CHAPTER VIII: SIN.

SIN. __________________________________________________________________

§ 1. The Nature of the Question to be Considered.

Our first parents, we are told, fell from the estate wherein they were created by sinning against God. This presents the question, which is one of the most difficult and comprehensive whether in morals or in theology, What is sin? The existence of sin is an undeniable fact. No man can examine his own nature, or observe the conduct of his fellow men, without having the conviction forced upon him that there is such an evil as sin. This is not a purely moral or theological question. It falls also within the province of philosophy, which assumes to explain all the phenomena of human nature as well as of the external world. Philosophers, therefore, of every age and of every school, have been compelled to discuss this subject. The philosophical theories, as to the nature of sin, are as numerous as the different schools of philosophy. This great question comes under the consideration of the Christian theologian with certain limitations. He assumes the existence of a personal God of infinite perfection, and he assumes the responsibility of man. No theory of the nature or origin of sin which conflicts with either of these fundamental principles, can for him be true. Before entering upon the statement of any of the theories which have been more or less extensively adopted, it is important to ascertain the data on which the answer to the question, What is sin? is to be determined; or the premises from which that answer is to be deduced. These are simply the declarations of the word of God and the facts of our own moral nature. Ignoring either wholly or in part these two sources of knowledge, many philosophers and even theologians, have recourse to the reason, or rather to the speculative understanding, for the decision of the question. This method, however, is unreasonable, and is sure to lead to false conclusions. In determining the nature of sensation we cannot adopt the à priori method, and argue from the nature of a thing how it ought to affect our organs of sense. We must assume the facts of sense consciousness as the phenomena to be explained. We cannot say that such is the nature of light that it cannot cause the phenomena of vision; or of acids that they cannot affect the organs of taste; or that our sensations are deceptive which lead ns to refer them to such causes. Nor can we determine philosophically the principles of beauty, and decide what men must admire and what they must dislike. All that philosophy can do is take the facts of our æsthetic nature and from them deduce the laws or principles of beauty. In like manner the facts of our moral consciousness must he assumed as true and trustworthy. We cannot argue that such is the constitution of the universe, such the relation of the individual to the whole, that there can be no such thing as sin, nothing for which we should feel remorse or on the ground of which we should apprehend punishment. Nor can we adopt such a theory of moral obligation as forbids our recognizing as sin what the conscience forces us to condemn. Any man who should adopt such a theory of the sublime and beautiful, as would demonstrate that Niagara and the Alps were not sublime objects in nature; or that the Madonna del Sisti or the Transfiguration by Raphael are not beautiful productions of art; or that the "Iliad" and "Paradise Lost" are not worthy of the admiration of ages, would lose his labour. And thus the man who ignores the facts of our moral nature in his theories of the origin and nature of sin, must labour in vain. This, however, is constantly done. It will be found that all the anti-theistic and antichristian views of this subject are purely arbitrary speculations, at war with the simplest and most undeniable facts of consciousness.

With regard to the nature of sin, it is to be remarked that there are two aspects in which the subject may be viewed. The first concerns its metaphysical, and the second, its moral nature. What is that which we call sin? Is it a substance, a principle, or an act? Is it privation, negation, or defect? Is it antagonism between mind and matter, between soul and body? Is it selfishness as a feeling, or as a purpose? All these are questions which concern the metaphysical nature of sin, what it is as a res in natura. Whereas such questions as the following concern rather its moral nature, namely, What gives sin its character as moral evil? How does it stand related to law? What law is it to which sin is related? What is its relation to the justice of God? What is its relation to his holiness? What has, or can have the relation of sin to law; is it acts of deliberation only, or also impulsive acts and affections, emotions and principles, or dispositions? It is obvious that these are moral, rather than metaphysical questions. In some of the theories on the nature of sin it is viewed exclusively in one of these aspects; and in some, exclusively in the other; and in some both views are combined. It is not proposed to attempt to keep these views distinct as both are of necessity involved in the theological discussion of the subject. __________________________________________________________________

§ 2. Philosophical Theories of the Nature of Sin.

The first theory in the order of time, apart from the primitive doctrine of the Bible, as to the origin and nature of sin, is the dualistic, or that which assumes the existence of an eternal principle of evil. This doctrine was widely disseminated throughout the East, and in different forms was partially introduced into the Christian church. According to the doctrine of the Parsis this original principle was a personal being; according to the Gnostics, Marcionites, and Manicheans, it was a substance, an eternal hule or matter. Augustine says, "Iste [Manes] duo principia inter se diversa atque adversa, eademque æterna et coæterna, hoc est semper fuisse, composuit: duasque naturas atque substantias, boni scilicet et mali, sequens alios antiquos hæreticos, opinatus est." [134] These two principles are in perpetual conflict. In the actual world they are intermingled. Both enter into the constitution of man. He has a spirit (pneuma) derived from the kingdom of light; and a body with its animal life (soma and psuche) derived from the kingdom of darkness. Sin is thus a physical evil; the defilement of the spirit by its union with a material body; and is to be overcome by physical means, i.e., by means adapted to destroy the influence of the body on the soul. Hence the efficacy of abstinence and austerities. [135]

This theory obviously is: (1.) Inconsistent with Theism, in making something out of God eternal and independent of his will. He ceases to be an infinite Being and an absolute sovereign. He is everywhere limited by a coeternal power which He cannot control. (2.) It destroys the nature of sin as a moral evil, in making it a substance, and in representing it as inseparable from the nature of man as a creature composed of matter and spirit. (3.) It destroys, of course, human responsibility, not only by making moral evil necessary from the very constitution of man, and by referring its origin to a source, eternal and necessarily operative; but by making it a substance, which destroys its nature as This theory is so thoroughly anti-theistic and anti-Christian, that although long prevailing as a heresy in the Church, it never entered into any living connection with Christian doctrine.

Sin regarded as a mere Limitation of Being.

The second anti-Christian theory of the nature of sin is that which makes it a mere negation, or limitation of being. Being, substance, is good. "Omne quod est, in quantum aliqua substantia est, et bonum [est]," [136] says Augustine. God as the absolute substance is the supreme good. The absolute evil would be nothing. Therefore the less of being, the less of good; and all negation, or limitation of being is evil, or sin. Spinoza [137] says, "Quo magis unusquisque, suum utile quærere, hoc est suum esse conservare conatur et potest, eo magis virtute præditus est; contra quatenus unusquisque suum utile, hoc est suum esse conservare negligit, eatenus est impotens." In his demonstration of that proposition he makes power and goodness identical, potentia and virtus are the same. Hence the want of virtue, or evil, is weakness, or limitation of being. Still more distinctly, does Professor Baur of Tübingen, present this view of the nature of sin. [138] He says, "Evil is what is finite; for the finite is negative; the negation of the infinite. Everything finite is relatively nothing; a negativity which, in the constant distinction of plus and minus of reality, appears in different forms." Again, "If freedom from sin is the removal of all limitation, so is it clear, that only an endless series of gradations can bring us to the point where sin is reduced to a vanishing minimum. If this minimum should entirely disappear, then the being, thus entirely free from sin, becomes one with God, for God only is absolutely sinless. But if other beings than God are to exist, there must be in them, so far as they are not infinite as God is, for that very reason, a minimum of evil." The distinction between good and evil, is, therefore, merely quantitative, a distinction between more or less. Being is good, the limitation of being is evil. This idea of sin lies in the nature of the Pantheistic system. If God be the only substance, the only life, the only agent, then He is the sum of all that is, or, rather all that is, is the manifestation of God; the form of his existence. Consequently, if evil exists it is as much a form of the existence of God as good; and can be nothing but imperfect development, or mere limitation of being.

This theory, it is clear, (1.) ignores the difference between the malum metaphysicum and the malum morale, between the physical and the moral between a stunted tree and a wicked man. Instead of explaining sin, it denies its existence. It is therefore in conflict with the clearest of intuitive truths and the strongest of our instinctive convictions. There is nothing of which we are more sure, not even our own existence, than we are of the difference between sin and limitation of being, between what is morally wrong and what is a mere negation of power. (2.) This theory assumes the truth of the pantheistic system of the universe, and therefore is at variance with our religious nature, which demands and assumes the existence of a personal God. (3.) In destroying the idea of sin, it destroys all sense of moral obligation, and gives unrestrained liberty to all evil passions. It not only teaches that all that is, is right; that everything that exists or happens has a right to be, but that the only standard of virtue is power. The strongest is the best. As Cousin says, the victor is always right; the victim is always wrong. The conqueror is always more moral than the vanquished. Virtue and prosperity, misfortune and vice, he says, are in necessary harmony. Feebleness is a vice (i.e., sin), and therefore is always punished and beaten. [139] This principle is adopted by all such writers as Carlyle, who in their hero worship, make the strong always the good; and represent the murderer, the pirate, and the persecutor, as always more moral and more worthy of admiration than their victims. Satan is far more worthy of homage than the best of men, as in him there is more of being and power, and he is the seducer of angels and the destroyer of men. A more thoroughly demoniacal system than this, the mind of man has never conceived. Yet this system has not only its philosophical advocates, and its practical disciples, but it percolates through much of the popular literature both of Europe and America.

Leibnitz's Theory of Privation.

Nearly allied in terms, but very different in spirit and purpose from this doctrine of Spinoza and his successors, is the theory of Leibnitz, who also resolves sin into privation, and refers it to the necessary limitation of being. Leibnitz, however, was a theist, and his object in his "Théodicée" was to vindicate God by proving that the existence of sin is consistent with his divine perfections. His work is religious in its spirit and object, however erroneous and dangerous in some of its principles. He assumed that this is the best possible world. As sin exists in the world, it must be necessary or unavoidable. It is not to be referred to the agency of God. But as God is the universal agent according to Leibnitz's philosophy, sill must be a simple negation or privation for which no efficient cause is needed. These are the two points to be established, First, that sin is unavoidable; and secondly, that it is not due to the agency of God. It is unavoidable, because it arises out of the necessary limitation of the creature. The creature cannot be absolutely perfect. His knowledge and power must be limited. But if limited, they must not only be liable to error, but error or wrong action is unavoidable, or you would have absolutely perfect action from a less than absolutely perfect agent; the effect would transcend the power of the cause. Evil, therefore, according to Leibnitz, arises "par la suprême necessité des vérités éternelles."
[140] "Le franc-arbitre va au bien, et s'il rencontre le mal, c'est par accident, c'est que le mal est caché sous le bien et comme masqué." The origin of evil is thus indeed referred to the will, but the will is unavoidably, or of necessity led into error, by the limitations inseparable from the nature of a creature. If, therefore, God created a world at all, He must create one from which sin could not be excluded. Such being the origin and nature of sin, it follows that God is not its author. Providence, according to Leibnitz, is a continued creation (at least this is the view presented in some parts of his "Théodicée" [141] ), therefore all that is positive and real must be due to his agency. But sill being merely negation, or privation, is nothing positive, and therefore does not need an efficient, but simply a deficient cause to account for its existence. The similarity in mode of statement between this doctrine and the Augustinian doctrine which makes all sin defect, and which reconciles its existence with the holiness of God on the same principle as that adopted by Leibnitz, is obvious to all. It is however merely a similarity in the mode of expression. The two doctrines are essentially different, as we shall see when the Augustinian theory comes to be considered. With Augustine, defect is the absence of a moral good which the creature should possess; with Leibnitz, negation is the necessary limitation of the powers of the creature.

The objections to this theory which makes sin mere privation, and refers it to the nature of creatures as finite beings, are substantially the same as those already presented as bearing against the other theories before mentioned. (1.) In the first place, it makes sin a necessary evil. Creatures are of necessity imperfect or finite; and if sin be the unavoidable consequence of such imperfection, or limitation of being, sin also becomes a necessary evil. (2.) It makes God after all the author of sin in so far as it throws upon Him the responsibility for its existence. For even admitting that it is a mere negation, requiring no efficient cause, nevertheless God is the author of the limitation in the creature whence sin of necessity flows. He has so constituted the works of his hand, that they cannot but sin, just as the child cannot but err in its judgments. Reason is so feeble even in the adult man that mistakes as to the nature and causes of things are absolutely unavoidable. And if sin be equally unavoidable from the very constitution of the creature, God, who is the author of that constitution, becomes responsible for its existence. This is not only derogatory to the character of God, but directly opposed to the teachings of his Word. The Bible never refers the origin of sin, whether in angels or in men, to the necessary limitations of their being as creatures, but to the perverted and inexcusable use of their own free agency. The fallen angels kept not their first estate; and man, being left to the freedom of his own will, fell from the estate in which he was created. (3.) This theory tends to obliterate the distinction between moral and physical evil. If sin be mere privation, or if it be the necessary consequence of the feebleness of the creature, it is the object of pity rather than of abhorrence. In the writings of the advocates of this theory the two senses of the words good and evil, the moral and the physical, are constantly interchanged and confounded; because evil according to their views is really little more than a misfortune, an unavoidable mistake as to what is really good. The distinction, however, between virtue and vice, holiness and sin, as revealed in our consciousness and in the word of God, is absolute and entire. Both are simple ideas. We know what pain is from experience; we know what sin is from the same source. We know that the two are as different as day and night, as light and sound. Any theory, therefore, which tends to confound them, must be false. Accordingly, in the Scriptures while mere suffering is always presented as an object of commiseration, sin is presented as an object of abhorrence and condemnation. The wrath and curse of God are denounced against all sin as its just desert. (4.) This doctrine, therefore, necessarily tends not only to lessen our sense of the evil or pollution of sin, but also to destroy the sense of guilt. Our sins are our misfortunes, our infirmities. They are not what conscience pronounces them to be, crimes calling for condign punishment. Sin, however, reveals itself in our consciousness not as a weakness, but as a power. It is greatest in the strongest. It is not the feeble-minded who are the worst of men; but those great in intellect have been, in many cases, the greatest in iniquity. Satan, the worst of created beings, is the most powerful of creatures. (5.) If this theory be correct, sin must be everlasting. As we can never be free from the limitations of our being, we can never be free from sin to which those limitations unavoidably give rise. The soul, therefore, as has been said, is the asymptote of God, forever approaching but never reaching the state of absolute sinlessness.

Sin necessary Antagonism.

Still another theory obviously inconsistent with the facts of consciousness and the teachings of the Bible, is that which accounts for sin on the law of necessary opposition, or antagonism. All life, it is said, implies action and reaction. Even in the material universe the same law prevails. The heavenly bodies are kept in their orbits by the balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces There is polarity in light, and in magnetism and electricity. All chemical changes are produced by attraction and repulsion. Thus in the animal world there is no strength without obstacles to be overcome; no rest without fatigue; no life without death. So also the mind is developed by continual struggles, by constant conflict with what is within and without. The same law, it is urged, must prevail in the moral world. There can be no good without evil. Good is the resistance or the overcoming of evil. What the material universe would be, had matter but one property; if everything were oxygen or everything carbon; what life would be without action and reaction; what the mind would he without the struggle with error and search after truth; such, it is said, the moral world would be without sin; a stagnant, lifeless pool. So far as creatures are concerned, it is maintained, that it is a law of their constitution, that they should be developed by antagonism, by the action of contrary forces, or opposing principles; so that a moral world without sin is an impossibility. Sin is the necessary condition of the existence of virtue.

This general theory is of early origin and wide dissemination In its latest form, as presented by Blasche and Rosenkranz, the universe itself, as a product of the self-development of the infinite and absolute Being, involving a separation or difference from the pure and simple one in which was no distinction, is evil. It comes into existence by a fall or apostasy. Thus, as Professor Müller in his work on "Sin," says, Instead of Pantheism we have a system which nearly approaches Pansatanism. Apart however from this dreadful extreme of the doctrine, in any form it destroys the very nature of sin. What is so called is the universal law of all finite existence. There cannot be action without reaction. There cannot be life without diversity and antagonism of operations. And if good cannot exist without evil, evil ceases to be something to be abhorred and condemned. Men cease to be responsible for what is inseparable from their very nature as creatures, and therefore there is nothing which the conscience can condemn or which God can punish. Our whole moral nature, on this theory, is a delusion, and all the denunciations of Scripture against sin are the ravings of fanaticism.

Schleiermacher's Theory of Sin.

Schleiermacher's doctrine of sin is so related to his whole philosophical and theological system that one cannot be understood without some knowledge of the other. His philosophy is pantheistic. His theology is simply the interpretation of human consciousness in accordance with the fundamental principles of his philosophy. It is called Christian theology because it is the interpretation of the religious consciousness of Christians; i.e., of those who know and believe the facts recorded concerning Christ. The leading principles of his system are the following:

1. God is the absolute Infinity (die einfache and absolute Unendlichkeit), not a person, but simple being with the single attribute of omnipotence. Other attributes which we ascribe to the Infinite Being express not what is in Him (or rather in It), but the effects produced in us. Wisdom, goodness, holiness in God, mean simply the causality in Him which produces those attributes in us.

Absolute power means all power. God, or the absolutely powerful being, is the only cause. Everything that is and everything that occurs are due to his efficiency.

3. This infinite power produces the world. Whatever the relation between the two, whether it is the substance of which the world is the phenomenon, or whether the world is the substance of which God is the life, the world in some sense is. There is a finite as well as an infinite.

4. Man, as an integral part of the world, consists of two elements, or stands related both to the finite and infinite, God and nature. There is in man self-consciousness, or a consciousness which is affected by the world. He is in the world and of the world, and is acted upon by the world. On the other hand, he has what Schleiermacher calls Gottesbewusstseyn, or God-consciousness. This is not merely a consciousness of God, but is God in us in the form of consciousness.

5. The normal, or ideal, state of man consists in the absolute and uninterrupted control of the God-consciousness, or of God in us. These two principles he sometimes distinguishes as flesh and spirit. But by flesh he does not mean the body; nor what St. Paul commonly means by it, our corrupt fallen nature; but our whole nature so far as it stands related to the world. It is tantamount, in the terminology of Schleiermacher, to self-consciousness. And by spirit he does not mean the reason, nor what the Bible means by the spirit in man, i.e., the Holy Ghost, but the (Gottesbewusstseyn) God-consciousness, or God in us.

6. Religion consists in the feeling of absolute dependence. That is, in the recognition of the fact that God, or the absolute Being, is the only cause, and that we are merely the form in which his causality is revealed or exercised.

7. The original state of man was not a normal or ideal state. That is, the God-consciousness or divine principle was not strong enough absolutely to control the self-consciousness. That was a state to be reached by progress or development.

8. The feeling which arises from the want of this absolute control of the higher principle is the sense of sin; and the conviction that the higher principle ought to rule is the sense of guilt. With this feeling of sin and guilt arises the sense of the need of redemption.

9. This redemption consists in giving to the God-consciousness complete control; and is effected through Christ, who is the normal or ideal man. That is, He is the man in whom the God-consciousness, the divine nature, God (these, in this system, are interchangeable terms), was from the beginning completely dominant. We become like Him, i.e., are redeemed, partly by the recognition of his true character as sinless, and partly by communion with Him through his Church.

It is plain that this system precludes the possibility of sin in the true Scriptural sense of the term, --

1. Because it precludes the idea of a personal God. If sin be want of conformity to law, there must be a lawgiver, one who prescribes the rule of duty to his creatures. But in this system there is no self-conscious, personal ruler who is the moral governor of men.

2. Because the system denies all efficiency, and of course all liberty to the creature. If the Infinite Being is the only agent, then all that is, is due to his direct efficiency; and sin, therefore, is either his work or it is a mere negation.

3. Because what, according to this theory, is called sin is absolutely universal and absolutely necessary. It is the unavoidable consequence or condition of the existence of such a being as man. That is, of a being with a self-consciousness and a God-consciousness, in such proportions and relation that the dominance of the latter can be attained only gradually.

4. Because what are called sin and guilt are only such in our consciousness, or in our subjective apprehension of them. Certain things produce in us the sense of pain, others the feeling of pleasure; some the feeling of approbation, others of disapprobation; and that by the ordinance, so to speak, of God. But pain and pleasure, right and wrong, are merely subjective states. They have no objective reality. We are sinful and guilty only in our own feelings, not in the sight or judgment of God. [142] How entirely this view of the subject destroys all true sense of sin; how inconsistent it is with all responsibility; how it conflicts with the testimony of our own consciousness and with the teachings of Scripture, must be apparent to all who have not yielded themselves to the control of the pantheistic principles on which this whole system is founded.

The Sensuous Theory.

A sixth theory places the source and seat of sin in the sensuous nature of man. We are composed of body and spirit. Whatever may be the relation of the two, they cannot fail to be recognized as in some sense distinct elements of our nature. All attempts to identify them not only lead to the contradiction of self-evident truths, but to the degradation of the spiritual. If the mind be the product of the body, or the highest function of matter, or if the body be the product of the mind, or the external form in which mind exists, in either way the mind is materialized. "It is," says Müller, [143] "the undeniable teaching of history that the obliterating the. distinction between spirit and nature always ends in naturalizing spirit, and never in spiritualizing nature." It is a fact of consciousness and of common consent that man consists of soul and body. It is no less certain that by the body he is connected with the external world or nature, and by the soul with the spiritual world and God; that he has wants, desires, appetites, and affections, which find their objects in the material world, and that he has other instincts, affections, and powers which find their objects in the spiritual world. It is self-evident that the latter are higher and ought to be uniformly and always dominant; it is a fact of experience that the reverse is the case; that the lower prevail over the higher; that men are universally to a greater or less extent, and always to an extent that is degrading and sinful, governed by their sensuous nature. They prefer the seen and temporal to the unseen and eternal. They seek the gratification which is to be found in material objects, rather than the blessedness which is to be found in the things of the Spirit. Herein, according to this theory, consists the source and essence of sin. This doctrine, which has prevailed in every age of the Church, has existed in different forms, (1.) In that of the Manichæan system, which teaches the essential evil of matter. (2.) In that of the later Romanism, which teaches that man as originally created was so constituted that the soul was subject to the body, his higher powers being subordinate to his lower or sensuous nature. This original evil in his constitution was, in the case of Adam, according to the Romanists, corrected by the supernatural gift of original righteousness. When that righteousness was lost by the fall, the sensuous element in man's nature became ascendent. Therein consists his habitual sinfulness, and this is the source of all actual transgressions. (3.) The more common form of this theory is essentially the same with the Romish doctrine, except that it does not refer the predominance of the body aver the soul to the loss of original righteousness. The fact that men are governed by the lower rather than by the higher elements of their nature, as a matter of experience, is accounted for in different ways. (1.) Some say it arises from the relative weakness of the higher powers. This amounts to the Leibnitzian doctrine that sin is due to the limitations of our nature, or the feebleness and liability to error belonging to our constitution as creatures. (2.) Others appeal to the liberty of the will. Man as a free agent has the power either to resist or to submit to the enticements of the flesh. If he submits, it is his own fault and sin. There is no necessity and no coercion in the case. But if this submission is universal and uniform it must have a universal and adequate cause. That cause is not found in the mere liberty of man, or in his ability to submit. It must be that the cause is uniform and abiding, and such a cause can only be found in the very constitution of man, at least in his present state, which renders the sensuous element in man more powerful than the spiritual. (3.) Others again, while not denying the plenary ability of man to resist the allurements of sense, account for the universal ascendency of the lower powers by a reference to the order of development of our nature. We are so constituted, or we come into the world in such a state that the lower or sensuous part of our nature invariably and of necessity attains strength before the development of the higher powers. The animal propensities of the child are strong, while reason and con science are weak. Hence the lower gain such an ascendency over the higher that it is ever afterwards maintained.

It is obvious, however, that this theory in any of its forms fails to bring out the real nature of sin, or satisfactorily to account for its origin.

1. Sin is not essentially the state or act of a sensuous nature. The creatures presented in Scripture as the most sinful are the fallen spirits, who have no bodies and no sensual appetites.

2. In the second place, the sins which are the most offensive in man, and which most degrade him, and most burden his conscience, have nothing to do with the body. Pride, malice, envy, ambition, and, above all, unbelief and enmity to God, are spiritual sins. They may not only exist in beings who have no material organization, but in the soul when separated from the body, and when its sensuous nature is extinct.

3. This theory tends to lower our sense of sin and guilt. All moral evil becomes mere weakness, the yielding of the feebler powers of the spirit to the stronger forces of the flesh. If sin invariably, and by a law which controls men in their present state of existence, arises from the very constitution of their nature as sentient beings, then the responsibility for sin must be greatly lessened, if not entirely destroyed.

4. If the body be the seat and source of sin, then whatever tends to weaken the body or to reduce the force of its desires must render men more pure and virtuous. If this be so then monkery and asceticism have a foundation in truth. They are wisely adapted to the elevation of the soul above the influence of the flesh and of the world, and of all forms of evil. All experience, however, proves the reverse. Even when those who thus seclude themselves from the world, and macerate the body, are sincere, and faithfully adhere to their principles, the whole tendency of their discipline is evil. It nourishes pride, self-righteousness, formality, and false religion. The Pharisees, in the judgment of Christ, with all their strictness of living and constant fasting, were further from the kingdom of heaven than publicans and harlots.

5. On the assumption involved in this theory, the old should be good. In them the lusts of the flesh become extinct. They lose the power to enjoy what pleases the eyes or pampers the tastes of the young. The world to them has lost its attractions. The body becomes a burden. It is in the state to which the youthful ascetic endeavours to reduce his corporeal frame by abstinence and austerity; and yet the older the man, unless renewed by the grace of God, the worse the sinner. The soul is more dead, more insensible to all that is elevating and spiritual, and more completely alienated from God; less grateful for his mercies, less afraid of his wrath, and less affected by all the manifestations of his glory and love. It is not the body, therefore, that is the cause of sin.

6. This theory is opposed to the doctrine of the Bible. The Scriptures do indeed refer a large class of sins to the sensual nature of man; and they represent the flesh (or sarx) as the seat of sin and the source of all its manifestations in our present state. They moreover, use the word sarkikos, carnal, as synonymous with corrupt or sinful. All this, however, does not prove that they teach that man's animal or sensuous nature is the seat and source of his sinfulness. All depends on the sense in which the sacred writers use the words sarx and sarkikos as antithetical to pneuma and pneumatikos. According to one interpretation, sarx means the body with its animal life, its instincts and appetites. Or as Bretschneider defines it: [144] "Natura visibilis seu animalis tanquam appetituum naturalium fons et sedes, et quidem in malam partem, quatenus hæc natura animalis, legi divinæ non adstricta, appetit contra legem, igiturque cupiditatum et peccatorum est mater." If such be the meaning of sarx, then sarkikos is means animal and psuchikos sensuous. On the other hand, according to this view, pneuma means reason, and pneumatikos, the reasonable, that is, one governed by the reason. According to this view, the sarkikoi are those who are controlled by their senses and animal nature; and the pneumatikoi, those who are governed by their reason and higher powers. According to the other interpretation of these terms, sarx means the fallen nature of man, his nature as it now is; and pneuma the Holy Ghost. Then the sarkikoi are the unrenewed or natural men, i.e., those destitute of the grace of God, and the pneumatikoi, are those in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. It is of course admitted that the word sarx is often used in Scripture and especially in St. Paul's writings, for the body; then for what is external and ritual; then for what is perishing. Mankind when designated as flesh are presented as earthly, feeble, and transient. Besides these common and admitted meanings of the word, it is also used in a moral sense. It designates man, or humanity, or human nature as apostate from God. The works of the flesh, therefore, are not merely sensual works, but sinful works, everything in man that is evil. Everything that is a manifestation of his nature as fallen, is included under the works of the flesh. Hence to this class are referred envy, malice, pride, and contentions; as well as rioting and drunkenness, Gal. v. 19-21. To walk after the flesh; to be carnally minded; to be in the flesh, etc., etc. (see Rom. viii. 1-13), are all Scriptural modes of expressing the state, conduct, and life of the men of the world of every class. The meaning of flesh, however, as used in Paul's writings, is most clearly determined by its antithesis to Spirit. That the pneuma of which he speaks is the Holy Spirit, is abundantly clear. He calls it the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of God, the Spirit which is to quicken our mortal bodies; which witnesses with our spirits that we are the children of God; whose dwelling in believers makes them the temple of God. The pneumatikoi, or spiritual, are those in whom the Holy Spirit dwells as the controlling principle of their lives. The Scriptures, therefore, are directly opposed to the theory which makes the body or the sensuous nature of man the source of sin, and its essence to consist in yielding to our appetites and worldly affections, instead of obeying the reason and conscience.

The Theory that all Sin consists in Selfishness.

There is another doctrine of the nature of sin which belongs to the philosophical, rather than to the theological theories on the subject. It makes all sin to consist in selfishness. Selfishness is not to be confounded with self-love. The latter is a natural and original principle of our nature and of the nature of all sentient creatures, whether rational or irrational. Belonging to their original constitution, and necessary to their preservation and well-being, it cannot be sinful. It is simply the desire of happiness which is inseparable from the nature of a sentient being. Selfishness, therefore, is net mere self-love, but the undue preference of our own happiness to the happiness or welfare of other. According to some, this preference is of the nature of a desire or feeling; according to others, it is of the nature of a purpose. In the latter view, all sin consists in the purpose to seek our own happiness rather than the general good, or happiness, as it is commonly expressed, of the universe. In either view, sin is the undue preference of ourselves.

This theory is founded on the following principles, or is an essential element in the following system of doctrine: (1.) Happiness is the greatest good. Whatever tends to promote the greatest amount of happiness is for that reason good, and whatever has the opposite tendency is evil. (2.) As happiness is the only and ultimate good, benevolence, or the disposition or purpose to promote happiness, must be the essence and sum of virtue. (3.) As God is infinite, He must be infinitely benevolent, and therefore it must be his desire and purpose to produce the greatest possible amount of happiness. (4.) The universe being the work of God must be designed and adapted to secure that end, and is therefore the best possible world or system of things. (5.) As sin exists in the actual world, it must be the necessary means of the greatest good, and therefore it is consistent, as some say, with the holiness of God to permit and ordain its existence; or, as others say, to create it. (6.) There is no more sin in the world than is necessary to secure the greatest happiness of the universe.

The first and most obvious objection to this whole theory has already been presented, namely, that it destroys the very idea of moral good. It confounds the right with the expedient. It thus contradicts the consciousness and intuitive judgments of the mind. It is intuitively true that the right is right in its own nature, independently of its tendency to promote happiness. To make holiness only a means to an end; to exalt enjoyment above moral excellence, is not only a perversion and a degradation of the higher to the lower, but it is the utter destruction of the principle. This is a matter which, properly speaking, does not admit of proof. Axioms cannot be proved. They can only be affirmed. Should a man deny that sweet and bitter differ, it would be impossible to prove that there is a difference between them. We can only appeal to our own consciousness and affirm that we perceive the difference. And we can appeal to the testimony of all other men, who also affirm the same thing. But after all this is only an assertion of a fact first by the individual, and then by the mass of mankind. In like manner if any man says that there is no difference between the good and the expedient, that a thing is good simply because it is expedient; or, if he should say that there is no difference between holiness and sin, we can only refer to our own consciousness and to the common consciousness of men, as contradicting his assertion. We know, therefore, from the very constitution of our nature that the right and the expedient are not identical ideas; that the difference is essential and immutable. And we know from the same source, and with, equal assurance or certainty, that happiness is not the highest good; but on the contrary, that holiness is as much higher than happiness, as heaven is higher than the earth, or Christ than Epicurus. (2.) This theory is as much opposed to our religious, as it is to our moral nature. Our dependence is upon God; our allegiance is to Him; we are bound to do His will irrespective of all consequences; and we are exalted and purified just in proportion as we are lost in Him, adoring his divine perfections, seeking to promote his glory, and recognizing that in fact and of right all things are by Him, through Him, and for Him. According to this theory, however, our allegiance is to the universe of sentient beings. We are bound to promote their happiness. This is our highest and our only obligation. There can therefore be no religion in the proper sense of the word. Religion is the homage and allegiance of the soul to an infinitely perfect personal Being, to whom we owe our existence, who is the source of all good, and for whom all things consist. To substitute the universe for this Being, and to resolve all duty into the obligation to promote the happiness of the universe, is really to render all religion impossible. The universe is not our God. It is not the universe that we love; it is not the universe that we adore; it is not the universe that we fear. It is not the favour of the universe that .s our life, nor is its disapprobation our death. (3.) As this theory is thus opposed to our moral and religious nature, it is evil in its practical effects. It is a proverb, a maxim founded on the nature of things and on universal experience, that the world is governed by ideas. It is doubtful whether history furnishes any more striking illustration of the truth of this maxim than that furnished by the operation of the theory that all virtue is founded in expediency that holiness is that which tends to produce happiness. When the individual man adopts that principle, his whole inward and outward life is determined by it. Every question which comes up for decision, is answered, not by a reference to the law of God, or to the instincts of his moral nature, but by the calculations of expediency. And when a people come under the control of this theory they invariably and of necessity become calculating. If happiness be the greatest good, and whatever seems to us adapted to promote happiness is right, then God and the moral law are lost sight of. Our own happiness is apt to become the chief good for us, as it is for the universe. (4.) It need hardly be remarked that we are incompetent to determine what course of conduct will issue in the greatest amount of physical good, and therefore can never tell what is right and what is wrong. It may be said that we are not left to our own sagacity to decide that question. The law of God as revealed in his word, is a divine rule by which we can learn what tends to happiness and what to misery. But this not only degrades the moral law into a series of wise maxims, but it changes the motive of obedience. We obey not out of regard to the authority of God, but because He knows better than we what will promote the greatest good. Besides this, in the questions which daily present them. selves for decision, we are forced to judge for ourselves what is right and wrong, in the light of conscience and of the general principles contained in the Scriptures. And if these principles all resolve themselves into the one maxim, that that is right which promotes happiness, we are obliged to resort to the calculations of expediency, for which in our short-sighted wisdom we are utterly incompetent. (5.) Besides all this, the theory assumes that sin, and the present awful amount of sin, are the necessary means of the greatest good. What then becomes of the distinction between good and evil? If that is good which tends to promote the greatest happiness, and if sin is necessary to secure the greatest happiness, then sin ceases to be sin, and becomes a good. Then also it must be right to do evil that good may come. How, asks the Apostle, on this principle, can God judge the world? If the sins of men not only in fact promote the highest end, but if a man in sinning has the purpose and desire to coöperate with God in producing the greatest amount of happiness, how can he be condemned? If virtue or holiness is right simply because it tends to produce the greatest happiness, and if sin also tends to the same result, then the man who sins with a view to the greatest good is just as virtuous as the man who practices holiness with the same end in view. It may be said that it is a contradiction to say that a man sins with a truly benevolent purpose; for the essence of virtue is to purpose the greatest good, and therefore whatever is done in the execution of that purpose, is virtuous. Exactly so. The objection itself shows that right becomes wrong and wrong right, according to the design with which it is committed or performed. And therefore, if a man lies, steals, or murders with a design to promote the good of society, of the church, or of the universe, he is a virtuous man. It was principally for the adoption of, and the carrying into practice this doctrine, that the Jesuits became an abomination in the sight of Christendom and were banished from all civilised countries. Jesuits were however, unhappily not its only advocates. The principle has been widely disseminated in books on morals, and has been adopted by theologians as the foundation of their whole system of Christian doctrine. (6.) If happiness be not the highest good, then benevolence is not the sum of all excellence, and selfishness as the opposite of benevolence, cannot be the essence of sin. On this point, again, appeal may be safely made to our own consciousness and to the common consciousness of men. Our moral nature teaches us, on the one hand, that all virtue cannot be resolved into benevolence: justice, fidelity, humility, forbearance, patience, constancy, spiritual mindedness, the love of God, gratitude to Christ, anti zeal for his glory, do not reveal themselves in consciousness as forms of benevolence. They are as distinct to the moral sense, as red, blue, and green are distinct to the eye. On the other hand, unbelief, hardness of heart, ingratitude, impenitence, malice, and enmity towards God, are not modifications of selfishness. These attempts at simplification are not only unphilosophical, but also dangerous; as they lead to confounding things which differ, and, as we have seen, to denying the essential nature of moral distinctions.

The doctrine which makes all sin to consist in selfishness, as it has been generally held, especially in this country, considers selfishness as the opposite of benevolence agreeably to the theory which has just been considered. There are others, however, that mean by it the opposite to the love of God. As God is the proper centre of the soul and the sum of all perfection, apostasy from Him is the essence of sin; apostasy from God involves, it is said, a falling back into ourselves, and making self the centre of our being. Thus Müller, [145] Tholuck,
[146] and many others, make alienation from God the primary principle of sin. But dethroning God necessitates the putting an idol in his place. That idol, Augustine and after him numerous writers of different schools, say, is the creature; as the Apostle concisely describes the wickedness of men, by saying, that they "worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator." But Müller argues that as it is self the sinner seeks in the creature, the real principle of sin consists in putting self in the place of God, and making it the highest end of life and its gratification or satisfaction the great object of pursuit. It of course is not denied, that selfishness, it some of its forms, includes a large class of the sins of which men are guilty. What is objected to is, the making selfishness the essence of all sin, or the attempt to reduce all the manifestations of moral evil to this one principle. This, cannot be done. There is disinterested sin as well as disinterested benevolence. A man may as truly and as deliberately sacrifice himself in sinning, as in doing good. Many parents have violated the law of God not for their own benefit, but for the benefit of their children. It may be said that this is only a form of selfishness, because the happiness of their children is their happiness, and the sin is committed for the gratification of their parental feelings. To this, however, it may be answered, first, that it is contradictory to say that what is done for another is done for ourselves. When a mother sacrifices wealth and life for her child, although she acts under the impulse of the maternal instinct, she acts disinterestedly. The sacrifice consists in preferring her child to herself. In the second place, if an act ceases to be virtuous when its performance meets and satisfies some demand of our nature, then no act can be virtuous. When a man does any good work, he satisfies his conscience. If lie does an act of kindness to the poor, if he devotes himself to the relief of the sick or the prisoner, he gratifies his benevolent feelings. If he seeks the favour and fellowship of God, and consecrates himself to his service, he gratifies the noblest principles of his nature, and experiences the highest enjoyment of which he is susceptible. It is not necessary therefore, in order that an act, whether right or wrong, should be disinterested, that it should not minister to our gratification. All depends on the motive for which it is done. If that motive be the happiness of another and not our own, the act is disinterested. It is contrary, therefore, to the testimony of every man's consciousness to say that selfishness is the essential element of sin. There is no selfishness in malice, nor in enmity to God. These are far higher forms of evil than mere selfishness. The true nature of sin is alienation from God and opposition to his character and will. it is the opposite of holiness and does not admit of being reduced to any one principle, either the love of the creature or the love of self. __________________________________________________________________

[134] Liber Hæresibus, XLVI.; Works, edit. Benedictines, vol. viii. p. 48, d.

[135] Baur's Manichean System. Neander's Church History, edit. Boston, 1849, vol. i. pp. 478-506. Müller's Lehre von der Sünde, vol. i. pp. 504-518.

[136] De Genesi ad Literam, XI. xiii. 17, Works, edit. Benedictines, vol. iii. p. 450, d.

[137] Ethices, Par. IV. propos. xx.; Works, edit. Jena, 1803, vol. ii. p. 217.

[138] In the Tübingen Zeitschrift, 1834, Drittes Heft.

[139] History of Modern Philosophy, translation by Wight, New York, 1852, vol. i. pp. 182-187.

[140] Théodicée, I. 25, Works, edit. Berlin, 1840, p. 511.

[141] Théodicée, I. 27, and III. 381.

[142] Schleiermacher's Glaubenslehre. Dr. Gess's Uebersicht über das theologische System Schleiermachers. Müller's Lehre Von der Sünde, vol. i. pp. 412-437. Bretschneider's Dogmatik, pp. 14-38 of Appendix to vol. i. Morell's Philosophy of Religion.

[143] Vol. i. p 363.
[144] Lexicon in Novum Testamentum, sub voce.
[145] Lehre von der Sünde, vol. i. pp. 134-158.

