The ont; we express by the words criminality, demerit, and blamewor- thiness ; the other is the obli^ration to suffer the punishment due to our offences. These are evidently distinct, although expressed by the same word. The guilt of our sins is said to have been laid upon Christ, that is, the obligation to satisfy the demands of justice on account of them. But He did not assume the criminality, the demerit, or blameworthiness of our transgressions. When the believer is justified, his guilt, but not his demerit, is removed. He remains in fact, and in his own eyes, the same unworthy, hell- deserving creature, in himself considered, that he was before. A man condemned at a human tribunal for any offence againct the community, when he has endured the penalty which the law pre- scribes, is no less unworthy, his demerit as much exists as it did from the beginning; but his liability to justice or obligation to the penalty of the law, in other words, his guilt in that sense of the word, is removed. It would be unjust to punish him a second time for that offence. This distinction theologians are accustomed to express by the terms reatus eulpce and reatua poence. Culpa is (strafwiirdiger Zustand) blameworthiness; and reatus eulpce is guilt in the form of inherent ill-desert : whereas the reatus potnoe is the debt we owe to justice. That guilt, in the comprehensive sense of the word, and pollution enter into the nature of sin, or are inseparable from it, is not only revealed in our own consciousness, but is everywhere assumed in Scripture. The Bible constantly declares that sin and all sin, everything which bears its nature, is not only hateful in the sight of a holy God, but is the object of his wrath and indignation, the just ground for the infliction of punish- ment.
This is admitted, and cannot be denied. The only question is, What is necessary in order to the sense of guilt as it exists in the conscience ? Or, What is required to constitute anything a just ground of punishment in the sight of God ? Is it sufficient that the thing itself should be sinful ? Or, Is it necessary that it should be due to our own voluntary act ? This latter ground is taken not only by Pelagians, and by all who define sin to be the voluntary transgression of known law, but also by many who hold to habitual, as distinguished from actual sin, and who even acknowledge that men are born in sin. They still insist tliat even evil innate, inherent sin, must be referrible to our own voluntary agency, or it cannot be guilt in us. But this is, —
1. Contrary to our own consciousness. The existence of sin in the heart, the presence of evil dispositions, without regard to theii
100 PART n. ch. VIII. — sin.
oiigin, is unavoidably attended by a sense of pollution and guilt. These dispositions being ^v\\ in theii* own nature must include whatever is essential to that nature. And, as has been acknowl- edged, guilt is essential to the nature of sin. Nothing is sinful which does not involve guilt. The consciousness, or the convic- tion of sin, must therefore include the conviction of guilt. And consequently if we are convinced from the declarations of Scripture and from the state of our nature that we are born in sin we must be convinced that guilt attaches to innate corruption of nature. Besides this, habitual or indwelling sin is not voluntary in the sense of beino; designed or intended, or in the sense of being under the power of the will, and yet all Christians admit that such indwelling sin is a dreadful load of guilt ; a load more burdensome to the heart and conscience than all our actual transgressions.
2. The principle in question is no less opposed to the common judgments of men. All men instinctively judge a man for wliat he is. If he is good they so regard him. If he is bad, they pro- nounce him to be bad. This judgment is just as inevitable or necessary as that he is tall or short, learned or unlearned. Tho question as to the origin of the man's character does not enter into the grcH^nds of this judgment. If born good, if he made himself good, or if he received his goodness as a gift from God, does not materially affect the case. He is good, and must be so regarded and treated. In like manner all that is necessary in order to justify and necessitate the judgment that a man is bad is that he should be so. This is the principle on which we judge ourselves, and on which men universally judge each other. The principle, therefore, must be sound.
3. The doctrine that sin in order to include guilt must be refer- rible to our own voluntary action, is contrary to analogy. It is not so with holiness. Adam was created holy. His holiness as trul}'' constituted his character as though it had been self-acquired, and had it been retained, it would have continued to be, and so long as it was retained it was an object of complacency and the ground of reward in the sight of God. Habitual grace, as it is called, or the new principle of spiritual life, imparted to the soul in regeneration, is not self-produced. It is due to the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, nevertheless it constitutes the believer's character. The only reason why it is not meritorious, is that it is so imperfect, and because it cannot cancel the debt we already owe to the justice of God. The soul, however, if perfectly sanctified by the ITolv Ghost is just as pure, just as much an object of ap- \)robation and delight in the sight of God as an unfallen angel.