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sonal life. Thus the New Testament attests that the individual is not accountable for the sin of the race as such, but only for his conscious participation of the same (Luke xii. 37; Matt. xgv. 42), and forgiveness is not of original sin, but individual sins (Matt. vi. 12, ix. 2). Guilt is always individual. It may be said that the greater the spiritual maturity of a man the more his sin has become his guilt, and the further his influence extends the more the sin of the community establishes his personal guilt. Likewise the traditional view of eternal damnation as the universal punishment of sin is not to be maintained. That the sin of man, awakened by divine revelation to his life mission, is at the same time guilt that estranges from God and must be removed by forgiveness is the irrelinquishable conviction of every Christian. It does not follow, however, that the punishment must be absolute and alike for all sins. Eternal damnation as a general punishment of original sin is inadequate to God's offended righteousness. The New Testament suggests an individualizing on the part of God's righteousness (Matt. xi. 24; Rom. ii. 2 sqq.). The Christian faith maintains, (1) without forgiveness of sins, no salvation; (2) every one that persists in unbelief will receive just punishment in proportion to his guilt known only to God. Religiously sin is unbelief, and as such simply godlessness, admitting of no degrees; ethically, it is a deviation from the moral standard, varying in extent, principle, and persistence. God judges according to the impartial standard of just ethical estimation. Only his pardon follows the higher norm of grace not conceivable on the principle of adequate requital, but immanent in him in the total idea of the moral world order.

The problem of the origin of sin offers no difficulties exclusively in the light of punishable sin. The basis of this is in the conscious practise of freedom on the part of the personal creature. More

tion becomes sin when approved and asserted by

the alienated will as the state adapted to the sub

ject. A derivation of sin does not contemplate at

the same time establishing the basis of its religious

and moral judgment. The latter approves itself by

the revealed will of God; the former may be at

tempted only on the basis of coherent reflection

upon the facts of experience. If the preceding ex

planation should lead to an apology for sin, it were

better to abandon all attempt and assert the incon

ceivability of sin. Paul assumes this deduction of

sin; the Church in its teaching abandoned his view

by exaggerating the original state. If the first state

was one of innocency and imperfection, then the

latter became sin as soon as the human will refused

the divine law of life that prescribed conquest.

That it refused is an act of free will not further ex

plainable, yet always to be determined as avoidable.

Christian faith can neither admit that God causes

sin as such, nor can it escape the conviction that

he is eternally aware of it and subjects it to his

world-dominion. How an act in time maybe subject

of eternal cognizance is inconceivable

9. The to finite mind. The fact itself is at

Court of tested by the revelation of salvation

Conscience; through the death of Jesus Christ on

Forgiveness. account of sin. How God permits room

for sin in the world is to be seen in fact.

The judgment of sin is concomitant with its unfold

ing in that its promised success proves itself as de

ception and its expected freedom as servitude.

Servitude is punishment for the sinful deed. The

bondage of the will, however, consists less in a

confinement of the field of its activity than in the

contraction of its horizon of vision and in the de

terminism of its motives, both of which are charac

teristic of the natural man. Many other evils are

attendant penalties of sin which manifest their con

tradiction to the divine order and may only be re

ferred to the personal conscience for experience and

proof. The same holds true of Death (q.v.). A

revealing and intensifying judgment of sin takes

place in conscience, which reckons it as guilt to the

sinner; this happens to a certain extent in conse

quence of the moral law, and more extensively in

consequence of the moral message of divinely sent

prophets (Rom. v. 20). That God consents to the

unfolding of sin and sustains humanity in spite of it

receives full explanation in the manifestation of his

holy love for human redemption. This is a pro

gressive abolition of sin proceeding from within out

ward. Beginning with the forgiveness of the debt,

it continues with a renewal of the will, and culmi

nates in the removal of evil. Such a redemption must

have a historical act of God as its starting-point,

attesting the divine disapproval of sin as well as

love for the sinner. The Gospel of such an act is

essentially one of forgiveness. In the Vedas and

the Babylonian prayers this appears rather as the

removal of the penal consequences than the restora

tion of the personal fellowship with God, as in the

New Testament (Matt. ix. 5-6; Rom. v. 2). In the

forgiveness of sin, the interference of this with the

central relation of life to God is annulled, hence

within the conception of sin there is no wider con-