούς here refers to the same persons who, in verse 17, are said to “receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.” Verse 16 notices a numerical difference between the condemnation and the justification. Condemnation results from one offense; justification delivers from many offences. Verse 17 enforces and explains verse 16. If the union with Adam in his sin was certain to bring destruction, the union with Christ in his righteousness is yet more certain to bring salvation. Verse 18 resumes the parallel between Adam and Christ which was commenced in verse 12, but was interrupted by the explanatory parenthesis in verses 13-17. “As through one trespass ... unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness ... unto all men unto justification of [necessary to] life.” Here the “all men to condemnation”—the οἱ πολλοί in verse 15; and the “all men unto justification of life”—the τοὺς πολλούς in verse 15. There is a totality in each case; but, in the former case, it is the “all men” who derive their physical life from Adam,—in the latter case, it is the “all men” who derive their spiritual life from Christ (compare 1 Cor. 15:22—“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive”—in which last clause Paul is speaking, as the context shows, not of the resurrection of all men, both saints and sinners, but only of the blessed resurrection of the righteous; in other words, of the resurrection of those who are one with Christ). Verse 19. “For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were constituted sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be constituted righteous.” The many were constituted sinners because, according to verse 12, they sinned in and with Adam in his fall. The verb presupposes the fact of natural union between those to whom it relates. All men are declared to be sinners on the ground of that “one trespass,” because, when that one trespass was committed, all men were one man—that is, were one common nature in the first human pair. Sin is imputed, because it is committed. All men are punished with death, because they literally sinned in Adam, and not because they are metaphorically reputed to have done so, but in fact did not. Οἱ πολλοί is used in contrast with the one forefather, and the atonement of Christ is designated as ὑπακοή, in order to contrast it with the παρακοή of Adam. Κατασταθήσονται has the same signification as in the first part of the verse. Δίκαιοι κατασταθήσονται means simply “shall be justified,” and is used instead of δικαιωθήσονται, in order to make the antithesis of ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάθησαν more perfect. This being “constituted righteous” presupposes the fact of a union between ὁ εἶς and οἱ πολλοί, i. e., between Christ and believers, just as the being “constituted sinners” presupposed the fact of a union between ὁ εἶς and οἱ πολλοί, i. e., between all men and Adam. The future κατασταθήσονται refers to the succession of believers; the justification of all was, ideally, complete already, but actually, it would await the times of individual believing. “The many” who shall be “constituted righteous”—not all mankind, but only “the many” to whom, in verse 15, grace abounded, and who are described, in verse 17, as “they that receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.” “But this union differs in several important particulars from that between Adam and his posterity. It is not natural and substantial, but moral and spiritual; not generic and universal, but individual and by election; not caused by the creative act of God, but by his regenerating act. All men, without exception, are one with Adam; only believing men are one with Christ. The imputation of Adam’s sin is not an arbitrary act in the sense that, if God so pleased, he could reckon it to the account of any beings in the universe, by a volition. The sin of Adam could not be imputed to the fallen angels, for example, and punished in them, because they never were one with Adam by unity of substance and nature. The fact that they have committed actual transgression of their own will not justify the imputation of Adam’s sin to them, any more than the fact that the posterity of Adam have committed actual transgressions of their own would be a sufficient reason for imputing the first sin of Adam to them. Nothing but a real union of nature and being can justify the imputation of Adam’s sin; and, similarly, the obedience of Christ could no more be imputed to an unbelieving man than to a lost angel, because neither of these is morally and spiritually one with Christ” (Shedd). For a different interpretation (ἡμαρτον—sinned personally and individually), see Kendrick, in Bap. Rev., 1885:48-72.

No Condemnation Inherited. Pelagian. Arminian. New School.

the soul. Creation. creation. creation.

at birth. able to obey still able to vicious, but God. co-operate with this not sin. the Spirit.

Adam’s sin. himself. posterity visiosity to the physically and whole race. intellectually. No guilt of Adam’s sin imputed.

sin? Adam’s example. ratifying Adam’s transgression of own deed, in known law. spite of the Spirit’s aid.

corruption? habit, in each kept in spite of but evil case. the Spirit. tendencies.

imputed? sins. sins and acts of ratifying of transgression. this nature.

the death eternal. spiritual death eternal death incurred? by decree. only.

men saved? Christ’s with the Spirit Christ under example. given to all. influence of truth presented by the Spirit.

Condemnation Inherited. Federal. Placean. Augustinian.

the soul. creation. creation. creation.

at birth. unable, and unable, and unable, and condemnable. condemnable. condemnable.

Adam’s sin. condemnation of connection of sin, corruption, his fellows in depravity in all and death. covenant, and his descendants. their creation as depraved.

sin? accounted depraved nature. in the sin of sinners in Adam, as seminal Adam’s sin. head of the race.

corruption? evil disposition evil disposition evil disposition and state. and state. and state.

imputed? man’s own nature and man’s depravity, and corruption, and own sin. our own sins. man’s own sins.

the death spiritual, and spiritual, and spiritual, and incurred? eternal. eternal. eternal.

men saved? accounted possessors of a work, with whom righteous new nature in we are one. through the act Christ. of Christ.

II.—Objections to the Augustinian Doctrine of Imputation.

The doctrine of Imputation, to which we have thus arrived, is met by its opponents with the following objections. In discussing them, we are to remember that a truth revealed in Scripture may have claims to our belief, in spite of difficulties to us insoluble. Yet it is hoped that examination will show the objections in question to rest either upon false philosophical principles or upon misconception of the doctrine assailed.

A. That there can be no sin apart from and prior to consciousness.

This we deny. The larger part of men’s evil dispositions and acts are imperfectly conscious, and of many such dispositions and acts the evil quality is not discerned at all. The objection rests upon the assumption that law is confined to published statutes or to standards formally recognized by its subjects. A profounder view of law as identical with the constituent principles of being, as binding the nature to conformity with the nature of God, as demanding right volitions only because these are manifestations of a right state, as having claims upon men in their corporate capacity, deprives this objection of all its force.

If our aim is to find a conscious act of transgression upon which to base God’s charge of guilt and man’s condemnation, we can find this more easily in Adam’s sin than at the beginning of each man’s personal history; for no human being can remember his first sin. The main question at issue is therefore this: Is all sin personal? We claim that both Scripture and reason answer this question in the negative. There is such a thing as race-sin and race-responsibility.

B. That man cannot be responsible for a sinful nature which he did not personally originate.

We reply that the objection ignores the testimony of conscience and of Scripture. These assert that we are responsible for what we are. The sinful nature is not something external to us, but is our inmost selves. If man’s original righteousness and the new affection implanted in regeneration have moral character, then the inborn tendency to evil has moral character; as the former are commendable, so the latter is condemnable.

If it be said that sin is the act of a person, and not of a nature, we reply that in Adam the whole human nature once subsisted in the form of a single personality, and the act of the person could be at the same time the act of the nature. That which could not be at any subsequent point of time, could be and was, at that time. Human nature could fall in Adam, though that fall could not be repeated in the case of any one of his descendants. Hovey, Outlines, 129—“Shall we say that will is the cause of sin in holy beings, while wrong desire is the cause of sin in unholy beings? Augustine held this.” Pepper, Outlines, 112—“We do not fall each one by himself. We were so on probation in Adam, that his fall was our fall.”

C. That Adam’s sin cannot be imputed to us, since we cannot repent of it.

The objection has plausibility only so long as we fail to distinguish between Adam’s sin as the inward apostasy of the nature from God, and Adam’s sin as the outward act of transgression which followed and manifested that apostasy. We cannot indeed repent of Adam’s sin as our personal act or as Adam’s personal act, but regarding his sin as the apostasy of our common nature—an apostasy which manifests itself in our personal transgressions as it did in his, we can repent of it and do repent of it. In truth it is this nature, as self-corrupted and averse to God, for which the Christian most deeply repents.

God, we know, has not made our nature as we find it. We are conscious of our depravity and apostasy from God. We know that God cannot be responsible for this; we know that our nature is responsible. But this it could not be, unless its corruption were self-corruption. For this self-corrupted nature we should repent, and do repent. Anselm, De Concep. Virg., 23—“Adam sinned in one point of view as a person, in another as man (i. e., as human nature which at that time existed in him alone). But since Adam and humanity could not be separated, the sin of the person necessarily affected the nature. This nature is what Adam transmitted to his posterity, and transmitted it such as his sin had made it, burdened with a debt which it could not pay, robbed of the righteousness with which God had originally invested it; and in every one of his descendants this impaired nature makes the persons sinners. Yet not in the same degree sinners as Adam was, for the latter sinned both as human nature and as a person, while new-born infants sin only as they possess the nature.”—more briefly, in Adam a person made nature sinful; in his posterity, nature makes persons sinful.

D. That, if we be responsible for Adam’s first sin, we must also be responsible not only for every other sin of Adam, but for the sins of our immediate ancestors.

We reply that the apostasy of human nature could occur but once. It occurred in Adam before the eating of the forbidden fruit, and revealed itself in that eating. The subsequent sins of Adam and of our immediate ancestors are no longer acts which determine or change the nature,—they only show what the nature is. Here is the truth and the limitation of the Scripture declaration that “the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father” (Ez. 18:20; cf. Luke 13:2, 3; John 9:2, 3). Man is not responsible for the specifically evil tendencies communicated to him from his immediate ancestors, as distinct from the nature he possesses; nor is he responsible for the sins of those ancestors which originated these tendencies. But he is responsible for that original apostasy which constituted the one and final revolt of the race from God, and for the personal depravity and disobedience which in his own case has resulted therefrom.

Augustine, Encheiridion, 46, 47, leans toward an imputing of the sins of immediate ancestors, but intimates that, as a matter of grace, this may be limited to “the third and fourth generation” (Ex. 20:5). Aquinas thinks this last is said by God, because fathers live to see the third and fourth generation of their descendants, and influence them by their example to become voluntarily like themselves. Burgesse, Original Sin, 397, adds the covenant-idea to that of natural generation, in order to prevent imputation of the sins of immediate ancestors as well as those of Adam. So also Shedd. But Baird, Elohim Revealed, 508, gives a better explanation, when he distinguishes between the first sin of nature when it apostatized, and those subsequent personal actions which merely manifest the nature but do not change it. Imagine Adam to have remained innocent, but one of his posterity to have fallen. Then the descendants of that one would have been guilty for the change of nature in him, but not guilty for the sins of ancestors intervening between him and them. We add that man may direct the course of a lava-stream, already flowing downward, into some particular channel, and may even dig a new channel for it down the mountain. But the stream is constant in its quantity and quality, and is under the same influence of gravitation in all stages of its progress. I am responsible for the downward tendency which my nature gave itself at the beginning; but I am not responsible for inherited and specifically evil tendencies as something apart from the nature,—for they are not apart from it,—they are forms or manifestations of it. These tendencies run out after a time,—not so with sin of nature. The declaration of Ezekiel (18:20), “the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father,” like Christ’s denial that blindness was due to the blind man’s individual sins or those of his parents (John 9:2, 3), simply shows that God does not impute to us the sins of our immediate ancestors; it is not inconsistent with the doctrine that all the physical and moral evil of the world is the result of a sin of Adam with which the whole race is chargeable. Peculiar tendencies to avarice or sensuality inherited from one’s immediate ancestry are merely wrinkles in native depravity which add nothing to its amount or its guilt. Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:88-94—“To inherit a temperament is to inherit a secondary trait.” H. B. Smith, System, 296—“Ezekiel 18 does not deny that descendants are involved in the evil results of ancestral sins, under God’s moral government; but simply shows that there is opportunity for extrication, in personal repentance and obedience.” Mozley on Predestination, 179—“Augustine says that Ezekiel’s declarations that the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father are not a universal law of the divine dealings, but only a special prophetical one, as alluding to the divine mercy under the gospel dispensation and the covenant of grace, under which the effect of original sin and the punishment of mankind for the sin of their first parent was removed.” See also Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:31 (Syst. Doct., 2:326, 327), where God’s visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children (Ex. 20:5) is explained by the fact that the children repeat the sins of the parents. German proverb: “The apple does not fall far from the tree.”

E. That if Adam’s sin and condemnation can be ours by propagation, the righteousness and faith of the believer should be propagable also.

We reply that no merely personal qualities, whether of sin or righteousness, are communicated by propagation. Ordinary generation does not transmit personal guilt, but only that guilt which belongs to the whole species. So personal faith and righteousness are not propagable. “Original sin is the consequent of man’s nature, whereas the parents’ grace is a personal excellence, and cannot be transmitted” (Burgesse).

Thornwell, Selected Writings, 1:543, says the Augustinian doctrine would imply that Adam, penitent and believing, must have begotten penitent and believing children, seeing that the nature as it is in the parent always flows from parent to child. But see Fisher, Discussions, 370, where Aquinas holds that no quality or guilt that is personal is propagated (Thomas Aquinas, 2:629). Anselm (De Concept. Virg. et Origin. Peccato, 98) will not decide the question. “The original nature of the tree is propagated—not the nature of the graft”—when seed from the graft is planted. Burgesse: “Learned parents do not convey learning to their children, but they are born in ignorance as others.” Augustine: “A Jew that was circumcised begat children not circumcised, but uncircumcised; and the seed that was sown without husks, yet produced corn with husks.” The recent modification of Darwinism by Weismann has confirmed the doctrine of the text. Lamarck’s view was that development of each race has taken place through the effort of the individuals,—the giraffe has a long neck because successive giraffes have reached for food on high trees. Darwin held that development has taken place not because of effort, but because of environment, which kills the unfit and permits the fit to survive,—the giraffe has a long neck because among the children of giraffes only the long-necked ones could reach the fruit, and of successive generations of giraffes only the long-necked ones lived to propagate. But Weismann now tells us that even then there would be no development unless there were a spontaneous innate tendency in giraffes to become long-necked,—nothing is of avail after the giraffe is born; all depends upon the germs in the parents. Darwin held to the transmission of acquired characters, so that individual men are affluents of the stream of humanity; Weismann holds, on the contrary, that acquired characters are not transmitted, and that individual men are only effluents of the stream of humanity: the stream gives its characteristics to the individuals, but the individuals do not give their characteristics to the stream: see Howard Ernest Cushman, in The Outlook, Jan. 10, 1897. Weismann, Heredity, 2:14, 266-270, 482—“Characters only acquired by the operation of external circumstances, acting during the life of the individual, cannot be transmitted.... The loss of a finger is not inherited; increase of an organ by exercise is a purely personal acquirement and is not transmitted; no child of reading parents ever read without being taught; children do not even learn to speak untaught.” Horses with docked tails, Chinese women with cramped feet, do not transmit their peculiarities. The rupture of the hymen in women is not transmitted. Weismann cut off the tails of 66 white mice in five successive generations, but of 901 offspring none were tailless. G. J. Romanes, Life and Letters, 300—“Three additional cases of cats which have lost their tails having tailless kittens afterwards.” In his Weismannism, Romanes writes: “The truly scientific attitude of mind with regard to the problem of heredity is to say with Galton: ‘We might almost reserve our belief that the structural cells can react on the sexual elements at all, and we may be confident that at most they do so in a very faint degree; in other words, that acquired modifications are barely if at all inherited, in the correct sense of that word.’ ” This seems to class both Romanes and Galton on the side of Weismann in the controversy. Burbank, however, says that “acquired characters are transmitted, or I know nothing of plant life.” A. H. Bradford, Heredity, 19, 20, illustrates the opposing views: “Human life is not a clear stream flowing from the mountains, receiving in its varied course something from a thousand rills and rivulets on the surface and in the soil, so that it is no longer pure as at the first. To this view of Darwin and Spencer, Weismann and Haeckel oppose the view that human life is rather a stream flowing underground from the mountains to the sea, and rising now and then in fountains, some of which are saline, some sulphuric, and some tinctured with iron; and that the differences are due entirely to the soil passed through in breaking forth to the surface, the mother-stream down and beneath all the salt, sulphur and iron, flowing on toward the sea substantially unchanged. If Darwin is correct, then we must change individuals in order to change their posterity. If Weismann is correct, then we must change environment in order that better individuals may be born. That which is born of the Spirit is spirit; but that which is born of spirit tainted by corruptions of the flesh is still tainted.” The conclusion best warranted by science seems to be that of Wallace, in the Forum, August, 1890, namely, that there is always a tendency to transmit acquired characters, but that only those which affect the blood and nervous system, like drunkenness and syphilis, overcome the fixed habit of the organism and make themselves permanent. Applying this principle now to the connection of Adam with the race, we regard the sin of Adam as a radical one, comparable only to the act of faith which merges the soul in Christ. It was a turning away of the whole being from the light and love of God, and a setting of the face toward darkness and death. Every subsequent act was an act in the same direction, but an act which manifested, not altered, the nature. This first act of sin deprived the nature of all moral sustenance and growth, except so far as the still immanent God counteracted the inherent tendencies to evil. Adam’s posterity inherited his corrupt nature, but they do not inherit any subsequently acquired characters, either those of their first father or of their immediate ancestors. Bascom, Comparative Psychology, chap. VII—“Modifications, however great, like artificial disablement, that do not work into physiological structure, do not transmit themselves. The more conscious and voluntary our acquisitions are, the less are they transmitted by inheritance.” Shaler, Interpretation of Nature, 88—“Heredity and individual action may combine their forces and so intensify one or more of the inherited motives that the form is affected by it and the effect may be transmitted to the offspring. So conflict of inheritances may lead to the institution of variety. Accumulation of impulses may lead to sudden revolution, and the species may be changed, not by environment, but by contest between the host of inheritances.” Visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children was thought to be outrageous doctrine, so long as it was taught only in Scripture. It is now vigorously applauded, since it takes the name of heredity. Dale, Ephesians, 189—“When we were young, we fought with certain sins and killed them; they trouble us no more; but their ghosts seem to rise from their graves in the distant years and to clothe themselves in the flesh and blood of our children.” See A. M. Marshall, Biological Lectures, 273; Mivart, in Harper’s Magazine, March, 1895:682; Bixby, Crisis in Morals, 176.

