What is sin?

1. How was man’s apostacy from God brought about?

By sinning against God.

2. How doth it appear, that there is such a thing as sin in the world?

The God of truth declares that all have sinned; Romans 3:23 the broken law cries for vengeance against transgressors, and by it is the knowledge of sin; Galatians 3:10; Romans 3:20 conscience, God’s deputy in every man’s bosom, tells him he is guilty; Jeremiah 14:7 the reign of death, and the groans of the creatures round about us, Romans 8:22 do all bear testimony, that there is such a thing as sin in the world.

3. Can there be any sin, where there is no law?

No: “for where there is no law, there is no transgression,”

4. Of whose law is sin a transgression?

Of the law of God.

5. What understand you by [the law of God]?

All the precepts, or commandments, God hath given unto man, as the rule of his obedience.

6. Where is this law of God to be found?

There was a bright and fair copy of it written upon the heart of man in innocency; but that being, in a great measure, lost by the fall, God has written again to us the great things of his law, in the scriptures of truth.

7. Are all the laws of God, mentioned in scripture, of binding force now under the New Testament?

No: the ceremonial law, which was a shadow of good things to come, is now abrogated upon the coming of Christ in the flesh; and many of the judicial laws, in so far as they had a particular relation to the state of the Jewish nation, are laid aside; but the moral law is perpetually binding on all mankind, in all ages and periods of the world.

8. Doth God require a perfect conformity to this law?

Yes: for there is a curse pronounced against every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them.

9. Why is the nature of sin expressed by a [want of conformity] to the law?

To let us know that our very natures, since the fall, are sinful; Isaiah 1:5–6 that we are now quite destitute of that original righteousness and holiness, which we had at our creation; Genesis 6:5 and that every swerving from the holy law, even in omitting what it commands, is sin, as well as in committing what it forbids. Isaiah 43:22

10. Why is sin called a [transgression of the law]?

Because the law is the boundary of all our actions; and whenever we sin, we break the boundary and limit that God hath set us, and so are exposed unto the curse of the law.

11. Doth the law of God extend to the first motions of sin in the heart?

Yes: for, says the apostle, “I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.”

12. How many kinds of sin are there?

Two kinds; original and actual.

13. What do you understand by original sin?

The sin of our nature; which is called original sin, because we were shapen in iniquity, and conceived in sin; Psalm 51:5 and because it was the first sin of man, and is the original and fountain of all actual sin. Matthew 15:19

14. What do you understand by actual sin?

Every thing that is inconsistent with, and contrary to the law, in thought, word, or deed.

15. How are actual sins divided?

Into sins of omission and commission.

16. What is a sin of omission?

It is a neglecting, or forgetting, to do that good which the law commands.

17. What is a sin of commission?

It is a doing of what the law of God forbids.

18. Is every sin mortal or deadly?

Yes; in its own nature, “The wages of sin is death.”

19. Are all sins pardonable through grace?

There is pardon, through the blood of Christ, for all sins except one, namely, the sin against the Holy Ghost.

20. What is the sin against the Holy Ghost?

It is a wilful, malicious, and avowed rejecting of Christ, and salvation through him, by a blaspheming apostate, after manifest conviction of the truth of the gospel-report, and some kind of approbation thereof, by the common influence or operation of the Spirit.

21. Why is this sin called blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, Matth. xii. 31.?

Because it is an opprobrious and reproachful speaking of, and against the testimony of the Holy Ghost, in the word, concerning Christ; with a direct intention to disparage his glory, and to disgrace his truth and way; hence called, a putting him to an open shame.

22. What is the object of this sin, against which it is directly levelled?

It is Christ, and salvation through him, as held out in the gospel-revelation; for, it is a treading under foot the Son of God, and accounting the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing.

23. What are the acts of this dreadful sin?

A wilful rejecting, and obstinate opposing of the truth of the gospel; a spiteful scoffing at Christianity, and the professors of it, joined sometimes with a malicious persecuting of them: and all these as fruits and concomitants of a total and final apostacy from the faith.

24. What are the aggravations of this sin?

Its being committed after a person hath “received the knowledge of the truth,” and tasted the “good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,”

25. Why is it said, that the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men, Matth. xii. 31.?

Not because it is above the virtue of the blood of Jesus to cleanse from it, but because it despises the only sacrifice for sin, and means of pardon; there being no other name under heaven, given among men, by which we must be saved, but that of Jesus, Acts 4:12 who is contemptuously rejected by it. Hebrews 2:2–3

26. How may a person be assured that he is not guilty of this sin?

He may be well assured that this sin is not charged upon him, if he is afraid that he is guilty of it; or in the least concerned about his unbelief; or has any desire after salvation through Christ; and is content to be a debtor to the riches of his grace.

27. What may we learn from the nature of sin in general?

That it is exceeding sinful, the greatest of all evils; Romans 7:13 and consequently, that it must be the sorest judgment in the world to be given up to it, Ezekiel 24:13 and the greatest mercy to be delivered therefrom. Matthew 1:21