200 ORIGINAL SIN 



have the opportunity of accepting, or rejecting, the 

 redemption of Christ. How God will deal with those 

 who by reason of the many forms of invincible ignorance 

 do not enjoy this opportunity is not the subject-matter 

 of scriptural teaching. We may infer that the love 

 which is shown in redemption will not be lacking in 

 any dealings of God with His creatures, but beyond 

 this we have no basis for assertion either in Scripture 

 or in catholic doctrine. We can only maintain with 

 St. James that we have been "begotten by the W^ord 

 of truth that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His 

 creatures," ^ and rest upon the scriptural truth that 

 God "willeth that all men should be saved." ^ If any 

 are finally lost it will be, therefore, because their own 

 conscious obstinacy has made salvation impossible, 

 and omnipotence has no application to the impos- 

 sible. 



Our ninth Article of Religion says of man's inherited 

 moral state that, "in every man born into this world, 

 it deserveth God's wrath and damnation; " and the 

 Church Catechism declares that we are "by nature 

 born in sin, and the children of wrath." These asser- 

 tions are so closely modelled upon scriptural language 

 that their interpretation ought to be determined by 

 correct biblical exegesis. This is obviously the case 

 with the language of the Church Catechism, and a con- 

 sideration of the great ambiguity of the phrase, "de- 

 serveth God's wrath and damnation," will justify 

 a similar treatment of it. Damnation, strictly taken, 



1 St. James i. iS. ' i Tim. ii. 4. 



