The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 126

THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD

86

race against which the anger of

God

is

already in the cradle, in our mother's

Not only do we it was ours

kindled.

partake of this sin by an act of the will as

we grow up

;

womb — yea,

even in our conthe awful confession which

Conceived and born in sin " is the Church of God's redeemed can never deny. For this reason the Church has always laid such stress upon the doctrine of inherited guilt, as declared by St. Paul in Rom. v. Our ception.

"

inherited guilt does not spring from inherited sin ; on the contrary,

we

are conceived and born in sin because

Adam's guilt is imputed to all that were and fell as our natural and federal head.

we

stand in inherited guilt.

Adam

in his loins.

Our moral

life

lived

stands in

We were in him. He carried us in life. His state determined our state. Hence by the righteous judgment of God his guilt was imputed to all his posterity, for as much as, by the will of man, they should successively be born of By virtue of this inherited guilt we are conceived in sin his loins. root-relation to his moral

himself.

and born in the participation of sin. God is our Creator, and from His hands we came forth pure and iindefiled. To teach otherwise is to make Him the Author of individual sin, and to destroy the sense of guilt in the soul. Hence sin, especially original sin, does not originate in our creation by the hand of God, but by our vital relation with the sinful race. Our person does not proceed from our parents. This is in direct conflict with the indivisibility of spirit, with the Word of God, and its confession that

God

is

our Creator,

"

who has

also

made

7/ie."

There is mediate and However, all creation is immediate creation. God created light by immediate creation, but grass and herbs mediately, for they spring from the ground. The same difference exists between the creation of Adam and that of his posterity. The creation of Adam was immediate not of his body, which was taken from the dust, but of his person, the human being called Adam. His posterity, however, is a mediate creation, for every conception is made to depend upon the will of man. Hence while we come from the hand of God pure and undefiled, we become at the same time partakers of the inherited and imputed guilt of Adam; and by virtue of this inherited guilt, through our conception and birth, God brings us into fellowship with the sin of the race. How this is brought about is an unfathomable mystery; but this is a fact, that we become partakers of the sin of the race by generation, which begins with conception and ends with birth. not the same.

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