There are some slight variations in the views of the leading subdivisions of Protestant Christendom in relation to the Atonement; but these do not so much concern the nature of the Atonement itself as the manner of appropriating or receiving its benefits. At any rate their views of the Atonement are so nearly alike that they may be stated with sufficient clearness from any one of the standard works of these subdivisions.[A] The statement here used to represent the views of the leading subdivisions of Protestant Christendom is from the "Westminster Confession of Faith" of the Presbyterian church. [Footnote A: "At the time of the Reformation, we have seen that both Lutheran and Calvanistic theologians adopted the Anselmic theory of a strict satisfaction. This soteriology enters into all the Lutheran and Calvanistic symbols of the continent, and into the Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and Congregational symbols of England and America. So far, therefore, as the principal Protestant creeds are concerned, the theory of an absolute necessity of atonement, and a strict satisfaction of justice by the suffering of Christ, is the prevalent one" ("History of Christian Doctrine," Shedd, Vol. II, p. 349).] _Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment Thereof:_ Section I.--Our first parents being seduced by the subtlety and temptation of Satan, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory. "Section II.--By this sin they fell from their original righteousness, and communion with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all faculties and parts of soul and body. "Section III.--They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their posterity, descending from them by ordinary generation. "Section IV.--From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions. "Section V.--This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated; and although it be through Christ pardoned and mortified, yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin. "Section VI.--Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, doth, in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God, and curse of law, and so made subject to death, with all miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal.