are never entirely pure; but as far as they accord with sound reason, and the revealed will of God, so far they may properly bias the will. (See Q. 283, 284.)

Q. 23. You have now explained the various faculties of the soul, and their present condition; are these faculties the same now as when man was first created?

A. No; they have all greatly suffered by the sin and fall of our first parents; so that now, in spiritual things, the understanding is dark; the affections are corrupt; and the will perverse, selfish, and opposed to the will of God.

Q. 24. You say, that all our faculties have suffered by reason of the sin and fall of our first parents ;— what is sin ?

A. Sin is the transgression of the law of God; or, a disobedience to his will, either as revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures; or made known by any other means.*(a)

(a) 1 John iii. 4.

Whosoever committeth sin, transgresseth also the law for sin is the transgression of the law.

Q. 25. What was the origin of sin? or, can you explain how it was first introduced into this world?

A. Sin first entered into this world very shortly after the creation of our first parents, whom the devil, in the form of a serpent, seduced into disobedience. (a)

(a) Gen. iii.; and Rom. v. 12. (Q. 95.)

* Here the Catechist may explain that the sin of our first parents consisted in disobedience to the will of God, not as revealed in scripture, which then was not written, but as declared to them by God himself.

Q. 26. What was the nature of that command which our first parents disobeyed?

A. It was prohibitory; God, having placed our first parents in the garden of Eden, commonly called Paradise; and having therein planted the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; forbade them to eat, or even to touch the fruit of it, upon pain of death. (a)*

(a) Gen. ii. 17. For in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. (Gen. iii. 3.)

Q. 27. What induced our first parents to disobey that command?

A. The desire, excited in their minds by the influence of Satan, of becoming wiser, and more exalted in the scale of beings, than God designed them to be.-(Gen. iii. 5, 6.)

Q. 28. Did they die immediately, in consequence of this disobedience?

A. They did not immediately suffer natural death; but they instantly lost that spiritual knowledge, uprightness, perfection, and holiness, (See Q. 139,) in which they were created; (a) and in this sense, their souls suffered death: their bodies also instantly became mortal; (b) and both soul and body were doomed to an

*This constituted the covenant of works, originally made with Adam in a state of innocence; the condition of which, on God's part, was eternal life, and on Adam's part, perfect obedience. The covenant of grace, though not expressly treated of in this work under these terms, yet cannot fail to be sufficiently understood, if due attention be paid to what is stated of the person, names, and offices of the Lord Jesus Christ. See from Q. 171 to 275.

eternal separation from the presence and glory of God, and to all the torments of hell. (c)

(a) Eccl. vii. 29. God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions.

(b) Rom. v. 12. By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.

(c) Eph. ii. 3. Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh, and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.-Rom. vi. 23. The wages of sin is death.-Matt. xxv. 41. Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. Q. 29. What was the object of this prohibition to our first parents?

A. The object was twofold; first, to form a test of the subjection of the creature to the great Creator; and secondly, to form the pledge of a covenant which was to decide the fate of the whole human race.

Q. 30. Such being the origin and effects of sin, can you explain what is meant by original sin?

A. Original sin, is the total depravity (a) of our nature, which is propagated with our species, or inherited from our first parents, (b) whose natures became entirely altered from holiness to sinfulness immediately after their fall; and it consists therefore in a total incapacity, naturally, for the exercises of holiness, (c) and for the discernment of divine truth; (d) an entire aversion from all that is spiritually good, (e) and a perpetual propensity to evil. (ƒ)

(a) Jer. xvii. 9, 10. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it? I the Lord search the heart.-Is. i. 5, 6. The whole head is sick, and

the whole heart faint; from the sole of the foot, even unto the head, there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores.

(b) Ps. li. 5. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin
did my mother conceive me.

(c) John xv. 5. Without me ye can do nothing.-2 Cor. iii.
5. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any-
thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God.
(d) 1 Cor. ii. 14. The natural man receiveth not the things
of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him:
neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned.

(e) Rom. viii. 7. Because the carnal mind is enmity against
God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither in-
deed can be.

(f) Eccl. viii. 11. Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.-Gen. vi. 5. And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Q. 31. How is this original, or birth sin, explained in the Articles of the Church of England?

A. It is there said to be "the fault and corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is gone to the farthest distance possible* from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit; and therefore every person born into this world, It deserveth God's wrath and damnation." (9th Art.)

Q. 32. Wherein consist the equity and justice of God, in subjecting all mankind to wrath and damnanation, for our original or birth sin?

*

"Quam longissime." Translated, “very far gone."

A. It appears evidently from the natural constitution of things. The holiness of God's nature, and the society and employments of heaven, must necessarily and wholly disqualify a depraved and corrupt being (unless his nature be changed) from all enjoyment in heaven, and render it, to him, if admitted there, a place of wretchedness and misery.*

No one really suffers condemnation for original or birth sin alone; and much less for the imputation of Adam's sin, abstractedly considered, to his posterity; although he be regarded as their federal head. For Christ is the "Lamb of God, who taketh away this sin of the world ;" he is the great Peace-maker between God and man, by whom God has reconciled all things unto himself; and the propitiation and ransom for the "sins of the whole world." (1 Cor. xv. 22, See Q. 203.) But every one, even every newborn infant, "naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam,” is depraved, being "conceived in sin ;" and is therefore, not by abstract imputation of Adam's sin, but in the ordinary course of nature, really sinful from its birth, although it has not sinned against knowledge, "after the similitude of Adam's transgression." Adam's sinfulness thus imparted, renders it unmeet for the kingdom of heaven for that which is born of corrupt flesh is corrupt flesh. To complain of any injustice in God, for excluding such sinful beings, unrenewed and unsanctified in their nature, from the society of the holy and blessed in heaven, where, in this state, everything is unsuited to their taste and enjoyment, would be worse than complaining of injustice for the exclusion of madmen from the society of rational beings. We must therefore suppose that all baptized infants dying in infancy (since, although by nature children of wrath," they are yet " undoubtedly saved") are, in a way secret to us, (like the thief on the cross,) regenerated, i. e. re- < newed and sanctified. Of this regeneration, baptism is the sign and seal. (Note, Pub. Bap. Infants, Ch. Eng.)

It may also be relied upon as a certain truth, that adults who perish, perish entirely by their own fault.-Matt. xxiii. 37; Acts xiii. 46; Luke vii. 30; John iii. 16–19; v. 40.