actu secundo. As it is considered under the former notion, it denotes the
action (in sins of omission,) to the law of God; which may be called the To formale of sin, being that which constitutes the action, or the power, sinful. Secondly, There is the guilt of it; which is an obligation to punishment: and this is a consequent of sin, flowing both ex natura rei, et. ex institutone Dei; from the nature of sin itself; and the sanction of the divine law.
2. The guilt of sin may be considered two ways (1.) In actu primo, (2.) In actu secundo. As it is considered under the former notion, it denotes the intrinsic demerit of sin, whereby the sinner, in whatsoever state he be, doth indeed deserve the wrath and curse of God for his sin, and that so much the more as the sin is aggravated by light, mercies received, and the like. And thus believers are more guilty than others. In this sense, guilt cannot be separated from sin, no more than risibility from a man, or heat from the fire. The guilt of sin considered in actu secundo, denoted an actual obligation to undergo the penalty denounced in the law, whether a remission be to follow or not. There is a vast difference betwixt these two, and therefore the distinction is carefully to be noticed in this question. The difference betwixt them is as great, as betwixt a man's deserving a sentence of death to pass upon him, and the actual passing of the sentence. And although guilt under the former notion is inseparable from sin, yet in this sense it is separable, therefrom; even as the three children in the fiery furnace were in actu primo combustible; but not in actu secundo;* the fire could have no power over them. The pardon of sin takes away the guilt of it in the last sense, though in the former it still remains. And so Christ took on our guilt in the latter, but it remains with us in the former sense. Turretine calls the one potential guilt, the other actual; the one, says he, respects condemnability, the other condemnation.
3. We must also distinguish betwixt actual guilt, or the actual binding over the sinner to punishment; and the execution, or actual inflicting of the punishment. The former may be where the latter shall never follow; as the elect unconverted are lying under the condemnatory sentence of the law, though it shall never be executed upon them. The confounding of these two cannot but lead men into mistakes. All the three do clearly appear, if we compare the case of a sinner with that of malefactors