righteousness; but if so, the English "very far gone would appear strangely inadequate.

Moreover, there is

a significant silence about any imputation of Adam's sin (a prominent feature in later Calvinistic teaching); and that the Article is seriously defective from a Calvinistic point of view, is conclusively shown by the suggested emendations of the Assembly of Divines in 1643. They were not satisfied with it as it stood, but wished to insert a reference to the imputation of Adam's sin, and to materially strengthen the language of the Article, substituting "wholly deprived of" for "very far gone from," and insisting that man "is of his own nature only inclined to evil.”1

This being so, we need have no hesitation in interpreting the Latin by the English, and may rest content with the statement that man is "very far gone from original righteousness." So much is clearly taught in Holy Scripture. Not to lay too much stress on the language of the Psalmist, "Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Ps. li. 5), or on the question of Job, "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" (Job xiv. 4), we notice that all through Scripture man is regarded as by nature corrupt. "The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth" (Gen. viii. 21); "every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually" (vi. 5); "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick" (Jer. xvii. 9). So also in the New Testament: "I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing" (Rom. vii. 18). "The mind of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be; and they that are in the flesh cannot please God" (Rom. viii. 7). But, on the

1 See Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. iii. p. 559, where the Article is given as amended by the Divines.

other hand, there are passages which no less clearly indicate that, in spite of this universal depravity, the "image of God," in which man was originally created, still remains since the Fall, and therefore it cannot be true to say that he is "wholly deprived of" his original righteousness. Thus in Gen. ix. 6 the law, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed," is based on the fact that "in the image of God made He man." In 1 Cor. xi. 7, S. Paul speaks of man as "the image and glory of God," while S. James says that men are "made after the likeness of God" (iii. 9).

It may then be fairly concluded that on this subject the Church of England is in the main content to follow the teaching of Augustine: only, however, in the main, for there are statements which Augustine was led to make in the course of the controversy with the Pelagians to which we are most certainly not called upon to subscribe. To mention one point only. Augustine asserted that as a fact infants and others dying unbaptized meet with the punishment of hell.1 Article IX. is careful only to state that original sin "deserves God's wrath and damnation," a statement which follows naturally from the view taken of it as something positive, involving a real taint and disorder of the nature, but which falls short of expressing any opinion on the further question whether it actually meets with that which it deserves.2

1 De peccatorum meritis et remissione, I. xxi., II. c. iv.; cf. Bright's Anti-Pelagian Treatises, p. xiv, note 4.

* See on this point a striking letter of the late Dean Church, Life and Letters, p. 248. "The fact of what is meant by original sin is as mysterious and inexplicable as the origin of evil, but it is obviously as much a fact. There is a fault and vice in the race, which, given time, as surely develops into actual sin as our physical constitution, given at birth, does into sickness and physical death. It is of this inherited sin in our nature, looked upon in the abstract and without reference to concrete cases, that I suppose the Article speaks. How can we suppose that such a nature looks in God's eyes according to the standard of perfect right.

As an illustration of this, reference may be made to the careful reticence of the note at the end of the Baptismal Service in the Book of Common Prayer. "It is certain by God's word that children which are baptized, dying before they commit actual sin, are undoubtedly saved." Nothing whatever is said of what happens in the case. of those who die unbaptized, and the reticence is evidently designed; for the note in question was copied almost verbatim from the Institution of a Christian Man" (1537), which proceeded to say "and else not."1 The eousness which we also suppose to be God's standard and law. Does it satisfy that standard? Can He look with neutrality on its divergence from His perfect standard? What is His moral judgment of it as a subject for moral judgment? What He may do to cure it, to pardon it, to make allowances for it in known or unknown ways, is another matter, about which His known attributes of mercy alone may reassure us; but the question is, How does He look upon this fact of our nature in itself, that without exception it has this strong efficacious germ of evil within it, of which He sees all the possibilities and all the consequences? Can He look on it, even in germ, with complacency or indifference? Must He not judge it and condemn it as in itself, because evil, deserving condemnation? I cannot see what other answer can be given but one, and this is what the Article says. But all this settles nothing about the actual case of unbaptized infants, any more than the general necessity of believing the gospel settles anything as to the actual case of heathens who have never heard of the gospel. If, without fear, we leave them to the merciful dispensations, unrevealed to us, of Him who is their Father, though they do not know Him, much more may we leave infants who have never exercised will or reason. But in both cases we are obliged by facts and Scripture to acknowledge sinfulness and sin. In Christians, and those who may know of the gospel, this is cured, relieved, taken away, by known means which He has given us. In those who, by no fault of their own, are out of His family and Church, we cannot doubt, both from what we know of Him and from what He has told us, that He will provide what is necessary. But still there is the sinfulness and the sin; and as sin, quâ sin, we can only suppose that He looks on it with displeasure, and condemns it. I don't see that the Article, which is only treating of sin and sinfulness, and not of its remedy or God's love, does more than express what must be God's judgment on all sin, even in germ. How He deals with it is a separate matter."

