See Burroughs, Sinfulness of Sin ; Dwight. Theohfjy ; Fletcher, Appeal to Matter of Fad ; Fuller, Works; Gill, Body of Divinity, art. "Sin;" Goodwin, Aggrara- tions of Sin ; Hagenbach, Hist, of Doctrines ; Howe, lAv- ing Temple; King and Jenyn, Origin of Evil ; Miiller, Christian Doctrine of Sin ; Orme, Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost; Owen, Indwelling ^Sin; Payson, Sej-mons ; Williams, A nswer to Belsham ; Watts, Ruin and Recovery.
SIN, Actual, is a direct violation of (lod's law, and is generally applied to those who are cai)able of commit- ting moral evil; as opposed lo idiots or cliildren, who have not the full scope for their moral faculties. It may be a sin either of commission or omission (q. v.).
SIN OF Commission is the doing a thing which we ought not to do.
SIN AGAINST THE HoLY GnosT. See Unpardos- ablp: Sin.
SIN OF Infirmity. Sins of infirmity are those which arise from the infirmity of the ilesh, ignorance, surprise, snares of the world, etc.
SIN, Mortal or Deadly. See INFortal Sin.
SIN OFFERING. See Sin-offering.
SIN OF Omission diifers from that of commission in being negative, and consists in the leaving those things
undone which ought to he done. "Ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone" (^latt. xxiii, 23).
SIN, Original. I. Jhfniiion. — "Original sin" is usually defined as "that wliereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature in- clined to evil." This absence of "original righteous- ness" is not only a deprivation, but also a depravation ; such an estrangement of the heart from God as to leatl to a defiance of his authority and law. Original sin is not only negative, but positive; it is not merely the lack of a thing — viz., original righteousness — but the presence of an inherited tendency towards evil, which tendency is the controlling principle (Eph. ii, 1-3 ; Col. i, 13 ; 2 Tim. ii, 26 ; 1 John iii,4) ; and the inexhaustible source of all actual sins (Kom. v, 12-19). But original sin, or this tendency of the mind to evil, is by no means to be regarded in the same sense as guilt ; inasmuch as invol- untary developments of natural susceptibilities have no moral character. A mere desire, growing out of the natural constitution of the mind, excited by temptation, may be innocent. Moral evil only commences when the desire or temptation is followed by the determina- tion, or volition, to gratify the desire or yield to the temptation. See Sin, Actual. All men, as the de- scendants of Adam, have this original depravity (1 Cor. XV, 21, 22), derived by continual descent from father to son. See Depravity.
II. Theories. — There are four principal hypotheses, to one or the other of which all the varrous explanations offered on this subject may probably be reduced.
1. The first theory is that the whole human race was literally in Adam as the oak is in the acorn, and thus jiar- ticipated in his transgression. In other words, the race is a unit, and God deals with it as a unit — not with in- dividuals as individuals. Thus, though unconsciously, every soul participated in the first great transgression, and. in the words of the catechism, "sinned in him (Adam), and fell with him in that first transgression."
2. The second theon,' is that Adam was the repre- sentative of the race ; that as a king, or as an ambassa- dor, or a congress represent the nation, and the entire nation is held responsible for the act of its representa- tive, so Adam represented the human race, was chosen as the tyi)e to stand for humanity, and by his trial the whole race was tried, thus sinning in his sin and falling in his fall. Acting thus as representative for tjie race, his sin was imputed, i. e. charged, to the whole race. It is said, moreover, that in point of fact this choice of Adam as a representative was not arbitrary ; that Adam and Eve fairly represented the race, and that the con- tinual sin of his descen<lants, placed in similar circum- stances of trial, shows that no injustice was done by submitting them to a trial in the person of such a rep- resentative. These two views are held, one or the oth- er of them, by those who are known in modern times as belonging to the old school. In them the entire race is treated by God as a unit, and is, because of Adam's sin, under divine condemnation ; and, irrespective of the sin or the virtue of the individual, requires to be pardoned and redeemed.
3. Tlie third theory holds that Adam fell, and in fall- ing became a sinner. The universal law of nature is that like begets like. So all his descendants have in- herited from him a nature like his own, a nature de- praved and prone to sin. Those who maintain tliis the- ory add, usually, that man is not responsible for this de- praved nature, and that he is not in any strict sense guilty before God for it; that while infants must be re- deemed from it tlirough the power of God in Christ Je- sus, because n<itbing impure can enter heaven, still they cannot be said to be guilty until they have arrived at an age when they are capable of choosing between good and evil, and that they are then held responsible for that voluntary choice, and for that alone. In other