[146] Von der Sünde und vom Versöhner, p. 32. __________________________________________________________________

§ 3. The Doctrine of the Early Church.

The theories already considered are called philosophical, either because they concern the metaphysical nature of sin, or because they are founded on some philosophical principle. The moral at theological doctrines on the subject are so designated because they are founded on what are assumed to be the teachings of our moral nature or of the word of God. So far as the early Church is concerned, the doctrine respecting sin was stated only in general terms. In almost all cases the explicit and discriminating doctrinal affirmations received their form as counter statements to erroneous views, So long as the truth was not denied the Church was content to hold and state it in the simple form in which it is presented in the Bible. But when positions were assumed which were inconsistent with the revealed doctrine, or when one truth was so stated as to contradict some other truth, it became necessary to be more explicit, and to frame such an expression of the doctrine as should comprehend all that God had revealed on the subject. This process in the determination, or rather in the definition of doctrines was of necessity a gradual one. It was only as one error after another arose in the Church, that the truth came to be distinguished from them severally by more explicit and guarded statements. As the earliest heresies were those of Gnosticism and Manicheism in which, in different forms, sin was represented as a necessary evil having its origin in a cause independent of God and beyond the control of the creature, the Church was called upon to deny those errors, and to assert that sin was neither necessary nor eternal, but had its origin in the free will of rational creatures. In the struggle with Manicheism the whole tendency of the Church was to exalt the liberty and ability of man, in order to maintain the essential doctrine, then so variously assailed, that sin is a moral evil for which man is to be condemned, and not a calamity for which he is to be pitied. It was the unavoidable consequence of the unsettled state of doctrinal formulas, that conflicting statements should be made even by those who meant to be the advocates of the truth, -- not only different writers, but the same writer, would on different occasions, present inconsistent statements. In the midst of these inconsistencies the following points were constantly insisted upon. (1.) That all men in their present state are sinners. (2.) That this universal sinfulness of men had its historical and causal origin in the voluntary apostasy of Adam. (3.) That such is the present state of human nature that salvation can be attained in no other way than through Christ, and by the assistance of his Spirit. (4.) That even infants as soon as born need regeneration and redemption, and can be saved only through the merit of Christ, These great truths, which lie at the foundation of the gospel, entered into the general faith of the Church before they were so strenuously asserted by Augustine in his controversy with Pelagius. It is true that many assertions may be quoted from the Greek fathers inconsistent with some of the prepositions above stated. But the same writers in other passages avow their faith in these primary Scriptural truths; and they are implied in the prayers and ordinances of the Church, and were incorporated at a later period, in the public confessions of the Greeks, as well as of the Latins. Clemens Alexandrinus [147] says: to gar examartanein pasin emphuton kai koinon. Justin says, [148] To genos ton anthropon apo tou Adam hupo thanaton kai planen ten tou opheos epeptokei, although he adds, para ten idian aitian ekastou auton ponereusamenou. Origen says, [149] "Si Levi . . . . in lumbis Abrahæ fuisse perhibetur, multo magis omnes homines qui in hoc mundo nascuntur et nati sunt, in lumbis erant Adæ, cum adhuc esset in Paradiso; et omnes homines cum ipso vel in ipso expulsi sunt de Paradiso." Athanasius says, [150] Pantes oun oi ex Adam genomenoi en hamartiais sullambanontai te tou propatoros katadike -- deiknusin hos ex arches he anrthropon phusis upo ten amartian peptoken hupo tes en Eua para baseos, kai hupo kataran he gennesis gegonen. Ambrose says,
[151] "Manifestum itaque in Adam omnes peccasse quasi in massa: ipse enim per peccatum corruptus, quos genuit omnes nati sunt sub peccato. Ex eo igitur cuncti peccatores, quia ex ipso sumus omnes." Cyprian says: [152] "Si . . . . baptismo atque a gratia nemo prohibetur; quanto magis prohiberi non debet infans, qui recens natus nihil peccavit, nisi quod secundum Adam carnaliter natus, contagium mortis antiquæ prima nativitate contraxit? qui ad remissam peccatorum accipiendam hoc ipso facilius accedit, quod illi remittuntur non propria, sed aliena peccata." Again he says: "Fuerant et ante Christum viri insignes, sed in peccatis concepti et nati, nec originali nec personali caruere delicto." These writers, says Gieseler, [153] taught that through Christ and his obedience on the tree was healed the original disobedience of man in reference to the tree of knowledge; that as we offended God in the first Adam by transgression, so through the second Adam we are reconciled to God; that Christ has freed us from the power of the devil to which we were subjected by the sin of Adam; that Christ has regained for us life and immortality. [154] It is not maintained that the Greek fathers held the doctrine of original sin in the form in which it was afterwards developed by Augustine, but they nevertheless taught that the race fell in Adam, that they all need redemption, and that redemption can only be obtained through the Lord Jesus Christ.
[155] __________________________________________________________________

[147] Pædagogus, III. 12; Works, edit. Paris, 1641, p. 262, c.

[148] Dialogus cum Tryphone Judæo, 88; Works, edit. Cologne, 1636, p. 316, a.

[149] In Epistolam ad Romanos, lib. v. § 1; Works, edit. Wirceburgi, 1794, vol. xv. p. 219.

[150] Expos. in Psalmos; on Ps. l. (li.), 7.

[151] In Epistolam ad Romanos, v. 12; Works, Paris, 1661, vol. iii. p. 269, a.

[152] Epistola, lxiv. edit. Bremen, 1690, p. 161, of third set.

[153] Kirchengeschichte, edit. Bonn, 1855, vol. vi. p. 180.

[154] Irenæus, V. xvi. 3; Works, edit. Leipzig, 1853; vol. i. p. 762. "Obediens factus est ad mortem autem crucis, Phil. ii. 8: eam quæ in ligno facta fuerat inobedientiam, per eam quæ in ligno fuerat obedientiam sanans . . . . In primo quidem Adam offendimus, non facientes ejus præceptum; in secundo autem Adam reconciliati sumus, obedientes usque ad mortem facti." And again, Ibid. V. xxiii. 1, p. 546: "Quotiam Deus invictus et magnanimis est, magnanimem quidem se exhibuit ad correptionem hominis, et probationem omnium. . . . . ; per secundum autem hominem alligavit fortem et diripuit ejus vasa et evacuavit mortem, vivificans eum hominem, qui fuerit mortificatus."

[155] J .G. Walch: De Pelagianismo ante Pelagium. J. Hern: De Sententiis eorum Patrum quorum auctoritas ante Augustinum plurimum valuit. Neander's Church History, vol. i. Gieseler's Kirchengeschichte, vol. vi. Shedd's History of Christian Doctrine. Also Münscher's, Meyer's, and Klee's Dogmengeschichte. __________________________________________________________________

§ 4. Pelagian Theory.

In the early part of the fifth century, Pelagius, Coelestius, and Julian, introduced a new theory as to the nature of sin and the state of man since the fall, and of our relation to Adam. That their doctrine was an innovation is proved by the fact that it was universally rejected and condemned as soon as it was fully understood. They were all men of culture, ability, and exemplary character. Pelagius was a Briton, whether a native of Brittany or of what is now called Great Britain, is a matter of doubt. He was by profession a monk, although a layman. Coelestius was a teacher and jurist; Julian an Italian bishop. The radical principle of the Pelagian theory is, that ability limits obligation. "If I ought, I can," is the aphorism on which the whole system rests. Augustine's celebrated prayer, "Da quod jubes, et jube quod vis," was pronounced by Pelagius an absurdity, because it assumed that God can demand more than man render, and what man must receive as a gift. In opposition to this assumption he laid down the principle that man must have plenary ability to do and to be whatever can be righteously required of him. "Iterum quærendum est, peccatum voluntatis an necessitatis est? Si necessitatis est, peccatum non est; si voluntatis, vitari potest. Iterum quærendum est, utrumne debeat homo sine peccato esse? Procul dubio debet. Si debet potest; si non potest, ergo non debet. Et si non debet homo esse sine peccato, debet ergo cum peccato esse, et jam peccatum non erit, si illud deberi constiterit."
[156]

The intimate conviction that men can be responsible for nothing which is not in their power, led, in the first place, to the Pelagian doctrine of the freedom of the will. It was not enough to constitute free agency that the agent should be self-determined, or that all his volitions should be determined by his own inward states. It was required that he should have power over those states. Liberty of the will, according to the Pelagians, is plenary power, at all times and at every moment, of choosing between good and evil, and of being either holy or unholy. Whatever does not thus fall within the imperative power of the will can have no moral character. "Omne bonum ac malum, quo vel laudabiles vel vituperabiles sumus, non nobiscum oritur, sed agitur a nobis: capaces enim utriusque rei, non pleni nascimur, et ut sine virtute, ita et sine vitio procreamur: atque ante actionem propriæ voluntatis, id solum in homine est, quod Deus condidit." [157] Again, "Volens namque Deus rationabilem creaturam voluntarii boni munere et liberi arbitrii potestate donare, utriusque partis possibilitatem homini inserendo proprium ejus fecit, esse quod velit; ut boni ac mali capax, natural iter utrumque posset, et ad alterumque voluntatem deflecteret."

2. Sin, therefore, consists only in the deliberate choice of evil. It presupposes knowledge of what is evil, as well as the full power of choosing or rejecting it. Of course it follows, --

3. That there can be no such thing as original sin, or inherent hereditary corruption. Men are born, as stated in the foregoing quotation, ut sine virtute, ita sine vitio. In other words men are born into the world since the fall in the same state in which Adam was created. Julian says: [158] "Nihil est peccati in homine, si nihil est propriæ voluntatis, vel assensionis. Tu autem concedis nihil fuisse in parvulis propriæ voluntatis: non ego, sed ratio concludit; nihil igitur in eis esse peccati." This was the point on which the Pelagians principally insisted, that it was contrary to the nature of sin that it should be transmitted or Inherited. If nature was sinful, then God as the author of nature must be the author of sin. Julian [159] therefore says: "Nemo naturaliter malus est; sed quicunque reus est, moribus, non exordiis accusatur."

4. Consequently Adam's sin injured only himself. This was one of the formal charges presented against the Pelagians in the Synod of Diospolis. Pelagius endeavored to answer it, by saying that the sin of Adam exerted the influence of a bad example, and in that sense, and to that degree, injured his posterity. But he denied that there is any causal relation between the sin of Adam and the sinfulness of his race, or that death is a penal evil. Adam would have died from the constitution of his nature, whether he had sinned or not; and his posterity, whether infant or adult, die from like necessity of nature. As Adam was in no sense the representative of his race, as they did not stand their probation in him, each man stands a probation for himself; and is justified or condemned solely on the ground of his own individual personal acts.

5. As men come into the world without the contamination of original sin, and as they have plenary power to do all that God requires, they may, and in many cases do, live without sin; or if at any time they transgress, they may turn unto God and perfectly obey all his commandments. Hence Pelagius taught that some men had no need for themselves to repeat the petition in the Lord's prayer, "Forgive us our trespasses." Before the Synod of Carthage one of the grounds on which he was charged with heresy was, that he taught, "et ante adventum Domini fuerunt homines impeccabiles, id est, sine peccato."

6. Another consequence of his principles which Pelagius unavoidably drew was that men could be saved without the gospel. As free will in the sense of plenary ability, belongs essentially to man as much as reason, men whether Heathen, Jews, or Christians, may fully obey the law of God and attain eternal life. The only difference is that under the light of the Gospel, this perfect obedience is rendered more easy. One of his doctrines, therefore, was that "lex sic mittit ad regnum coelorum, quomodo et evangelium."

7. The Pelagian system denies the necessity of grace in the sense of the supernatural influence of the Holy Spirit. As the Scriptures, however, speak so fully and constantly of the grace of God as manifested and exercised in the salvation of men, Pelagius could not avoid acknowledging that fact. By grace, however, he understood everything which we derive from the goodness of God. Our natural faculties of reason and free will, the revelation of the truth whether in his works or his word, all the providential blessings and advantages which men enjoy, fall under the Pelagian idea of grace. Augustine says, Pelagius represented grace to be the natural endowments of men, which inasmuch as they are the gift of God are grace. "Ille (Pelagius) Dei gratiam non appellat nisi naturam, qua libero arbitrio conditi sumus."
[160] And Julian, he says, includes under the term all the gifts of God. "Ipsi gratiæ, beneficiorum quæ nobis præstare non desinit, augmenta reputamus." [161]

8. As infants are destitute of moral character, baptism in their case cannot either symbolize or effect the remission of sin. It is, according to Pelagius, only a sign of their consecration to God. He believed that none but the baptized were at death admitted into the kingdom of heaven, in the Christian sense of that term, but held that unbaptized infants were nevertheless partakers of eternal life. By that term was meant what was afterwards called by the schoolmen, limbos infantum. This was described as that mesos topos kolaseos kai paradeisou, eis hon kai ta abaptista brephe metat themena zen makarios.
[162] Pelagius and his doctrines were condemned by a council at Carthage, A.D. 412. He was exonerated at the Synods of Jerusalem and Diospolis, in 415; but condemned a second time in a synod of sixty bishops at Carthage in 416. Zosimus, bishop of Rome, at first sided with the Pelagians and censured the action of the African bishops; but when their decision was confirmed by the general council of Carthage in 418, at which two hundred bishops were present, he joined in the condemnation and declared Pelagius and his friends excommunicated. In 431 the Eastern Church joined in this condemnation of the Pelagians, in the General Synod held at Ephesus. [163]

Arguments against the Pelagian Doctrine.

The objections to the Pelagian views of the nature of sin will of necessity come under consideration, when the Scriptural and Protestant doctrine comes to be presented. It is sufficient for the present to state, --

1. That the fundamental principle on which the whole system is founded contradicts the common consciousness of men. It is not true, as our own conscience teaches us, that our obligation is limited by our ability. Every man knows that he is bound to be better than he is, and better than he can make himself by any exertion of his We are bound to love God perfectly, but we know that such perfect love is beyond our power. We recognize the obligation to be free from all sin, and absolutely conformed to the perfect law of God. Yet no man is so infatuated or so blinded to his real character as really to believe that he either is thus perfect, or has the power to make himself so. It is the daily and hourly prayer or aspiration of every saint and of every sinner to be delivered from the bondage of evil. The proud and malignant would gladly be humble and benevolent; the covetous would rejoice to be liberal; the infidel longs for faith, and the hardened sinner for repentance. Sin is in its own nature a burden and a torment, and although loved and cherished, as the cups of the drunkard are cherished, yet, if emancipation could be effected by an act of the will, sin would cease to reign in any rational creature. There is no truth, therefore, of which men are more intimately convinced than that they are the slaves of sin; that they cannot do the good they would; and that they cannot alter their character at will. There is no principle, therefore, more at variance with the common consciousness of men than the fundamental principle of Pelagianism that our ability limits our obligation, that we are not bound to be better than we can make ourselves by a volition.

2. It is no less revolting to the moral nature of man to assert, as Pelagianism teaches, that nothing is sinful but the deliberate transgression of known law; that there is no moral character in feelings and emotions; that love and hatred, malice and benevolence, considered as affections of the mind, are alike indifferent; that the command to love God is an absurdity, because love is not under the control of the will. All our moral judgments must be perverted before we can assent to a system involving such consequences.

3. In the third place, the Pelagian doctrine, which confounds freedom with ability, or which makes the liberty of a free agent to consist in the power to determine his character by a volition, is contrary to every man's consciousness. We feel, and cannot but acknowledge, that we are free when we are self determined; while at the same time we are conscious that the controlling states of the mind are not under the power of the will, or, in other words, are not under our own power. A theory which is founded on identifying things which are essentially different, as liberty and ability, must be false.

4. The Pelagian system leaves the universal sinfulness of men, a fact which cannot be denied, altogether unaccounted for. To refer it to the mere free agency of man is to say that a thing always is simply because it may be.

5. This system fails to satisfy the deepest and most universal necessities of our nature. In making man independent of God by assuming that God cannot control free agents without destroying their liberty, it makes all prayer for the controlling grace of God over ourselves and others a mockery, and throws man back completely on his own resources to grapple with sin and the powers of darkness without hope of deliverance.

6. It makes redemption (in the sense of a deliverance from sin) unnecessary or impossible. It is unnecessary that there should be a redeemer for a race which has not fallen, and which has full ability to avoid all sin or to recover itself from its power. And it is impossible, if free agents are independent of the control of God.

7. It need hardly be said that a system which asserts, that Adam's sin injured only himself; that men are born into the world in the state in which Adam was created; that men may, and often do, live without sin; that we have no need of divine assistance in order to be holy; and that Christianity has no essential superiority over heathenism or natural religion, is altogether at variance with the word of God. The opposition indeed between Pelagianism and the gospel is so open and so radical that the former has never been regarded as a form of Christianity at all. It has, in other words, never been the faith of any organized Christian church. It is little more than a form of Rationalism. __________________________________________________________________

[156] Gieseler, vol. i.

[157] Pelagius, Apud Augustinum de Peccato Originali, 14; Works, edit. Benedictines, vol. x. p. 573, a. b.

[158] Apud Augustinum Opus Imperfectum contra Julianum, I. 60; Works, vol. x. p. 1511, d.

[159] Ibid.

[160] Epistola, clxxix. 3; Works, edit. Benedictines, vol. ii. pp. 941, d, 942, a.

[161]

[162] On the distinction between vita æterna and regnum coelorum see Pelagius Apud Augustinum de Peccatorum Meritis et Remissione, I. 58; Works, vol. x. p. 231. Conc. Carth. 415.

[163] Wigger's Augustinism and Pelagianism. Guericke's Church History, §§ 91-93. Ritter's Geschichte der Christliche Philosophie, vol. ii. pp. 337-443; and all the church histories and histories of doctrine. __________________________________________________________________

§ 5. Augustinian Doctrine.

The Philosophical Element of Augustine's Doctrine.

There are two elements in Augustine's doctrine of sin: the one metaphysical or philosophical, the other moral or religious. The one a speculation of the understanding, the other derived from his religious experience and the teaching of the Holy Spirit. The one has passed away, leaving little more trace on the history of doctrine than other speculations, whether Aristotelian or Platonic. The other remains, and has given form to Christian doctrine from that day to this. This is not to be wondered at. Nothing is more uncertain and unsatisfactory than the speculations of the understanding or philosophical theories. Whereas nothing is more certain and universal than the moral consciousness of men and the truths which it reveals. And as the Scriptures, being the work of God, do and must conform their teachings to what God teaches in the constitution of our nature, doctrines founded on the twofold teaching of the Spirit, in his word and in the hearts of his people, remain unchanged from generation to generation, while the speculations of philosophy or of philosophical theologians pass away as the leaves of the forest. No man now concerns himself about the philosophy of Origen, or of the new Platonists, or of Augustine, while the language of David in the fifty-first Psalm is used to express the experience and convictions of all the people of God in all ages and in all parts of the world.

The metaphysical element in Augustine's doctrine of sin arose from his controversy with the Manicheans. Manes taught that in was a substance. This Augustine denied. With him it was a maxim that "Omne esse bonum est." But if esse (being) is good, and if evil is the opposite of good, then evil must be the opposite of being, or nothing, i.e., the negation or privation of being. Thus he was led to adopt the language of the new Platonists and of Origen, who, by a different process, were brought to define evil as the negation of being, as Plotinus calls it, steresis tou ontos; and Origen says, pasa he kakia ouden estin, and evil itself he says is esteresthai tou ontos. In thus making being good and the negation of being evil, Augustine seems to have made the same mistake which other philosophers have so often made, -- of confounding physical and moral good. When God at the beginning declared all things, material and immaterial, which He had made, to be very good, He simply declared them to be suited to the ends for which they were severally made. He did not intend to teach us that moral goodness could be predicated of matter or of an irrational animal. In other cases the word good means agreeable, or adapted to give pleasure. In others again, it means morally right. To infer from time fact that everything which God made is good, or that every esse is bonum, that therefore moral evil being the negation of good must be the negation of being, is as illogical as to argue that because honey is good (in the sense of being agreeable to the taste) therefore worm-wood is bad, in the sense of being sinful. Although Augustine held the language of those philosophers who, both before and since, destroy the very nature of sin in making it mere limitation of being, yet he was very far from holding the same system. (1.) They made sin necessary, as arising from the very nature of a creature. He made it voluntary. (2.) They made it purely physical. He made it moral. With him it includes pollution and guilt. With them it included neither. (3.) With Augustine this negation was not merely passive, it was not the simple want of being, it was such privation as tended to destruction. (4.) Evil with Augustine, therefore, as was more fully and clearly taught by his followers, was not mere privation, nor simply defect. That a stone cannot see, involves the negation of the power of vision. But it is not a defect, because the power of vision does not belong to stones. Blindness is a defect in an animal, but not sin. The absence of love to God in a rational creature is sin, because it is the absence of something which belongs to such a creature, and which he ought to have. In the true Augustinian sense, therefore, sin is negation only as it is the privation of moral good, -- the privatio boni, or as it was afterwards generally expressed, a want of conformity to the law or standard of good.

