“What does this young upstart know about the Scriptures?  Why, I have been a student of the Scriptures for fifty long years, many years before this young man was born.  I have heard many great preachers in my time, and they all said that man was born unto sin as the sparks are to fly upward.  ’He that saith he liveth and sinneth not is a liar, and the truth is not in him.’  This is what the Scriptures say.  And I have read where Solomon said that ‘there is no man that sinneth not,’ and did not John say, ’If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us’?  Yes, he said that in 1 John 1:8.  Ah, young man, you have much to learn yet about the Scriptures.  As long as we are in this old sinful flesh we will commit sin.”  And Peter sat down, with an air of triumph.

Robert Davis arose immediately.  Everybody present was on the tiptoe of expectation.  What would his reply be?  They had not long to wait.  Turning directly to Peter Newby, he asked him a pointblank question: 

“Sir, how much sin is there in this stove?” pointing to a stove that stood there.

“None, I suppose,” answered Peter, rather feebly, as if he feared a trap were being laid for him.

“How much sin is there in the wood or stone of this house?” Robert asked Peter next.

“None, I suppose,” he replied.

“Well, then,” asked Robert, “how much sin will there be in this old body when it is dead?”

“I suppose there will be none,” Peter replied in a tone that registered defeat.

“Well, then, will you make death the salvation from sin?  You say that as long as we are in what you call the ’old sinful flesh” we must commit sin, and yet you admit, as you must, that there will be no sin in the body when it is dead.  Where, then, does sin reside?  Jesus answers this question once for all in Matthew 15:19, 20:  ’For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.’  It is the heart that sins; ’the soul that sinneth, it shall die,’ says the prophet Ezekiel in Ezek. 18:4.  The body will die and return to dust from whence it came, but these immortal souls of ours will live on eternally.  It is the soul that sins.  When in our intentions we purpose to sin, we are guilty of sin before God.  He that searches the heart, who looks not as man looks, who sees the secret motive, he knows when the will consents to do evil.  Not a theft was ever committed, except that there was a will to steal; not an act of dishonesty, except that there was a will to deceive; not a lie was ever uttered, except there was a will to lie.  It is our souls that must be saved.  ’Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls’ (1 Peter 1:9).