F. That, if all moral consequences are properly penalties, sin, considered as a sinful nature, must be the punishment of sin, considered as the act of our first parents.

But we reply that the impropriety of punishing sin with sin vanishes when we consider that the sin which is punished is our own, equally with the sin with which we are punished. The objection is valid as against the Federal theory or the theory of Mediate Imputation, but not as against the theory of Adam’s Natural Headship. To deny that God, through the operation of second causes, may punish the act of transgression by the habit and tendency which result from it, is to ignore the facts of every-day life, as well as the statements of Scripture in which sin is represented as ever reproducing itself, and with each reproduction increasing its guilt and punishment (Rom. 6:19; James 1:15.)

Rom. 6:19—“as ye presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness unto sanctification”; Eph. 4:22—“waxeth corrupt after the lusts of deceit”; James 1:15—“Then the lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin: and the sin, when it is full-grown, bringeth forth death”; 2 Tim. 3:13—“evil men and impostors shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.” See Meyer on Rom. 1:24—“Wherefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts unto uncleanness.” All effects become in their turn causes. Schiller: “This is the very curse of evil deed, That of new evil it becomes the seed.” Tennyson, Vision of Sin: “Behold it was a crime Of sense, avenged by sense that wore with time. Another said: The crime of sense became The crime of malice, and is equal blame.” Whiton, Is Eternal Punishment Endless, 52—“The punishment of sin essentially consists in the wider spread and stronger hold of the malady of the soul. Prov. 5:22—‘His own iniquities shall take the wicked.’ The habit of sinning holds the wicked ‘with the cords of his sin.’ Sin is self-perpetuating. The sinner gravitates from worse to worse, in an ever-deepening fall.” The least of our sins has in it a power of infinite expansion,—left to itself it would flood a world with misery and destruction. Wisdom, 11:16—“Wherewithal a man sinneth, by the same also he shall be punished.” Shakespeare, Richard II, 5:5—“I wasted time, and now doth time waste me”; Richard III, 4:2—“I am in so far in blood, that sin will pluck on sin”; Pericles, 1:1—“One sin I know another doth provoke; Murder’s as near to lust as flame to smoke;” King Lear, 5:3—“The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to scourge us.” “Marlowe’s Faustus typifies the continuous degradation of a soul that has renounced its ideal, and the drawing on of one vice by another, for they go hand in hand like the Hours” (James Russell Lowell). Mrs. Humphrey Ward, David Grieve, 410—“After all, there’s not much hope when the craving returns on a man of his age, especially after some years’ interval.”

G. That the doctrine excludes all separate probation of individuals since Adam, by making their moral life a mere manifestation of tendencies received from him.

We reply that the objection takes into view only our connection with the race, and ignores the complementary and equally important fact of each man’s personal will. That personal will does more than simply express the nature; it may to a certain extent curb the nature, or it may, on the other hand, add a sinful character and influence of its own. There is, in other words, a remainder of freedom, which leaves room for personal probation, in addition to the race-probation in Adam.

Kreibig, Versöhnungslehre, objects to the Augustinian view that if personal sin proceeds from original, the only thing men are guilty for is Adam’s sin; all subsequent sin is a spontaneous development; the individual will can only manifest its inborn character. But we reply that this is a misrepresentation of Augustine. He does not thus lose sight of the remainders of freedom in man (see references on page 620, in the statement of Augustine’s view, and in the section following this, on Ability, 640-644). He says that the corrupt tree may produce the wild fruit of morality, though not the divine fruit of grace. It is not true that the will is absolutely as the character. Though character is the surest index as to what the decisions of the will may be, it is not an infallible one. Adam’s first sin, and the sins of men after regeneration, prove this. Irregular, spontaneous, exceptional though these decisions are, they are still acts of the will, and they show that the agent is not bound by motives nor by character. Here is our answer to the question whether it be not a sin to propagate the race and produce offspring. Each child has a personal will which may have a probation of its own and a chance for deliverance. Denney, Studies in Theology, 87-99—“What we inherit may be said to fix our trial, but not our fate. We belong to God as well as to the past.” “All souls are mine” (Ez. 18:4); “Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice” (John 18:37). Thomas Fuller: “1. Roboam begat Abia; that is, a bad father begat a bad son; 2. Abia begat Asa; that is, a bad father begat a good son; & Asa begat Josaphat; that is, a good father a good son; 4. Josaphat begat Joram; that is, a good father a bad son. I see, Lord, from hence, that my father’s piety cannot be entailed; that is bad news for me. But I see that actual impiety is not always hereditary; that is good news for my son.” Butcher, Aspects of Greek Genius, 121—Among the Greeks, “The popular view was that guilt is inherited; that is, that the children are punished for their fathers’ sins. The view of Æschylus, and of Sophocles also, was that a tendency towards guilt was inherited, but that this tendency does not annihilate man’s free will. If therefore the children are punished, they are punished for their own sins. But Sophocles saw the further truth that innocent children may suffer for their fathers’ sins.” Julius Müller, Doc. Sin, 2:316—“The merely organic theory of sin leads to naturalism, which endangers not only the doctrine of a final judgment, but that of personal immortality generally.” In preaching, therefore, we should begin with the known and acknowledged sins of men. We should lay the same stress upon our connection with Adam that the Scripture does, to explain the problem of universal and inveterate sinful tendencies, to enforce our need of salvation from this common ruin, and to illustrate our connection with Christ. Scripture does not, and we need not, make our responsibility for Adam’s sin the great theme of preaching. See A. H. Strong, on Christian Individualism, and on The New Theology, in Philosophy and Religion, 156-163, 164-179.

H. That the organic unity of the race in the transgression is a thing so remote from common experience that the preaching of it neutralizes all appeals to the conscience.

But whatever of truth there is in this objection is due to the self-isolating nature of sin. Men feel the unity of the family, the profession, the nation to which they belong, and, just in proportion to the breadth of their sympathies and their experience of divine grace, do they enter into Christ’s feeling of unity with the race (cf. Is. 6:5; Lam. 3:39-45; Ezra 9:6; Neh. 1:6). The fact that the self-contained and self-seeking recognize themselves as responsible only for their personal acts should not prevent our pressing upon men’s attention the more searching standards of the Scriptures. Only thus can the Christian find a solution for the dark problem of a corruption which is inborn yet condemnable; only thus can the unregenerate man be led to a full knowledge of the depth of his ruin and of his absolute dependence upon God for salvation.

Identification of the individual with the nation or the race: Is. 6:5—“Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips”; Lam. 3:42—“We have transgressed and have rebelled”; Ezra 9:6—“I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God; for our iniquities are increased over our head”; Neh. 1:6—“I confess the sins of the children of Israel.... Yea, I and my father’s house have sinned.” So God punishes all Israel for David’s sin of pride; so the sins of Reuben, Canaan, Achan, Gehazi, are visited on their children or descendants. H. B. Smith, System, 296, 297—“Under the moral government of God one man may justly suffer on account of the sins of another. An organic relation of men is regarded in the great judgment of God in history.... There is evil which comes upon individuals, not as punishment for their personal sins, but still as suffering which comes under a moral government.... Jer. 32:18 reasserts the declaration of the second commandment, that God visits the iniquity of the fathers upon their children. It may be said that all these are merely ‘consequences’ of family or tribal or national or race relations,—‘Evil becomes cosmical by reason of fastening on relations which were originally adapted to making good cosmical:’ but then God’s plan must be in the consequences—a plan administered by a moral being, over moral beings, according to moral considerations, and for moral ends; and, if that be fully taken into view, the dispute as to ’consequences’ or ’punishment’ becomes a merely verbal one.” There is a common conscience over and above the private conscience, and it controls individuals, as appears in great crises like those at which the fall of Fort Sumter summoned men to defend the Union and the Proclamation of Emancipation sounded the death-knell of slavery. Coleridge said that original sin is the one mystery that makes all things clear; see Fisher, Nature and Method of Revelation, 151-157. Bradford, Heredity, 34, quotes from Elam, A Physician’s Problems, 5—“An acquired and habitual vice will rarely fail to leave its trace upon one or more of the offspring, either in its original form, or one closely allied. The habit of the parent becomes the all but irresistible impulse of the child; ... the organic tendency is excited to the uttermost, and the power of will and of conscience is proportionally weakened.... So the sins of the parents are visited upon the children.” Pascal: “It is astonishing that the mystery which is furthest removed from our knowledge—I mean the transmission of original sin—should be that without which we have no true knowledge of ourselves. It is in this abyss that the clue to our condition takes its turnings and windings, insomuch that man is more incomprehensible without the mystery than this mystery is incomprehensible to man.” Yet Pascal’s perplexity was largely due to his holding the Augustinian position that inherited sin is damning and brings eternal death, while not holding to the coördinate Augustinian position of a primary existence and act of the species in Adam; see Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:18. Atomism is egotistic. The purest and noblest feel most strongly that humanity is not like a heap of sand-grains or a row of bricks set on end, but that it is an organic unity. So the Christian feels for the family and for the church. So Christ, in Gethsemane, felt for the race. If it be said that the tendency of the Augustinian view is to diminish the sense of guilt for personal sins, we reply that only those who recognize sins as rooted in sin can properly recognize the evil of them. To such they are symptoms of an apostasy from God so deep-seated and universal that nothing but infinite grace can deliver us from it.

guilt and condemnation the nature of all men who descend from him is contrary to God’s justice.

We acknowledge that no human theory can fully solve the mystery of imputation. But we prefer to attribute God’s dealings to justice rather than to sovereignty. The following considerations, though partly hypothetical, may throw light upon the subject: (a) A probation of our common nature in Adam, sinless as he was and with full knowledge of God’s law, is more consistent with divine justice than a separate probation of each individual, with inexperience, inborn depravity, and evil example, all favoring a decision against God. (b) A constitution which made a common fall possible may have been indispensable to any provision of a common salvation. (c) Our chance for salvation as sinners under grace may be better than it would have been as sinless Adams under law. (d) A constitution which permitted oneness with the first Adam in the transgression cannot be unjust, since a like principle of oneness with Christ, the second Adam, secures our salvation. (e) There is also a physical and natural union with Christ which antedates the fall and which is incident to man’s creation. The immanence of Christ in humanity guarantees a continuous divine effort to remedy the disaster caused by man’s free will, and to restore the moral union with God which the race has lost by the fall.

Thus our ruin and our redemption were alike wrought out without personal act of ours. As all the natural life of humanity was in Adam, so all the spiritual life of humanity was in Christ. As our old nature was corrupted in Adam and propagated to us by physical generation, so our new nature was restored in Christ and communicated to us by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. If then we are justified upon the ground of our inbeing in Christ, we may in like manner be condemned on the ground of our inbeing in Adam.

Stearns, in N. Eng., Jan. 1882:95—“The silence of Scripture respecting the precise connection between the first great sin and the sins of the millions of individuals who have lived since then is a silence that neither science nor philosophy has been, or is, able to break with a satisfactory explanation. Separate the twofold nature of man, corporate and individual. Recognize in the one the region of necessity; in the other the region of freedom. The scientific law of heredity has brought into new currency the doctrine which the old theologians sought to express under the name of original sin,—a term which had a meaning as it was at first used by Augustine, but which is an awkward misnomer if we accept any other theory but his.” Dr. Hovey claims that the Augustinian view breaks down when applied to the connection between the justification of believers and the righteousness of Christ; for believers were not in Christ, as to the substance of their souls, when he wrought out redemption for them. But we reply that the life of Christ which makes us Christians is the same life which made atonement upon the cross and which rose from the grave for our justification. The parallel between Adam and Christ is of the nature of analogy, not of identity. With Adam, we have a connection of physical life; with Christ, a connection of spiritual life. Stahl, Philosophie des Rechts, quoted in Olshausen’s Com. on Rom. 5:12-21—“Adam is the original matter of humanity; Christ is its original idea in God; both personally living. Mankind is one in them. Therefore Adam’s sin became the sin of all; Christ’s sacrifice the atonement for all. Every leaf of a tree may be green or wither by itself; but each suffers by the disease of the root, and recovers only by its healing. The shallower the man, so much more isolated will everything appear to him; for upon the surface all lies apart. He will see in mankind, in the nation, nay, even in the family, mere individuals, where the act of the one has no connection with that of the other. The profounder the man, the more do these inward relations of unity, proceeding from the very centre, force themselves upon him. Yea, the love of our neighbor is itself nothing but the deep feeling of this unity; for we love him only, with whom we feel and acknowledge ourselves to be one. What the Christian love of our neighbor is for the heart, that unity of race is for the understanding. If sin through one, and redemption through one, is not possible, the command to love our neighbor is also unintelligible. Christian ethics and Christian faith are therefore in truth indissolubly united. Christianity effects in history an advance like that from the animal kingdom to man, by its revealing the essential unity of men, the consciousness of which in the ancient world had vanished when the nations were separated.” If the sins of the parents were not visited upon the children, neither could their virtues be; the possibility of the one involves the possibility of the other. If the guilt of our first father could not be transmitted to all who derive their life from him, then the justification of Christ could not be transmitted to all who derive their life from him. We do not, however, see any Scripture warrant for the theory that all men are justified from original sin by virtue of their natural connection with Christ. He who is the life of all men bestows manifold temporal blessings upon the ground of his atonement. But justification from sin is conditioned upon conscious surrender of the human will and trust in the divine mercy. The immanent Christ is ever urging man individually and collectively toward such decision. But the acceptance or rejection of the offered grace is left to man’s free will. This principle enables us properly to estimate the view of Dr. Henry E. Robins which follows. H. E. Robins, Harmony of Ethics with Theology, 51—“All men born of Adam stand in such a relation to Christ that salvation is their birthright under promise—a birthright which can only be forfeited by their intelligent, personal, moral action, as was Esau’s.” Dr. Robins holds to an inchoate justification of all—a justification which becomes actual and complete only when the soul closes with Christ’s offer to the sinner. We prefer to say that humanity in Christ is ideally justified because Christ himself is justified, but that individual men are justified only when they consciously appropriate his offered grace or surrender themselves to his renewing Spirit. Allen, Jonathan Edwards, 312—“The grace of God is as organic in its relation to man as is the evil in his nature. Grace also reigns wherever justice reigns.” William Ashmore, on the New Trial of the Sinner, in Christian Review, 26:245-264—“There is a gospel of nature commensurate with the law of nature; Rom. 3:22—‘unto all, and upon all them that believe’; the first ‘all’ is unlimited; the second ‘all’ is limited to those who believe.” R. W. Dale, Ephesians, 180—“Our fortunes were identified with the fortunes of Christ; in the divine thought and purpose we were inseparable from him. Had we been true and loyal to the divine idea, the energy of Christ’s righteousness would have drawn us upward to height after height of goodness and joy, until we ascended from this earthly life to the larger powers and loftier services and richer delights of other and diviner worlds; and still, through one golden age of intellectual and ethical and spiritual growth after another, we should have continued to rise towards Christ’s transcendent and infinite perfection. But we sinned; and as the union between Christ and us could not be broken without the final and irrevocable defeat of the divine purpose, Christ was drawn down from the serene heavens to the confused and troubled life of our race, to pain, to temptation, to anguish, to the cross and to the grave, and so the mystery of his atonement for our sin was consummated.” For replies to the foregoing and other objections, see Schaff, in Bib. Sac., 5:230; Shedd, Sermons to the Nat. Man, 266-284; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 507-509, 529-544; Birks, Difficulties of Belief, 134-188; Edwards, Original Sin, in Works, 2:473-510; Atwater, on Calvinism in Doctrine and Life, in Princeton Review, 1875:73; Stearns, Evidence of Christian Experience, 96-100. Per contra, see Moxom, in Bap. Rev., 1881:273-287; Park, Discourses, 210-233; Bradford, Heredity, 237.

