29.

would then have existed no federal union of mankind. The souls of Adam and Eve would have only added two more to the spirits of evil. As we know the doctrine and the fact, it is the harmony of truths in our being otherwise irreconcilable. Human nature is lost, and yet we are still the offspring of God. The natural and Acts xvii moral image-essentially one in creation-has departed in its glory, and yet it is recognised as in some sense still existing. Every man is born condemned, and yet he is bidden not to put from him life. He is by nature able neither to think nor feel nor act aright; yet he is throughout Scripture appealed to as if his duty were simply matter of his will. In short, original sin and original grace met in the mystery of mercy at the very gate of Paradise.

THE DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN IN ITS GENERAL RELATIONS.

These points being established, we may view the doctrine that results from the combination: in its aspect towards the moral government of God and the vindication of His attributes; as explaining the Providential government of the human race; as related to the several doctrines of the Christian Faith; in its bearing on the constituent elements of human nature; and, lastly, in its effect upon the doctrine of sin generally, and in its particular manifestations, as under the discipline of the Gospel.

Theo

logical relations.

I Holy Scripture only in an indirect manner refers to the Theodicy. objections that may be urged against the righteousness of the

Divine procedure in relation to the fundamental principles involved in the doctrine of original sin.

1. St. Paul's thoughts, before and after the express treatment St. Paul. of the subject, seem to hover over this awful question of the vindication of God. But, under the guidance of inspiration, he leaves it where we must leave it,-among the unsolvable mysteries of the Eternal Will. No one, however, can fail to see that in the strict connection of the doctrine of universal sin with that of aniversal grace he finds rest to his own soul, and teaches us to

The Three

tions.

find rest also. Every express delineation of the universal evil of mankind is, without exception, connected with redemption. This is the only vindication of the Righteous God from the tremendous charge brought against Him by the judgments of men. God's own Theodicy, or vindication of Himself, is exhibited in the free gift of the Second Adam. Original sin sprang from the federal constitution of the race: one in the unity of the unlimited many. But the many are one in recovery as well as in sin. As surely as sin and death passed through to the race, so surely from Christ did grace pass through.

2. Other expedients for the reccnciliation of the Divine economy Imputa- with human judgments are adopted even by those who accept a doctrine of original sin: we may say, other methods of stating St. Paul's vindication. There are those who hold the THREE IMPUTATIONS which lie at the basis of human history-the imputation of Adam's sin to the whole world, the imputation of the sin of man to the Holy Representative of mankind, and the imputation to man of the benefit of His redemption—who nevertheless so hold them as to increase the great difficulty instead of lessening it. The several reckonings are made to flow from an absolute sovereignty in God, giving no account of His matters. Though the word has a judicial sound it involves an arbitrary idea, and one which adds a superfluous harshness to our doctrine. The imputations are not equal and uniform: while the sin of the first Adam is imputed to all his posterity, the righteousness of the Second Adam is imputed only to a predetermined fragment of mankind. If it is said that the sins of those only were reckoned to Christ who receive the benefit, that does not lighten the gloom of the subject. The want of correspondence between the imputa tion in Original Sin and the imputation in Christian Righteousness lays a tremendous burden on the doctrine common to the two. Are not My ways equal? This is the Lord's vindica tion of Himself; and, as to the theology which beclouds His justice, He says to it, are not your ways unequal?

Ezekiel xviii. 29.

The two Covenants.

3. It may be rejoined, that St. Paul himself adopts the very method which we denounce, by making the federal covenant with man in Christ the correlative of the federal covenant with man in Adam. But he invariably asserts the universality of the benefit

of grace, so far as concerns the intention of God. As to the why of this federal constitution, and the why of evil generally in the dark background, there is no solution given to man, because it is not possible to the creature. That mystery, like redemption itself, will in some sense be for ever hid in the Divine nature. It is however, a mystery that is not lightened by rejecting the doctrine of original sin.

ment of Nations.

30.

II. Thus is explained the economy of God's providential Governgovernment of the nations. If the exhibition of original sin is cut off from the universal gift, there can be no intelligible account given of the times of this ignorance which God winked at. All heathenism, Acts xvii past and present, is on that theory inexplicable. The world has been ever groping after God: universal sinfulness must be reconciled with that fact. Not blank atheism, but the superfluity of superstition has been the law: a polytheistic superstition to which the nations were given up, because they resisted God's inner light; unspeakable degradation, and the almost unlimited change from dishonour to dishonour, marked the history of the heathen world; but only as the result of a rejection of influences that have striven with men. And light has been seen rising in the deepest darkness. Neither the Saviour's intercourse with Gentiles, nor the Apostles', permits the supposition of such a total and unrelieved corruption, ruin, and abandonment of human nature as some dogmas of original sin and the "massa perditionis assume. Tertullian's "anima naturaliter Christiana" may be set against this, as the opposite exaggeration: the truth lying in the middle. The absolute corruption of the roots of our nature is a Manichæan error, revived in Flacianism, but contradicted by the whole doctrine of original sin as taught in Scripture. Apart from Christ, and in hard theory, the ruin of man is complete. But man has never been in such a far country as not to hear the appeal of the Father: the far country is still the land of Emmanuel.

III. The connection between original sin and the Christian system is fundamental and universal. Upon it is based the necessity, the possibility, the universality of the Atonement, by the obedience of the Last Adam, Who bore in His own Person the consequences of the sin which He never shared. From original sin He was free: for, though His human nature was made of a

Luke xv. 13.

Connection with Christian

Doctrine.

Gal. iv. 4

Human Nature.

Two Senses.

woman, made under the law, as bearing the consequences of human transgression, it was not begotten of man, but of the Holy Ghost. Hence the same Divine necessity that exempted Him from the sin of our nature demands that none other be exempt, not even His mother after the flesh. The sinlessness of Jesus is secured by the miraculous conception, His impeccability by the hypostatic union; hence His active and His passive righteousness are united in one, the former rendering the latter possible and sufficient. Regeneration also derives its double character from the doctrine of original sin it is the new creation of life in the soul, while it is at the same time the renewal of the original image of God; it is regeneration as the Divine commencement of a new life, renewal as the resulting process. But, before this, apart from this, and yet concurrently with it, Justification meets original sin as the reversal of its condemnation with the guilt of all that flows from it at the bar of God. And Ethical Sanctification in its beginning, process, and final issues, is the full eradication of the sin itself, which, reigning in the unregenerate, coexisting with the new life in the regenerate, is abolished in the wholly sanctified.

IV. It is expedient at this point to glance briefly at the constitution of man's nature as it is now found: of that nature namely, which alone we know as human. A few leading terms give us the general character of the humanity that sin has transmitted unimpaired as human nature, but entirely corrupt in its unassisted development as fallen and sinful nature.

1. The term Human Nature is not used in this relation in Jas. iii. 7. Scripture. St. James alone speaks of þúσis ʼn åv0pwπívy, translated Mankind. The word Nature signifies the condition or law of preappointed development, and thence the essential character and constitution with which every created thing comes into existence. It may therefore be applied to man in two senses, both faithful to the original meaning of the word: either to the constituent elements of his being, as differencing him from every other, or to the moral development of that being as growth from within, and apart from external influence. As to the latter, every individual of mankind is born with a nature which, without external influence upon it, is morally degraded and corrupt. The bias to evil-that is, to forget God, to serve the creature and to live for

self-is innate and congenital; and this makes it the nature of inan, as being inherent and not accidental. But, in the former sense of the term, sin is an accident of humanity: it came from without; it is not "das Gewordene," but "das Gemachte." It is not in harmony with the original constitution of man: conscience, and the law written in the heart or reason which is its standard, being witness. The distinction is always remembered in Scripture. 2. The disturbance in the very essence of human nature may Bondage. be regarded as affecting the entire personality of man as a spirit acting in a body. He is born with a nature which is-apart both from the external Evil One and from the external renewing power of the New Creation-under the bondage of sin. That bondage may be regarded with reference to the lower nature that enslaves the higher, and to the higher nature that is enslaved.

Of the
Flesh.

18.

14.

Rom. vii. 25.

(1.) Fallen human nature is Flesh or σáp: the whole being of man, body and soul, soul and spirit, separated from God, and subjected to the creature. The avròs éyú of Self is without God, but only in the sense of being without Him as its God; and in Eph.ii.12. the world, as its false sphere of life and enjoyment. This is the slavery of sin to which man is naturally born, and to which he is naturally predetermined. For I know that in me, (that is in my Rom. vii. flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: this contains the truth concerning our fallen estate expressed by St. Paul as its representative. It is slavery, or a yoke imposed: I am carnal, sold under sin; this I Rom. vii. being the same person who can say, with the mind, I myself serve the law of God, and what I hate, that do I. It is, however, an innate or inborn or predetermined elavery: the Apostle calls Rom. vii. himself σrápkivos, carnal, or fleshly, or fleshy, a strong word, which forbids the thought of his meaning the slavery of habit. If he wrote σapkukós, this term, as the antithesis of vevμarikós, denoting Rom. vii. an inherent characteristic of the law, would also point to an inherent quality of fallen nature. Again he refers to the sin that Rom. vii. dwelleth in me: not merely the sin that has gained an ascendency from without. And all this is confirmed by the strong words: for I Rom. vi delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. Such is the meaning of the flesh as the designation of depraved humanity

15.

14.

17.

22, 23.