Distinction between actual and original sin.

in my exposition of the moral inability of man in this discussion, only making the reservation which the Confession makes-that original sin does not force the will to actual sin, nor by any absolute necessity of nature, determine it to evil so as that God is the author of sin, or violence offered to the will of the creatures; or the liberty or contingency of second causes (the power of choosing life or death) taken away, but is rather established.

The declarations, that there is a time when actual sin commences, and that the first sin is voluntary, uncoerced, inexcusable, and might have been and ought to have been avoided as really as any of the actual sins that followed it, will not I apprehend alarm any large proportion of the church. The distinction between original and actual sin has been universal in the orthodox church, and the more common opinion, as I suppose, has always been that actual sin does not commence from the womb, and that the time when social liability is succeeded by personal demerit for actual transgression, is not and cannot be exactly known to any but the eye of God. What I have asserted is, that whenever personal accountability does commence, the sinner is a free agent, and inexcusable for his first as really as for any other actual sin.

I perceive that what I wrote ten years ago, with my eye wholly on the subject of man's nature as an actual sinner and totally depraved, read by a person at the present time, in a state of alarm and excitement about the Pelagian heresy, on the subject of original sin, might, if not read with great care and attention,

Sermon on original sin-quotations.

be liable to be misunderstood, as denying that depravity of nature which is peculiar to original sin; but the moment the laws of candid, correct interpretation, are applied, the possibility of such an interpretation is precluded, and the true limit, meaning and intent of my language is made apparent. For it cannot be that a sermon professedly against the Pelagian notions of virtue and good works in man, as exceptions to the doctrine of total depravity, and containing a formal and labored argument in defence of that doctrine, and inferring from it the necessity of regeneration, and an anti-Pelagian instantaneous regeneration by the special influence of the Holy Spirit, should be found intentionally teaching the very doctrine it set out to oppose, and opposing the very doctrine it was constructed to establish.

Were any evidence beside the internal evidence of the discourse itself necessary, it is contained in a sermon written about the same time that this sermon on Native Character was written, and written professedly on original sin. The following are my comments on several passages in Romans v.

'For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners.' Adam was created holy and placed in a state of probation-the consequences of which were to extend not only to himself, but to his posterity. If he continued holy, they would be born holy. If he became a sinner, his children would be born depraved. In the hour of temptation he fell and LOST FOR A WORLD, the inheritance of life, and entailed upon it the sad inheritance of depravity and wo.

Lecture on the fall and its consequences-quotations.

For if by ONE man's offence death reigned by one,' how did death reign by ONE man's offence, if the depravity of his race was not the consequence of his sin? If his posterity are born holy, (innocent,) and become sinners by their own act, uninfluenced by what Adam did, then death enters the world not by one man, but by every man.

'And so death has passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.' Passed upon infants possessing a depraved nature, though they had not committed actual sin. They, as well as adults, are subjected to pain and death. They, as really as adults, need a Savior, and a change of heart by the Holy Ghost, to fit them for heaven.

"The judgment was by one man to condemnation,' i. e. the sin of one man, and one single act of sin subjected his posterity to a depraved nature as the-consequence.

I give these quotations to show, that though when writing on the total actual depravity of man, my expressions may have misled some to understand me as denying original sin; I did, at the same period, when writing professedly on that subject-recognize the doctrine fully and strongly, and at the time was never, to my knowledge, misunderstood.

What follows, is from my Lecture on the Fall and its Consequences, delivered in Boston and Cincinnati. "By the appointment of God, the character and destiny of man was inseparably connected with the conduct of Adam. He was in such a sense the federal head and representative of his posterity—that

The author's views of original sin.

according to God's appointment called a covenant, had Adam continued holy, his posterity would have continued holy, as his disobedience has drawn after it the defection of the race. The universal bias of man to evil is denominated a depraved nature, on account of its universal tendencies to actual sin.'

Here I might stop; for I am under no obligation to volunteer statements of my opinions, in respect to the subjects on which I am accused. My errors are to be shown by evidence; and I say that, in this case, the evidence has utterly failed; and I might, therefore, repel the charge of heresy, as not established. But I have no secrets on this subject, nor in respect to any of the religious opinions which I hold. At my time of life, and especially under the circumstances in which I am placed, both as pastor of a flock, and an instructer of the rising ministry of the church, I have no right to any secret opinions. I scorn concealment, and therefore I will declare with all openness, the things which I do believe. The presbytery shall not suspect me of being a heretic. If I am a heretic, they shall know it. You shall have in respect to my views of original sin, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

1. As to the federal or representative character of Adam, and the covenant with him and his posterity. I have, through my whole public life, believed and taught, that the constitution and character of his entire posterity, as perverted or unperverted, depended on his obedience or defection; and that he was in this respect, and by God's appointment, constitutionally

Dr. Bishop on Social Liabilities.

the covenant head and representative of his race. And that, in this view, all mankind descending from him, by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him in his first transgression: that is, their character and destiny were decided by his deed.

For a more ample expression of my views, I submit the remarks of Dr. Bishop, President of the Miami University, on the subject of Social Liabilities, the best name that was ever devised for the idea. A name which, I hope, we shall all remember and fix in our minds, as it is calculated to avoid much error which has arisen from the use of other phraseology. In respect to the book from which I am about to quote, I heartily thank that great and good man, for having condensed so much truth into so small a compass; and I do believe that the simple substitution of this technic, 'social liability,' would carry us all out of the swamp together. For we in fact think, and ought to speak, the same thing. After illustrating the social liabilities of men, for the conduct of others in the family, in commercial relations, and as parts of a nation, and as social and moral beings affected by the nameless influences of the christian example and deeds of our fellow-men, he proceeds to say:

1. That every man is by his very nature, intimately connected, in a great variety of ways, with thou sands of his fellow-men, whom he has never seen; and that the conduct and the character of a single individual may have an extensive and a lasting influence upon millions of his fellow-men, though far removed from him, both as to time and place.