illimitable worth, so that all sin may be covered, and every sinner find
a way of escape from the power and the penal consequences of
transgression. These conditions meet in the Lord Jesus Christ and in Him
alone. That God might, without compromising His attributes, be enabled
to bring man back into fellowship with Himself, He spared not His own
Son, and the Son freely gave Himself to suffering and death for the
world's redemption.

In the felt necessity of atonement, which has associated sacrifice with
every religion devised by man, we have evidence of the universality of
sin. All feel its crushing pressure, and fear the punishment which,
conscience assures them, is deserved and inevitable. The heathen
confesses it as he prostrates himself before the image of his god, or
immolates himself or his fellow-man upon his altar; and the Christian
feels and confesses it as, fleeing for refuge, he finds pardon and
cleansing in the blood of Jesus Christ.

Sin is original or actual, the former inherited from our parents, the
latter, personal transgression of the Divine law. Every man descending
from Adam by ordinary generation is born with the taint of original sin.
As the representative head of humanity, Adam transmitted to all his
descendants the nature that his sin had polluted. The fountain of life
was poisoned at its source, and when Adam begat children they were born
in his likeness. "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by
sin; and so death passed upon all men." "Death reigned ... even over
them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression."
"By one man's disobedience many were made sinners."[198]

Actual sin consists in breaking any law of God made known to us by
Scripture, conscience, or reason. It assumes many forms. There are sins