Letter 205

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CCV. — To Mr. Hosmer.

MY DEAR BROTHER, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE, June 7, 1761.

I APPREHEND if you will give another careful reading To those four pages, 244-247, you will find all your objections anticipated or answered. However, I do not think much of answering them over again. Your words are,

“You say, ‘A mistake is not a sin, if love is the sole principle of action; yet it is a transgression of the perfect law:’ Therefore, perfect love is not the perfect law,” Most sure: For, by “the perfect law,” I mean that given to Adam at his creation. But the loving God with all his heart was not the whole of that law: It implied abundantly more; even thinking, speaking, and acting right in every instance, which he was then able, and therefore obliged, to do. But none of his descendants are able to do this; therefore love is the fulfillling of their law.

Perhaps you had not adverted to this. The law of love, which is the whole law given to us, is only one branch of that perfect law which was given to Adam in the beginning. His law was far wider than ours, as his faculties were more extensive. Consequently, many things might be transgressions of the latter, which were not of the former.

“But if ignorance be a transgression of the perfect law” — Whoever said or thought so? Ignorance is not; but mistake is. And this Adam was able to avoid; that kind of ignorance which was in him not constraining him to mistake, as ours frequently does.

“But is ‘a voluntary transgression of a known law’ a proper definition of sin?” I think it is of all such sin as is imputed to our condemnation. And it is a definition which has passed uncensored in the church for at least fifteen hundred years.