Let us, however, waive this objection. Let it be supposed that the Bishop uses the word in a different and more comprehensive sense, and that by sin he understands evil of all kind connected with or resulting from _actions_--though I do not see how we can represent the properties even of inanimate bodies (of poisonous substances for instance) except as _acts_ resulting from the constitution of such bodies. Or if this sense, though not unknown to the Mystic divines, should be _too_ comprehensive and remote, we will suppose the Bishop to comprise under the term sin, the evil accompanying or consequent on _human_ actions and purposes:--though here too, I have a right to be informed, for what reason and on what grounds Sin is thus limited to _human_ agency? And truly, I should be at no loss to assign the reason. But then this reason would instantly bring me back to my first definition; and any other reason, than that the human agent is endowed with Reason, and with a Will which can place itself either in subjection or in opposition to his Reason--in other words, that man is alone of all known animals a responsible creature--I neither know nor can imagine.
Thus, then, the sense which Taylor--and with him the antagonists generally of this Article as propounded by the first Reformers--attaches to the words, Original Sin, needs only be carried on into its next consequence, and it will be found to _imply_ the sense which I have given--namely, that Sin is Evil having an _Origin_. But inasmuch as it is _evil_, in God it cannot originate: and yet in some _Spirit_ (that is, in some _supernatural_ power) it _must_. For in _Nature_ there is no origin. Sin therefore is spiritual Evil: but the spiritual in man is the Will. Now when we do not refer to any particular sins, but to that state and constitution of the Will, which is the ground, condition, and common Cause of all Sins; and when we would further express the truth, that this corrupt _nature_ of the Will must in some sense or other be considered as its own act, that the corruption must have been self-originated;--in this case and for this purpose we may, with no less propriety than force, entitle this dire spiritual evil and source of all evil, that is absolutely such, Original Sin. I have said, "the corrupt _nature_ of the Will." I might add, that the admission of a _nature_ into a spiritual essence by its own act is a corruption.