Augustine's Reasons for making Sin a Negation.

In thus making sin negation, Augustine had principally two ends in view. (1.) To show that sin is not necessary. If it were something existing of itself, or something created by the power of God, it was beyond the power of man. He was its victim, not its author. (2.) He desired to show that it was not due to the divine efficiency. According to his theory of God's relation to the world, not only all that is, every substance, is created and upheld by l rod, but all activity or power, all energy by which positive effects are produced, is the energy of God. If sin, therefore, was anything in itself, anything more than a defect, or a want of conformity to a rule, God must be its author. He, therefore, took such a view of the psychological nature of sin, that it did not require an efficient, but as he often said only a deficient cause. If a man, to use the old Augustinian illustration, strike the cords of an untuned harp, he is the cause of the sound but not of the discord. So God is the cause of the sinner's activity but not of the discordance between his acts and the laws of eternal truth and right.
[164]

The Moral Element of His Doctrine.

The true Augustinian doctrine of sin was that which the illustrious father drew from his own religious experience, as guided and determined by the Spirit of God. He was, (1.) Conscious of sin. He recognized himself as guilty and polluted, as amenable to the justice of God and offensive to his holiness. (2.) He felt himself to be thus guilty and polluted not only because of deliberate acts of transgression, but also for his affections, feelings, and emotions. This sense of sin attached not only to these positive and consciously active states of mind, but also to the mere absence of right affections, to hardness of heart, to the want of love, humility, faith, and other Christian virtues, or to their feebleness and inconstancy. (3.) He recognized the fact that he had always been a sinner. As far back as consciousness extended it was the consciousness of sin. (4.) He was deeply convinced that he had no power to change his moral nature or to make himself holy; that whatever liberty he possessed, however free he was in sinning, or (after regeneration) in holy acting, he had not the liberty of ability which Pelagians claimed as an essential prerogative of humanity. (5.) It was involved in this consciousness of sin as including guilt or just liability to punishment, as well as pollution, that it could not be a necessary evil, but must have its origin in the free act of man, and be therefore voluntary. Voluntary: (a.) In having its origin in an act of the will; (b.) In having its seat in the will; (c.) In consisting in the determination of the will to evil: the word will being here, as by Augustine generally, taken in its widest sense for everything in man that does not fall under the category of the understanding. (6.) What consciousness taught him to be true with regard to himself he saw to be true in regard to others. All men showed themselves to be sinners. They all gave evidence of sinfulness as soon as they gave evidence of reason. They all appeared not only as transgressors of the law of God, but as spiritually dead, devoid of all evidence of spiritual life. They were the willing slaves of sin, entirely unable to deliver themselves from their bondage to corruption. No man had ever given proof of possessing the power of self-regeneration. All who gave evidence of being regenerated, with one voice ascribed the work not to themselves, but to the grace of God. From these facts of consciousness and experience Augustine drew the inevitable conclusion, (1.) That if men are saved it cannot be by their own merit, but solely through the undeserved love of God. (2.) That the regeneration of the soul must be the exclusive and supernatural work of the Holy Ghost; that the sinner could neither effect the work nor coöperate in its production. In other words, that grace is certainly efficacious or irresistible. (3.) That salvation is of grace or of the sovereign mercy of God, (a.) In that God might justly have left men to perish in their apostasy without any provision for their redemption. (b.) In that men, being destitute of the power of doing anything holy or meritorious, their justification cannot be by works, but must be a matter of favour. (c.) In that it depends not on the will of the persons saved, but on the good pleasure of God, who are to be made partakers of the redemption or Christ. In other words, election to eternal life must be founded In the sovereign pleasure of God, and not on the foresight of good works. (4.) A fourth inference from the principles of Augustine was the perseverance of the saints. If God of his own good pleasure elects some to eternal life, they cannot fail of salvation. It thus appears that as all the distinguishing doctrines of the Pelagians are the logical consequences of their principle of plenary ability as the ground and limit of obligation, so the distinguishing doctrines of Augustine are the logical consequences of his principle of the entire inability of fallen man to do anything spiritually good.

Taught by his own experience that he was from his birth guilty and polluted, and that he had no power to change his own nature, and seeing that all men are involved in the same sinfulness and helplessness, he accepted the Scriptural solution of these facts of consciousness and observation, and therefore held, (1.) That God created man originally in his own image and likeness in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, immortal, and invested with dominion over the creatures. He held also that Adam was endowed with perfect liberty of the will, not only with spontaneity and the power of self-determination, but with the power of choosing good or evil, and thus of determining his own character. (2.) That being left to the freedom of his own will, Adam, under the temptation of the Devil, voluntarily sinned against God, and thus fell from the estate in which he was created. (3.) That the consequences of this sin upon Adam were the loss of the divine image, and the corruption of his whole nature, so that he became spiritually dead, and thus indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all spiritual good. Besides this spiritual death, he became mortal, liable to all the miseries of this life, and to eternal death. (4.) Such was the union between Adam and his descendants, that the same consequences of his transgression came on them that fell upon him. They are born the children of wrath, i.e., in a state of condemnation, destitute of the image of God, and morally depraved. (5.) This inherent, hereditary depravity is truly and properly of the nature of sin, involving both guilt and corruption. In its formal nature it consists in the privation of original righteousness and (concupiscence) inordinatio naturæ, disorder of the whole nature. It is of the nature of a habitus as distinguished from an act, activity or agency. It is voluntary, in the sense mentioned above, especially in that it did not arise from necessity of nature, or from the efficiency of God, but from the free agency of Adam. (6.) That the loss of original righteousness and the corruption of nature consequent on the fall of Adam are penal inflictions, being the punishment of his first sin. (7.) That regeneration, or effectual calling, is a supernatural act of the Holy Spirit, in which the soul is the subject and not the agent; that it is sovereign, granted or withheld according to the good pleasure of God; and consequently that salvation is entirely of grace.

This is the Augustinian system in all that is essential. It is this which has remained, and been the abiding form of doctrine among the great body of evangelical Christians from that day to this. It is of course admitted that Augustine held much connected with the several points above mentioned, which was peculiar to the man or to the age in which he lived, but which does not belong to Augustinianism as a system of doctrine. As Lutheranism does not include all the individual opinions of Luther, and as Calvinism does not include all the personal views of Calvin, so there is much taught by Augustine which does not belong to Augustinianism. He taught that all sin is the negation of being; that liberty is ability, so that in denying to fallen man ability to change his own heart, he denies to him freedom of the will; that concupiscence (in the lower sense of the word), as an instinctive feeling, is sinful; that a sinful nature is propagated by the very law of generation; that baptism removes the guilt of original sin; and that all unbaptized infants (as Romanists still teach and almost all Protestants deny) are lost. These, and other similar points are not integral parts of his system, and did not receive the sanction of the Church when it pronounced in favour of his doctrine as opposed to that of the Pelagians. In like manner it is a matter of minor importance how he understood the nature of the union between Adam and his posterity; whether he held the representative, or the realistic theory; or whether he ultimately sided for Traducianism as against Creationism, or for the latter as against the former. On these points his language is confused and undecided. It is enough that he held that such was the union between Adam and his race, that the whole human family stood their probation in him and fell with him in his first transgression, so that all the evils which are the consequences of that transgression, including physical and spiritual death, are the punishment of that sin. On this point he is perfectly explicit. When it was objected by Julian that sin cannot be the punishment of sin, he replied that we must distinguish three things, that we must know, "aliud esse peccatum, aliud poenam, peccati, aliud utrumque, id est, ita peccatum, ut ipsum sit etiam poena peccati, . . . . pertinet originale peccatum ad hoc genus tertium, ubi sic peccatum est, ut ipsum sit et poena peccati."
[165] Again he says: "Est [peccatum] . . . . non solum voluntarium atque possibile unde liberum est abstinere; verum etiam necessarium peccatum, unde abstinere liberum non est, quod jam non solum peccatum, sed etiam poena peccati est." [166] Spiritual death (i.e., original sin or inherent corruption), says Wiggers, is, according to Augustine, the special and principal penalty of Adam's first transgression, which penalty has passed on all men. [167] This is in exact accordance with the doctrine of the Apostle, who says: "In Adam all die," 1 Cor. xv. 22; and that a sentence of condemnation (krima eis katakrima) for one offence passed on all men, Rom. v. 16, 17. This Augustine clung to as a Scriptural doctrine, and as a historical tact. This, however, is a doctrine which men have ever found it hard to believe, and a fact which they have ever been slow to admit. Pelagius said: [168] "Nulla ratione concedi ut Deus, qui propria peccata remittit, imputet aliena." And Julian vehemently exclaims, "Amolire te itaque cum tali Deo tuo de Ecclesiarum medio: non est ipse, cui Patriarchæ, cui Prophetæ, cui Apostoli crediderunt, in quo speravit et sperat Ecclesia primitivorum, quæ conscripta est in coelis; non est ipse quem credit judicem rationabilis creatura; quem Spiritus sanctus juste judicaturum esse denuntiat. Nemo prudentium, pro tali Domino suum unquam sanguinem fudisset: nec enim merebatur dilectionis affectum, ut suscipiendæ pro se onus imponeret passionis. Postremo iste quem inducis, si esset uspiam, reus convinceretur esse non Deus; judicandus a vero Deo meo, non judicaturus pro Deo." [169] To this great objection Augustine gives different answers. (1.) He refers to Scriptural examples in which men have been punished for the sins of others. (2.) He appeals to the fact that God visits the sins of parents upon their children. (3.) Sometimes he says we should rest satisfied with the assurance that the judge of all the earth must do right, whether we can see the justice of his ways or not. (4.) At others he seems to adopt the realistic doctrine that all men were in Adam, and that his sin was their sin, being the act of generic humanity. As Levi was in the loins of Abraham, and was tithed in him, so we were in this loins of Adam, and sinned in him. (5.) And, finally, he urges that as we are justified by the righteousness of Christ, it is not incongruous that we should be condemned for the sin of Adam. [170] It will be observed that some of these grounds are inconsistent with others. If one be valid, the others are invalid. If we reconcile the condemnation of men on account of the sin of Adam, on the ground that he was our representative, or that he sustained the relation which all parents bear to their children, we renounce the ground of a realistic union. If the latter theory be true, then Adam's sin was our act as truly as it was his. If we adopt the representative theory, his act was not our act in any other sense than that in which a representative acts for his constituents. From this it is plain, (1.) That Augustine had no clear and settled conviction as to the nature of the union between Adam and his race which is the ground of the imputation of his sin to his posterity, any more than he had about the origin of the soul; and (2.) That no particular theory on that point, whether the representative or realistic, can properly be made an element of Augustinianism, as a historical and church form of doctrine. __________________________________________________________________

[164] See, on Augustine's theory, Müller, Lehre von der Sünde, vol. i. pp. 338-349. Ritter's, Geschichte der Christlichen Philosophie, vol. ii. pp. 337-425.

[165] Opus Imperfectum, I. 47; Works, edit. Benedictines, vol. x., pp. 1495, d, and 1496, d.

[166] Opus Imperfectum, V. 59, Works, edit. Benedictines, vol. x., p. 2026, b.

[167] Augustinismus und Pelagianismus, edit. Hamburg, 1833, vol. i. p. 104.

[168] Apud Augustinum de Peccatorum Meritis et Remissionie, III. iii. 5; Works, vol. x., p. 289, a.

[169] Opus Imperfectum contra Julianum, I. 50; Works, vol. x. p. 1501, a, b.

[170] See Münscher's Dogmengeschichte, vol. iv., p. 195. __________________________________________________________________

§ 6. Doctrine of the Church of Rome.

This is a point very difficult to decide. Romanists themselves are as much at variance as to what their Church teaches concerning original sin as those who do not belong to their communion. The sources of this difficulty are, (1.) First, the great diversity of opinions on this subject prevailing in the Latin Church before the authoritative decisions of the Council of Trent and of the Romish Catechism. (2.) The ambiguity and want of precision or fulness in the decisions of that council. (3.) The different interpretations given by prominent theologians of the true meaning of the Tridentine canons.

Diversity of Sentiment in the Latin Church.

As to the first of these points it may be remarked that there were mainly three conflicting elements in the Latin Church before the Reformation, in relation to the whole subject of sin. (1.) The doctrine of Augustine. (2.) That of the Semi-Pelagians, and (3.) That of those of the schoolmen who endeavoured to find a middle ground between the other two systems. The doctrine of Augustine, as exhibited above, was sanctioned by the Latin Church, and pronounced to be the true orthodox faith. But even during the lifetime of Augustine, and to a greater extent in the following century, serious departures from his system began to prevail. These departures related to all the intimately connected doctrines of sin, grace, and predestination. Pelagianism was universally disclaimed and condemned. It was admitted that the race of man fell in Adam; that his sin affected injuriously his posterity as well as himself; that men are born in s state of alienation from God; that they need the power of the Holy Spirit in order to their restoration to holiness. But what is the nature of original sin, or of that depravity or deterioration of our nature derived from Adam? And, What are the remains of the divine image which are still preserved, or what is the power fur good which fallen men still possess? And What is to be understood by the grace of God and the extent of its influence? And What is the ground on which God brings some and not others to the enjoyment of eternal life? These were questions which received very different answers. Augustine, as we have seen, answered the first of these questions by saying that original sin consists not only in the loss of original righteousness, but also in concupiscence, or disorder, or corruption of nature, which is truly and properly sin, including both guilt and pollution. The second question he answered by saying that fallen man has no power to effect what is spiritually good; he ran neither regenerate himself, prepare himself for regeneration, nor coöperate with the grace of God in that work. These principles necessarily lead to the doctrines of efficacious or irresistible grace and of sovereign election, as was seen and universally admitted. It was these necessary consequences, rattler than the principles themselves, which awakened opposition. But to get rid of the consequences it was necessary that the principles should be refuted. This opposition to, Augustinianism arose with the monks and prevailed principally among them. This, as Gieseler [171] says, was very natural. Augustine taught that man could do nothing good of himself, and could acquire no merit in the sight of God. The monks believed that they could do not only all, but more than all that God required of them. Else why submit to their vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience? The party thus formed against the orthodox or established doctrine was called Semi-Pelagian, because it held a middle ground between Pelagius and Augustine.

The Semi-Pelagians.

The principal leaders of this party were John Cassianus, an Eastern monk and disciple of Chrysostom; Vincentius Lerinensis, and Faustus of Rhegium. The most important work of Cassian was entitled "Collationes Patrum," which is a collection of dialogues on various subjects. He was a devout rather than a speculative writer, relying on the authority of Scripture for the support of his doctrine. Educated in the Greek Church and trained in a monastery, all his prepossessions were adverse to Augustinianism. And when he transferred his residence to Marseilles in the south of France, and found himself in the midst of churches who bowed to the authority of Augustine, he set himself to modify and soften, but not directly to oppose the distinguishing doctrines of that father. [172] Vincent of Lerins was a man of a different spirit and of higher powers. His reliance was on tradition. He held the highest doctrine concerning the Church, and taught that communion with her in faith and ordinances was the one essential condition of salvation. He was the author of the celebrated formula as to the rule of faith, quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est. His principal work is entitled "Commonitorium," or Remembrancer, a collection mainly of extracts. This work was long considered a standard among Romanists, and has been held in high repute by many Protestants for the ability which it displays. It was intended as a guard against heresy, by exhibiting what the leaders of the Church had taught against heretics, and to determine the principle on which the authority of the fathers was to be admitted. A single father, even though a bishop, confessor, or martyr, might err, and his teachings be properly disregarded, but when he concurred with the general drift of ecclesiastical teaching, i.e., with tradition, he was to be fully believed. [173]

The ablest and most influential of the leaders of the Semi-Pelagian party was Faustus of Rhegium, who secured the condemnation of Lucidus, an extreme advocate of the Augustinian doctrine, in the Synod of Arles, 475, A.D.; and who was called upon by the council to write the work "De gratia Dei et humanæ mentis libero arbitrio," which attained great celebrity and authority. The Semi-Pelagians, however, were far from agreeing among themselves either as to sin or as to grace. Cassian taught that the effects of Adam's sin on his posterity were, (1.) That they became mortal, and subject to the physical infirmities of this life. (2.) That the knowledge of nature and of the divine law which Adam originally possessed, was in a great measure preserved until the sons of Seth intermarried with the daughters of Cain, when the race became greatly deteriorated. (3.) That the moral effects of the fall were to weaken the soul in all its power for good, so that men constantly need the assistance of divine grace. (4.) What that grace was, whether the supernatural influence of the Spirit, the providential efficiency of God, or his various gifts of faculties and of knowledge, he nowhere distinctly explains. He admitted that men could not save themselves; but held that they were not spiritually dead; they were sick; and constantly needed the aid of the Great Physician. He taught that man sometimes began the work of conversion; sometimes God; and sometimes, in a certain sense, God saves the unwilling. [174] Vincent evidently regarded the Augustinian doctrine of original sin as making God the author of evil; for, he says, it assumes that God has created a nature, which acting according to its own laws and under the impulse of an enslaved will, can do nothing but sin. [175] And he pronounces heretical those who teach that grace saves those who do not ask, seek, or knock, in evident allusion to the doctrine of Augustine that it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God who showeth mercy. Faustus admitted a moral corruption of nature as the consequence of the fall of Adam, which he called original sin (originale delictum). In his letter to Lucidus he anathematizes the doctrine of Pelagius that man is born "without sin." [176] From this deteriorated, infirm state, no man can deliver himself. He needs the grace of God. But what that grace was is doubtful. From some passages of his writings there would seem to be meant by it only, or principally, the moral influence of the truth as revealed by the Spirit in the Scriptures. He says God draws men to him, but "Quid est attrahere nisi prædicare, nisi scripturarum consolationibus excitare, increpationibus deterrere, desideranda proponere, intentare metuenda, judicium comminari, præmium polliceri?" [177] Semi-Pelagians agreed, however, in rejecting the Pelagian doctrine that Adam's sin injured only himself; they admitted that the effects of that sin passed on all men, affecting both the soul and body. It rendered the body mortal, and liable to disease and suffering; and the soul it weakened, so that it became prone to evil and incapable, without divine assistance, of doing anything spiritually good. But as against Augustine they held, at least according to the statements of Prosper and Hilary, the advocates of Augustinianism in the south of France, (1.) That the beginning of salvation is with man. Man begins to seek God, and then God aids him. (2.) That this incipient turning of the soul towards God is something good, and in one sense meritorious. (3.) That the soul, in virtue of its liberty of will or ability for good, coöperates with the grace of God in regeneration as well as in sanctification. That these charges were well founded may be inferred from the decisions of the councils of Orange and Valence, A.D. 529, in which the doctrines of Augustine were again sanctioned. As the decisions of those councils were ratified by the Pope they were, according to the papal theory, declared to be the faith of the Church. Among the points thus pronounced to be included in the true Scriptural doctrine, are, (1.) That the consequence of Adam's sin is not confined to the body, or to the lower faculties of the soul, but involves the loss of ability to spiritual good. (2.) The sin derived from Adam is spiritual death. (3.) Grace is granted not because men seek it, but the disposition to seek is a work of grace and the gift of God. (1.) The beginning of faith and the disposition to believe is not from the human will, but from the grace of God. (5.) Believing, willing, desiring, seeking, asking, knocking at the door of mercy, are all to be referred to the work of the Spirit and not to the good which belongs to the nature of fallen man. The two great points, therefore, in dispute between the Augustinians and Semi-Pelagians were decided in favour of the former. Those points were (1.) That original sin, or the corruption of nature derived from Adam, was not simply a weakening of our power for good, but was spiritual death; really sin, incapacitating the soul for ally spiritual good. And (2.) That in the work of conversion it is not man that begins, but the Spirit of God. The sinner has no power to turn himself unto God, but is turned or renewed by divine grace before he can do anything spiritually good. [178]

The decisions of the councils of Orange and Valence in favour of Augustinianism, did not arrest the controversy. The Semi-Pelagian party still continued numerous and active, and so far gained the ascendency, that in the ninth century Gottschalk was condemned for teaching the doctrine of predestination in the sense of Augustine. From this period to the time of the Reformation and the decisions of the Council of Trent, great diversity of opinion prevailed in the Latin Church on all the questions relating to sin, grace, and predestination. It having come to be generally admitted that original righteousness was a supernatural gift, it was also generally held that the effect of Adam's sin upon himself and upon his posterity was the loss of that righteousness. This was its only subjective effect. The soul, therefore, is left in the state in which it was originally created, and in which it existed, some said a longer, others a shorter, period, or no perceptible period at all, before the receipt of the supernatural endowment. It is in this state that met are born into the world since the apostasy of Adam.

The Doctrine of Anselm.

This loss of original righteousness was universally regarded as a penal evil. It was the punishment of the first sin of Adam which came equally upon him and upon all his descendants. The question now is, What is the moral state of a soul destitute of original righteousness considered as a supernatural gift? It was the different views taken as to the answer to that question, which gave rise to the conflicting views of the nature and consequences of original sin.

1. Some said that this negative state was itself sinful. Admitting that original sin is simply the loss of original righteousness, it was nevertheless truly and properly sin. This was the ground taken by Anselm, the father of the scholastic philosophy and theology. In his work, "De Conceptu Virginali et Originali Peccato," he says of children, [179] "Quod in illis non est justitia, quam debent habere, non hoc fecit illorum, voluntas personalis, sicut in Adam, sed egestas naturalis, quam ipsa natura accepit ab Adam -- facit natura personas infantium peccatrices. Nullam infantibus injustitiam super prædictam nuditatem justitiæ. [180] Peccatum originale aliud intelligere nequeo, nisi ipsam--factam per inobedientiam Adæ justitiæ debitæ nuditatem."
[181] This original sin, however, even in infants, although purely negative, is nevertheless truly and properly sin. Anselm says, "Omne peccatum est injustitia, et originale peccatum est absolute peccatum, unde sequitur quod est injustitia. Item si Deus non damnat nisi propter injustitiam; damnat autem aliquem propter originale peccatum, ergo non est aliud originale peccatum quam injustitia. Quod si ita est, originale peccatum non est aliud quam injustitia, i.e., absentia debitæ justitiæ." [182]

Doctrine of Abelard.

2. The ground taken by others of the schoolmen was that the loss of original righteousness left Adam precisely in the state in which he was created, and therefore in puris naturalibus (i.e., in the simple essential attributes of his nature). And as his descendants share his fate, they are born in the same state. There is no inherent hereditary corruption, no moral character either goon or bad. The want of a supernatural gift not belonging to the nature of man, and which must be bestowed as a favour, cannot be accounted to men as sin. Original sin, therefore, in the posterity of Adam can consist in nothing but the imputation to them of his first transgression. They suffer the punishment of that sin, which punishment is the loss of original righteousness. According to this view, original sin is poena but not culpa. It is true that the inevitable consequence of this privation of righteousness is that the lower powers of man's nature gain the ascendency over the higher, and that he grows up in sin. Nevertheless there is no inherent or subjective sin in the new-born infant. There is a natural proneness to sin arising out of the original and normal constitution of cur nature, and the absence of original righteousness which was a frenum, or check by which the lower powers were to be kept in subjection. But this being the condition in which Adam came from the hands of his Creator, it cannot be in itself sinful. Sin consists in assent and purpose. And, therefore, until the soul assents to this dominion of its lower nature and deliberately acts in accordance with it, it cannot be chargeable with any personal, inherent sin. There is therefore no sin of nature, as distinguished from actual sin. It is true, as the advocates of this theory taught, in obedience to the universal faith of the Church and the clear doctrine of the Bible, that men are born in sin. But this is the guilt of Adam's first sin, and not their own inherent corruption. They admitted the correctness of the Latin version of Romans v. 12, which makes the Apostle say that all men sinned in Adam (in quo omnes peccaverunt). But they understood that passage to teach nothing more than the imputation of Adam's first sin, and not any hereditary inherent corruption of nature. This was the theory of original sin adopted by Abelard, who held that nothing was properly of the nature of sin but an act performed with an evil intention. As there can be no such intention in infants there can be, properly speaking, no sin in them. There is a proneness to sin which he calls vitium; but sin consists in consent to this inclination, and not in the inclination itself. "Vitium itaque est, quo ad peccandum proni efficimur, hoc est inclinamur ad consentiendum ei, quod non convenit, ut illud scilicet faciamus aut dimittamus. Hunc vero consensum proprie peccatum nominamus, hoc est culpam animæ, qua damnationem meretur."
[183] He admitted original sin as a punishment, or as the guilt of Adam's sin, but this was external and not inherent. [184] This view of the subject was strenuously maintained by some of the theologians of the Roman Church at the time of the Reformation, especially by Catharinus and Pighius. The latter, according to Chemnitz, [185] thus states his doctrine: "Quod nec carentia justitiæ originalis, nec concupiscentia habeat rationem peccati, sive in parvulis, sive adultis, sive ante, sive post baptismum. Has enim affectiones non esse vitia, sed naturæ conditiones in nobis. Peccatum igitur originis non esse defectum, non vitium aliquod non depravationem aliquam, non habitum corruptum, non qualitatem vitiosam hærentem in nostra substantia, ut quæ sit sine omni vitio et depravatione, sed hoc tantum esse peccatum originis, quod actualis transgressio Adæ reatu, tantum et poena transmissa et propagata sit ad posteros sine vitio aliquo et pravitate hærente in ipsorum substantia: et reatum hunc esse; quod propter Adæ peccatum extorres facti sumus regni coelorum, subjecti regno mortis et æternæ damnationi, et omnibus humanæ naturæ miseriis involuti. Sicut ex servis, qui proprio vitio libertatem amiserunt, nascuntur servi: non suo, sed parentum vitio. Et sicut filius scorti, sustinet infamiam matris, sine proprio aliquo in se hærente vitio." [186]

Doctrine of Thomas Aquinas.

3. The third form of doctrine which prevailed during this period was that proposed by Thomas Aquinas (A.D. 1224-74) a Dominican monk, the Doctor Angelicus of the schoolmen, and by far the most influential theologian in the Latin Church since the days of Augustine. His "Summa Theologiæ" was long regarded as a standard work among Romanists, and is still referred to as an authority both by Romanists and Protestants. Thomas approached much nearer to Augustine than the other theologians of his age. He taught (1.) That original righteousness was to Adam a supernatural gift. (2.) That by his transgression he forfeited that gift for himself and his posterity. (3.) That original righteousness consisted essentially in the fixed bias of the will towards God, or the subjection of the will to God. (4.) That the inevitable consequence or adjunct of the loss of this original righteousness, this conversion of the will towards God, is the aversion of the will from God. (5.) That original sin, therefore, consists in two things, first, the loss of original righteousness and second, the disorder of the whole nature. The one he called the formale the other the materiale of original sin. To use his own illustration, a knife is iron; the iron is the material, the form is that which makes the material a knife. So in original sin this aversion of the will from God (as a habit), is the substance of original sin, it owes its existence and nature to the loss of original righteousness. (6.) The soul, therefore, after the loss of its primal rectitude, does not remain in puris naturalibus, but is in a state of corruption and sin. This state he sometimes calls inordinatio virium animæ; sometimes a deordinatio; sometimes aversio voluntatis a bono incommunicabili; sometimes a corrupt disposition, as when he says,
[187] "Causa hujus corruptæ dispositionis, quæ dicitur originale peccatum, est una tantum, scilicet privatio originalis justitiæ, per quam sublata est subjectio humanæ mentis ad Deum." Most frequently, in accordance with the usus loquendi of his own and of subsequent periods, this positive part of original sin is called concupiscence. This is a word which it is very important to understand, because it is used in such different senses even in relation to the same subject. Some by concupiscence mean simply the sexual instinct; others, what belongs to our sensuous nature in general; others, everything in man which has the seen and temporal for its object; and others still, for the wrong bias of the soul, by which, being averse to God, it turns to the creature and to evil. Everything depends therefore on the sense in which the word is taken, when it is said that original sin consists, positively considered, in concupiscence. If by concupiscence is meant merely our sensuous nature, then original sin is seated mainly in the body and in the animal affections, and the higher powers of the soul are unaffected by its contamination. By Thomas Aquinas the word is taken in its widest sense, as is obvious from its equivalents just mentioned, aversion from God, corrupt disposition, disorder, or deformity, of the powers of the soul. It is in this sense, he says, "Originale peccatum concupiscentia dicitur." (7.) As to the constituent elements of this original corruption, or as he expresses it, the wounds under which our fallen nature is suffering, he says, they include, (a.) Ignorance and want of the right knowledge of God in the intelligence. (b.) An aversion in the will from the highest good. (c.) In the feelings or affections, or rather in that department of our nature of which the feelings are the manifestations, a tendency to delight in created things. The seat of original sin, therefore, with him is the whole soul. (8.) This concupiscence or inherent corruption, is not an act, or agency, or activity, but a habit, i.e., an immanent inherent disposition of the mind. [188] (9.) Finally original sin is a penal evil. The loss of original righteousness and the consequent disorder of our nature, are the penalty of Adam's first transgression. So far the doctrine of Thomas is in strict accordance with that of Augustine. His discussion of the subject might be framed into an exposition of the answer in the "Westminster Catechism" which declares the sinfulness of that estate into which men fell, to consist in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature. The point of difference relates to the degree of injury received from the apostasy of Adam, or the depth of that corruption of nature derived from him. This Thomas calls a languor or weakness. Men in consequence of the fall are utterly unable to save themselves, or to do anything really good in the sight of God without the aid of divine grace. But they still have the power to coöperate with that grace. They cannot, as the Semi-Pelagians taught, begin the work of turning unto God, and therefore need preventing grace (gratia præveniens), but with that grace they are enabled to coöperate. This makes the difference between the effectual (irresistible) grace of Augustine, and the synergism which enters into all other systems.

Doctrine of the Scotists.

4. Duns Scotus, a Franciscan, Professor of Theology at Oxford, Paris, and Cologne, where he died A.D. 1308, was the great opponent of Thomas Aquinas. So far as the subject of original sin is concerned, he sided with the Semi-Pelagians. He made original sin to consist solely in the loss of original righteousness, and as this was purely a. supernatural gift, not pertaining to the nature of man, its loss left Adam and his posterity after him, precisely in tile state in which man was originally created. Whatever of disorder is consequent on this loss of righteousness is not of the nature of sin. "Peccatum originale," he says, "non potest esse aliud quam ista privatio [justitiæ originalis]. Non enim est concupiscentia: tum quia illa est naturalis, tum quia ipsa est in parte sensitiva, ubi non est peccatum." [189] Men, therefore, are born into the world in puris naturalibus, not in the Pelagian sense, as Pelagians do not admit any supernatural gift of righteousness to Adam, but in the sense that they possess all the essential attributes of their nature uninjured and uncontaminated. As free will, i.e., the ability to do and to be whatever is required of man by his Maker, belongs essentially to his nature, this also remains since the fall. It is indeed weakened and beset with difficulties, as the balance wheel of our nature, original righteousness, is gone, but still it exists. Man needs divine assistance. He cannot do good, or make himself good without the grace of God. But the dependence of which Scotus speaks is rather that of the creature upon the creator, than that of the sinner upon the Spirit of God. His endeavour seems to have been to reduce the supernatural to the natural; to confound the distinction constantly made in the Bible and by the Church, between the providential efficiency of God everywhere present and always operating in and with natural causes, and the efficiency of the Holy Ghost in the regeneration and sanctification of the soul. [190]

The Dominicans and Franciscans became, and long continued the two most powerful orders of monks in the Roman Church. As they were antagonistic on so many other points, they were also opposed in doctrine. The Dominicans, as the disciples of Thomas Aquinas, were called Thomists, and the Franciscans, as followers of Duns Scotus, were called Scotists. The opposition between these parties, among other doctrinal points, embraced as we have seen, that of original sin. The Thomists were inclined to moderate Augustinianism, the Scotists to Semi-Pelagianism. All the theories however above mentioned, variously modified, had their zealous advocates in the Latin Church, when the Council of Trent was assembled to determine authoritatively the true doctrine and to erect a barrier to the increasing power of the Reformation.

Tridentine Doctrine on Original Sin.

The Council of Trent had a very difficult task to perform. In the first place, it was necessary to condemn the doctrines of the Reformers. But the Protestants, as well Lutheran as Reformed, had proclaimed their adherence to the Augustinian system in its purity and fulness; and that system had received the sanction of councils and popes and could not be directly impugned. This difficulty was surmounted by grossly misrepresenting the Protestant doctrine, and making it appear inconsistent with the doctrine of Augustine. This method has been persevered in to the present day. Moehler in his "Symbolik" represents the doctrine of the Protestants, and especially that of Luther, on original sin, as a form of Manicheism. The other, and more serious difficulty, was the great diversity of opinion existing in the Church and in the Council it self. Some were Augustinians; some held that original sin consisted simply in the want of original righteousness, but that that want is sin. Others admitted no original sin, but the imputation of Adam's first transgression. Others, with the Dominicans, insisted that the disorder of all the powers consequent on the loss of original righteousness, i.e., concupiscence, is truly and properly sin. This the Franciscans denied. Under these circumstances the pontifical legates, who attended the Council, exhorted the assembled fathers, that they should decide nothing as to the nature of original sin, reminding them that they were not called together o teach doctrines, but to condemn errors. [191] This advice the Council endeavoured to follow, and hence its decisions are expressed in very general terms.

1. The Synod pronounces an anathema on those who do not confess that Adam, when he transgressed in paradise the commandment of God, did immediately lose the holiness and righteousness in which he had been constituted (constitutus fuerat, or positus erat); and that by that offence he incurred the wrath and indignation of God, and thus also death and subjection to him who has the power of death, that is, the devil; and that the whole Adam by the offence of his transgression was as to the body and the soul. changed for the worst.

The effects of Adam's first sin upon himself therefore was: (1.) The loss of original righteousness. (2.) Death and captivity to Satan. (3.) The deterioration of his whole nature both soul and body.

2. The Synod also anathematizes those who say that the sin of Adam injured himself only, and not his posterity; or that he lost the holiness and righteousness which he received from God, for himself only and not also for us, or that he transmitted to the whole human race only death and corporeal pains (poenas corporis), and not sin, which is the death of the soul.

It is here taught that the effects of Adam's sin upon his posterity are: (1.) The loss of original righteousness. (2.) Death and the miseries of this life; and (3.) Sin, or spiritual death (peccatum, quod est mors animæ). This is a distinct condemnation of Pelagianism, and the clear assertion of original sin, as something transmitted to all men. The nature of that however, is not further stated than that it is the death of the soul, which may be differently explained.

3. Those also are condemned who say that this sin of Adam, which is conveyed to all (omnibus transfusum), and inheres in every one as his own sin (inest unicuique proprium), can be removed by the powers of human nature, or by any other remedy than the merit of our one Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, who hath reconciled us to God by his blood, and who is made unto us righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.

It is here asserted: (1.) That original sin is conveyed by propagation and not, as the Pelagians say, by imitation. (2.) That it belongs to every man and inheres in him. (3.) That it cannot be removed by any other means than the blood of Christ.

4. The Synod condemns all who teach that new-born children should not be baptized; or, that although baptized for the remission of sins, they derive nothing of original sin from Adam, which needs to be expiated in the laver of regeneration in order to attain eternal life, so that baptism, in their case, would not be true but false. Children, therefore, who cannot have committed sin, in their own persons, are truly baptized for the remission of sins, that what they had contracted in generation, may be purged away in regeneration.

From this it appears that according to the Council of Trent there is sin in new-born infants which needs to be remitted and washed away by regeneration.

5. The fifth canon asserts that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted, and everything is removed which has the true and proper nature of sin. It is admitted that concupiscence (vel fomes) remains in the baptized, against which believers are to contend, but it is declared that this concupiscence, although sometimes (as is admitted) called sin by the Apostle, is not truly and properly sin in the regenerated.

This is all that the Council teaches under the caption of original sin, except to say that they do not intend their decisions to apply to the Virgin Mary. Whether she was the subject of original sin, as the Dominicans, after Thomas Aquinas, maintained, or whether she was immaculately conceived, as zealously asserted by the Franciscans after Duns Scotus, the Synod leaves undecided.

In the sixth session when treating of justification (i.e., regeneration and sanctification), the Council decides several points, which go to determine the view its members took of the nature of original sin. In the canons adopted in that session, it is among other things, declared: (1.) That men cannot without divine grace through Jesus Christ, by their own works, i.e., works performed in their own strength, be justified before God. (2.) That grace is not given simply to render good works more easy. (3.) That men cannot believe, hope, love, or repent so as to secure regenerating grace without the preventing grace of God (sine prævenienti Spiritus inspiratione, atque ejus adjutorio). (4.) Men can coöperate with this preventing grace, can assent to, or reject it. (5.) Men have not lost their liberum arbitrium, ability to good or evil by the fall. (6.) All works done before regeneration are not sinful.

From all this it appears that while the Council of Trent rejected the Pelagian doctrine of man's plenary ability since the fall, and the Semi-Pelagian doctrine that men can begin the work of reformation and conversion; it no less clearly condemns the Augustinian doctrine of the entire inability of man to do anything spiritually good, whereby he may prepare or dispose himself for conversion, or merit the regenerating grace of God.

The True Doctrine of the Church of Rome.

What was the true doctrine of the Church of Rome as to original sin, remained as much in doubt after the decisions of this Council as it had been before. Each party interpreted its canons according to their own views. The Synod declares that all men are born infected with original sin; but whether that sin consisted simply in the guilt of Adam's first sin; or in the want of original righteousness; or in concupiscence, is left undecided. And therefore all these views continued to be maintained by the theologians of the Romish Church. The older Protestants generally regarded the canons of the Council of Trent as designed to obscure the subject, and held that the real Doctrine of the Church involved the denial of any original sin in the sense of sin, subjective or inherent. In this view, many, if not the majority of modern theologians concur. Winer (in his "Comparative Darstellung,") Guericke (in his "Symbolik"), Koellner (in his "Symbolik"), Baur (in his "Answer to Moehler"), and Dr. Shedd, in his "History of Christian Doctrine," all represent the Church of Rome as teaching that original sin is merely negative, the want of original righteousness, and is denying that there is anything subjective in the state of human nature as men are born into the world, which has the proper nature of sin. The reasons which favour this view of the subject, are, --

1. The prevailing doctrine of the schoolmen and of the Romish theologians as to the nature of sin. According to Protestants, "Quidquid a norma justitiæ in Deo dissidet, et cum ea pugnat, habet rationem peccati." [192] To this the Romanists oppose from Andradius the definition: "Quod nihil habeat rationem peccati nisi fiat a volente et sciente." If this be so, then it is impossible that there should be any inherent or innate sin. As infants are not "knowing and willing," in the sense of moral agents, they cannot have sin. Bellarmin [193] says: "Non satis est ad culpam, ut aliquid sit voluntarium habituali voluntate, sed requiritur, ut processerit ab actu etiam voluntario: Alioqui voluntarium illud, habituale voluntate, naturale esset, et misericordia non reprehensione dignum." He says, that if a man were created in puris naturalibus, without grace, and with this opposition of the flesh to the reason, he would not be a sinner. With the loss of original righteousness there is unavoidably connected this rebellion of the lower against the higher nature of man. With the loss of the bias of the will toward God, is of necessity connected aversion to God. This obliquity of the will which attends original sin, is not sin in itself, yet it is sin in us. For Bellarmin says, there is a "perversio voluntatis et obliquitas unicuique inhærens, per quam peccatores proprie et formaliter dicimur, cum primum homines esse incipimus." This certainly appears contradictory. The perversion of the will, or concupiscence, consequent on the loss of original righteousness, is not itself sinful. Nevertheless, it constitutes us properly and formally sinners, as soon as we begin to exist. Nothing is of the nature of sin but voluntary action, or what proceeds from it, and yet infants are sinners from their birth. He attempts to reconcile these contradictions by saying: "Peccatum in Adamo actuale et personale in nobis originaliter dicitur. Solus enim ipse actuali voluntate illud commisit, nobis vero communicatur per generationem eo modo, quo communicari potest id, quod transiit, nimirum per imputationem. Omnibus enim imputatur, qui ex Adamo nascuntur, quoniam omnes in lumbis Adami existentes in eo et per eum peccavimus, cum ipse peccavit." That is, the voluntary act of Adam was at the same time the act of the will of all his descendants. Thus original sin is sin in us, although nothing is sin in any creature which does not consist in an act of his own will, or which does not flow from such act. To this, however, Baur properly remarks: "What is an act of a non-existing will, an act to which the nature of sin is attributed, although it lies entirely out. side of the individual consciousness? Can any meaning be attached to such a representation? Does it not destroy the idea of guilt and sin, that it is imputed only because it is transmitted in ordinary generation?" [194] If a man or a church hold a theory of the nature of sin which is incompatible with the doctrine of original sin, it is argued, the existence of any such sin is thereby denied. (2.) Another reason urged in favour of the position that the Church of Rome denies original sin, is drawn from what that Church teaches of original righteousness. If original righteousness be a supernatural gift not belonging to the integrity of man's nature, its loss leaves him in the state in which he came from the hands of his Maker. And that state cannot be sinful unless God be the author of sin. Even Bellarmin, who contends for original sin, in a certain sense, still says that man since the fall is in the same state that Adam was as he was created. "Non magis differt status hominis post lapsum Adæ a statu ejusdem in puris naturalibus, quam differat spoliatus a nudo, neque deterior est humana natura, si culpam originalem detrahas, neque magis ignorantia et infirmitate laborat, quam esset et laboraret in puris naturalibus condita. Proinde corruptio naturæ non ex alicujus doni naturalis carentia, neque ex alicujus malæ qualitatis accessu, sed ex sola doni supernaturalis ob Adæ peccatum amissione profluxit. [195] (3.) The Council of Trent expressly declares that concupiscence in the baptized, i.e., the regenerated, is not of the nature of sin. Then it cannot be in the unbaptized; for its nature is not changed by baptism.

On the other hand, however, it may be urged, (1.) That the Council of Trent expressly declares against the Pelagian doctrine, that Adam's sin injured only himself, and asserts that our whole nature, soul, and body, was thereby changed for the worse. (2.) They assert that we derived from Adam not merely a mortal nature, but sin which is the death of the soul. (3.) That new-born infants need baptism for the remission of sin, and that what is removed in the baptism of infants, veram et propriam peccati rationem habet. (4.) The Roman Catechism teaches [196] that "we are born in sin," that we are oppressed with corruption of nature (naturæ vitio premimur) and, [197] that we nihil simus, nisi putida caro; that the virus of sin penetrates to the very bones, i.e., rationem, et voluntatem, quæ maxime solidæ sunt animæ partes. This last passage does not refer expressly to original sin, but to the state of men generally as sinners. Nevertheless, it indicates the view taken by the Roman Church as to the present condition of human nature. (5.) Bellarmin, who is often quoted to prove that Romanists make original sin merely the loss of original righteousness, says: "Si privationem justitiæ originalis ita velit esse effectum peccati, ut non sit etiam ipsa vere proprieque peccatum, Concilio Tridentino manifeste repugnat, neque distingui potest a sententia Catharini" (who made original sin to consist solely in the imputation of Adam's first sin).

From all this it appears that although the doctrine of the Roman Church is neither logical nor self-consistent, it is nevertheless true that that Church does teach the doctrine of original sin, in the sense of a sinful corruption of nature, or of innate, hereditary sinfulness. It is also to be observed that all parties in the Roman Church, before and after the Council of Trent, however much they differed in other points, united in teaching the imputation of Adam's sin; i.e., that for that sin the sentence of condemnation passed upon all men. __________________________________________________________________

[171] Kirchengeschichte, vol. vi. p. 350.
[172] See below, vol. iii., p. 449.

[173] Sacr. Bibl. Sanc. Pat., 2d. edit. Paris, 1589, tom. iv. pp. 62-91.

[174] Magna Bib. Vet. Pat., Cologne, 1618, tom. v. par. ii., p. 90 ff.

[175] Wiggers, ut supra, vol. ii., p. 214.

[176] Sac. Bibl. Sanc. Pat., 2d. edit. Paris, 1589, tom. iv. pp. 875, 876.

[177] De Lib. Arbit. I. xvii.: Ibid. p. 906.

[178] Binius, Concilia, Cologne, 1618, t. ii. par. i. p. 638.

[179] Cap. xxiii.; Opera, Paris, 1721, p. 104, B, d.

[180] Cap. xxiv.; Ibid. p. 105, A, c.
[181] Cap. xxvii.; Ibid. p. 106, A, b.
[182] Cap. iii.; Ibid. p. 98, A, e, B, a.

[183] Ethica seu liber dictus: scito se ipsum, cap. iii.; Opera, Paris, 1859, vol. ii. p. 596.

[184] In Epistolam ad Romanos, lib. ii.; Ibid. vol. ii. p. 238.

[185] Examen Concilii Tridentini, de Peccato Originale, edit. Frankfort, 1674, part i., p. 100.

[186] See also Köllner's, Symbolik, vol. ii. p. 285.

[187] Summa, II. i. lxxxii. art. ii. edit. Cologne, 1640, p. 144 of second set.

[188] Ibid. art. i.

[189] In Lib. IV Sentent., lib. II. dist. xxx. qu. 2; Venice, 1506, 2d part, fol. 83, p. 2, b.

[190] Ritter's Geschichte der christlichen Philosophie, vol. iv. pp. 354-472.

[191] Moehler's Symbolik, 6th edition, p. 57.

[192] Chemnitz, Examen Concilii Tridentini, I. iv. edit. Frankfort, 1674, p. 116.

[193] De Amissione Gratia et Statu Peccati, V. xviii., Disputationes, vol. iv. p. 333, d.

[194] Katholicismus und Protestantismus, Tübingen, 1836; second edit. p. 92, note.

[195] De Gratia Primi Hominis, cap. v.; Disputationes, edit. Paris, 1608, vol. iv. p. 16, d, e.

[196] P. iii. c. 10, qu. 4; Streitwolf, Libri Symbolici Ecclesiæ Catholicæ, vol. i. p. 579.

[197] P. iv. c. 14, qu. 5; Ibid. pp. 675, 676. __________________________________________________________________

§ 7. Protestant Doctrine of Sin.

The Protestant Churches at the time of the Reformation did not attempt to determine the nature of sin philosophically. They regarded it neither as a necessary limitation; not as a negation of being; nor as the indispensable condition of virtue; nor as having its seat in man's sensuous nature; nor as consisting in selfishness alone; nor as being, like pain, a mere state of consciousness, and not an evil in the sight of God. Founding their doctrine on their moral and religious consciousness and upon the Word of God, they declared sin to be the transgression of, or want of conformity to the divine law. In this definition all classes of theologians, Lutheran and Reformed, agree. According to Melancthon, "Peccatum recte definitur anomia, seu discrepantia a lege Dei, h. e., defectus naturæ et actionum pugnans cum lege Dei, easdemque ex ordine justitiæ divinæ ad poenam obligans." Gerhard says: [198] "Peccatum" seu "anomia" est "aberratio a lege, sive non congruentia cum lege, sive ea in ipsa natura hærat, sive in dictis, factis ac concupiscentiæ motibus, inveniatur." Baier says: [199] "Carentia conformitatis cum lege." Vitringa says: [200] "Forma peccati est disconvenientia actus habitus, aut status hominis cum divina lege."

It is included in these definitions, (1.) That sin is a specific evil, differing from all other forms of evil. (2.) That sin stands related to law. The two are correlative, so that where there is no law, there can be no sin. (3.) That the law to which sin is thus related, is not merely the law of reason, or of conscience, or of expediency, but the law of God. (4.) That sin consists essentially in the want of conformity on the part of a rational creature, to the nature or law of God. (5.) That it includes guilt and moral pollution.

Sin is a Specific Evil.

Sin is a specific evil. This we know from our own consciousness. None but a sentient being can know what feeling is. We can neither determine à priori what the nature of a sensation is, nor can we convey the idea to any one destitute of the organs of sense. Unless we had felt pain or pleasure, we should not be able to understand what those words mean. If born blind, we cannot know light. If born deaf, we can have no idea of what hearing is. None but a rational creature can know what is meant by folly. Only creatures with an æsthetic nature can have the perception of beauty or of deformity. In like manner only moral beings can know what sin or holiness is. Knowledge in all these cases is given immediately in the consciousness. It would be in vain to attempt to determine à priori, what pain, pleasure, sight, and hearing are; much less to prove that there are no such sensations; or that they do not differ from each other and from every other form of our experience. Every man in virtue of his being a moral creature, and because he is a sinner, has therefore in his own consciousness the knowledge of sin, he knows that when he is not what he ought to be, when he does what he ought not to do, or omits what he ought to do, he is chargeable with sin. He knows that sin is not simply limitation of his nature; not merely a subjective state of his own mind, having no character in the sight of God; that it is not only something which is unwise, or derogatory to his own dignity; or simply inexpedient because hurtful to his own interests, or injurious to the welfare of others. He knows that it has a specific character of its own, and that it includes both guilt and pollution.

Sin has Relation to Law.

A second truth included in our consciousness of sin is, that it has relation to law. As moral and rational beings we are of necessity subject to the law of right. This is included in the consciousness of obligation. The word ought would otherwise have no meaning. To say we ought, is to say we are bound; that we are under authority of some kind. The word law, in relation to moral and religious subjects, is used in two senses. First, it sometimes means a controlling power, as when the Apostle says that he had a law in his members warring against the law of his mind. Secondly, it means, that which binds, a command of one in authority. This is the common sense of the term in the New Testament. As the rule which binds the conscience of men, and prescribes what they are to do and not to do, has been variously revealed in the constitution of our nature, in the Decalogue, in the Mosaic institutions, and in the whole Scriptures, the word is sometimes used in a sense to include all these forms of revelation; sometimes in reference exclusively to one of them, and sometimes exclusively in reference to another. In all cases the general idea is retained. The law is that which binds the conscience.

Sin is Related to the Law of God.

The great question is, What is that law which prescribes to man what he ought to be and to do? (1.) Some say it is our own reason, or the higher powers of the soul. Those powers have the prerogative to rule. Man is autonomic. He is responsible to himself. He is bound to subject his life, and especially his lower powers, to his reason and conscience. Regard to his own dignity is the comprehensive obligation under which he lies, and he fulfills all his duties when he lives worthily of himself. To this theory it is obvious to object, (a.) That law is something outside of ourselves and over us; entirely independent of our will or reason. We can neither make nor alter it. If our reason and conscience are perverted, and determine that to be right which is in its nature wrong, it does not alter the case. The law remains unchanged in its demands and in its authority. (b.) On this theory there could be no sense of guilt. When a man acts against the dictates of his reason, or in a manner derogatory to the dignity of his nature, he may feel ashamed, or degraded, but not guilty. There can be no conviction that he is amenable to justice, nor any of that fearful looking for of judgment, which the Apostle says is inseparable from the commission of sin. (2.) Others say the law is to be found in the moral order of the universe, or in the eternal fitness of things. These however are mere abstractions. They can impose no obligation, and inflict no penalty on transgression. This theory again leaves out of view, and entirely unaccounted for, some of the plainest facts of the universal consciousness of men. (3.) Others again say that an enlightened regard to the happiness of the universe is the only law to which rational creatures are subject. (4.) Others take a still lower view, and say that it is an enlightened regard to our own happiness which alone has authority over men. It is evident, however, that these theories deny the specific character of moral obligation. There is no such thing as sin, as distinguished from the unwise or the inexpedient. There can be no sense of guilt, no responsibility to justice, except for violations of rules of expediency. (5.) It is clear from the very constitution of our nature that we are subject to the authority of a rational and moral being, a Spirit, whom we know to be infinite, eternal, and immutable in his being and perfections. All men, in every age and in every part of time world, under all forms of religion, and of every degree of culture, have felt and acknowledged that they were subject to a personal being higher than themselves. No forms of speculative philosophy, however plausible or however widely diffused or confidently held in the schools or in the closet, have ever availed to invalidate this instinctive or intuitive judgment of the mind. Men ignorant of the true God have fashioned for themselves imaginary gods, whose wrath they have deprecated and whose favour they have endeavoured to propitiate. But when the Scriptural idea of God, as an infinitely perfect personal Being, has been once presented to the mind, it can never be discarded. It commends itself to the reason and the conscience. It solves all the enigmas of our nature. It satisfies all our desires and aspirations; and to this Being, to him and to his will, we feel ourselves bound to be conformed, and know ourselves to be responsible for our character and conduct. This allegiance we cannot possibly throw off. The law of gravitation no more inexorably binds the earth to its orbit than our moral nature binds us to our allegiance and responsibility to God. It would be as unreasonable to deny the one as the other, and as useless to argue against the one as against the other. This is clearly the doctrine of the Apostle in the passage just referred to. He was speaking of the most debased and vicious of the heathen world, men whom God had given up to a reprobate mind; and yet he asserts that they not only knew God, but knew his righteous judgment; that they who commit sin were worthy of death; that is, that they were rightfully subject to the authority, and inevitably exposed to the wrath and indignation, of moral ruler. This is a fact therefore given in the universal consciousness of men. Sin is related to law, and that law is not one of our own enacting, it is not a mere idea or abstraction, it is not mere truth or reason, or the fitness of things, but the nature and will of God. Law, as it reveals itself in the conscience, implies a law-giver, a being of whose will it is the expression, and who has the power and the purpose to enforce all its demands. And not only this, but one who, from the very perfection of his nature, must enforce them. He can no more pass by transgression than he can love evil. It is in vain to argue against these convictions. It is in vain to say, There is no God, no Being on whom we are dependent, and to whom we are responsible for our character and conduct.

The Extent of the Law's Demands.

The next question is, What does this law demand? This is the point on which there has been most diversity of opinion, and systems of theology as well as of morals are founded on the different answers which it has received. The answer given by the unsophisticated and enlightened conscience of men, and by the word of God, is that the law demands complete perfection, or the entire conformity of the moral nature and conduct of a rational creature with the nature and will of God. We are commanded to love God with all the heart, with all the soul, with all the strength, and with all the mind, and our neighbour as ourselves. This implies entire congeniality with God; the unreserved consecration of all our powers to his service, and absolute submission to his will. Nothing more than this can be required of any creature. No angel or glorified saint can be or do more than this, and this is what the law demands of every rational creature, at all times, and in every state of his being. In one sense this obligation is limited by the capacity (not the ability, in the modern theological sense of that term) of the creature. The capacity of a child is less than that of an adult Christian or of an angel. He can know less. He can contain less. He is on a lower stage of being. But it is the absolute moral perfection of the child, of the adult, or of the angel that the law demands. And this perfection includes the entire absence of all sin, and the entire conformity of nature to the image and will of God. As this is the doctrine of the Bible. so also it is the teaching of conscience. Every man, at least every Christian, feels that he sins or is sinful whenever and howsoever he comes short of full conformity to the image of God. He feels that languor, coldness of affection, defect of zeal, and the want of due humility, gratitude, meekness, forbearance, and benevolence are in him of the nature of sin. The old maxim, omne minus bonum habet rationem mali, authenticates itself in the conscience of every unsophistical believer. This was the doctrine of Augustine, who in his letter to Jerome, [201] says: "Plenissima (caritas) quæ jam non possit augeri, quamdiu hic homo vivit, est in nemine; quamdiu autem augeri potest, profecto illud, quod minus est quam debet, ex vitio est." The Lutheran and Reformed theologians assert the same principle. [202] If this principle be correct, if the law demands entire conformity to the nature and will of God, it follows: --

1. That there can be no perfection in this life. Every form of perfectionism which has ever prevailed in the Church is founded either on the assumption that the law does not demand entire freedom from moral evil, or upon the denial that anything is of the nature of sin, but acts of the will. But if the law is so extensive in its demands as to pronounce all defect in any duty, all coming short in the purity, ardour, or constancy of holy affections, sinful, then there is an end to the presumption that any mere maim since the fall has ever attained perfection.

2. It follows also from this principle that there can never be any merit of good works attributable to men in this world. By merit, according to the Scriptural sense of that word, is meant the claim upon reward as a matter of justice, founded on the complete satisfaction of the demands of the law. But if those demands never have been perfectly fulfilled by any fallen man, no such man can either be justified for his works, or have, as the Apostle expresses it, any kauchema, any claim founded on merit in the sight of God. He must always depend on mercy and expect eternal life as a free gift of God.

3. Still more obviously does it follow from the principle in question that there can be no such thing as works of supererogation. If no man in this life can perfectly keep the commandments of God, it is very plain that no man can do more than the law demands. The Romanists regard the law as a series of specific enactments. Besides these commands which bind all men there are certain things which they call precepts, which are not thus universally binding, such as celibacy, poverty, and monastic obedience, and the like. These go beyond the law. By adding to the fulfilment of the commands of God, the observance of these precepts, a man may do more than required of him, and thus acquire an amount of merit greater than he needs for himself, and which in virtue of the communion of saints, belongs to the Church, and may be dispensed, through the power of the keys, for the benefit of others. The whole foundation of this theory is of course removed, if the law demands absolute perfection, to which, even according to their doctrine, no man evem attains in this life. He always is burdened with venial sins, which God in mercy does not impute as real sins, but which nevertheless are imperfections.

Sin not Confined to Acts of the Will.

4. Another conclusion drawn from the Scriptural doctrine as to the extent of the divine law, as held by all Augustinians, is that sin is not confined to acts of the will. There are three senses in which the word voluntary is used in connection with this subject. The first and strictest sense makes nothing an act of the will but an act of deliberate self-determination, something that is performed, sciente et volente. Secondly, all spontaneous, impulsive exercises of the feelings and affections are in a sense voluntary. And, thirdly, whatever inheres in the will as a habit or disposition, is called voluntary as belonging to the will. The doctrine of the Romish Church on these points, as shown in the preceding section, is a matter of dispute among Romanists themselves. The majority of the schoolmen and of the Roman theologians deny that anything is of the nature of sin, but voluntary acts in the first sense of the word voluntary above mentioned. How they endeavour to reconcile the doctrine of hereditary, inherent corruption, or original sin, with that principle has already been stated. Holding that principle, however, they strenuously deny that mere impulses, the motus primo primi, as they are called, of evil dispositions are of the nature of sin. To this doctrine they are forced by their view of baptism. In that ordinance, according to their theory, everything of the nature of sin is removed. But concupiscence with its motions remains. These, however, if not deliberately assented to and indulged, are not sinful. Whether they are or not, of course depends on the extent of the law. Nothing is sinful but what is contrary to the divine law. If that law demands perfect conformity to the image of God, then these impulses of evil are clearly sinful. But if the law takes cognizance only of deliberate acts they are not. The Protestant doctrine which pronounces these impulsive acts to be of the nature of sin is confirmed by the consciousness of the believer. He recognizes as evil in their own nature the first risings of malice, envy, pride, or cupidity. He knows that they spring from an evil or imperfectly sanctified nature They constitute part of the burden of corruption which he hopes to lay down in the grave; and he knows that as he shall be free from them in heaven, they never disturbed the perfectly holy soul of his blessed Lord, to whose image he is even now bound to be conformed.