Section VI.—Consequences Of Sin To Adam’s Posterity.

As the result of Adam’s transgression, all his posterity are born in the same state into which he fell. But since law is the all-comprehending demand of harmony with God, all moral consequences flowing from transgression are to be regarded as sanctions of law, or expressions of the divine displeasure through the constitution of things which he has established. Certain of these consequences, however, are earlier recognized than others and are of minor scope; it will therefore be useful to consider them under the three aspects of depravity, guilt, and penalty.

By this we mean, on the one hand, the lack of original righteousness or of holy affection toward God, and, on the other hand, the corruption of the moral nature, or bias toward evil. That such depravity exists has been abundantly shown, both from Scripture and from reason, in our consideration of the universality of sin.

Salvation is twofold: deliverance from the evil—the penalty and the power of sin; and accomplishment of the good—likeness to God and realization of the true idea of humanity. It includes all these for the race as well as for the individual: removal of the barriers that keep men from each other; and the perfecting of society in communion with God; or, in other words, the kingdom of God on earth. It was the nature of man, when he first came from the hand of God, to fear, love, and trust God above all things. This tendency toward God has been lost; sin has altered and corrupted man’s innermost nature. In place of this bent toward God there is a fearful bent toward evil. Depravity is both negative—absence of love and of moral likeness to God—and positive—presence of manifold tendencies to evil. Two questions only need detain us:

1. Depravity partial or total?

The Scriptures represent human nature as totally depraved. The phrase “total depravity,” however, is liable to misinterpretation, and should not be used without explanation. By the total depravity of universal humanity we mean:

A. Negatively,—not that every sinner is: (a) Destitute of conscience,—for the existence of strong impulses to right, and of remorse for wrong-doing, show that conscience is often keen; (b) devoid of all qualities pleasing to men, and useful when judged by a human standard,—for the existence of such qualities is recognized by Christ; (c) prone to every form of sin,—for certain forms of sin exclude certain others; (d) intense as he can be in his selfishness and opposition to God,—for he becomes worse every day.

(a) John 8:9—“And they, when they heard it, went out one by one, beginning from the eldest, even unto the last” (John 7:53-8:11, though not written by John, is a perfectly true narrative, descended from the apostolic age). The muscles of a dead frog’s leg will contract when a current of electricity is sent into them. So the dead soul will thrill at touch of the divine law. Natural conscience, combined with the principle of self-love, may even prompt choice of the good, though no love for God is in the choice. Bengel: “We have lost our likeness to God; but there remains notwithstanding an indelible nobility which we ought to revere both in ourselves and in others. We still have remained men, to be conformed to that likeness, through the divine blessing to which man’s will should subscribe. This they forget who speak evil of human nature. Absalom fell out of his father’s favor; but the people, for all that, recognized in him the son of the king.” (b) Mark 10:21—“And Jesus looking upon him loved him.” These very qualities, however, may show that their possessors are sinning against great light and are the more guilty; cf. Mal. 1:6—“A son honoreth his father, and a servant his master: if then I am a father, where is mine honor? and if I am a master, where is my fear?” John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 2:75—“The assertor of the total depravity of human nature, of its absolute blindness and incapacity, presupposes in himself and in others the presence of a criterion or principle of good, in virtue of which he discerns himself to be wholly evil; yet the very proposition that human nature is wholly evil would be unintelligible unless it were false.... Consciousness of sin is a negative sign of the possibility of restoration. But it is not in itself proof that the possibility will become actuality.” A ruined temple may have beautiful fragments of fluted columns, but it is no proper habitation for the god for whose worship it was built. (c) Mat. 23:23—“ye tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy, and faith: but these ye ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone”; Rom. 2:14—“when Gentiles that have not the law do by nature the things of the law, these, not having the law, are the law unto themselves; in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness therewith.” The sin of miserliness may exclude the sin of luxury; the sin of pride may exclude the sin of sensuality. Shakespeare, Othello, 2:3—“It hath pleased the devil Drunkenness to give place to the devil Wrath.” Franklin Carter, Life of Mark Hopkins, 321-323—Dr. Hopkins did not think that the sons of God should describe themselves as once worms or swine or vipers. Yet he held that man could sink to a degradation below the brute: “No brute is any more capable of rebelling against God than of serving him; is any more capable of sinking below the level of its own nature than of rising to the level of man. No brute can be either a fool or a fiend.... In the way that sin and corruption came into the spiritual realm we find one of those analogies to what takes place in the lower forms of being that show the unity of the system throughout. All disintegration and corruption of matter is from the domination of a lower over a higher law. The body begins to return to its original elements as the lower chemical and physical forces begin to gain ascendancy over the higher force of life. In the same way all sin and corruption in man is from his yielding to a lower law or principle of action in opposition to the demands of one that is higher.” (d) Gen. 15:16—“the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full”; 2 Tim. 3:13—“evil men and impostors shall wax worse and worse.” Depravity is not simply being deprived of good. Depravation (de, and pravus, crooked, perverse) is more than deprivation. Left to himself man tends downward, and his sin increases day by day. But there is a divine influence within which quickens conscience and kindles aspiration for better things. The immanent Christ is “the light which lighteth every man” (John 1:9). Prof. Wm. Adams Brown: “In so far as God’s Spirit is at work among men and they receive ‘the Light which lighteth every man,’ we must qualify our statement of total depravity. Depravity is not so much a state as a tendency. With growing complexity of life, sin becomes more complex. Adam’s sin was not the worst. ‘It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee’ (Mat. 11:24).” Men are not yet in the condition of demons. Only here and there have they attained to “a disinterested love of evil.” Such men are few, and they were not born so. There are degrees in depravity. E. G. Robinson: “There is a good streak left in the devil yet.” Even Satan will become worse than he now is. The phrase “total depravity” has respect only to relations to God, and it means incapability of doing anything which in the sight of God is a good act. No act is perfectly good that does not proceed from a true heart and constitute an expression of that heart. Yet we have no right to say that every act of an unregenerate man is displeasing to God. Right acts from right motives are good, whether performed by a Christian or by one who is unrenewed in heart. Such acts, however, are always prompted by God, and thanks for them are due to God and not to him who performed them.

B. Positively,—that every sinner is: (a) totally destitute of that love to God which constitutes the fundamental and all-inclusive demand of the law; (b) chargeable with elevating some lower affection or desire above regard for God and his law; (c) supremely determined, in his whole inward and outward life, by a preference of self to God; (d) possessed of an aversion to God which, though sometimes latent, becomes active enmity, so soon as God’s will comes into manifest conflict with his own; (e) disordered and corrupted in every faculty, through this substitution of selfishness for supreme affection toward God; (f) credited with no thought, emotion, or act of which divine holiness can fully approve; (g) subject to a law of constant progress in depravity, which he has no recuperative energy to enable him successfully to resist.

(a) John 5:42—“But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in yourselves.” (b) 2 Tim. 3:4—“lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God”; cf. Mal 1:6—“A son honoreth his father, and a servant his master: if then I am a father, where is mine honor? and if I am a master, where is my fear?” (c) 2 Tim. 3:2—“lovers of self”; (d) Rom. 8:7—“the mind of the flesh is enmity against God.” (e) Eph. 4:18—“darkened in their understanding.... hardening of their heart”; Tit. 1:15—“both their mind and their conscience are defiled”; 2 Cor. 7:1—“defilement of flesh and spirit”; Heb. 3:12—“an evil heart of unbelief”; (f) Rom. 3:9—“they are all under sin”; 7:18—“in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.” (g) Rom. 7:18—“to will is present with me, but to do that which is good is not”; 23—“law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members.” Every sinner would prefer a milder law and a different administration. But whoever does not love God’s law does not truly love God. The sinner seeks to secure his own interests rather than God’s. Even so-called religious acts he performs with preference of his own good to God’s glory. He disobeys, and always has disobeyed, the fundamental law of love. He is like a railway train on a down grade, and the brakes must be applied by God or destruction is sure. There are latent passions in every heart which if let loose would curse the world. Many a man who escaped from the burning Iroquois Theatre in Chicago, proved himself a brute and a demon, by trampling down fugitives who cried for mercy. Denney, Studies in Theology, 83—“The depravity which sin has produced in human nature extends to the whole of it. There is no part of man’s nature which is unaffected by it. Man’s nature is all of a piece, and what affects it at all affects it altogether. When the conscience is violated by disobedience to the will of God, the moral understanding is darkened, and the will is enfeebled. We are not constructed in water-tight compartments, one of which might be ruined while the others remained intact.” Yet over against total depravity, we must set total redemption; over against original sin, original grace. Christ is in every human heart mitigating the affects of sin, urging to repentance, and “able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through him” (Heb. 7:25). Even the unregenerate heathen may “put away ... the old man” and “put on the new man” (Eph. 4:23, 24), being delivered “out of the body of this death ... through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 7:24, 25). H. B. Smith, System, 277—“By total depravity is never meant that men are as bad as they can be; nor that they have not, in their natural condition, certain amiable qualities; nor that they may not have virtues in a limited sense (justitia civilis). But it is meant (1) that depravity, or the sinful condition of man, infects the whole man: intellect, feeling, heart and will; (2) that in each unrenewed person some lower affection is supreme; and (3) that each such is destitute of love to God. On these positions: as to (1) the power of depravity over the whole man, we have given proof from Scripture; as to (2) the fact that in every unrenewed man some lower affection is supreme, experience may be always appealed to; men know that their supreme affection is fixed on some lower good—intellect, heart, and will going together in it; or that some form of selfishness is predominant—using selfish in a general sense—self seeks its happiness in some inferior object, giving to that its supreme affection; as to (3) that every unrenewed person is without supreme love to God, it is the point which is of greatest force, and is to be urged with the strongest effect, in setting forth the depth and ‘totality’ of man’s sinfulness: unrenewed men have not that supreme love of God which is the substance of the first and great command.” See also Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 248; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 510-522; Chalmers, Institutes, 1:519-542; Cunningham, Hist. Theology, 1:516-531; Princeton Review, 1877:470.

2. Ability or inability?

In opposition to the plenary ability taught by the Pelagians, the gracious ability of the Arminians, and the natural ability of the New School theologians, the Scriptures declare the total inability of the sinner to turn himself to God or to do that which is truly good in God’s sight (see Scripture proof below). A proper conception also of the law, as reflecting the holiness of God and as expressing the ideal of human nature, leads us to the conclusion that no man whose powers are weakened by either original or actual sin can of himself come up to that perfect standard. Yet there is a certain remnant of freedom left to man. The sinner can (a) avoid the sin against the Holy Ghost; (b) choose the less sin rather than the greater; (c) refuse altogether to yield to certain temptations; (d) do outwardly good acts, though with imperfect motives; (e) seek God from motives of self-interest.

But on the other hand the sinner cannot (a) by a single volition bring his character and life into complete conformity to God’s law; (b) change his fundamental preference for self and sin to supreme love for God; nor (c) do any act, however insignificant, which shall meet with God’s approval or answer fully to the demands of law.

So long, then, as there are states of intellect, affection and will which man cannot, by any power of volition or of contrary choice remaining to him, bring into subjection to God, it cannot be said that he possesses any sufficient ability of himself to do God’s will; and if a basis for man’s responsibility and guilt be sought, it must be found, if at all, not in his plenary ability, his gracious ability, or his natural ability, but in his original ability, when he came, in Adam, from the hands of his Maker. Man’s present inability is natural, in the sense of being inborn,—it is not acquired by our personal act, but is congenital. It is not natural, however, as resulting from the original limitations of human nature, or from the subsequent loss of any essential faculty of that nature. Human nature, at its first creation, was endowed with ability perfectly to keep the law of God. Man has not, even by his sin, lost his essential faculties of intellect, affection, or will. He has weakened those faculties, however, so that they are now unable to work up to the normal measure of their powers. But more especially has man given to every faculty a bent away from God which renders him morally unable to render spiritual obedience. The inability to good which now characterizes human nature is an inability that results from sin, and is itself sin. We hold, therefore, to an inability which is both natural and moral,—moral, as having its source in the self-corruption of man’s moral nature and the fundamental aversion of his will to God;—natural, as being inborn, and as affecting with partial paralysis all his natural powers of intellect, affection, conscience, and will. For his inability, in both these aspects of it, man is responsible. The sinner can do one very important thing, viz.: give attention to divine truth. Ps. 119:59—“I thought on my ways, And turned my feet unto thy testimonies.” G. W. Northrup: “The sinner can seek God from: (a) self-love, regard for his own interest; (b) feeling of duty, sense of obligation, awakened conscience; (c) gratitude for blessings already received; (d) aspiration after the infinite and satisfying.” Denney, Studies in Theology, 85—“A witty French moralist has said that God does not need to grudge to his enemies even what they call their virtues; and neither do God’s ministers.... But there is one thing which man cannot do alone,—he cannot bring his state into harmony with his nature. When a man has been discovered who has been able, without Christ, to reconcile himself to God and to obtain dominion over the world and over sin, then the doctrine of inability, or of the bondage due to sin, may be denied; then, but not till then.” The Free Church of Scotland, in the Declaratory Act of 1892, says “that, in holding and teaching, according to the Confession of Faith, the corruption of man’s whole nature as fallen, this church also maintains that there remain tokens of his greatness as created in the image of God; that he possesses a knowledge of God and of duty; that he is responsible for compliance with the moral law and with the gospel; and that, although unable without the aid of the Holy Spirit to return to God, he is yet capable of affections and actions which in themselves are virtuous and praiseworthy.”

To the use of the term “natural ability” to designate merely the sinner’s possession of all the constituent faculties of human nature, we object upon the following grounds:

A. Quantitative lack.—The phrase “natural ability” is misleading, since it seems to imply that the existence of the mere powers of intellect, affection, and will is a sufficient quantitative qualification for obedience to God’s law, whereas these powers have been weakened by sin, and are naturally unable, instead of naturally able, to render back to God with interest the talent first bestowed. Even if the moral direction of man’s faculties were a normal one, the effect of hereditary and of personal sin would render naturally impossible that large likeness to God which the law of absolute perfection demands. Man has not therefore the natural ability perfectly to obey God. He had it once, but he lost it with the first sin.

When Jean Paul Richter says of himself: “I have made of myself all that could be made out of the stuff,” he evinces a self-complacency which is due to self-ignorance and lack of moral insight. When a man realizes the extent of the law’s demands, he sees that without divine help obedience is impossible. John B. Gough represented the confirmed drunkard’s efforts at reformation as a man’s walking up Mount Etna knee-deep in burning lava, or as one’s rowing against the rapids of Niagara.

B. Qualitative lack.—Since the law of God requires of men not so much right single volitions as conformity to God in the whole inward state of the affections and will, the power of contrary choice in single volitions does not constitute a natural ability to obey God, unless man can by those single volitions change the underlying state of the affections and will. But this power man does not possess. Since God judges all moral action in connection with the general state of the heart and life, natural ability to good involves not only a full complement of faculties but also a bias of the affections and will toward God. Without this bias there is no possibility of right moral action, and where there is no such possibility, there can be no ability either natural or moral.

Wilkinson, Epic of Paul, 21—“Hatred is like love Herein, that it, by only being, grows. Until at last usurping quite the man, It overgrows him like a polypus.” John Caird, Fund. Ideas, 1:53—“The ideal is the revelation in me of a power that is mightier than my own. The supreme command ‘Thou oughtest’ is the utterance, only different in form, of the same voice in my spirit which says ‘Thou canst’; and my highest spiritual attainments are achieved, not by self-assertion, but by self-renunciation and self-surrender to the infinite life of truth and righteousness that is living and reigning within me.” This conscious inability in one’s self, together with reception of “the strength which God supplieth” (1 Pet. 4:11), is the secret of Paul’s courage; 2 Cor. 12:10—“when I am weak, then am I strong”; Phil. 2:12, 13—“work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.”

