The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

of sin, it is needed by original sin; to wit: The putting off the body of the
sins of the flesh; the being born again; the being sanctified and cleansed.
3. These passages show that original sin needs the remedy of sin as
to its author--He who acquires it, Christ; He who applies it,--the Holy
Spirit; in general, God.
4. These passages show that original sin needs the remedy of sin as
to its means.
a. The circumcision of Christ, i. e. Christian circumcision; to wit, that
which in the Christian system answers to, and fulfils what was shadowed
by circumcision under the Jewish system, to wit, Holy Baptism, which is
the washing of water conjoined with the Word and the Holy Ghost, in the
absence of any one of which three elements there is no baptism.
b. The Word of God: didactically, that is, by preaching, teaching,
reading, meditation; and the same word set forth and sealed by the
sacraments. Without these things, to wit, Baptism and the Word, the body
of the sins of the flesh cannot be put off; but the body of the sins involves
original sin.
8. The definition.
8. We argue, finally, that original sin is truly sin, because it is
conformed to a true definition of sin. When the inspired writers call the
moral taint of our nature sin, they give evidence in this, that as they define
the term, it is applicable to that taint. Their idea of sin is of something
which man has; something which dwells in him; something which is
separate in ideal from his consciousness not only of his own essence, but
from the consciousness of his truer nature, his more real self.
This sin is something inborn, which is first to be pardoned, then
controlled, and finally annihilated by a new birth, by the grace of God, by
the work of the Holy Spirit, by the entrance on the glory of heaven, by the
mighty power by which a risen Saviour is to raise these vile bodies and
make them like His own body. These ideas underlie or rise upon every
New Testament doctrine, duty, and hope.
Rationalism has made it a reproach that the doctrine of original sin
lies at the foundation of the evangelical system. We accept the reproach as
in fact a concession that the