5. It follows from the principle that the law condemns all want of conformity to the nature of God, that it condemns evil dispositions or habits, as well as all voluntary sins, whether deliberate or impulsive. According to the Bible and the dictates of conscience there is a sinfulness as well as sins; there is such a thing as character as distinguished from transient acts by which it is revealed; that is, a sinful state, abiding, inherent, immanent forms of evil, which are truly and properly of the nature of sin. All sin, therefore, is not an agency, activity, or act; it may be and is also a condition or state of the mind. This distinction between habitual and actual sin has been recognized and admitted in the Church from the beginning. Our Lord teaches us this distinction when He speaks of an evil heart as distinguished from evil exercises, which are as distinct as a tree and its fruits. The Apostle speaks of sin as a law, or controlling principle regulating or determining his acts even in despite of his better nature. He says sin dwells in him. He complains of it as a burden too heavy to be borne, from which he groans to be delivered. And his experience in this matter is the experience (we do not say the theory) of all the people of God. They know there is more in them of the nature of sin than mere acts and exercises; that their heart is not right in the sight of God; that the fountain from which the waters flow is itself bitter; that the tree is known by its fruits.

Sin is Want of Conformity to the Law of God.

Protestants teach not only that sin is a specific evil, that it has relation to law, that that law is the nature and will of God, and that it takes cognizance of and condemns all forms and degrees of moral evil or want of moral excellence, but also that the formal nature of sin is the want of conformity to the divine law or standard of excellence. This want of conformity is not a mere negation, such as may be predicated of a stone or of a brute, of whom it may be said they are not conformed to the image of God. The want of conformity to the divine law which constitutes sin is the want of congeniality of one moral nature with another; of the dependent and created nature with the infinitely holy nature, which of necessity is not only the sum but the standard of all excellence. Herein is sin that we are not like God. As the opposite of reason is unreason, the opposite of wisdom is folly, and the opposite of good is evil; so the opposite of the divine holiness is sin. It matters not of what exercises or states in the nature of a moral being this opposition may be predicated; of deliberate acts, of merely impulsive acts, or of dispositions or habits; if opposed to the divine nature it is sin, hateful in itself and worthy of condemnation. There is a positive element, therefore, in all sin. That is, it is not merely the privation of righteousness, but it is positive unrighteousness. Because the absence of the one in a moral nature is the other. The want of congeniality with God is alienation from God, and, as the Scriptures say, enmity towards Him. The Protestant symbols and theologians, therefore, in defining sin, not merely as selfishness or the love of the creature or the love of the world, which are only modes of its manifestation, but as the want of conformity of an act, habit, or state of a man with the divine law, which is the revelation of the divine nature, have in their support both reason and conscience. This doctrine of the nature of sin is fully sustained by the authority of Scripture. The Apostle John says that all want of conformity to law is sin. The two ideas hamartia and anomia are coextensive. Whatever is the one, is the other. It seems that some in the Apostle's day were disposed to limit the demands of the divine law, and regard certain things not specifically forbidden as lawful. In opposition to this, the Apostle tells them that everything evil is unlawful; for the very nature of evil is want of conformity to law: pas ho poion ten hamartian kai ten anomian poiei, he who commits sin commits anomia, for he hamartia estin he anomia, for all want of conformity to law is sin. (1 John iii. 4.) With this agree also all the representations of Scripture. The words there used for sin in all its forms, express the idea of non-conformity to a standard. And besides this the Bible everywhere teaches that God is the source and standard of all good. His favour is the life of the soul. Congeniality with Him, conformity to his will and nature, is the idea and perfection of all excellence; and the opposite state, the want of this congeniality and conformity, is the sum and essence of all evil.

Sin includes Guilt and Pollution.

Sin includes guilt and pollution; the one expresses its relation to the justice, the other to the holiness of God. These two elements of sin are revealed in the conscience of every sinner. He knows himself to be amenable to the justice of God and offensive in his holy eyes. He is to himself even, hateful and degraded and self-condemned. There are, however, two things included in guilt. The one we express by the words criminality, demerit, and blame worthiness; the other is the obligation to suffer the punishment due to our offences. These are evidently distinct, although expressed by the same word. The guilt of our sins is said to have been laid upon Christ, that is, the obligation to satisfy the demands of justice on account of them. But He did not assume the criminality, the demerit, or blameworthiness of our transgressions. When the believer is justified, his guilt, but not his demerit, is removed. He remains in fact, and in his own eyes, the same unworthy, hell-deserving creature, in himself considered, that he was before. A man condemned at a human tribunal for any offence against the community, when he has endured the penalty which the law prescribes, is no less unworthy, his demerit as much exists as it did from the beginning; but his liability to justice or obligation to the penalty of the law, in other words, his guilt in that sense of the word, is removed. It would be unjust to punish him a second time for that offence. This distinction theologians are accustomed to express by the terms reatus culpæ and reatus poenæ. Culpa is (strafwürdiger Zustand) blameworthiness; and reatus culpæ is guilt in the form of inherent ill-desert: whereas the reatus poenæ is the debt we owe to justice. That guilt, in the comprehensive sense of the word, and pollution enter into the nature of sin, or are inseparable from it, is not only revealed in our own consciousness, but is everywhere assumed in Scripture. The Bible constantly declares that sin and all sin, everything which bears its nature, is not only hateful in the sight of a holy God, but is the object of his wrath and indignation, the just ground for the infliction of punishment.

This is admitted, and cannot be denied. The only question is, What is necessary in order to the sense of guilt as it exists in the conscience? Or, What is required to constitute anything a just ground of punishment in the sight of God? Is it sufficient that the thing itself should be sinful? Or, Is it necessary that it should be due to our own voluntary act? This latter ground is taken not only by Pelagians, and by all who define sin to be the voluntary transgression of known law, but also by many who hold to habitual, as distinguished from actual sin, and who even acknowledge that men are born in sin. They still insist that even evil innate, inherent sin, must be referrible to our own voluntary agency, or it cannot be guilt in us. But this is, --

1. Contrary to our own consciousness. The existence of sin in the heart, the presence of evil dispositions, without regard to their origin, is unavoidably attended by a sense of pollution an guilt. These dispositions being evil in their own nature must include whatever is essential to that nature. And, as has been acknowledged, guilt is essential to the nature of sin. Nothing is sinful which does not involve guilt. The consciousness, or the conviction of sin, must therefore include the conviction of guilt. And consequently if we are convinced from the declarations of Scripture and from the state of our nature that we are born in sin we must be convinced that guilt attaches to innate corruption of nature. Besides this, habitual or indwelling sin is not voluntary in the sense of being designed or intended, or in the sense of being under the power of the will, and yet all Christians admit that such indwelling sin is a dreadful load of guilt; a load more burdensome to the heart and conscience than all our actual transgressions.

2. The principle in question is no less opposed to the common judgments of men. All men instinctively judge a man for what he is. If he is good they so regard him. If he is bad, they pronounce him to be bad. This judgment is just as inevitable or necessary as that he is tall or short, learned or unlearned. The question as to the origin of the man's character does not enter into the grounds of this judgment. If born good, if he made himself good, or if he received his goodness as a gift from God, does not materially affect the case. He is good, and must be so regarded and treated. In like manner all that is necessary in order to justify and necessitate the judgment that a man is bad is that he should be so. This is the principle on which we judge ourselves, and on which men universally judge each other. The principle, therefore, must be sound.

3. The doctrine that sin in order to include guilt must be referrible to our own voluntary action, is contrary to analogy. It is not so with holiness. Adam was created holy. His holiness as truly constituted his character as though it had been self-acquired, and had it been retained, it would have continued to be, and so long as it was retained it was an object of complacency and the ground of reward in the sight of God. Habitual grace, as it is called, or the new principle of spiritual life, imparted to the soul in regeneration, is not self-produced. It is due to the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, nevertheless it constitutes the believer's character. The only reason why it is not meritorious, is that it is so imperfect, and because it cannot cancel the debt we already owe to the justice of God. The soul, however, if perfectly sanctified by the Holy Ghost is just as pure, just as much an object of approbation and delight in the sight of God as an unfallen angel.

4. The doctrine in question contradicts the faith of the Church Universal. A distinction must be made between the faith of the Church and the speculations (or even the doctrines) of theologians. These are often divergent. The former is determined by the Scriptures and the inward teachings of the Spirit; the latter are greatly modified by the current philosophy of the age in which those theologians lived, and by the idiosyncrasies of their own minds. During the Middle Ages, for example, the speculations of the schoolmen and the faith of the Church, had very little in common. The faith of the Church is to be found in its creeds, prayers, and forms of devotion generally. In all these, through every age, the Church has shown that she regards all men as burdened with original sin, as belonging to a polluted and guilty race, polluted and guilty from the first moment of existence. It cannot be said that the Church believed original sin to be due to the agency of each individual man, or to the act of generic humanity. These are thoughts foreign to the minds of common believers. The conviction therefore must have existed in the Church always and everywhere that guilt may be present which does not attach to the voluntary agency of the guilty. Infants have always been baptized for the remission of sin, and men have ever been regarded by the Church as born in sin.

5. The explanation given of the undeniable fact of innate pollution and guilt, by those who admit the fact, and yet maintain that this original sin is referrible to our own agency, is altogether unsatisfactory. That explanation is that we acted thousands of years before we existed, that is, that the substance which constitutes our individual souls, committed, in the person of Adam, the sin of disobeying God in paradise. This explanation of course presupposes the fact to be explained. The fact remains whatever becomes of the explanation. Men are born in a state of guilt and pollution All that follows from the rejection of the explanation is, that sin may exist, which is not referrible to the voluntary agency of those in whom it inheres. This consequence is far easier of admission, in the judgment of the vast majority of men, than the doctrine that we are personally chargeable with eating the forbidden fruit as our own act.

6. The Bible in everywhere teaching that men are born in sin, that they come into the world the children of wrath, does thereby teach that there can be, and that there is sin (pollution and guilt) which is inherited and derived, which is inherent and innate, and therefore not referrible to our own agency. As the Scriptures nowhere teach that we actually sinned before we existed, they assert the fact which enters into the common faith of the Church, that guilt attaches to all sin however that sin originates. __________________________________________________________________

[198] Loci Theologici, XI. i. 3; edit Tübingen, 1766, vol. v. p. 2, b.

[199] Compendium Theologiæ, edit. Frankfort, 1739, p. 346.

[200] Doctrina Christianæ Religionis, x. 7; edit. Lyons, 1762, vol. ii. pp. 285, 286.

[201] Epistola, CLXVII. iv. 15; Works, edit. Benedictines, vol. ii. p. 897, a.

[202] See Chemnitz, Examen Concilii Tridentini, I. De Justificatione, edit. Frankfort, 1674, p. 165, f. De Bonis Operibus, qu. 3, p. 205, a. Gerhard, Loci Theologici, XI. x. 42-45, v. p. 21-24. Quenstedt, Theologia, P. II. cap. ii. § 2, q. 3, edit. Leipzig, 1715, p. 967. __________________________________________________________________

§ 8. The Effects of Adam's Sin upon his Posterity.

That the sin of Adam injured not himself only but also all descending from him by ordinary generation, is part of the faith of the whole Christian world. The nature and extent of the evil thus entailed upon his race, and the ground or reason of the descendants of Adam being involved in the evil consequences of his transgression, have ever been matter of diversity and discussion. As to both of these points the common Augustinian doctrine is briefly stated in the Symbols of our Church. According to our standards, "the sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell consists in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature, which is commonly called original sin, together within all actual transgressions which proceed from it." This corruption of nature is in the Confession of Faith declared to be "both in itself and in all motions thereof, truly and properly sin." And in virtue of this original corruption men are "utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil." As to the ground of these evils, we are taught that "the covenant being made with Adam not only for himself, but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him in his first transgression." Or, as it is expressed in the Confession, "Our first parents, being the root of all mankind, the guilt of their sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature were conveyed to all their posterity, descending from them by ordinary generation."

In this view of the relation of mankind to Adam, and of the consequences of his apostasy, the three leading subjects included, are the imputation of Adam's first sin; the corruption of nature derived from him; and the inability of fallen man to any spiritual good. __________________________________________________________________

§ 9. Immediate Imputation.

It being admitted that the race of man participates in the evil consequences of the fall of our first parent, that fact is accounted for on different theories.

1. That which is adopted by Protestants generally, as well Lutherans as Reformed, and also by the great body of the Latin Church is, that in virtue of the union, federal and natural, between Adam and his posterity, his sin, although not their act, is so imputed to them that it is the judicial ground of the penalty threatened against him coming also upon them. This is the doctrine of immediate imputation.

2. Others, while they admit that a corrupt nature is derived from Adam by all his ordinary posterity, yet deny, first, that this corruption or spiritual death is a penal infliction for his sin; and second, that there is any imputation to Adam's descendants of the guilt of his first sin. All that is really imputed to them is their own inherent, hereditary depravity. This is the doctrine of mediate imputation.

3. Others discard entirely the idea of imputation, so far as Adam's sin is concerned, and refer the hereditary corruption of men to the general law of propagation. Throughout the vegetable and animal kingdoms, like begets like. Man is not an exception to that law. Adam having lost his original righteousness and corrupted his nature by his apostasy, transmits that despoiled and deteriorated nature to all his descendants. To what extent man's nature is injured by the fall, is left undetermined by this theory. According to some it is so deteriorated as to be in the true Scriptural sense of the term, spiritually dead, while according to others, the injury is little if anything more than a physical infirmity, an impaired constitution which the first parent has transmitted to his children.

4. Others again adopt the realistic theory, and teach that as generic humanity existed whole and entire in the persons of Adam and Eve, their sin was the sin of the entire race. The same numerical rational and voluntary substance which acted in our first parents, having been communicated to us, their act was as truly and properly our act, being the act of our reason and will, as it was their act. It is imputed to us therefore not as his, but as our own. We literally sinned in Adam, and consequently the guilt of that sin is our personal guilt and the consequent corruption of nature is the effect of our own voluntary act.

5. Others, finally, deny any causal relation, whether logical or natural, whether judicial or physical, between the sin of Adam and the sinfulness of his race. Some who take this ground say that it was a divine constitution, that, if Adam sinned, all men should sin. The one event was connected with the other only in the divine purpose. Others say that there is no necessity to account for the fact that all men are sinners, further than by referring no their liberty of will. Adam sinned, and other men sin. That is all. The one fact us as easily accounted for as the other.

Statement of the Doctrine of Immediate Imputation.

The first of the above mentioned doctrines is that presented in the Symbols of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches, and by the great body of the theologians of those great historical branches of the Protestant community. [203] What that doctrine is may be stated in few words. To impute is simply to attribute to, as we are said to impute good or bad motives to anyone. In the juridical and theological sense of the word, to impute is to attribute anything to a person or persons, upon adequate grounds, as the judicial or meritorious reason of reward or punishment, i.e., of the bestowment of good or the infliction of evil. The most elaborate discussion of the Hebrew word chsv and the Greek logizomai, used in Scripture in relation to this subject, gives nothing beyond the simple result above mentioned.

1. To impute is to reckon to, or to lay to one's account. So far as the meaning of the word is concerned, it makes no difference whether the thing imputed be sin or righteousness; whether it is our own personally, or the sin or righteousness of another.

2. To impute sin, in Scriptural and theological language, is to impute the guilt of sin. And by guilt is meant not criminality or moral ill-desert, or demerit, much less moral pollution, but the judicial obligation to satisfy justice. Hence the evil consequent on the imputation is not an arbitrary infliction; not merely a misfortune or calamity; not a chastisement in the proper sense of that word, but a punishment, i.e., an evil inflicted in execution of the penalty of law and for the satisfaction of justice.

3. A third remark in elucidation of what is meant by the imputation of Adam's sin is, that by all theologians, Reformed and Lutheran, it is admitted, that in the imputation of Adam's sin to us, of our sins to Christ, and of Christ's righteousness to believers, the nature of imputation is the same, so that the one case illustrates the others. When it is said that our sins were imputed to Christ, or that He bore our sins, it is not meant that he actually committed our sins, or that He was morally criminal on account of them, or that the demerit of them rested upon Him. All that is meant is that He assumed, in the language of the older theologians, "our law-place." He undertook to answer the demands of justice for the sins of men, or, as it is expressed by the Apostle, to be made a curse for them. In like manner, when it is said that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to believers, it does not mean that they wrought out that righteousness, that they were the agents of the acts of Christ in obeying the law; nor that the merit of his righteousness is their personal merit; nor that it constitutes their moral character; it simply means that his righteousness, having been wrought out by Christ for the benefit of his people, in their name, by Him as their representative, it is laid to their account, so that God can be just in justifying the ungodly. Much of the difficulty on this subject arises from the ambiguity of language. The words righteous and unrighteous have two distinct meanings. Sometimes they express moral character. A righteous man is an upright or good man. At other times, these words do not express moral character, but simply relation to justice. In this sense a righteous man is one with regard to whom the demands of justice are satisfied. He may be personally unrighteous (or ungodly) and legally righteous. If this were not so, no sinner could be saved. There is not a believer on earth who does not feel and acknowledge himself to be personally unrighteous, ill-deserving, meriting the wrath and curse of God. Nevertheless he rejoices in the assurance that the infinitely meritorious righteousness of Christ, his full atonement for all sin, constitutes Him legally, not morally, righteous in the sight of divine justice. When, therefore, God pronounces the unrighteous to be righteous, He does not declare them to be what they are not. He simply declares that their debt to justice has been paid by another. And when it is said that the sin of Adam is imputed to his posterity, it is not meant that they committed his sin, or were the agents of his act, nor is it meant that they are morally criminal for his transgression; that it is for them the ground of remorse and self-reproach; but simply that in virtue of the union between him and his descendants, his sin is the judicial ground of the condemnation of his race, precisely as the righteousness of Christ is the judicial ground of the justification of his people. So much for the statement of the question.

It is no less a doctrine of Scripture than a fact of experience that mankind are a fallen race. Men universally, under all the circumstances of their being in this world, are sinful, and exposed to innumerable evils. Many of these, and that in many instances the most appalling, come upon the children of men in early infancy anterior to any possible transgressions of their own. This is a fact which cannot be denied; and for which the human mind has tortured itself to find a solution. The Scriptural solution of this fearful problem is, that God constituted our first parent the federal head and representative of his race, and placed him on probation not only for himself, but also for all his posterity. Had he retained his integrity, he and all his descendants would have been confirmed in a state of holiness and happiness forever. As he fell from the estate in which he was created, they fell with him in his first transgression, so that the penalty of that sin came upon them as well as upon him. Men therefore stood their probation in Adam. As he sinned, his posterity come into the world in a state of sin and condemnation. They are by nature the children of wrath. The evils which they suffer are not arbitrary impositions, nor simply the natural consequences of his apostasy, but judicial inflictions. The loss of original righteousness, and death spiritual and temporal under which they commence their existence, are the penalty of Adam's first sin. We do not say that this solution of the problem of man's sinfulness and misery, is without its difficulties; for the ways of God are past finding out. But it may be confidently asserted, first, that it is the Scriptural solution of that problem; and secondly, that it is far more satisfactory to the reason, the heart, and the conscience, than any other solution which the ingenuity of man has ever suggested. This is proved by its general acceptance in the Christian Church.

The Ground of the Imputation of Adam's Sin.

The ground of the imputation of Adam's sin, or the reason why the penalty of his sin has come upon all his posterity, according to the doctrine above stated, is the union between us and Adam. There could of course be no propriety in imputing the sin of one man to another unless there were some connection between them to explain and justify such imputation. The Scriptures never speak of the imputation of the sins of angels either to men or to Christ, or of his righteousness to them; because there is no such relation between men and angels, or between angels and Christ, as to involve the one in the judicial consequences of the sin or righteousness of the other. The union between Adam and his posterity which is the ground of the imputation of his sin to them, is both natural and federal. He was their natural head. Such is the relation between parent and child, not only in the case of Adam and his descendants, but in all other cases, that the character and conduct of the one, of necessity to a greater or less degree affect the other. No fact in history is plainer than that children bear the iniquities of their fathers. They suffer for their sins. There must be a reason for this; and a reason founded in the very constitution of our nature. But there was something peculiar in the case of Adam. Over and beyond this natural relation which exists between a man and his posterity, there was a special divine constitution by which he was appointed the head and representative of his whole race.