C. No such ability known.—In addition to the psychological argument just mentioned, we may urge another from experience and observation. These testify that man is cognizant of no such ability. Since no man has ever yet, by the exercise of his natural powers, turned himself to God or done an act truly good in God’s sight, the existence of a natural ability to do good is a pure assumption. There is no scientific warrant for inferring the existence of an ability which has never manifested itself in a single instance since history began.

“Solomon could not keep the Proverbs,—so he wrote them.” The book of Proverbs needs for its complement the New Testament explanation of helplessness and offer of help: John 15:5—“apart from me ye can do nothing”; 6:37—“him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” The palsied man’s inability to walk is very different from his indisposition to accept a remedy. The paralytic cannot climb the cliff, but by a rope let down to him he may be lifted up, provided he will permit himself to be tied to it. Darling, in Presb. and Ref. Rev., July, 1901:505—“If bidden, we can stretch out a withered arm; but God does not require this of one born armless. We may ‘hear the voice of the Son of God’ and ‘live’ (John 5:25), but we shall not bring out of the tomb faculties not possessed before death.”

D. Practical evil of the belief.—The practical evil attending the preaching of natural ability furnishes a strong argument against it. The Scriptures, in their declarations of the sinner’s inability and helplessness, aim to shut him up to sole dependence upon God for salvation. The doctrine of natural ability, assuring him that he is able at once to repent and turn to God, encourages delay by putting salvation at all times within his reach. If a single volition will secure it, he may be saved as easily to-morrow as to-day. The doctrine of inability presses men to immediate acceptance of God’s offers, lest the day of grace for them pass by.

Those who care most for self are those in whom self becomes thoroughly subjected and enslaved to external influences. Mat. 16:25—“whosoever would save his life shall lose it.” The selfish man is a straw on the surface of a rushing stream. He becomes more and more a victim of circumstance, until at last he has no more freedom than the brute. Ps. 49:20—“Man that is in honor, and understandeth not, Is like the beasts that perish;” see R. T. Smith, Man’s Knowledge of Man and of God, 121. Robert Browning, unpublished poem: “ ‘Would a man ’scape the rod?’ Rabbi Ben Karshook saith, ‘See that he turn to God The day before his death.’ ‘Aye, could a man inquire When it shall come?’ I say. The Rabbi’s eye shoots fire—‘Then let him turn to-day.’ ”

Let us repeat, however, that the denial to man of all ability, whether natural or moral, to turn himself to God or to do that which is truly good in God’s sight, does not imply a denial of man’s power to order his external life in many particulars conformably to moral rules, or even to attain the praise of men for virtue. Man has still a range of freedom in acting out his nature, and he may to a certain limited extent act down upon that nature, and modify it, by isolated volitions externally conformed to God’s law. He may choose higher or lower forms of selfish action, and may pursue these chosen courses with various degrees of selfish energy. Freedom of choice, within this limit, is by no means incompatible with complete bondage of the will in spiritual things.

John 1:13—“born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”; 3:5—“Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God”; 6:44—“No man can come to me, except the Father that sent me draw him”; 8:34—“Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin”; 15:4, 5—“the branch cannot bear fruit of itself ... apart from me ye can do nothing”; Rom. 7:18—“in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me, but to do that which it good is not”; 24—“Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?” 8:7, 8—“the mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be: and they that are is the flesh cannot please God”; 1 Cor. 2:14—“the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; __ and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged”; 2 Cor. 3:5—“not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves”; Eph. 2:1—“dead through your trespasses and sins”; 8-10—“by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, that no man should glory. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works”; Heb. 11:6—“without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing unto him.” Kant’s “I ought, therefore I can” is the relic of man’s original consciousness of freedom—the freedom with which man was endowed at his creation—a freedom, now, alas! destroyed by sin. Or it may be the courage of the soul in which God is working anew by his Spirit. For Kant’s “Ich soll, also Ich kann,” Julius Müller would substitute: “Ich sollte freilich können, aber Ich kann nicht”—“I ought indeed to be able, but I am not able.” Man truly repents only when he learns that his sin has made him unable to repent without the renewing grace of God. Emerson, in his poem entitled “Voluntariness,” says: “So near is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can.” But, apart from special grace, all the ability which man at present possesses comes far short of fulfilling the spiritual demands of God’s law. Parental and civil law implies a certain kind of power. Puritan theology called man “free among the dead” (Ps. 88:5, A. V.). There was a range of freedom inside of slavery,—the will was “a drop of water imprisoned in a solid crystal” (Oliver Wendell Holmes). The man who kills himself is as dead as if he had been killed by another (Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:106). Westminster Confession, 9:3—“Man by his fall into a state of sin hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so, as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good and dead in sin, he is not able by his own strength to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.” Hopkins, Works, 1:233-235—“So long as the sinner’s opposition of heart and will continues, he cannot come to Christ. It is impossible, and will continue so, until his unwillingness and opposition be removed by a change and renovation of his heart by divine grace, and he be made willing in the day of God’s power.” Hopkins speaks of “utter inability to obey the law of God, yea, utter impossibility.” Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:257-277—“Inability consists, not in the loss of any faculty of the soul, nor in the loss of free agency, for the sinner determines his own acts, nor in mere disinclination to what is good. It arises from want of spiritual discernment, and hence want of proper affections. Inability belongs only to the things of the Spirit. What man cannot do is to repent, believe, regenerate himself. He cannot put forth any act which merits the approbation of God. Sin cleaves to all he does, and from its dominion he cannot free himself. The distinction between natural and moral ability is of no value. Shall we say that the uneducated man can understand and appreciate the Iliad, because he has all the faculties that the scholar has? Shall we say that man can love God, if he will? This is false, if will means volition. It is a truism, if will means affection. The Scriptures never thus address men and tell them that they have power to do all that God requires. It is dangerous to teach a man this, for until a man feels that he can do nothing, God never saves him. Inability is involved in the doctrine of original sin; in the necessity of the Spirit’s influence in regeneration. Inability is consistent with obligation, when inability arises from sin and is removed by the removal of sin.” Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:213-257, and in South Church Sermons, 33-59—“The origin of this helplessness lies, not in creation, but in sin. God can command the ten talents or the five which he originally committed to us, together with a diligent and faithful improvement of them. Because the servant has lost the talents, is he discharged from obligation to return them with interest? Sin contains in itself the element of servitude. In the very act of transgressing the law of God, there is a reflex action of the human will upon itself, whereby it becomes less able than before to keep that law. Sin is the suicidal action of the human will. To do wrong destroys the power to do right. Total depravity carries with it total impotence. The voluntary faculty may be ruined from within; may be made impotent to holiness, by its own action; may surrender itself to appetite and selfishness with such an intensity and earnestness, that it becomes unable to convert itself and overcome its wrong inclination.” See Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,—noticed in Andover Rev., June, 1886:664. We can merge ourselves in the life of another—either bad or good; can almost transform ourselves into Satan or into Christ, so as to say with Paul, in Gal 2:20—“it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me”; or be minions of “the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2). But if we yield ourselves to the influence of Satan, the recovery of our true personality becomes increasingly difficult, and at last impossible. There is nothing in literature sadder or more significant than the self-bewailing of Charles Lamb, the gentle Elia, who writes in his Last Essays, 214—“Could the youth to whom the flavor of the first wine is delicious as the opening scenes of life or the entering of some newly discovered paradise, look into my desolation, and be made to understand what a dreary thing it is when he shall feel himself going down a precipice with open eyes and a passive will; to see his destruction, and have no power to stop it; to see all goodness emptied out of him, and yet not be able to forget a time when it was otherwise; to bear about the piteous spectacle of his own ruin,—could he see my fevered eye, fevered with the last night’s drinking, and feverishly looking for to-night’s repetition of the folly; could he but feel the body of this death out of which I cry hourly, with feebler outcry, to be delivered, it were enough to make him dash the sparkling beverage to the earth, in all the pride of its mantling temptation.” For the Arminian “gracious ability,” see Raymond, Syst. Theol., 2:130; McClintock & Strong, Cyclopædia, 10:990. Per contra, see Calvin, Institutes, bk. 2, chap. 2 (1:282); Edwards, Works, 2:464 (Orig. Sin, 3:1); Bennet Tyler, Works, 73; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 523-528; Cunningham, Hist. Theology, 1:567-639; Turretin, 10:4:19; A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology, 260-269; Thornwell, Theology, 1:394-399; Alexander, Moral Science, 89-208; Princeton Essays, 1:224-239; Richards, Lectures on Theology. On real as distinguished from formal freedom, see Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:1-225. On Augustine’s lineamenta extrema (of the divine image in man), see Wiggers, Augustinism and Pelagianism, 119, note. See also art. by A. H. Strong, on Modified Calvinism, or Remainders of Freedom in Man, in Bap. Rev., 1883:219-242; and reprinted in the author’s Philosophy and Religion, 114-128.

1. Nature of guilt.

By guilt we mean desert of punishment, or obligation to render satisfaction to God’s justice for self-determined violation of law. There is a reaction of holiness against sin, which the Scripture denominates “the wrath of God” (Rom. 1:18). Sin is in us, either as act or state; God’s punitive righteousness is over against the sinner, as something to be feared; guilt is a relation of the sinner to that righteousness, namely, the sinner’s desert of punishment.

Guilt is related to sin as the burnt spot to the blaze. Schiller, Die Braut von Messina: “Das Leben ist der Güter höchstes nicht; Der Uebel grösstes aber ist die Schuld”—“Life is not the highest of possessions; the greatest of ills, however, is guilt.” Delitzsch: “Die Schamröthe ist die Abendröthe der untergegangenen Sonne der ursprünglichen Gerechtigkeit”—“The blush of shame is the evening red after the sun of original righteousness has gone down.” E. G. Robinson: “Pangs of conscience do not arise from the fear of penalty,—they are the penalty itself.” See chapter on Fig-leaves, in McIlvaine, Wisdom of Holy Scripture, 142-154—“Spiritual shame for sin sought an outward symbol, and found it in the nakedness of the lower parts of the body.”

The following remarks may serve both for proof and for explanation:

A. Guilt is incurred only through self-determined transgression either on the part of man’s nature or person. We are guilty only of that sin which we have originated or have had part in originating. Guilt is not, therefore, mere liability to punishment, without participation in the transgression for which the punishment is inflicted,—in other words, there is no such thing as constructive guilt under the divine government. We are accounted guilty only for what we have done, either personally or in our first parents, and for what we are, in consequence of such doing.

Ez. 18:20—“the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father”—, as Calvin says (Com. in loco): “The son shall not bear the father’s iniquity, since he shall receive the reward due to himself, and shall bear his own burden.... All are guilty through their own fault.... Every one perishes through his own iniquity.” In other words, the whole race fell in Adam, and is punished for its own sin in him, not for the sins of immediate ancestors, nor for the sin of Adam as a person foreign to us. John 9:3—“Neither did this man sin, nor his parents” (that he should be born blind)—Do not attribute to any special later sin what is a consequence of the sin of the race—the first sin which “brought death into the world, and all our woe.” Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:195-213.

B. Guilt is an objective result of sin, and is not to be confounded with subjective pollution, or depravity. Every sin, whether of nature or person, is an offense against God (Ps. 51:4-6), an act or state of opposition to his will, which has for its effect God’s personal wrath (Ps. 7:11; John 3:18, 36), and which must be expiated either by punishment or by atonement (Heb. 9:22). Not only does sin, as unlikeness to the divine purity, involve pollution,—it also, as antagonism to God’s holy will, involves guilt. This guilt, or obligation to satisfy the outraged holiness of God, is explained in the New Testament by the terms “debtor” and “debt” (Mat. 6:12; Luke 13:4; Mat. 5:21; Rom. 3:19; 6:23; Eph. 2:3). Since guilt, the objective result of sin, is entirely distinct from depravity, the subjective result, human nature may, as in Christ, have the guilt without the depravity (2 Cor. 5:21), or may, as in the Christian, have the depravity without the guilt (1 John 1:7, 8).

Ps. 51:4-6—“Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, And done that which is evil in thy sight; That thou mayest be justified when thou speakest, And be clear when thou judgest”; 7:11—“God is a righteous judge, Yea, a God that hath indignation every day”; John 3:18—“he that believeth not hath been judged already”; 36—“he that obeyeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him”; Heb. 9:22—“apart from shedding of blood there is no remission”; Mat. 6:12—“debts”; Luke 13:4—“offenders” (marg. “debtors”); Mat. 5:21—“shall be in danger of [exposed to] the judgment”; Rom. 3:19—“that ... all the world may be brought under the judgment of God”; 6:23—“the wages of sin is death”—death is sin’s desert; Eph. 2:3—“by nature children of wrath”; 2 Cor. 5:21—“Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf”; 1 John 1:7, 8—“the blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin. [Yet] If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Sin brings in its train not only depravity but guilt, not only macula but reatus. Scripture sets forth the pollution of sin by its similies of “a cage of unclean birds” and of “wounds, bruises, and putrefying sores”; by leprosy and Levitical uncleanness, under the old dispensation; by death and the corruption of the grave, under both the old and the new. But Scripture sets forth the guilt of sin, with equal vividness, in the fear of Cain and in the remorse of Judas. The revulsion of God’s holiness from sin, and its demand for satisfaction, are reflected in the shame and remorse of every awakened conscience. There is an instinctive feeling in the sinner’s heart that sin will be punished, and ought to be punished. But the Holy Spirit makes this need of reparation so deeply felt that the soul has no rest until its debt is paid. The offending church member who is truly penitent loves the law and the church which excludes him, and would not think it faithful if it did not. So Jesus, when laden with the guilt of the race, pressed forward to the cross, saying: “I have a baptism to be baptised with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!” (Luke 12:50; Mark 10:32). All sin involves guilt, and the sinful soul itself demands penalty, so that all will ultimately go where they most desire to be. All the great masters in literature have recognized this. The inextinguishable thirst for reparation constitutes the very essence of tragedy. The Greek tragedians are full of it, and Shakespeare is its most impressive teacher: Measure for Measure, 5:1—“I am sorry that such sorrow I procure, And so deep sticks it in my penitent heart That I crave death more willingly than mercy; ’Tis my deserving, and I do entreat it”; Cymbeline, 5:4—“and so, great Powers, If you will take this audit, take this life, And cancel these cold bonds!... Desired, more than constrained, to satisfy, ... take No stricter render of me than my all”; that is, settle the account with me by taking my life, for nothing less than that will pay my debt. And later writers follow Shakespeare. Marguerite, in Goethe’s Faust, fainting in the great cathedral under the solemn reverberations of the Dies Iræ; Dimmesdale, in Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, putting himself side by side with Hester Prynne, his victim, in her place of obloquy; Bulwer’s Eugene Aram, coming forward, though unsuspected, to confess the murder he had committed, all these are illustrations of the inner impulse that moves even a sinful soul to satisfy the claims of justice upon it. See A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 215, 216. On Hawthorne, see Hutton, Essays, 2:370-416—“In the Scarlet Letter, the minister gains fresh reverence and popularity as the very fruit of the passionate anguish with which his heart is consumed. Frantic with the stings of unacknowledged guilt, he is yet taught by these very stings to understand the hearts and stir the consciences of others.” See also Dinsmore, Atonement in Literature and Life. Nor are such scenes confined to the pages of romance. In a recent trial at Syracuse, Earl, the wife-murderer, thanked the jury that had convicted him; declared the verdict just; begged that no one would interfere to stay the course of justice; said that the greatest blessing that could be conferred on him would be to let him suffer the penalty of his crime. In Plattsburg, at the close of another trial in which the accused was a life-convict who had struck down a fellow-convict with an axe, the jury, after being out two hours, came in to ask the Judge to explain the difference between murder in the first and second degree. Suddenly the prisoner rose and said: “This was not a murder in the second degree. It was a deliberate and premeditated murder. I know that I have done wrong, that I ought to confess the truth, and that I ought to be hanged.” This left the jury nothing to do but render their verdict, and the Judge sentenced the murderer to be hanged, as he confessed he deserved to be. In 1891, Lars Ostendahl, the most famous preacher of Norway, startled his hearers by publicly confessing that he had been guilty of immorality, and that he could no longer retain his pastorate. He begged his people for the sake of Christ to forgive him and not to desert the poor in his asylums. He was not only preacher, but also head of a great philanthropic work. Such is the movement and demand of the enlightened conscience. The lack of conviction that crime ought to be punished is one of the most certain signs of moral decay in either the individual or the nation (Ps. 97:10—“Ye that love the Lord, hate evil”; 149:6—“Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, And a two-edged sword in their hand”—to execute God’s judgment upon iniquity). This relation of sin to God shows us how Christ is “made sin on our behalf” (2 Cor. 5:21). Since Christ is the immanent God, he is also essential humanity, the universal man, the life of the race. All the nerves and sensibilities of humanity meet in him. He is the central brain to which and through which all ideas must pass. He is the central heart to which and through which all pains must be communicated. You cannot telephone to your friend across the town without first ringing up the central office. You cannot injure your neighbor without first injuring Christ. Each one of us can say of him: “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned” (Ps. 51:4). Because of his central and all-inclusive humanity, Christ can feel all the pangs of shame and suffering which rightfully belong to sinners, but which they cannot feel, because their sin has stupefied and deadened them. The Messiah, if he be truly man, must be a suffering Messiah. For the very reason of his humanity he must bear in his own person all the guilt of humanity and must be “the Lamb of God who” takes, and so “takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Guilt and depravity are not only distinguishable in thought,—they are also separable in fact. The convicted murderer might repent and become pure, yet he might still be under obligation to suffer the punishment of his crime. The Christian is freed from guilt (Rom. 8:1), but he is not yet freed from depravity (Rom. 7:23). Christ, on the other hand, was under obligation to suffer (Luke 24:26; Acts 3:18; 26:23), while yet he was without sin (Heb. 7:26). In the book entitled Modern Religious Thought, 3-29, R. J. Campbell has an essay on The Atonement, with which, apart from its view as to the origin of moral evil in God, we are in substantial agreement. He holds that “to relieve men from their sense of guilt, objective atonement is necessary,”—we would say: to relieve men from guilt itself—the obligation to suffer. “If Christ be the eternal Son of God, that side of the divine nature which has gone forth in creation, if he contains humanity and is present in every article and act of human experience, then he is associated with the existence of the primordial evil.... He and only he can sever the entail between man and his responsibility for personal sin. Christ has not sinned in man, but he takes responsibility for that experience of evil into which humanity is born, and the yielding to which constitutes sin. He goes forth to suffer, and actually does suffer, in man. The eternal Son in whom humanity is contained is therefore a sufferer since creation began. This mysterious passion of Deity must continue until redemption is consummated and humanity restored to God. Thus every consequence of human ill is felt in the experience of Christ. Thus Christ not only assumes the guilt but bears the punishment of every human soul.” We claim however that the necessity of this suffering lies, not in the needs of man, but in the holiness of God.

