ESSAY III. 413 God. Yet since sin in the heart or in the life, in habit or in act, is a real bad quality, and is contrary to the image of God, and naturally tends to ruin a soul by destroying its'good qualities, its holy rectitude or holiness, its peace and happiness, as well as legally by subjecting it to punishment; I chose to call that dis- order which bath such a real and natural tendency to spoil God's image and our happiness, the real evil rf sin : and I would call its demerit or desert of death, or its legal subjection of us to pun- ishment, the relative evil: And I desire leave to do soat present, that I may not admit confusion into this discourse, andmay pre- vent all contention about words. The general term sin in scripture is frequently used to sig- nify sometimes the relative, and sometimes the real evil of it. It is used promiscuously and indifferently in the Old Testament and in the New, both for the sinful disorder of our hearts and live% ànd'also for the demerit or punishment of some sinful action. It is used forthe opposition that is in sin to the holy nature of God; and to the soul's real happiness, as well as for the opposition of it to the law of God, and its subjecting us to the ,legal penalty. Now let us consider what is the guilt of sin, and what is its defile-, ment, and distinguish them as far as scripture andcommon speech admits. First, we will enquire into the meaning of the guilt of sin; and this Will afford us the following observations : I. The wordsguilt and guilty, in their original and most proper sense denote the relation of a sinful action or person to some law, and the obligation which the sinner lies under to make Satisfaction to the law, by suffering some penalty. The English word is supposed to be derived from the Saxon word gild a tas or fine ; andgiidan is a person obliged, or liable to make amends, or pay for a fault committed. In the learned languages it bath the same sense. Reus and reatas in latin, and ea oç and ooxs in the Greek, seem tobe entirely confined in their significations to the relation or situation in which the sinner stands with regard tá the law, and represent a person bound to 'answer for afault or iransgresssion of the law. So`our guiltdr guiltiness before God, originally and properly denotes the relative evil of sin, or its transgression of the law, and the sinner's obligation to snake amends forit by suffering some penalty. II. It must be granted that the word guilt by some writers hasbeen distinguished into these two senses, viz. there is a guilt of the fault, which is called reatas culpa, and there is a' guilt of the punishment, 'wind' is usually termed reatas pence : And thud the term' guilt or guiltiness, is applied'to a Person three ways, Sometimes it signifies his having done the crime, or the sinful action, aswhen we say a man is guilty of blasphemy, that is, he
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