We regard Orthodoxy as substantially right in its views of sin as being a deep and radical disease. Our Saviour says, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” “The Son of man came to seek and to save that which is lost.”
But the question recurs, Is there only one kind of sin,—namely, voluntary and conscious transgression of God's law, originating with the individual himself, and in the moment of committing it, by means of his free will, which is its only seat? or is there sin which is a tendency in man's nature, something permanent, involuntary, of which he is not conscious, and which has its seat not merely in the will, but in the desires and affections. To this question Liberal Christianity has commonly said, “No,” and Orthodoxy has said, “Yes.”
And on this point I concur with Orthodoxy. Besides the sin which consists in free choice, and which is essentially transient, there is also the sin which consists in wrong desire, and which is essentially permanent, because it is a habit of the mind. If it were not so, there could be no such thing as a bad character, and no such thing as a vicious habit.
If we attempt to analyze evil, we shall find that it may be conveniently distributed into these divisions:—
1. Physical Evil.
(a.) Pain.
(b.) Weakness.
(c.) Physical disease.
2. Intellectual or Mental Evil.
(a.) Ignorance.
(b.) Error, or mistake.
(c.) Sophism, or falsehood.
3. Moral Evil. Disobedience to the Moral Law.
(a.) Ignorant and accidental, or transgression.
(b.) Habitual disobedience, or vice.
(c.) Wilful violation of human law; crime.
(d.) Diseased moral state, as selfishness, bad temper, &c.