C. Guilt, moreover, as an objective result of sin, is not to be confounded with the subjective consciousness of guilt (Lev. 5:17). In the condemnation of conscience, God’s condemnation partially and prophetically manifests itself (1 John 3:20). But guilt is primarily a relation to God, and only secondarily a relation to conscience. Progress in sin is marked by diminished sensitiveness of moral insight and feeling. As “the greatest of sins is to be conscious of none,” so guilt may be great, just in proportion to the absence of consciousness of it (Ps. 19:12; 51:6; Eph. 4:18, 19—ἀπηλγηκότες). There is no evidence, however, that the voice of conscience can be completely or finally silenced. The time for repentance may pass, but not the time for remorse. Progress in holiness, on the other hand, is marked by increasing apprehension of the depth and extent of our sinfulness, while with this apprehension is combined, in a normal Christian experience, the assurance that the guilt of our sin has been taken, and taken away, by Christ (John 1:29).

Lev. 5:17—“And if any one sin, and do any of the things which Jehovah hath commanded not to be done; though he knew it not, yet is he guilty, and shall bear his iniquity”; 1 John 3:20—“because if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things”; Ps. 19:12—“Who can discern his errors? Clear thou me from hidden faults”; 51:6—“Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts; And in the hidden part thou wilt make me to know wisdom”; Eph. 4:18, 19—“darkened in their understanding ... being past feeling”; John 1:29—“Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away [marg. “beareth”] the sin of the world.” Plato, Republic, 1:330—“When death approaches, cares and alarms awake, especially the fear of hell and its punishments.” Cicero, De Divin., 1:30—“Then comes remorse for evil deeds.” Persius, Satire 3—“His vice benumbs him; his fibre has become fat; he is conscious of no fault; he knows not the loss he suffers; he is so far sunk, that there is not even a bubble on the surface of the deep.” Shakespeare, Hamlet, 3:1—“Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all”; 4:5—“To my sick soul, as sin’s true nature is, Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss; So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt”; Richard III, 5:3—“O coward conscience, how thou dost afflict me!... My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, and every tongue brings in a several tale, And every tale condemns me for a villain”; Tempest, 3:3—“All three of them are desperate; their great guilt, Like poison given to work a great time after, Now ’gins to bite the spirits”; Ant. and Cleop., 3:9—“When we in our viciousness grow hard (O misery on’t!) the wise gods seel our eyes; In our own filth drop our clear judgments; make us Adore our errors; laugh at us, while we strut To our confusion.” Dr. Shedd said once to a graduating class of young theologians: “Would that upon the naked, palpitating heart of each one of you might be laid one redhot coal of God Almighty’s wrath!” Yes, we add, if only that redhot coal might be quenched by one red drop of Christ’s atoning blood. Dr. H. E. Robins: “To the convicted sinner a merely external hell would be a cooling flame, compared with the agony of his remorse.” John Milton represents Satan as saying: “Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell.” James Martineau, Life by Jackson, 190—“It is of the essence of guilty declension to administer its own anæsthetics.” But this deadening of conscience cannot last always. Conscience is a mirror of God’s holiness. We may cover the mirror with the veil of this world’s diversions and deceits. When the veil is removed, and conscience again reflects the sunlike purity of God’s demands, we are visited with self-loathing and self-contempt. John Caird, Fund. Ideas, 2:25—“Though it may cast off every other vestige of its divine origin, our nature retains at least this one terrible prerogative of it, the capacity of preying on itself.” Lyttelton in Lux Mundi, 277—“The common fallacy that a self-indulgent sinner is no one’s enemy but his own would, were it true, involve the further inference that such a sinner would not feel himself guilty.” If any dislike the doctrine of guilt, let them remember that without wrath there is no pardon, without guilt no forgiveness. See, on the nature of guilt, Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 1:193-267; Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, 208-209; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:346; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 461-473; Delitzsch, Bib. Psychologie, 121-148; Thornwell, Theology, 1:400-424.

2. Degrees of guilt.

The Scriptures recognize different degrees of guilt as attaching to different kinds of sin. The variety of sacrifices under the Mosaic law, and the variety of awards in the judgment, are to be explained upon this principle.

Luke 12:47, 48—“shall be beaten with many stripes ... shall be beaten with few stripes”; Rom. 2:6—“who will render to every man according to his works.” See also John 19:11—“he that delivered me unto thee hath greater sin”; Heb. 2:2, 3—if “every transgression ... received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation?” 10:28, 29—“A man that hath set at nought Moses’ law dieth without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God?”

Casuistry, however, has drawn many distinctions which lack Scriptural foundation. Such is the distinction between venial sins and mortal sins in the Roman Catholic Church,—every sin unpardoned being mortal, and all sins being venial, since Christ has died for all. Nor is the common distinction between sins of omission and sins of commission more valid, since the very omission is an act of commission.

Mat. 25:45—“Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of these least”; James 4:17—“To him therefore that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” John Ruskin: “The condemnation given from the Judgment Throne—most solemnly described—is for all the ‘undones’ and not the ‘dones.’ People are perpetually afraid of doing wrong; but unless they are doing its reverse energetically, they do it all day long, and the degree does not matter.” The Roman Catholic Church proceeds upon the supposition that she can determine the precise malignity of every offence, and assign its proper penance at the confessional. Thornwell, Theology, 1:424-441, says that “all sins are venial but one—for there is a sin against the Holy Ghost,” yet “not one is venial in itself—for the least proceeds from an apostate state and nature.” We shall see, however, that the hindrance to pardon, in the case of the sin against the Holy Spirit, is subjective rather than objective. J. Spencer Kennard: “Roman Catholicism in Italy presents the spectacle of the authoritative representatives and teachers of morals and religion themselves living in all forms of deceit, corruption, and tyranny; and, on the other hand, discriminating between venial and mortal sin, classing as venial sins lying, fraud, fornication, marital infidelity, and even murder, all of which may be atoned for and forgiven or even permitted by the mere payment of money; and at the same time classing as mortal sins disrespect and disobedience to the church.”

The following distinctions are indicated in Scripture as involving different degrees of guilt:

A. Sin of nature, and personal transgression.

Sin of nature involves guilt, yet there is greater guilt when this sin of nature reasserts itself in personal transgression; for, while this latter includes in itself the former, it also adds to the former a new element, namely, the conscious exercise of the individual and personal will, by virtue of which a new decision is made against God, special evil habit is induced, and the total condition of the soul is made more depraved. Although we have emphasized the guilt of inborn sin, because this truth is most contested, it is to be remembered that men reach a conviction of their native depravity only through a conviction of their personal transgressions. For this reason, by far the larger part of our preaching upon sin should consist in applications of the law of God to the acts and dispositions of men’s lives.

Mat. 19:14—“to such belongeth the kingdom of heaven”—relative innocence of childhood; 23:32—“Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers”—personal transgression added to inherited depravity. In preaching, we should first treat individual transgressions, and thence proceed to heart-sin, and race-sin. Man is not wholly a spontaneous development of inborn tendencies, a manifestation of original sin. Motives do not determine but they persuade the will, and every man is guilty of conscious personal transgressions which may, with the help of the Holy Spirit, be brought under the condemning judgment of conscience. Birks, Difficulties of Belief, 169-174—“Original sin does not do away with the significance of personal transgression. Adam was pardoned: but some of his descendants are unpardonable. The second death is referred, in Scripture, to our own personal guilt.” This is not to say that original sin does not involve as great sin as that of Adam in the first transgression, for original sin is the sin of the first transgression; it is only to say that personal transgression is original sin plus the conscious ratification of Adam’s act by the individual. “We are guilty for what we are, as much as for what we do. Our sin is not simply the sum total of all our sins. There is a sinfulness which is the common denominator of all our sins.” It is customary to speak lightly of original sin, as if personal sins were all for which man is accountable. But it is only in the light of original sin that personal sins can be explained. Prov. 14:9, marg.—“Fools make a mock at sin.” Simon, Reconciliation, 122—“The sinfulness of individual men varies; the sinfulness of humanity is a constant quantity.” Robert Browning, Ferishtah’s Fancies: “Man lumps his kind i’ the mass. God singles thence unit by unit. Thou and God exist—So think! for certain: Think the mass—mankind—Disparts, disperses, leaves thyself alone! Ask thy lone soul what laws are plain to thee,—Thou and no other, stand or fall by them! That is the part for thee.”

B. Sins of ignorance, and sins of knowledge.

Here guilt is measured by the degree of light possessed, or in other words, by the opportunities of knowledge men have enjoyed, and the powers with which they have been naturally endowed. Genius and privilege increase responsibility. The heathen are guilty, but those to whom the oracles of God have been committed are more guilty than they.

Mat 10:15—“more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city”; Luke 12:47, 48—“that servant, who knew his Lord’s will ... shall be beaten with many stripes; but he that knew not ... shall be beaten with few stripes”; 23:34—“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do”—complete knowledge would put them beyond the reach of forgiveness. John 19:11—“he that delivered me unto thee hath greater sin”; Acts 17:30—“The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked”; Rom. 1:32—“who, knowing the ordinance of God, that they that practise such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also consent with them that practise them”; 2:12—“For as many as have sinned without the law shall also perish without the law: and as many as have sinned under the law shall be judged by the law”; 1 Tim. 1:13, 15, 16—“I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.” Is. 42:19—“Who is blind ... as Jehovah’s servant?” It was the Pharisees whom Jesus warned of the sin against the Holy Spirit. The guilt of the crucifixion rested on Jews rather than on Gentiles. Apostate Israel was more guilty than the pagans. The greatest sinners of the present day may be in Christendom, not in heathendom. Satan was an archangel; Judas was an apostle; Alexander Borgia was a pope. Jackson, James Martineau, 362—“Corruptio optimi pessima est, as seen in a drunken Webster, a treacherous Bacon, a licentious Goethe.” Sir Roger de Coverley observed that none but men of fine parts deserve to be hanged. Kaftan, Dogmatik, 317—“The greater sin often involves the lesser guilt; the lesser sin the greater guilt.” Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book, 227 (Pope, 1975)—“There’s a new tribunal now Higher than God’s,—the educated man’s! Nice sense of honor in the human breast Supersedes here the old coarse oracle!” Dr. H. E. Robins holds that “palliation of guilt according to light is not possible under a system of pure law, and is possible only because the probation of the sinner is a probation of grace.”

C. Sins of infirmity, and sins of presumption.

Here the guilt is measured by the energy of the evil will. Sin may be known to be sin, yet may be committed in haste or weakness. Though haste and weakness constitute a palliation of the offence which springs therefrom, yet they are themselves sins, as revealing an unbelieving and disordered heart. But of far greater guilt are those presumptuous choices of evil in which not weakness, but strength of will, is manifest.

Ps. 19:12, 13—“Clear thou me from hidden faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins”; Is. 5:18—“Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, and sin as it were with a cart-rope”—not led away insensibly by sin, but earnestly, perseveringly, and wilfully working away at it; Gal. 6:1—“overtaken in any trespass”; 1 Tim. 5:24—“Some men’s sins are evident, going before unto judgment; and some men also they follow after”—some men’s sins are so open, that they act as officers to bring to justice those who commit them; whilst others require after-proof (An. Par. Bible). Luther represents one of the former class as saying to himself: “Esto peccator, et pecca fortiter.” On sins of passion and of reflection, see Bittinger, in Princeton Rev., 1873:219. Micah 7:3, marg.—“Both hands are put forth for evil, to do it diligently.” So we ought to do good. “My art is my life,” said Grisi, the prima donna of the opera, “I save myself all day for that one bound upon the stage.” H. Bonar: “Sin worketh,—Let me work too. Busy as sin, my work I ply, Till I rest in the rest of eternity.” German criminal law distinguishes between intentional homicide without deliberation, and intentional homicide with deliberation. There are three grades of sin: 1. Sins of ignorance, like Paul’s persecuting; 2. sins of infirmity, like Peter’s denial; 3. sins of presumption, like David’s murder of Uriah. Sins of presumption were unpardonable under the Jewish law; they are not unpardonable under Christ.

D. Sin of incomplete, and sin of final, obduracy.

Here the guilt is measured, not by the objective sufficiency or insufficiency of divine grace, but by the degree of unreceptiveness into which sin has brought the soul. As the only sin unto death which is described in Scripture is the sin against the Holy Spirit, we here consider the nature of that sin.

Mat 12:31—“Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven”; 32—“And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come”; Mark 3:29—“whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”; 1 John 5:16, 17—“If any man see his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and God will give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin into death: not concerning this do I say that he should make request. All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death”; Heb. 10:26—“if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, then remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire which shall devour the adversaries.” Ritschl holds all sin that comes short of definitive rejection of Christ to be ignorance rather than sin, and to be the object of no condemning sentence. This is to make the sin against the Holy Spirit the only real sin. Conscience and Scripture alike contradict this view. There is much incipient hardening of the heart that precedes the sin of final obduracy. See Denney, Studies in Theology, 80. The composure of the criminal is not always a sign of innocence. S. S. Times, April 12, 1902:200—“Sensitiveness of conscience and of feeling, and responsiveness of countenance and bearing, are to be retained by purity of life and freedom from transgression. On the other hand composure of countenance and calmness under suspicion and accusation are likely to be a result of continuance in wrong doing, with consequent hardening of the whole moral nature.” Weismann, Heredity, 2:8—“As soon as any organ falls into disuse, it degenerates, and finally is lost altogether.... In parasites the organs of sense degenerate.” Marconi’s wireless telegraphy requires an attuned “receiver.” The “transmitter” sends out countless rays into space: only one capable of corresponding vibrations can understand them. The sinner may so destroy his receptivity, that the whole universe may be uttering God’s truth, yet he be unable to hear a word of it. The Outlook: “If a man should put out his eyes, he could not see—nothing could make him see. So if a man should by obstinate wickedness destroy his power to believe in God’s forgiveness, he would be in a hopeless state. Though God would still be gracious, the man could not see it, and so could not take God’s forgiveness to himself.”

