076. II. Proofs Of Primitive Holiness.
II. Proofs Of Primitive Holiness.
1. Implication of the Moral Nature.—Man is a moral being, and was so constituted in the beginning. Conscience, and moral reason, and the sense of God and duty are no mere acquisition through a process of evolution or the association of ideas, but are as original to man as intelligence and sensibility. Without a moral nature man is not man. Such a nature must have moral tendencies. The notion of its indifference as between the ethically good and evil is irrational, and contradictory to all relative and analogous facts. Mind is spontaneously active. The sensibilities which so wonderfully adjust us to our manifold relations are thus active. This activity is in the form of tendency or disposition, of inclination or aversion. There is either an outgoing of the sensibility toward its appropriate object or an aversion from it, and the notion of indifference is excluded. There is no indifference as to society, or country, or kindred, or home. In such objects there is a spontaneous interest. There may be instances of repugnance or aversion; but there are none of indifference. What is thus true of the sensibilities in general is equally true of the moral nature. It must be either spontaneously disposed to the good or inclined to the evil. The facts of observation and experience affirm the truth of this position. A state of indifference would betray an abnormal condition. What is thus ever true of man was equally true of Adam in his primitive state. There were spontaneous tendencies or inclinations of his moral nature. But the new Adam was just what God made him. His spontaneous tendencies were immediately consequent to his nature as divinely constituted. Hence his moral inclination must have been to the good in preference to the evil. Such inclination is at once the characteristic fact and the proof of subjective holiness.
2. Primitive Man Very Good.—That primitive man was very good is more than an implicit fact of the Mosaic narrative. “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31) It is true that these words are general, and are not specifically applied to man, as in other instances like words were so applied to other parts of the new creation (Genesis 1:10; Genesis 1:12; Genesis 1:18; Genesis 1:21; Genesis 1:25); but, as they immediately follow the account of the creation of man, they must as really and fully apply to him as they could in the most direct and specific manner. Any limitation, therefore, which excludes the moral nature of man from this application is contrary to the clear sense of Scripture.
Yet such a limitation is assumed: “And as to the divine declaration that ‘every thing was very good,’ it expressly refers to all that God had made, and is quite compatible with the idea of a germ of sin lying hid in man, and having its origin only in man and not in God. It is also plain that the declaration refers to God’s non-intelligent creation as well as to man, so that it expresses the general fitness of every thing for the purpose designed, and not moral good.”[452] Only in this way could the author attempt a reconciliation of his theory of a germ of sin in primitive man with his divine characterization as very good; but no such reconciliation is possible. We cannot thus turn away from a specific sense of “very good” to a general sense which shall exclude moral good in the case of primitive man. Every part of creation has its purpose after its own kind, and, if fitted to its purpose, must be good in its kind. Muller really admits this principle; and it must be just as true in the case of primitive man as in application to any other part of creation. But man was morally constituted, and divinely purposed for moral ends. God created man for communion with himself, and for blessedness in his own holy service. If originally good, he must have been morally good, for only therein could he have been good in his kind, and fitted for such divine ends. We could as well omit the luminosity of the sun from its characterization as “very good” as to omit the morally good from a like characterization of primitive man.
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3. Further Scripture Proofs.—Under this head we present a few texts which clearly contain the truth of a primitive holiness. “Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions” (Ecclesiastes 7:29). The service of the text for the present question hinges upon the sense of upright. In the frequent use of this term three senses appear: rectitude of posture or form; rectitude of conduct; rectitude of the moral nature. The first can have no place in the present text. The context is a disquisition upon man purely in his moral aspects, not at all in his organic structure. The evil inventions of men, so sharply contrasted with an original uprightness, can have no such distinction from a mere bodily rectitude. The second meaning—rectitude of conduct—is more than the term can here admit. In making man upright God did not make for him an upright life. As previously shown, such a life requires man’s own personal agency. It thus appears that neither the first nor the second meaning gives the proper sense of upright in the present text. A third sense remains, and must be the true one. The term has a deeper meaning than the deeds of an upright life. It reaches down to the personal agent, and to the principles which underlie his action. Thus the moral nature with its spontaneous tendencies is reached. Such is the deeper meaning of upright in its application to God (Deuteronomy 32:4; Psalms 25:8; Psalms 92:15). Such, too, is its deeper sense in application to man (Job 1:1; Job 1:8; Job 23:7; Psalms 11:7; Psalms 37:37). This is the proper meaning in the text under treatment. In such a sense man was originally constituted holy.
