110. II. The True Law Of Depravity.

II. The True Law Of Depravity.

If this is not the true law of native depravity, the Scripture proofs of depravity itself must be at fault, and the Catholic doctrine of its transmission must be in error. It will be easy to justify these statements.

1. The Scripture Doctrine.—The creeds which formulate a doctrine of native depravity, and the theologians who maintain such a doctrine, both appeal to the Scriptures for its proof. Many of the evidences thus adduced, and especially the more explicit, rest on the ground of a genetic transmission of depravity. Reference to a few texts will show this. “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one” (Job 14:4). An unclean vessel defiles its content. This deeper idea of the text illustrates the law of native depravity. The reference in the close connection is to natural generation or birth as the source of depravity. “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalms 51:5). There is in this text the sense of native evil, but an evil inherited through natural generation. The same truth is given in the profound words of our Lord on the necessity for spiritual regeneration (John 3:3-7). The necessity lies in the fact that “that which is born of the flesh is flesh.” This means the inheritance of a corrupt nature through natural generation. Thus the leading texts which prove the reality of native depravity equally prove its genetic transmission.

2. The Catholic Doctrine.—No element of the Augustinian anthropology has been more fully or uniformly asserted than the genetic transmission of depravity. There is no reserve in Augustine’s expression of his own view. In nothing have his followers in doctrine more closely adhered to his teaching. This element is common to the doctrinal formulas of original sin in the creeds of the Churches: the Eastern or Greek Church;^[535] the Roman Catholic Church;^[536] Protestant Churches.^[537] The eminent theologians of the Churches follow in the maintenance of this doctrine. There is no need of a law of penal retribution to account for a result which is thus accounted for simply on a law of nature.

^[535]The Orthodox Confession, Q. 24; Larger Catechism, Q. 168.

^[536]Decree of the Council of Trent concerning Original Sin.

^[537]The Augsburg Confession, article ii; The Belgic Confession, article xv; The Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, article ix; The Synod of Dort,De Hominis Corruptione, sec. ii; The Westminster Confession, chap, vi, sec. iii.

If it should be said that the genetic transmission of Adamic depravity is simply the mode in which the divine judgment is executed, the answer is at hand. The position, by inevitable implication, denies that the law of propagation which determines the likeness of the offspring to the parentage was original to the constitution of man, while confessedly original with all other living orders, and assumes that it was subsequently ordained for man simply as the means of a judicial infliction of depravity upon all. Such implications contradict all relative facts, and utterly discredit the principle which involves them.

3. The Arminian Doctrine.—Arminianism has not the exact and comprehensive formulations of doctrine which we find in some other systems, as, for instance, the Lutheran and the Reformed or Calvinistic. No general synod or council has ever taken this work in hand; yet in other modes the leading doctrines of the system are set forth with satisfactory clearness and fullness. Respecting the genetic transmission of depravity there is full accordance with other systems of theology. Expressions are frequently met, particularly in the older Arminianism, and in the Wesleyan, which, at least, imply a judicial ground of the common depravity, but never in contradiction to its genetic mode. The tendency is toward the recognition of this law as the sufficient and whole account of it.^[538] This is definitely and explicitly the view of Dr. Whedon.^[539]

^[538] Arminius: Writings, vol. i, p. 486; Hill:Divinity, pp. 398-400; Shedd:History of Christian Doctrine, vol. ii, pp. 178-186.

^[539]Methodist Quarterly Review, 1861, pp. 649-651. Also Raymond:Systematic Theology, vol. ii, pp. 109-336; Summers:Systematic Theology, vol. ii, p. 46. On the present question our own article is very definite. Original or birth sin “is the corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam.”^[540] There is neither suggestion nor implication of any judicial ground of the common depravity. The emphasis placed upon the law of propagation from Adam down through the whole race excludes the sense of a penal infliction on the ground of a common Adamic sin. This sense would require us to hold the propagation simply as the mode of the penal infliction; but, as previously pointed out, such propagation is determined by a law of nature which is common to all orders of propagated life, and therefore cannot be the mere mode of a punishment in any specific case. On any consistent interpretation, the article accounts the common native depravity simply a genetic transmission. This is the specific doctrinal formula of the Methodist Episcopal Church on this question. The same article is held by the other Methodist Churches. We know not any exception.

^[540]Article vii.

4. Unaffected Reality of Native Depravity.—The reality of native depravity is not involved in the question of its penal infliction. Those who hold this view equally hold its genetic transmission; and both its reality and character are determined by the law of propagation. As the offspring of Adam, we all inherit the depravity of nature into which he fell through transgression. It is no less a reality than if a judicial infliction. The noxious quality of a poisonous tree is just as real, and the very same, under the law of propagation as if the immediate product of a divine malediction. The same is true of the ferocity of a tiger propagated from a parentage synchronical with Adam. So the common depravity genetically transmitted is just as real, and the very same in its own nature, as if a penal retribution. Its reality is not placed in any doubt by the disproof of its judicial ground.