The sin against the Holy Spirit is not to be regarded simply as an isolated act, but also as the external symptom of a heart so radically and finally set against God that no power which God can consistently use will ever save it. This sin, therefore, can be only the culmination of a long course of self-hardening and self-depraving. He who has committed it must be either profoundly indifferent to his own condition, or actively and bitterly hostile to God; so that anxiety or fear on account of one’s condition is evidence that it has not been committed. The sin against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven, simply because the soul that has committed it has ceased to be receptive of divine influences, even when those influences are exerted in the utmost strength which God has seen fit to employ in his spiritual administration.

The commission of this sin is marked by a loss of spiritual sight; the blind fish of the Mammoth Cave left light for darkness, and so in time lost their eyes. It is marked by a loss of religious sensibility; the sensitive-plant loses Its sensitiveness, in proportion to the frequency with which it is touched. It is marked by a loss of power to will the good; “the lava hardens after it has broken from the crater, and in that state cannot return to its source” (Van Oosterzee). The same writer also remarks (Dogmatics, 2:438): “Herod Antipas, after earlier doubt and slavishness, reached such deadness as to be able to mock the Savior, at the mention of whose name he had not long before trembled.” Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:425—“It is not that divine grace is absolutely refused to any one who in true penitence asks forgiveness of this sin; but he who commits it never fulfills the subjective conditions upon which forgiveness is possible, because the aggravation of sin to this ultimatum destroys in him all susceptibility of repentance. The way of return to God is closed against no one who does not close it against himself.” Drummond, Natural Law in the Spiritual World, 97-120, illustrates the downward progress of the sinner by the law of degeneration in the vegetable and animal world: pigeons, roses, strawberries, all tend to revert to the primitive and wild type. “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation?” (Heb.2:3). Shakespeare, Macbeth, 3:5—“You all know security Is mortals’ chiefest enemy.” Moulton, Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist, 90-124—“Richard III is the ideal villain. Villainy has become an end in itself. Richard is an artist in villainy. He lacks the emotions naturally attending crime. He regards villainy with the intellectual enthusiasm of the artist. His villainy is ideal in its success. There is a fascination of irresistibility in him. He is imperturbable in his crime. There is no effort, but rather humor, in it; a recklessness which suggests boundless resources; an inspiration which excludes calculation. Shakespeare relieves the representation from the charge of monstrosity by turning all this villainous history into the unconscious development of Nemesis.” See also A. H. Strong, Great Poets, 188-193. Robert Browning’s Guido, in The Ring and the Book, is an example of pure hatred of the good. Guido hates Pompilia for her goodness, and declares that, if he catches her in the next world, he will murder her there, as he murdered her here. Alexander VI, the father of Cæsar and Lucrezia Borgia, the pope of cruelty and lust, wore yet to the day of his death the look of unfailing joyousness and geniality, yes, of even retiring sensitiveness and modesty. No fear or reproach of conscience seemed to throw gloom over his life, as in the cases of Tiberius and Louis XI. He believed himself under the special protection of the Virgin, although he had her painted with the features of his paramour, Julia Farnese. He never scrupled at false witness, adultery, or murder. See Gregorovius, Lucrezia Borgia, 294, 295. Jeremy Taylor thus describes the progress of sin in the sinner: “First it startles him, then it becomes pleasing, then delightful, then frequent, then habitual, then confirmed; then the man is impenitent, then obstinate, then resolved never to repent, then damned.” There is a state of utter insensibility to emotions of love or fear, and man by his sin may reach that state. The act of blasphemy is only the expression of a hardened or a hateful heart. B. H. Payne: “The calcium flame will char the steel wire so that it is no longer affected by the magnet.... As the blazing cinders and black curling smoke which the volcano spews from its rumbling throat are the accumulation of months and years, so the sin against the Holy Spirit is not a thoughtless expression in a moment of passion or rage, but the giving vent to a state of heart and mind abounding in the accumulations of weeks and months of opposition to the gospel.” Dr. J. P. Thompson: “The unpardonable sin is the knowing, wilful, persistent, contemptuous, malignant spurning of divine truth and grace, as manifested to the soul by the convincing and illuminating power of the Holy Ghost.” Dorner says that “therefore this sin does not belong to Old Testament times, or to the mere revelation of law. It implies the full revelation of the grace in Christ, and the conscious rejection of it by a soul to which the Spirit has made it manifest (Acts 17:30—‘The times of ignorance, therefore, God overlooked’; Rom. 3:25—‘the passing over of the sins done aforetime’).” But was it not under the Old Testament that God said: “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever” (Gen. 6:3), and “Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone” (Hosea 4:17)? The sin against the Holy Ghost is a sin against grace, but it does not appear to be limited to New Testament times. It is still true that the unpardonable sin is a sin committed against the Holy Spirit rather than against Christ: Mat. 12:32—“whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever shall speak against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come.” Jesus warns the Jews against it,—he does not say they had already committed it. They would seem to have committed it when, after Pentecost, they added to their rejection of Christ the rejection of the Holy Spirit’s witness to Christ’s resurrection. See Schaff, Sin against the Holy Ghost; Lemme, Sünde wider den Heiligen Geist; Davis, in Bap. Rev., 1862:317-326; Nitzsch, Christian Doctrine, 283-289. On the general subject of kinds of sin and degrees of guilt, see Kahnis, Dogmatik, 3:284, 298.

1. Idea of penalty.

By penalty, we mean that pain or loss which is directly or indirectly inflicted by the Lawgiver, in vindication of his justice outraged by the violation of law.

Turretin, 1:213—“Justice necessarily demands that all sin be punished, but it does not equally demand that it be punished in the very person that sinned, or in just such time and degree.” So far as this statement of the great Federal theologian is intended to explain our guilt in Adam and our justification in Christ, we can assent to his words; but we must add that the reason, in each case, why we suffer the penalty of Adam’s sin, and Christ suffers the penalty of our sins, is not to be found in any covenant-relation, but rather in the fact that the sinner is one with Adam, and Christ is one with the believer,—in other words, not covenant-unity, but life-unity. The word “penalty,” like “pain,” is derived from pœna, ποινή, and it implies the correlative notion of desert. As under the divine government there can be no constructive guilt, so there can be no penalty inflicted by legal fiction. Christ’s sufferings were penalty, not arbitrarily inflicted, nor yet borne to expiate personal guilt, but as the just due of the human nature with which he had united himself, and a part of which he was. Prof. Wm. Adams Brown: “Loss, not suffering, is the supreme penalty for Christians. The real penalty is separation from God. If such separation involves suffering, that is a sign of God’s mercy, for where there is life, there is hope. Suffering is always to be interpreted as an appeal from God to man.”

In this definition it is implied that:

A. The natural consequences of transgression, although they constitute a part of the penalty of sin, do not exhaust that penalty. In all penalty there is a personal element—the holy wrath of the Lawgiver,—which natural consequences but partially express.

We do not deny, but rather assert, that the natural consequences of transgression are a part of the penalty of sin. Sensual sins are punished, in the deterioration and corruption of the body; mental and spiritual sins, in the deterioration and corruption of the soul. Prov. 5:22—“His own iniquities shall take the wicked, And he shall be holden with the cords of his sin”—as the hunter is caught in the toils which he has devised for the wild beast. Sin is self-detecting and self-tormenting. But this is only half the truth. Those who would confine all penalty to the reaction of natural laws are in danger of forgetting that God is not simply immanent in the universe, but is also transcendent, and that “to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31) is to fall into the hands, not simply of the law, but also of the Lawgiver. Natural law is only the regular expression of God’s mind and will. We abhor a person who is foul in body and in speech. There is no penalty of sin more dreadful than its being an object of abhorrence to God. Jer. 44:4—“Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate!” Add to this the law of continuity which makes sin reproduce itself, and the law of conscience which makes sin its own detecter, judge, and tormentor, and we have sufficient evidence of God’s wrath against it, apart from any external inflictions. The divine feeling toward sin is seen in Jesus’ scourging the traffickers in the temple, his denunciation of the Pharisees, his weeping over Jerusalem, his agony in Gethsemane. Imagine the feeling of a father toward his daughter’s betrayer, and God’s feeling toward sin may be faintly understood. The deed returns to the doer, and character determines destiny—this law is a revelation of the righteousness of God. Penalty will vindicate the divine character in the long run, though not always in time. This is recognized in all religions. Buddhist priest in Japan: “The evil doer weaves a web around himself, as the silkworm weaves its cocoon.” Socrates made Circe’s turning of men into swine a mere parable of the self-brutalizing influence of sin. In Dante’s Inferno, the punishments are all of them the sins themselves; hence men are in hell before they die. Hegel: “Penalty is the other half of crime.” R. W. Emerson: “Punishment not follows, but accompanies, crime.” Sagebeer, The Bible in Court, 59—“Corruption is destruction, and the sinner is a suicide; penalty corresponds with transgression and is the outcome of it; sin is death in the making; death is sin in the final infliction.” J. B. Thomas, Baptist Congress, 1901:110—“What matters it whether I wait by night for the poacher and deliberately shoot him, or whether I set the pistol so that he shall be shot by it when he commits the depredation?” Tennyson, Sea Dreams: “His gain is loss; for he that wrongs his friend Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about A silent court of justice in his breast, Himself the judge and jury, and himself The prisoner at the bar, ever condemn’d: And that drags down his life: then comes what comes Hereafter.”

B. The object of penalty is not the reformation of the offender or the ensuring of social or governmental safety. These ends may be incidentally secured through its infliction, but the great end of penalty is the vindication of the character of the Lawgiver. Penalty is essentially a necessary reaction of the divine holiness against sin. Inasmuch, however, as wrong views of the object of penalty have so important a bearing upon our future studies of doctrine, we make fuller mention of the two erroneous theories which have greatest currency.

(a) Penalty is not essentially reformatory.—By this we mean that the reformation of the offender is not its primary design,—as penalty, it is not intended to reform. Penalty, in itself, proceeds not from the love and mercy of the Lawgiver, but from his justice. Whatever reforming influences may in any given instance be connected with it are not parts of the penalty, but are mitigations of it, and they are added not in justice but in grace. If reformation follows the infliction of penalty, it is not the effect of the penalty, but the effect of certain benevolent agencies which have been provided to turn into a means of good what naturally would be to the offender only a source of harm.

That the object of penalty is not reformation appears from Scripture, where punishment is often referred to God’s justice, but never to God’s love; from the intrinsic ill-desert of sin, to which penalty is correlative; from the fact that punishment must be vindicative, in order to be disciplinary, and just, in order to be reformatory; from the fact that upon this theory punishment would not be just when the sinner was already reformed or could not be reformed, so that the greater the sin the less the punishment must be.

Punishment is essentially different from chastisement. The latter proceeds from love (Jer. 10:24—“correct me, but in measure; not in thine anger”; Heb. 12:6—“Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth”). Punishment proceeds not from love but from justice—see Ez. 28:22—“I shall have executed judgments in her, and shall be sanctified in her”; 36:21, 22—in judgment, “I do not this for your sake, but for my holy name”; Heb. 12:29—“our God is a consuming fire”; Rev. 15:1, 4—“wrath of God ... thou only art holy ... thy righteous acts have been made manifest”; 16:5—“Righteous art thou, ... thou Holy One, because thou didst thus judge”; 19:2—“true and righteous are his judgments; for he hath judged the great harlot.” So untrue is the saying of Sir Thomas More’s Utopia: “The end of all punishment is the destruction of vice, and the saving of men.” Luther: “God has two rods: one of mercy and goodness; another of anger and fury.” Chastisement is the former; penalty the latter. If the reform-theory of penalty is correct, then to punish crime, without asking about reformation, makes the state the transgressor; its punishments should be proportioned, not to the greatness of the crime, but to the sinner’s state; the death-penalty should be abolished, upon the ground that it will preclude all hope of reformation. But the same theory would abolish any final judgment, or eternal punishment; for, when the soul becomes so wicked that there is no more hope of reform, there is no longer any justice in punishing it. The greater the sin, the less the punishment; and Satan, the greatest sinner, should have no punishment at all. Modern denunciations of capital punishment are often based upon wrong conceptions of the object of penalty. Opposition to the doctrine of future punishment would give way, if the opposers realized what penalty is ordained to secure. Harris, God the Creator, 2:447, 451—“Punishment is not primarily reformatory; it educates conscience and vindicates the authority of law.” R. W. Dale: “It is not necessary to prove that hanging is beneficial to the person hanged. The theory that society has no right to send a man to jail, to feed him on bread and water, to make him pick hemp or work a treadmill, except to reform him, is utterly rotten. He must deserve to be punished, or else the law has no right to punish him.” A House of Refuge or a State Industrial School is primarily a penal institution, for it deprives persons of their liberty and compels them against their will to labor. This loss and deprivation on their part cannot be justified except upon the ground that it is the desert of their wrong doing. Whatever gracious and philanthropic influences may accompany this confinement and compulsion, they cannot of themselves explain the penal element in the institution. If they could, a habeas corpus decree could be sought, and obtained, from any competent court. God’s treatment of men in this world also combines the elements of penalty and of chastisement. Suffering is first of all deserved, and this justifies its infliction. But it is at the beginning accompanied with all manner of alleviating influences which tend to draw men back to God. As these gracious influences are resisted, the punitive element becomes preponderating, and penalty reflects God’s holiness rather than his love. Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 1-25—“Pain is not the immediate object of punishment. It must be a means to an end, a moral end, namely, penitence. But where the depraved man becomes a human tiger, there punishment must reach its culmination. There is a punishment which is not restorative. According to the spirit in which punishment is received, it may be internal or external. All punishment begins as discipline. It tends to repentance. Its triumph would be the triumph within. It becomes retributive only as the sinner refuses to repent. Punishment is only the development of sin. The ideal penitent condemns himself, identifies himself with righteousness by accepting penalty. In proportion as penalty fails in its purpose to produce penitence, it acquires more and more a retributive character, whose climax is not Calvary but Hell.” Alexander, Moral Order and Progress, 327-333 (quoted in Ritchie, Darwin, and Hegel, 67)—“Punishment has three characters: It is retributive, in so far as it falls under the general law that resistance to the dominant type recoils on the guilty or resistant creature; it is preventive, in so far as, being a statutory enactment, it aims at securing the maintenance of the law irrespective of the individual’s character. But this latter characteristic is secondary, and the former is comprehended in the third idea, that of reformation, which is the superior form in which retribution appears when the type is a mental ideal and is affected by conscious persons.” Hyslop on Freedom, Responsibility, and Punishment, in Mind, April, 1894:167-189—“In the Elmira Reformatory, out of 2295 persons paroled between 1876 and 1889, 1907 or 83 per cent. represent a probably complete reformation. Determinists say that this class of persons cannot do otherwise. Something is wrong with their theory. We conclude that 1. Causal responsibility justifies preventive punishment; 2. Potential moral responsibility justifies corrective punishment; 3. Actual moral responsibility justifies retributive punishment.” Here we need only to point out the incorrect use of the word “punishment,” which belongs only to the last class. In the two former cases the word “chastisement” should have been used. See Julius Müller, Lehre von der Sünde, 1:334; Thornton, Old Fashioned Ethics, 70-73; Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:238, 239 (Syst. Doct., 3:134,135); Robertson’s Sermons, 4th Series, no. 18 (Harper’s ed., 752); see also this Compendium, references on Holiness, A. (d), page 273.

(b) Penalty is not essentially deterrent and preventive.—By this we mean that its primary design is not to protect society, by deterring men from the commission of like offences. We grant that this end is often secured in connection with punishment, both in family and civil government and under the government of God. But we claim that this is a merely incidental result, which God’s wisdom and goodness have connected with the infliction of penalty,—it cannot be the reason and ground for penalty itself. Some of the objections to the preceding theory apply also to this. But in addition to what has been said, we urge:

Penalty cannot be primarily designed to secure social and governmental safety, for the reason that it is never right to punish the individual simply for the good of society. No punishment, moreover, will or can do good to others that is not just and right in itself. Punishment does good, only when the person punished deserves punishment; and that desert of punishment, and not the good effects that will follow it, must be the ground and reason why it is inflicted. The contrary theory would imply that the criminal might go free but for the effect of his punishment on others, and that man might rightly commit crime if only he were willing to bear the penalty.