“And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” “And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him” (Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10). These texts are so much alike that we may properly place them together. We require only the points which concern the question of primitive holiness. The central truth of the texts is the transformation of man from an evil to a good life. This transformation is deeper than the life of personal action, and includes a renovation of the moral nature. The old man with his deeds, which must be put off, is both a corrupt nature and a vicious life; and the new man, which must be put on, is both a holy nature and a good life. Hence it is that this moral transformation requires a renewal in the spirit of the mind and a creation of the new man. Here is an inner work of the Holy Spirit, a purification of the moral nature by his gracious and mighty agency. This purification is a renewal of the soul in the image of God in which man was originally created. Clearly this is the thought in the mind of Paul. His words more than imply it. The fact of such a thought is not in the least discredited by the use of words—such as righteousness and knowledge—which carry a sense beyond the moral nature into the actual life. No exact parallelism is attempted. With an intense practical aim, the apostle connects with the inner purification the good life which should spring from it; but it is still true to his thought that this inner purification is a renewal of the soul in the original image of God. Hence in that imago there is the truth of a primitive holiness.
4. Error of Pelagianism.—In the great contention between Augustine and Pelagius, each went to an extreme: the former in the maintenance of original sin in the sense of native demerit; the latter in the denial of native depravity. Both failed to make the proper distinction between moral character from personal conduct and the subjective moral state. With an omission of the proper analysis, such as we have previously given, to bring out the clear distinction of the two, native depravity was with Augustine native sin and demerit. On the other hand, Pelagius, equally overlooking that distinction, and holding the impossibility of demerit without one’s own personal conduct, denied the truth of native depravity. With the proper analysis, the former might have maintained the whole truth of native depravity without the element of sinful demerit; while the latter might have held the same truth of depravity, and yet have maintained his fundamental principle, that free personal conduct absolutely conditions all sinful demerit. We thus point out the opposite extremes, and the opposite errors, of the two parties in this great contention.
Other errors followed in logical consistency. If all men might be sinners, with the desert of punishment, by virtue of an inherited depravity, Adam could have the moral worth and rewardableness of an eminent saint simply by virtue of an original creation. The anthropology of Augustine both with himself and his many followers tends strongly to this view. On the other hand, the denial of primitive holiness on the part of Pelagius was logically consequent to his denial of Augustine’s doctrine of original sin. Failing to analyze this doctrine into its separate elements, his denial of native sin carried with it the denial of native depravity. On such a principle there can be no moral quality of a nature, and therefore no primitive holiness. This was the outcome with Pelagius, as may be seen in his own words. “From the first book of Pelagius on free-will, Augustine quotes the following declaration of his opponent (De Pec. Orig., 13): ‘All good and evil, by which we are praise or blameworthy, do not originate together with us, but are done by us. We are born capable of each, but not filled with either. And as we are produced without virtue, so are we also without vice; and before the action of his own will, there is in man only what God made.’”[453] This denies all change in the moral state of the race as consequent to the Adamic fall. In his moral nature man is still the same as in his original constitution. Adam was endowed with freedom and placed under a law of duty, but was morally indifferent as between good and evil. We have previously shown that the notion of such indifference in a being morally constituted is irrational and contradictory to decisive facts. The denial of primitive holiness is not a merely speculative error. The principle of this denial carries with it a denial of the Adamic fall and the depravity of the race, and therefore leaves no place for a system of evangelical theology. There is no longer any need of atonement, or regeneration, or justification by faith, or a new spiritual life in Christ.
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