1 Formularies of Faith, p. 93.

omission of these three words is highly significant; and it may be added that, though the work possesses no authority, yet the Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum may be appealed to as an historical witness that by the time of the reign of Edward VI. leading Anglican divines had come to see that while salvation must be denied to those who despise or reject baptism, yet in the case of children (at least of Christian parents) dying unbaptized through no fault of their own, there is room for good hope.1

II. The effect of Baptism in the removal of Original Sin.

In considering the effect of Holy Baptism in the removal of original sin, it must be remembered that there are two evils attaching to all sin, viz. the guilt, which needs pardon and forgiveness, and the power, which needs overcoming and driving out. On the view taken by the English Church, that what we call "original sin" is something more than a loss of higher goodness, being a germ of real evil, this is true of it as of all other sin. It has its guilt, which makes us "children of wrath";2

Hæresibus, c. 18: "Illorum etiam impia videri debet scrupulosa itio, qui Dei gratiam et Spiritum Sanctum tantopere cum sacramentorum elementis colligant, ut plane affirment nullum Christianorum infantem æternam salutem esse consecuturum, qui prius a morte fuerit occupatus, quam ad baptismum adduci potuerit: quod longe secus habere judicamus. Salus enim illis solum adimitur, qui sacrum hunc baptismi fontem contemnunt, aut superbia quadam ab eo, vel contumacia resiliunt; quæ importunitas cum in puerorum ætatem non cadat, nihil contra salutem illorum authoritate Scripturarum decerni potest, immo contra cum illos communis promissio pueros in se comprehendat, optima nobis spes de illorum salute concipienda est." See also Hooker, Eccl. Polity, Bk. V. c. lx. § 6.

2 Compare the description in the Church Catechism of the "inward and spiritual grace" in baptism. "A death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness; for being by nature born in sin, and the children of wrath, we are hereby made the children of grace." The expression "children of wrath" is Biblical, and comes from Eph. ii. 3, тékva ¿pyñs.

3

and it has its power, which, in the form of concupiscence, draws us in the direction of evil. In baptism the guilt is pardoned. There is no condemnation to them that believe and are baptized ("Renatis et credentibus nulla propter Christum est condemnatio "),1 a statement for which ample support may be found in Holy Scripture (see Acts ii. 38, xxii. 16, etc.), and which will be further illustrated under Article XXVII.2 But the power of sin, that appetite for corrupt pleasure which is the incentive to sin in us still remains. This infection of nature doth remain, yea, in them that are regenerate (etiam in renatis), whereby the lust of the flesh, called in Greek oрóvnμа σapκós, which some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some the affection, some the desire of the flesh is not subject to the law of God. This is unhappily a truth of universal experience, for which scriptural proof is scarcely needed. All history and the facts of each man's own experience combine in testifying to the existence of the old nature even after baptism and the reception of Divine grace. The phrase φρόνημα σaprós, and the account given in the Article of this "lust of the flesh," is based on Rom. viii. 6, 7: "For thm mind of the flesh1 (Tò Òpóvnμa Tĥs σapκós) is death,

It should be noticed (1) that renatis in the Latin of the Article corresponds to "are baptized" in the English, thus marking the close connection between regeneration and baptism; and (2) that there is nothing in the English corresponding to propter Christum in the Latin.

2 The statement of the Article may be further illustrated from the Baptismal Offices in the Book of Common Prayer, in which remission of sins is throughout regarded as one of the blessings granted in baptism to infants as well as to those of riper years.

3 Compare Augustine, De peccatorum meritis et remissione, Lib. II. c. iv.: Concupiscentia.. cum parvulis nascitur, in parvulis baptizatis a reatu solvitur, ad agonem relinquitur."

The Vulgate translates this phrase by prudentia in ver. 6, and sapientia carnis in ver. 7. The Geneva Version has "wisdom of the