Kant, Praktische Vernunft, 151 (ed. Rosenkranz)—“The notion of ill-desert and punishableness is necessarily implied in the idea of voluntary transgression; and the idea of punishment excludes that of happiness in all its forms. For though he who inflicts punishment may, it is true, also have a benevolent purpose to produce by the punishment some good effect upon the criminal, yet the punishment must be justified first of all as pure and simple requital and retribution.... In every punishment as such, justice is the very first thing and constitutes the essence of it. A benevolent purpose, it is true, may be conjoined with punishment; but the criminal cannot claim this as his due, and he has no right to reckon on it.” These utterances of Kant apply to the deterrent theory as well as to the reformatory theory of penalty. The element of desert or retribution is the basis of the other elements in punishment. See James Seth, Ethical Principles, 333-338; Shedd, Dogm. Theology, 2:717; Hodge, Essays, 133. A certain English judge, in sentencing a criminal, said that he punished him, not for stealing sheep, but that sheep might not be stolen. But it is the greatest injustice to punish a man for the mere sake of example. Society cannot be benefited by such injustice. The theory can give no reason why one should be punished rather than another, nor why a second offence should be punished more heavily than the first. On this theory, moreover, if there were but one creature in the universe, and none existed beside himself to be affected by his suffering, he could not justly be punished, however great might be his sin. The only principle that can explain punishment is the principle of desert. See Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, 2:348. “Crime is most prevented by the conviction that crime deserves punishment; the greatest deterrent agency is conscience.” So in the government of God “there is no hint that future punishment works good to the lost or to the universe. The integrity of the redeemed is not to be maintained by subjecting the lost to a punishment they do not deserve. The wrong merits punishment, and God is bound to punish it, whether good comes of it or not. Sin is intrinsically ill-deserving. Impurity must be banished from God. God must vindicate himself, or cease to be holy” (see art. on the Philosophy of Punishment, by F. L. Patton, in Brit. and For. Evang. Rev., Jan. 1878:126-139). Bowne, Principles of Ethics, 186, 274—Those who maintain punishment to be essentially deterrent and preventive “ignore the metaphysics of responsibility and treat the problem ‘positively and objectively’ on the basis of physiology, sociology, etc., and in the interests of public safety. The question of guilt or innocence is as irrelevant as the question concerning the guilt or innocence of wasps and hornets. An ancient holder of this view set forth the opinion that ‘it was expedient that one man should die for the people’ (John 18:14), and so Jesus was put to death.... A mob in eastern Europe might be persuaded that a Jew had slaughtered a Christian child as a sacrifice. The authorities might be perfectly sure of the man’s innocence, and yet proceed to punish him because of the mob’s clamor, and the danger of an outbreak.” Men high up in the French government thought it was better that Dreyfus should suffer for the sake of France, than that a scandal affecting the honor of the French army should be made public. In perfect consistency with this principle, McKim, Heredity and Human Progress, 192, advocates infliction of painless death upon idiots, imbeciles, epileptics, habitual drunkards, insane criminals, murderers, nocturnal house breakers, and all dangerous and incorrigible persons. He would change the place of slaughter from our streets and homes to our penal institutions; in other words, he would abandon punishment, but protect society. Failure to recognize holiness as the fundamental attribute of God, and the affirmation of that holiness as conditioning the exercise of love, vitiates the discussion of penalty by A. H. Bradford, Age of Faith, 243-250—“What is penal suffering designed to accomplish? Is it to manifest the holiness of God? Is it to express the sanctity of the moral law? Is it simply a natural consequence? Does it manifest the divine Fatherhood? God does not inflict penalty simply to satisfy himself or to manifest his holiness, any more than an earthly father inflicts suffering on his child to show his wrath against the wrongdoer or to manifest his own goodness. The idea of punishment is essentially barbaric and foreign to all that is known of the Deity. Penalty that is not reformatory or protective is barbarism. In the home, punishment is always discipline. Its object is the welfare of the child and the family. Punishment as an expression of wrath or enmity, with no remedial purpose beyond, is a relic of barbarism. It carries with it the content of vengeance. It is the expression of anger, of passion, or at best of cold justice. Penal suffering is undoubtedly the divine holiness expressing its hatred of sin. But, if it stops with such expression, it is not holiness, but selfishness. If on the other hand that expression of holiness is used or permitted in order that the sinner may be made to hate his sin, then it is no more punishment, but chastisement. On any other hypothesis, penal suffering has no justification except the arbitrary will of the Almighty, and such a hypothesis is an impeachment both of his justice and his love.” This view seems to us to ignore the necessary reaction of divine holiness against sin; to make holiness a mere form of love; a means to an end and that end utilitarian; and so to deny to holiness any independent, or even real, existence in the divine nature. The wrath of God is calm and judicial, devoid of all passion or caprice, but it is the expression of eternal and unchangeable righteousness. It is vindicative but not vindictive. Without it there could be no government, and God would not be God. F. W. Robertson: “Does not the element of vengeance exist in all punishment, and does not the feeling exist, not as a sinful, but as an essential, part of human nature? If so, there must be wrath in God.” Lord Bacon: “Revenge is a wild sort of justice.” Stephen: “Criminal law provides legitimate satisfaction of the passions of revenge.” Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 1:287. Per contra, see Bib. Sac., Apr. 1881:286-302; H. B. Smith, System of Theology, 46, 47; Chitty’s ed. of Blackstone’s Commentaries, 4:7; Wharton, Criminal Law, vol. 1, bk. 1, chap. 1.

2. The actual penalty of sin.

The one word in Scripture which designates the total penalty of sin is “death.” Death, however, is twofold:

A. Physical death,—or the separation of the soul from the body, including all those temporal evils and sufferings which result from disturbance of the original harmony between body and soul, and which are the working of death in us. That physical death is a part of the penalty of sin, appears:

(a) From Scripture.

This is the most obvious import of the threatening in Gen. 2:17—“thou shalt surely die”; cf. 3:19—“unto dust shalt thou return.” Allusions to this threat in the O. T. confirm this interpretation: Num. 16:29—“visited after the visitation of all men,” where פקד = judicial visitation, or punishment; 27:3 (LXX.—δι᾽ ἁμαρτίαν αὐτοῦ). The prayer of Moses in Ps. 90: 7-9, 11, and the prayer of Hezekiah in Is. 38:17, 18, recognize plainly the penal nature of death. The same doctrine is taught in the N. T., as for example, John 8:44; Rom. 5:12, 14, 16, 17, where the judicial phraseology is to be noted (cf. 1:32); see 6:23 also. In 1 Pet. 4:6, physical death is spoken of as God’s judgment against sin. In 1 Cor. 15:21, 22, the bodily resurrection of all believers, in Christ, is contrasted with the bodily death of all men, in Adam. Rom. 4:24, 25; 6:9, 10; 8:3, 10, 11; Gal. 3:13, show that Christ submitted to physical death as the penalty of sin, and by his resurrection from the grave gave proof that the penalty of sin was exhausted and that humanity in him was justified. “As the resurrection of the body is a part of the redemption, so the death of the body is a part of the penalty.”

Ps. 90:7, 9—“we are consumed in thine anger ... all our days are passed away in thy wrath”; Is. 38:17, 18—“thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit ... thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. For Sheol cannot praise thee”; John 8:44—“He [Satan] was a murderer from the beginning”; 11:33—Jesus “groaned in the spirit” = was moved with indignation at what sin had wrought; Rom. 5:12, 14, 16, 17—“death through sin ... death passed unto all men, for that all sinned ... death reigned ... even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam’s transgression ... the judgment came of one [trespass] unto condemnation ... by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one”; cf. the legal phraseology in 1:32—“who, knowing the ordinance of God, that they that practise such things are worthy of death.” Rom. 6:23—“the wages of sin is death” = death is sin’s just due. 1 Pet. 4:6—“that they might be judged indeed according to men in the flesh” = that they might suffer physical death, which to men in general is the penalty of sin. 1 Cor. 15:21, 22—“as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive”; Rom. 4:24, 25—“raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification”; 6:9, 10—“Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death no more hath dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died unto sin once: but the life that he liveth, he liveth unto God”; 8:3, 10, 11—“God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh ... the body is dead because of sin” (= a corpse, on account of sin—Meyer; so Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:291) ... “he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your mortal bodies”; Gal. 3:13—“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” On the relation between death and sin, see Griffith-Jones, Ascent through Christ, 169-185—“They are not antagonistic, but complementary to each other—the one spiritual and the other biological. The natural fact is fitted to a moral use.” Savage, Life after Death, 33—“Men did not at first believe in natural death. If a man died, it was because some one had killed him. No ethical reason was desired or needed. At last however they sought some moral explanation, and came to look upon death as a punishment for human sin.” If this has been the course of human evolution, we should conclude that the later belief represents the truth rather than the earlier. Scripture certainly affirms the doctrine that death itself, and not the mere accompaniments of death, is the consequence and penalty of sin. For this reason we cannot accept the very attractive and plausible theory which we have now to mention: Newman Smyth, Place of Death in Evolution, holds that as the bow in the cloud was appointed for a moral use, so death, which before had been simply the natural law of the creation, was on occasion of man’s sin appointed for a moral use. It is this acquired moral character of death with which Biblical Genesis has to do. Death becomes a curse, by being a fear and a torment. Animals have not this fear. But in man death stirs up conscience. Redemption takes away the fear, and death drops back into its natural aspect, or even becomes a gateway to life. Death is a curse to no animal but man. The retributive element to death is the effect of sin. When man has become perfected, death will cease to be of use, and will, as the last enemy, be destroyed. Death here is Nature’s method of securing always fresh, young, thrifty life, and the greatest possible exuberance and joy of it. It is God’s way of securing the greatest possible number and variety of immortal beings. There are many schoolrooms for eternity in God’s universe, and a ceaseless succession of scholars through them. There are many folds, but one flock. The reaper Death keeps making room. Four or five generations are as many as we can individually love, and get moral stimulus from. Methuselahs too many would hold back the new generations. Bagehot says that civilization needs first to form a cake of custom, and secondly to break it up. Death, says Martineau, Study, 1:372-374, is the provision for taking us abroad, before we have stayed too long at home to lose our receptivity. Death is the liberator of souls. The death of successive generations gives variety to heaven. Death perfects love, reveals it to itself, unites as life could not. As for Christ, so for us, it is expedient that we should go away. While we welcome this reasoning as showing how God has overruled evil for good, we regard the explanation as unscriptural and unsatisfactory, for the reason that it takes no account of the ethics of natural law. The law of death is an expression of the nature of God, and specially of his holy wrath against sin. Other methods of propagating the race and reinforcing its life could have been adopted than that which involves pain and suffering and death. These do not exist in the future life,—they would not exist here, if it were not for the fact of sin. Dr. Smyth shows how the evil of death has been overruled,—he has not shown the reason for the original existence of the evil. The Scriptures explain this as the penalty and stigma which God has attached to sin: Psalm 90:7, 8 makes this plain: “For we are consumed in thine anger, And in thy wrath are we troubled. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, Our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.” The whole psalm has for its theme: Death as the wages of sin. And this is the teaching of Paul, in Rom. 5:12—“through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin.”

(b) From reason.

The universal prevalence of suffering and death among rational creatures cannot be reconciled with the divine justice, except upon the supposition that it is a judicial infliction on account of a common sinfulness of nature belonging even to those who have not reached moral consciousness.

The objection that death existed in the animal creation before the Fall may be answered by saying that, but for the fact of man’s sin, it would not have existed. We may believe that God arranged even the geologic history to correspond with the foreseen fact of human apostasy (cf. Rom. 8:20-23—where the creation is said to have been made subject to vanity by reason of man’s sin).

On Rom. 8:20-23—“the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will”—see Meyer’s Com., and Bap. Quar., 1:143; also Gen. 3:17-19—“cursed is the ground for thy sake.” See also note on the Relation of Creation to the Holiness and Benevolence of God, and references, pages 402, 403. As the vertebral structure of the first fish was an “anticipative consequence” of man, so the suffering and death of fish pursued and devoured by other fish were an “anticipative consequence” of man’s foreseen war with God and with himself.

The translation of Enoch and Elijah, and of the saints that remain at Christ’s second coming, seems intended to teach us that death is not a necessary law of organized being, and to show what would have happened to Adam if he had been obedient. He was created a “natural,” “earthly” body, but might have attained a higher being, the “spiritual,” “heavenly” body, without the intervention of death. Sin, however, has turned the normal condition of things into the rare exception (cf. 1 Cor. 15:42-50). Since Christ endured death as the penalty of sin, death to the Christian becomes the gateway through which he enters into full communion with his Lord (see references below).

Through physical death all Christians will pass, except those few who like Enoch and Elijah were translated, and those many who shall be alive at Christ’s second coming. Enoch and Elijah were possible types of those surviving saints. On 1 Cor. 15:51—“We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,” see Edward Irving, Works, 5:135. The apocryphal Assumption of Moses, verse 9, tells us that Joshua, being carried in vision to the spot at the moment of Moses’ decease, beheld a double Moses, one dropped into the grave as belonging to the earth, the other mingling with the angels. The belief in Moses’ immortality was not conditioned upon any resuscitation of the earthly corpse; see Martineau, Seat of Authority, 364. When Paul was caught up to the third heaven, it may have been a temporary translation of the disembodied spirit. Set free for a brief space from the prison house which confined it, it may have passed within the veil and have seen and heard what mortal tongue could not describe; see Luckock, Intermediate State, 4. So Lazarus probably could not tell what he saw: “He told it not; or something sealed The lips of that Evangelist”; see Tennyson, In Memoriam, xxxi. Nicoll, Life of Christ: “We have every one of us to face the last enemy, death. Ever since the world began, all who have entered it sooner or later have had this struggle, and the battle has always ended in one way. Two indeed escaped, but they did not escape by meeting and mastering their foe; they escaped by being taken away from the battle.” But this physical death, for the Christian, has been turned by Christ into a blessing. A pardoned prisoner may be still kept in prison, as the best possible benefit to an exhausted body; so the external fact of physical death may remain, although it has ceased to be penalty. Macaulay: “The aged prisoner’s chains are needed to support him; the darkness that has weakened his sight is necessary to preserve it.” So spiritual death is not wholly removed from the Christian; a part of it, namely, depravity, still remains; yet it has ceased to be punishment,—it is only chastisement. When the finger unties the ligature that bound it, the body which previously had only chastised begins to cure the trouble. There is still pain, but the pain is no longer punitive,—it is now remedial. In the midst of the whipping, when the boy repents, his punishment is changed to chastisement. John 14:3—“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also”; 1 Cor. 15:54-57—“Death is swallowed up in victory ... O death, where is thy sting? The sting of death is sin; and the power of sin is the law”—i. e., the law’s condemnation, its penal infliction; 2 Cor. 5:1-9—“For we know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved we have a building from God ... we are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord”; Phil. 1:21, 23—“to die is gain ... having the desire to depart and be with Christ; for it is very far better.” In Christ and his bearing the penalty of sin, the Christian has broken through the circle of natural race-connection, and is saved from corporate evil so far as it is punishment. The Christian may be chastised, but he is never punished: Rom. 8:1—“There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” At the house of Jairus Jesus said: “Why make ye a tumult, and weep?” and having reproved the doleful clamorists, “he put them all forth” (Mark 5:39, 40). The wakes and requiems and masses and vigils of the churches of Rome and of Russia are all heathen relics, entirely foreign to Christianity. Palmer, Theological Definition, 57—“Death feared and fought against is terrible; but a welcome to death is the death of death and the way to life.” The idea that punishment yet remains for the Christian is “the bridge to the papal doctrine of purgatorial fires.” Browning’s words, in The Ring and the Book, 2:60—“In His face is light, but in his shadow healing too,” are applicable to God’s fatherly chastenings, but not to his penal retributions. On Acts 7:60—“he fell asleep”—Arnot remarks: “When death becomes the property of the believer, it receives a new name, and is called sleep.” Another has said: “Christ did not send, but came himself to save; The ransom-price he did not lend, but gave; Christ died, the shepherd for the sheep; We only fall asleep.” Per contra, see Kreibig, Versöhnungslehre, 375, and Hengstenberg, Ev. K.-Z., 1864:1065—“All suffering is punishment.”

B. Spiritual death,—or the separation of the soul from God, including all that pain of conscience, loss of peace, and sorrow of spirit, which result from disturbance of the normal relation between the soul and God.

(a) Although physical death is a part of the penalty of sin, it is by no means the chief part. The term “death” is frequently used in Scripture in a moral and spiritual sense, as denoting the absence of that which constitutes the true life of the soul, namely, the presence and favor of God.

