NINTH ARTICLE.--SIN AND SINS.--OLD DIVINES.--PREACHING EXTEMPORE.
"Very far gone," is _quam longissime_ in the Latin of the ninth article,--
as far gone as possible, that is, as was possible for _man_ to go; as far
as was compatible with his having any redeemable qualities left in him. To
talk of man's being _utterly_ lost to good, is absurd; for then he would be
a devil at once.
* * * * *
One mistake perpetually made by one of our unhappy parties in religion,--
and with a pernicious tendency to Antinomianism,--is to confound _sin_ with
_sins_. To tell a modest girl, the watchful nurse of an aged parent, that
she is full of _sins_ against God, is monstrous, and as shocking to reason
as it is unwarrantable by Scripture. But to tell her that she, and all men
and women, are of a sinful nature, and that, without Christ's redeeming
love and God's grace, she cannot be emancipated from its dominion, is true
and proper.[1]
[Footnote 1:
In a marginal scrap Mr. C. wrote:--"What are the essential doctrines of our
religion, if not sin and original sin, as the necessitating occasion, and
the redemption of sinners by the Incarnate Word as the substance of the
Christian dispensation? And can these be intelligently believed without
knowledge and steadfast meditation.
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