Mat. 8:22—“Follow me; and leave the [spiritually] dead to bury their own [physically] dead”; Luke 15:32—“this thy brother was dead, and is alive again”; John 5:24—“He that heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life”; 8:51—“If a man keep my word, he shall never see death”; Rom. 8:13—“if ye live after the flesh, ye must die; but if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live”; Eph. 2:1—“when ye were dead through your trespasses and sins”; 5:14—“Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead”; 1 Tim. 5:6—“she that giveth herself to pleasure is dead while __ she liveth”; James 5:20—“he who converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death”; 1 John 3:14—“He that loveth not abideth in death”; Rev. 3:1—“thou hast a name that thou livest, and thou art dead.”

(b) It cannot be doubted that the penalty denounced in the garden and fallen upon the race is primarily and mainly that death of the soul which consists in its separation from God. In this sense only, death was fully visited upon Adam in the day on which he ate the forbidden fruit (Gen. 2:17). In this sense only, death is escaped by the Christian (John 11:26). For this reason, in the parallel between Adam and Christ (Rom. 5:12-21), the apostle passes from the thought of mere physical death in the early part of the passage to that of both physical and spiritual death at its close (verse 21—“as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”—where “eternal life” is more than endless physical existence, and “death” is more than death of the body).

Gen. 2:17—“in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”; John 11:26—“whosoever liveth and believeth on me shall never die”; Rom. 5:14, 18, 21—“justification of life ... eternal life”; contrast these with “death reigned ... sin reigned in death.”

(c) Eternal death may be regarded as the culmination and completion of spiritual death, and as essentially consisting in the correspondence of the outward condition with the inward state of the evil soul (Acts 1:25). It would seem to be inaugurated by some peculiar repellent energy of the divine holiness (Mat. 25:41; 2 Thess. 1:9), and to involve positive retribution visited by a personal God upon both the body and the soul of the evil-doer (Mat. 10:28; Heb. 10:31; Rev. 14:11).

Acts 1:25—“Judas fell away, that he might go to his own place”; Mat. 25:41—“Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels”; 2 Thess. 1:9—“who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might”; Mat. 10:28—“fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell”; Heb. 10:31—“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God”; Rev. 14:11—“the smoke of their torment goeth up for ever and ever.” Kurtz, Religionslehre, 67—“So long as God is holy, he must maintain the order of the world, and where this is destroyed, restore it. This however can happen in no other way than this: the injury by which the sinner has destroyed the order of the world falls back upon himself,—and this is penalty. Sin is the negation of the law. Penalty is the negation of that negation, that is, the reëstablishment of the law. Sin is a thrust of the sinner against the law. Penalty is the adverse thrust of the elastic because living law, which encounters the sinner.” Plato, Gorgias, 472 E; 509 B; 511 A; 515 B—“Impunity is a more dreadful curse than any punishment, and nothing so good can befall the criminal as his retribution, the failure of which would make a double disorder in the universe. The offender himself may spend his arts in devices of escape and think himself happy if he is not found out. But all this plotting is but part of the delusion of his sin; and when he comes to himself and sees his transgression as it really is, he will yield himself up the prisoner of eternal justice and know that it is good for him to be afflicted, and so for the first time to be set at one with truth.” On the general subject of the penalty of sin, see Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 1:245 sq.; 2:286-397; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 263-279; Bushnell, Nature and the Supernatural, 194-219; Krabbe, Lehre von der Sünde und vom Tode; Weisse, in Studien und Kritiken, 1836:371; S. R. Mason, Truth Unfolded, 369-384; Bartlett, in New Englander, Oct. 1871:677, 678.

Section VII.—The Salvation Of Infants.

The views which have been presented with regard to inborn depravity and the reaction of divine holiness against it suggest the question whether infants dying before arriving at moral consciousness are saved, and if so, in what way. To this question we reply as follows:

(a) Infants are in a state of sin, need to be regenerated, and can be saved only through Christ.

Job 14:4—“Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one”; Ps. 51:5—“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity; And in sin did my mother conceive me”; John 3:6—“That which is born of the flesh is flesh”; Rom. 5:14—“Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam’s transgression”; Eph. 2:3—“by nature children of wrath”; 1 Cor. 7:14—“else were your children unclean”—clearly intimate the naturally impure state of infants; and Mat. 19:14—“Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me”—is not only consistent with this doctrine, but strongly confirms it; for the meaning is: “forbid them not to come unto me”—whom they need as a Savior. “Coming to Christ” is always the coming of a sinner, to him who is the sacrifice for sin; cf. Mat. 11:28—“Come unto me, all ye that labor.”

(b) Yet as compared with those who have personally transgressed, they are recognized as possessed of a relative innocence, and of a submissiveness and trustfulness, which may serve to illustrate the graces of Christian character.

Deut 1:39—“your little ones ... and your children, that this day have no knowledge of good or evil”; Jonah 4:11—“sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand”; Rom. 9:11—“for the children being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad”; Mat. 18:3, 4—“Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” See Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:265. Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, 2:50—“Unpretentious receptivity, ... not the reception of the kingdom of God at a childlike age, but in a childlike character ... is the condition of entering; ... not blamelessness, but receptivity itself, on the part of those who do not regard themselves as too good or too bad for the offered gift, but receive it with hearty desire. Children have this unpretentious receptivity for the kingdom of God which is characteristic of them generally, since they have not yet other possessions on which they pride themselves.”

(c) For this reason, they are the objects of special divine compassion and care, and through the grace of Christ are certain of salvation.

Mat. 18:5, 6, 10, 14—“whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me: but whoso shall cause one of these little ones that believe on me to stumble, it is profitable for him that a great millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be sunk in the depth of the sea.... See that ye despise not one of these little ones: for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven.... Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish”; 19:14—“Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for to such belongeth the kingdom of heaven”—not God’s kingdom of nature, but his kingdom of grace, the kingdom of saved sinners. “Such” means, not children as children, but childlike believers. Meyer, on Mat. 19:14, refers the passage to spiritual infants only: “Not little children,” he says, “but men of a childlike disposition.” Geikie: “Let the little children come unto me, and do not forbid them, for the kingdom of heaven is given only to such as have a childlike spirit and nature like theirs.” The Savior’s words do not intimate that little children are either (1) sinless creatures, or (2) subjects for baptism; but only that their (1) humble teachableness, (2) intense eagerness, and (3) artless trust, illustrate the traits necessary for admission into the divine kingdom. On the passages in Matthew, see Commentaries of Bengel, De Wette, Lange; also Neander, Planting and Training (ed. Robinson), 407. We therefore substantially agree with Dr. A. C. Kendrick, in his article in the Sunday School Times: “To infants and children, as such, the language cannot apply. It must be taken figuratively, and must refer to those qualities in childhood, its dependence, its trustfulness, its tender affection, its loving obedience, which are typical of the essential Christian graces.... If asked after the logic of our Savior’s words—how he could assign, as a reason for allowing literal little children to be brought to him, that spiritual little children have a claim to the kingdom of heaven—I reply: the persons that thus, as a class, typify the subjects of God’s spiritual kingdom cannot be in themselves objects of indifference to him, or be regarded otherwise than with intense interest.... The class that in its very nature thus shadows forth the brightest features of Christian excellence must be subjects of God’s special concern and care.” To these remarks of Dr. Kendrick we would add, that Jesus’ words seem to us to intimate more than special concern and care. While these words seem intended to exclude all idea that infants are saved by their natural holiness, or without application to them of the blessings of his atonement, they also seem to us to include infants among the number of those who have the right to these blessings; in other words, Christ’s concern and care go so far as to choose infants to eternal life, and to make them subjects of the kingdom of heaven. Cf. Mat. 18:14—“it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven, that one of those little ones should perish”—those whom Christ has received here, he will not reject hereafter. Of course this to said to infants, as infants. To those, therefore, who die before coming to moral consciousness, Christ’s words assure salvation. Personal transgression, however, involves the necessity, before death, of a personal repentance and faith, in order to achieve salvation.

(d) The descriptions of God’s merciful provision as coëxtensive with the ruin of the Fall also lead us to believe that those who die in infancy receive salvation through Christ as certainly as they inherit sin from Adam.

John 3:16—“For God so loved the world”—includes infants. Rom. 5:14—“death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam’s transgression, who is a figure of him that was to come”—there is an application to infants of the life in Christ, as there was an application to them of the death in Adam; 19-21—“For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous. And the law came in besides, that the trespass might abound; but when sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly: that, as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”—as without personal act of theirs infants inherited corruption from Adam, so without personal act of theirs salvation is provided for them in Christ. Hovey, Bib. Eschatology, 170, 171—“Though the sacred writers say nothing in respect to the future condition of those who die in infancy, one can scarcely err in deriving from this silence a favorable conclusion. That no prophet or apostle, that no devout father or mother, should have expressed any solicitude as to those who die before they are able to discern good from evil is surprising, unless such solicitude was prevented by the Spirit of God. There are no instances of prayer for children taken away in infancy. The Savior nowhere teaches that they are in danger of being lost. We therefore heartily and confidently believe that they are redeemed by the blood of Christ and sanctified by his Spirit, so that when they enter the unseen world they will be found with the saints.” David ceased to fast and weep when his child died, for he said: “I shall go to him, but he will not return to me” (2 Sam. 12:23).

(e) The condition of salvation for adults is personal faith. Infants are incapable of fulfilling this condition. Since Christ has died for all, we have reason to believe that provision is made for their reception of Christ in some other way.

2 Cor. 5:15—“he died for all”; Mark 16:16—“He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; but he that disbelieveth shall be condemned” (verses 9-20 are of canonical authority, though probably not written by Mark). Dr. G. W. Northrop held that, as death to the Christian has ceased to be penalty, so death to all infants is no longer penalty, Christ having atoned for and removed the guilt of original sin for all men, infants included. But we reply that there is no evidence that there is any guilt taken away except for those who come into vital union with Christ. E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology, 166—“The curse falls alike on every one by birth, but may be alleviated or intensified by every one who comes to years of responsibility, according as his nature which brings the curse rules, or is ruled by, his reason and conscience. So the blessings of salvation are procured for all alike, but may be lost or secured according to the attitude of everyone toward Christ who alone procures them. To infants, as the curse comes without their election, so in like manner comes its removal.”

(f) At the final judgment, personal conduct is made the test of character. But infants are incapable of personal transgression. We have reason, therefore, to believe that they will be among the saved, since this rule of decision will not apply to them.

Mat. 25:45, 46—“Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of these least, ye did it not unto me. And these shall go away into eternal punishment”; Rom. 2:5, 6—“the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; who __ will render to every man according to his works.” Norman Fox, The Unfolding of Baptist Doctrine, 24—“Not only the Roman Catholics believed in the damnation of infants. The Lutherans, in the Augsburg Confession, condemn the Baptists for affirming that children are saved without baptism—‘damnant Anabaptistas qui ... affirmant pueros sine baptismo salvos fieri’—and the favorite poet of Presbyterian Scotland, in his Tam O’Shanter, names among objects from hell ‘Twa span-lang, wee, unchristened bairns.’ The Westminster Confession, in declaring that ‘elect infants dying in infancy’ are saved, implies that non-elect infants dying in infancy are lost. This was certainly taught by some of the framers of that creed.” Yet John Calvin did not believe in the damnation of infants, as he has been charged with believing. In the Amsterdam edition of his works, 8:522, we read: “I do not doubt that the infants whom the Lord gathers together from this life are regenerated by a secret operation of the Holy Spirit.” In his Institutes, book 4, chap. 16, p. 335, he speaks of the exemption of infants from the grace of salvation “as an idea not free from execrable blasphemy.” The Presb. and Ref. Rev., Oct. 1890:634-651, quotes Calvin as follows: “I everywhere teach that no one can be justly condemned and perish except on account of actual sin; and to say that the countless mortals taken from life while yet infants are precipitated from their mothers’ arms into eternal death is a blasphemy to be universally detested.” So also John Owen, Works, 8:522—“There are two ways by which God saveth infants. First, by interesting them in the covenant, if their immediate or remote parents have been believers; ... Secondly, by his grace of election, which is most free and not tied to any conditions; by which I make no doubt but God taketh unto him in Christ many whose parents never knew, or were despisers of, the gospel.”

(g) Since there is no evidence that children dying in infancy are regenerated prior to death, either with or without the use of external means, it seems most probable that the work of regeneration may be performed by the Spirit in connection with the infant soul’s first view of Christ in the other world. As the remains of natural depravity in the Christian are eradicated, not by death, but at death, through the sight of Christ and union with him, so the first moment of consciousness for the infant may be coincident with a view of Christ the Savior which accomplishes the entire sanctification of its nature.

2 Cor. 3:18—“But we all, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit”; 1 John 3:2—“We know that, if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” If asked why more is not said upon the subject in Scripture, we reply: It is according to the analogy of God’s general method to hide things that are not of immediate practical value. In some past ages, moreover, knowledge of the fact that all children dying in infancy are saved might have seemed to make infanticide a virtue. While we agree with the following writers as to the salvation of all infants who die before the age of conscious and wilful transgression, we dissent from the seemingly Arminian tendency of the explanation which they suggest. H. E. Robins, Harmony of Ethics with Theology: “The judicial declaration of acquittal on the ground of the death of Christ which comes upon all men, into the benefits of which they are introduced by natural birth, is inchoate justification, and will become perfected justification through the new birth of the Holy Spirit, unless the working of this divine agent is resisted by the personal moral action of those who are lost.” So William Ashmore, in Christian Review, 26:245-264. F. O. Dickey: “As infants are members of the race, and as they are justified from the penalty against inherited sin by the mediatorial work of Christ, so the race itself is justified from the same penalty and to the same extent as are they, and were the race to die in infancy it would be saved.” The truth in the above utterances seems to us to be that Christ’s union with the race secures the objective reconciliation of the race to God. But subjective and personal reconciliation depends upon a moral union with Christ which can be accomplished for the infant only by his own appropriation of Christ at death.

While, in the nature of things and by the express declarations of Scripture, we are precluded from extending this doctrine of regeneration at death to any who have committed personal sins, we are nevertheless warranted in the conclusion that, certain and great as is the guilt of original sin, no human soul is eternally condemned solely for this sin of nature, but that, on the other hand, all who have not consciously and wilfully transgressed are made partakers of Christ’s salvation.

The advocates of a second probation, on the other hand, should logically hold that infants in the next world are in a state of sin, and that at death they only enter upon a period of probation in which they may, or may not, accept Christ,—a doctrine much less comforting than that propounded above. See Prentiss, in Presb. Rev., July, 1883: 548-580—“Lyman Beecher and Charles Hodge first made current in this country the doctrine of the salvation of all who die in infancy. If this doctrine be accepted, then it follows: (1) that these partakers of original sin must be saved wholly through divine grace and power; (2) that in the child unborn there is the promise and potency of complete spiritual manhood; (3) that salvation is possible entirely apart from the visible church and the means of grace; (4) that to a full half of the race this life is not in any way a period of probation; (5) that heathen may be saved who have never even heard of the gospel; (6) that the providence of God includes in its scope both infants and heathen.” “Children exert a redeeming and reclaiming influence upon us, their casual acts and words and simple trust recalling our world-hardened and wayward hearts again to the feet of God. Silas Marner, the old weaver of Raveloe, so pathetically and vividly described in George Eliot’s novel, was a hard, desolate, godless old miser, but after little Eppie strayed into his miserable cottage that memorable winter night, he began again to believe. ‘I think now,’ he said at last, ‘I can trusten God until I die.’ An incident in a Southern hospital illustrates the power of children to call men to repentance. A little girl was to undergo a dangerous operation. When she mounted the table, and the doctor was about to etherize her, he said: ‘Before we can make you well, we must put you to sleep.’ ‘Oh then, if you are going to put me to sleep,’ she sweetly said, ‘I must say my prayers first.’ Then, getting down on her knees, and folding her hands, she repeated that lovely prayer learned at every true mother’s feet: ‘Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.’ Just for a moment there were moist eyes in that group, for deep chords were touched, and the surgeon afterwards said: ‘I prayed that night for the first time in thirty years.’ ” The child that is old enough to sin against God is old enough to trust in Christ as the Savior of sinners. See Van Dyke, Christ and Little Children; Whitsitt and Warfield, Infant Baptism and Infant Salvation; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 1:26, 27; Ridgeley, Body of Div., 1:422-425; Calvin, Institutes, II, i, 8; Westminster Larger Catechism, x, 3; Krauth, Infant Salvation in the Calvinistic System; Candlish on Atonement, part ii, chap. 1; Geo. P. Fisher, in New Englander, Apr. 1868:338; J. F. Clarke, Truths and Errors of Orthodoxy, 360.