Adam the Federal Head of his Race.

1. The first argument, therefore, in favour of the doctrine of imputation is that the Scriptures present Adam as not only the natural, but also the federal head of his posterity. This is plain, as already remarked, from the narrative given in Genesis. Everything there said to Adam was said to him in his representative capacity. The promise of life was for him and for his seed after him. The dominion within which he was invested, belonged to his posterity as well as to himself. All the evils threatened against him in case of transgression, included them, and have in fact come upon them. They are mortal; they have to earn their bread by the sweat of their brows; they are subject to all the inconveniences and sufferings arising from the banishment of our first parents from paradise and from the curse pronounced for man's sake upon the earth. They no less obviously are born into the world destitute of original righteousness and subject to spiritual death. The full penalty, therefore, threatened against Adam, has been inflicted upon them. It was death with the promise of redemption. Now that these evils are penal in our case as well as in his, is plain, because punishment is suffering inflicted in execution of a threatening, and for the satisfaction of justice. It matters not what that suffering may be. Its character as penalty depends not on its nature, but upon the design of its infliction. One man, as before remarked, may be shut up in a prison to protect him from popular violence; another, in execution of a legal sentence. In one case the imprisonment is a favour, in the other, it is a punishment. As therefore, the evils which men suffer on account of the sin of Adam, are inflicted in execution of the penalty threatened against him, they are as truly penal in our case as they were in his; and he was consequently treated as the federal head and representative of his race. Besides the plain assumption of the truth of this federal relation, it is expressly asserted in the Word of God. The parallel drawn by the Apostle between Adam and Christ relates precisely to this point. Adam was the type of Him who was to come, because as the one was the representative of his race, so the other is the representative of his people. And the consequences of the relation are shown to be in like manner analogous. It was because Adam was the representative of his race, that his sin is the judicial ground of their condemnation; and it is because Christ is the representative of his people, that his righteousness is the judicial ground of the justification of believers.

The Representative Principle in the Scriptures.

2. This representative principle pervades the whole Scriptures. The imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity is not an isolated fact. It is only an illustration of a general principle which characterizes the dispensations of God from the beginning of the world. God declared himself to Moses to be, "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity amid transgression, and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children unto the third and to the fourth generation." (Ex. xxxiv. 6, 7.) Jeremiah says: "Thou showest loving-kindness unto thousands. and recompensest the iniquities of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them. The Great, the Mighty God, the Lord of Hosts, is his name." (Jer. xxxii. 18.) The curse pronounced on Canaan fell upon his posterity. Esau's selling his birthright, shut out his descendants from the covenant of promise. The children of Moab and Ammon were excluded from the congregation of the Lord forever, because their ancestors opposed the Israelites when they came out of Egypt. In the case of Dathan and Abiram, as in that of Achan, "their wives, and their sons, and their little children" perished for the sins of their parents. God said to Eli that the iniquity of his house should not be purged with sacrifice and offering forever. To David it was said, "The sword shall never depart from thy house; because thou hast despised me, and mast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife." To the disobedient Gehazi it was said: "The leprosy of Naaman shall cleave unto thee and unto thy seed forever." The sin of Jereboam and of the men of his generation determined the destiny of the ten tribes for all time. The imprecation of the Jews, when they demanded the crucifixion of Christ. "His blood be on us and on our children," still weighs down the scattered people of Israel. Our Lord himself said to the Jews of his generation that they built the sepulchres of the prophets whom their fathers had slain, and thus acknowledged themselves to be the children of murderers, and that therefore the blood of those prophets should be required at their hands. This principle runs through the whole Scriptures. When God entered into covenant with Abraham, it was not for himself only but also for his posterity. They were bound by all the stipulations of that covenant. They shared its promises and its threatenings, and in hundreds of cases the penalty of disobedience came upon those who had no personal part in the transgressions. Children suffered equally with adults in the judgments, whether famine, pestilence, or war, which came upon the people for their sins. In like manner, when God renewed and enlarged the Abrahamic covenant at Mount Sinai, it was made with the adults of that generation as representing their descendants to the remotest generations. And the Jews to this day are suffering the penalty of the sins of their fathers for their rejection of Him of whom Moses and the prophets spoke. The whole plan of redemption rests on this same principle. Christ is the representative of his people, and on this ground their sins are imputed to Him and his righteousness to them. In like manner, in the baptismal covenant, the parent acts for the child, and binds him without the child's consent, and the destiny of the child is, as a general rule, suspended on the fidelity of the parent. No man who believes the Bible, can shut his eyes to the fact that it everywhere recognizes the representative character of parents, and that the dispensations of God have from the beginning been founded on the principle that children bear the iniquities of their fathers. This is one of the reasons which infidels assign for rejecting the divine origin of the Scriptures. But infidelity furnishes no relief. History is as full of this doctrine as the Bible is. The punishment of the felon involves his family in his disgrace and misery. The spendthrift and drunkard entail poverty and wretchedness upon all connected within them. There is no nation now existing on the face of the earth, whose condition for weal or woe is not largely determined by the character and conduct of their ancestors. If, unable to solve the mysteries of Providence, we plunge into Atheism, we only increase a thousand fold the darkness by which we are surrounded. It is easier to believe that all things are guided by infinite reason and goodness, and are certain to result in the highest glory of God, and in the highest blessedness of the universe, than to believe that this vast aggregate of sin and misery is the working of blind force without purpose and without end.

If the fact be admitted that we bear the consequences of Adam's sin, and that children suffer for the iniquities of their fathers, it may be said that this is not to be referred to the justice of God, but to the undesigned working of a general law, which in despite of incidental evil, is on the whole beneficent. The difficulty on that assumption instead of being lessened, is only increased. On either theory the nature and the degree of suffering are the same. The innocence of the sufferers is the same. The only difference relates to the question, Why they suffer for offences of which they are not personally guilty? The Bible says these sufferings are judicial; they are inflicted as punishment for the support of law. Others say, they are merely natural consequences, or arbitrary inflictions of a sovereign. If a king should put the children of a rebel to death, would it relieve his conduct from reproach to say that it was an act of arbitrary sovereignty? If the prevention of crime be one important end of punishment (although not its primary end), would it not be a relief to say, that the death of the children was designed to prevent other parents from rebelling? That the execution of the children of a criminal by a human sovereign would be a cruel and unjust punishment, may be admitted, while it is, and must be denied, that it is unjust in God that he should visit the iniquities of the fathers upon their children. In the first place no human sovereign has the right over his subjects which belongs to God over his creatures as their Creator. And in the second place, no human sovereign has the power and wisdom to secure the highest good from the penalties which he attaches to the violations of law. We cannot infer that because a course of action would be wrong in man, therefore it must be unjust in God. No man could rightfully send pestilence or famine through a land, but God does send such visitations not only righteously, but to the manifestation of his own glory and to the good of his creatures.

The same Principle involved in other Doctrines.

That the sin of Adam is imputed to his posterity is proved not only (1.) From the fact that he was their natural head and representative; and (2.) From the fact that this principle of representation pervades the Scriptures; and (3.) From the fact that it is the ground on which the providence of God is administered. (4.) From the fact that evils consequent on the apostasy of Adam are expressly declared in Scripture to be penal inflictions put also (5.) From the fact that the principle of imputation is involved in other great doctrines of the Bible. The assumption that one man cannot righteously, under the government of God, be punished for the sins of another, is not only contrary, as we have seen to the express declarations of Scripture and to the administration of the divine government from the beginning, but it is subversive of the doctrines of atonement and justification. The idea ot the transfer of guilt or of vicarious punishment lies at the foundation of all the expiatory offerings under the Old Testament, and of the great atonement under the new dispensation. To bear sin, is in Scriptural language to bear the penalty of sin. The victim bore the sin of the offerer. Hands were imposed upon the head of the animal about to be slaughtered, to express the transfer of guilt. That animal must be free from all defect or blemish to make it the more apparent that its blood was shed not for its own deficiencies but for the sin of another. All this was symbolical and typical. There could be no real transfer of guilt made to an irrational animal, and no real atonement made by its blood. But these services were significant. They were intended to teach these great truths: (1.) That the penalty of sin was death. (2.) That sin could not be pardoned without an atonement. (3.) That atonement consists in vicarious punishment. The innocent takes the place of the guilty and bears the penalty in his stead. This is the idea attached to expiatory offerings in all ages and among all nations. This is the idea inculcated in every part of the Bible. And this is what the Scriptures teach concerning the atonement of Christ. He bore our sins; He was made a curse for us; He suffered the penalty of the law in our stead. All this proceeds on the ground that the sins of one man can be justly, on some adequate ground, imputed to another. In justification the same radical idea is included. Justification is not a subjective change in the moral state of the sinner; it is not mere pardon; it is not simply pardon and restoration to favour, as when a rebel is forgiven and restored to the enjoyment of his civil rights. It is a declaration that the demands of justice have been satisfied. It proceeds on the assumption that the righteousness which the law requires belongs either personally and inherently, or by imputation, to the person who is justified, or declared to be just. There is a logical connection, therefore, between the denial of the imputation of Adam's sin, and the denial of the Scriptural doctrines of atonement and justification. The objections urged against the former bear equally against the latter doctrines. And it is a matter of history that those who reject the one, reject also the others.

Argument from Romans v. 12-21.

The Apostle in Romans v. 12-21 teaches this doctrine in the most formal and explicit manner. The design of that passage is to illustrate the method of salvation. The Apostle had taught that all men are sinners, and the whole world guilty before God. All men being under the condemnation of the law, it is impossible that they should be justified by the law. The same law cannot both justify and condemn the same persons. As therefore no flesh can be justified by the works of the law, God sent his Son for our salvation. He assumed our nature, took our place, and obeyed and suffered in our stead, and thus wrought out for us a perfect and infinitely meritorious righteousness. On the ground of that righteousness, God can now be just in justifying the ungodly, if, renouncing their own righteousness, they receive and trust upon this righteousness of God, freely offered to them in the Gospel. The fundamental doctrine of the Epistle to the Romans, as it is the fundamental doctrine of the Gospel, is, therefore, that the righteousness of one man, even Christ, can be and is so imputed to believers as to be the meritorious ground of their justification at the bar of God. To make this doctrine the more plain to his readers, the Apostle refers to the analogous case of the condemnation of the human race for the sin of Adam; and shows that as the sin of Adam is the judicial ground of the condemnation of all who were in him, i.e., of all represented by him, so the obedience of Christ is the judicial ground of the justification of all who are in Him. In the prosecution of his plan he first asserts the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity. He then proves it. He then comments upon it. He then applies it; and finally draws inferences from it. Thus in every possible way, as it would seem, he sets forth the doctrine as part of the revelation of God. The assertion of the doctrine is contained in the twelfth verse of the chapter. It was by one man, He says, that sin and death passed upon all men; because all sinned. They sinned through, or in, that one man. His sin was the sin of all in virtue of the union between them and him. The proof of this doctrine is contained in verses thirteen and fourteen. The Apostle argues thus: Punishment supposes sin; sin supposes law; for sin is not imputed where there is no law. All men are punished; they are all subject to penal evils. They are, therefore, all chargeable with sin, and consequently are all guilty of violation of law. That law cannot be the law of Moses, for men died (i.e., were subject to the penalty of the law) before that law was given. It cannot be the law as written on the heart; for those die who have never committed any personal sin. There are penal evils, therefore, which come upon all mankind prior to anything in their state or conduct to merit such infliction. The ground of that infliction must therefore be sought out of themselves, i.e., in the sin of their first parent. Hence Adam is the type of Christ. As the one is the head and representative of his race, so the other is the head and representative of his people. As the sin of the one is the ground of the condemnation of his posterity, so the righteousness of the other is the ground of the justification of all who are in him. But although there is this grand analogy between the fall and the redemption of man, there are nevertheless certain points of difference, all in favour of the scheme of redemption. If we die for the offence of one man, much more shall grace abound unto many through one man. If for one offence the sentence of condemnation passed on all, the free justification is from many offences. If condemned for a sin in which we had no personal and voluntary participation, how much more shall we live on account of a righteousness, which we cordially receive. Wherefore, continues the Apostle, in the application of his illustration, if all men (in union with Adam) are condemned by the offence of one man, so also all (in union with Christ) shall be justified on the ground of the righteousness of one man. As one man's disobedience constituted us sinners, so the obedience of one man constitutes us righteous, (verses 18 and 19). From these premises the Apostle draws two conclusions: First, that the law was not designed for justification, but that sin might abound in the knowledge and consciousness of men; and secondly, that where sin hath abounded grace shall much more abound. The benefits and blessings of redemption shall far exceed all the evils of the apostasy.

Whatever may be thought of the details of this exposition, there can hardly he a doubt that it expresses the main idea of the passage. Few can doubt, and few ever have doubted, that the Apostle does here clearly teach that the sin of Adam is the judicial ground of the condemnation of his race. With this agrees not only, as we have already seen, the Scriptural account of the fall, but also what the Apostle teaches in 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22. "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." Union with Adam is the cause of death; union with Christ is the cause of life.

Argument from General Consent.

The imputation of Adam's sin has been the doctrine of the Church universal in all ages. It was the doctrine of the Jews, derived from the plain teaching of the Old Testament Scriptures. It was and is the doctrine of the Greek, Latin, Lutheran, and Reformed churches. Its denial is a novelty. It is only since the rise of Arminianism that any considerable body of Christians have ventured to set themselves in opposition to a doctrine so clearly taught in the Bible, and sustained by so many facts of history and experience. The points of diversity in reference to this subject do not relate to the fact that Adam's sin is imputed to his posterity, but either to the grounds of that imputation or to its consequences. In the Greek Church the lowest views prevalent among Christians were adopted. The theologians of that church generally held that natural death, and a deterioration of our nature, and a change for the worse in the whole state of the world, were the only penal evils which the race of mankind suffer on account of Adam's sin. In the Latin Church during the Middle Ages, as we have already seen, great diversity of opinion obtained as to the nature and extent of the evils brought upon the world by the apostasy of our first parent. The Council of Trent declared those evils to be death, the loss of original righteousness, and sin which is pronounced to be the death of the soul. The Lutherans and Reformed held the same doctrine with more consistency and earnestness. But in all this diversity it was universally admitted, first, that certain evils are inflicted upon all mankind on account of Adam's sin; and, secondly, that those evils are penal. Men were universally, so far as the Church was concerned, held to bear in a greater or less degree the punishment of the sin of their first parent.

Objections to the Doctrine.

The great objection to this doctrine, that it is manifestly unjust that one man should be punished for the sin of another, has already been incidentally referred to. What is punishment? It is evil on suffering inflicted in support of law. Wherein is the injustice that one man should, on the ground of the union between them, be punished for the sin of another? If there be injustice in the case it must be in the infliction of suffering anterior to or irrespective of personal ill desert. It does not consist in the motive of the infliction. The infliction of suffering to gratify malice or revenge is of course a crime. To inflict it in mere caprice is no less obviously wrong. To inflict it for the attainment of some right and desirable end may be not only just but benevolent. Is not the support of the divine law such an end? The fact that all mankind do suffer on account of Adam's sin no believer in the Bible can or does deny. It cannot be denied that these sufferings were designed. They arc included in the threatenings made in the beginning. They were expressly declared to be penal in the Bible. The sentence of condemnation is said to have passed on all men for the offence of one man. A part of the penalty threatened against sin in the great progenitor of the race was that his posterity should suffer the consequences of his transgression. They do thus suffer. It is vain, therefore, to deny the fact, and no relief is obtained by denying that those sufferings are inflicted in execution of the penalty of the law and for the infinitely important object of sustaining its authority. __________________________________________________________________

[203] As at the time of the Reformation an influential party in the Romish Church held, after some of the schoolmen, that original sin consists solely in the imputation of Adam's first sin, and as the Confessions of the Reformers were designed not only as an exhibition of the truth but as a protest against the errors of the Church of Rome, it will be observed that the Protestants frequently assert that original sin is not only the imputation of Adam's sin but also hereditary corruption of nature; and the Reformed theologians often made the latter more prominent than the former, because the one was admitted by their adversaries, but the other denied. __________________________________________________________________

§ 10. Mediate Imputation.

About the middle of the seventeenth century Amyraut, Cappel, and La Place (or Placæus), three distinguished professors in the French theological school at Saumur, introduced several modifications of the Augustinian or Reformed doctrine on the decrees, election, the atonement, and the imputation of Adam's sin. La Place taught that we derive a corrupt nature from Adam, and that that corrupt nature, and not Adam's sin, is the ground of the condemnation which has come upon all mankind. When it was objected to this statement of the case that it left out of view the guilt of Adam's first sin, he answered that he did not deny the imputation of that sin, but simply made it dependent on our participation of his corrupted nature. We are inherently depraved, and therefore we are involved in the guilt of Adam's sin. There is no direct or immediate imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity, but only an indirect or mediate imputation of it, founded on the fact that we share his moral character. These views were first presented by La Place in a disputation, "De statu hominis lapsi ante gratiam," published in the "Theses Salmurienses," and afterwards more elaborately in a treatise, "De imputatione primi peccati Adami." This doctrine was formally condemned by the National Synod of France in 1644-45; [204] by the Swiss churches in the "Formula Consensus;" and by the theologians of Holland. Jæger, a Lutheran divine, in his "Ecclesiastical History,"
[205] is justified in saying, "Contra doctrinam Plactæi -- tota Gallia reformata, quin et Theologi reformati in Hollandiâ surrexêre." The decree of the French Synod of Charenton on this subject is as follows: "Cum relatum esset ad Synodum, scripta quædam . . . . prodisse, quæ totam rationem peccati originalis solâ corruptione hæreditariâ in omnibus hominibus inhærente definiunt, et primi peccati Adami imputationem negant: Damnavit Synodus doctrinam ejusmodi, quatenus peccati originalis naturam ad corruptionem hæreditariam posterum Adæ ita restringit, ut imputationem excludat primi illius peccati, quo lapsus est Adam: Adeoque censuris omnibus ecclesiasticis subjiciendos censuit pastores, professores, et quoscunque alios, qui in hujus quæstionis disceptatione a communi sententia recesserit Ecclesiarum Protestantium, quæ omnes hactenus et corruptionem illam, et imputationem hanc in omnes Adami posteros descendentem agnoverunt."

It was to evade the force of this decision that Placæus proposed the distinction between mediate and immediate imputation. He said he did not deny the imputation of Adam's sin, but only that it preceded the view of hereditary corruption. But this is the very thing which the Synod asserted. Hereditary corruption, or spiritual death is the penalty, or, as expressed by the Lutheran confessions, by Calvin, and by the Protestants generally, it was an evil inflicted by "the just judgment of God, on account of Adam's sin (propter peccatum Adami)." The Formula Consensus Ecclesiarum Helveticarum was set forth 1675, in opposition to the doctrine of Amyraut on universal grace, to the doctrine of Placæus on mediate imputation, and to that of others concerning the active obedience of Christ. [206] In that Formula it is said: "Censemus igitur (i.e., because the covenant of works was made not only with Adam, but also in him, with the whole human race) peccatum Adami omnibus ejus posteris, judicio Dei arcano et justo, imputari. Testatur quippe Apostolus in Adamo omnes peccasse:' Unius hominis inobedientia peccatores multos constitui;' in eodem omnes mori.' Neque vero ratio apparet, quemadmodum hæreditaria corruptio, tanquam mors spiritualis, in universum genus humanum justo Dei judicio cadere possit, nisi ejusdem generis humani delictum aliquod, mortis illius reatum inducens, præcesserit. Cum Deus justissimus totius terræ judex nonnisi sontem puniat." [207]

Rivet, one of the professors of the University of Leyden, published a treatise in support of the decision of the French Synod, entitled "Decretum Synodi Nationalis Ecclesiarum Reformatarum Galliæ initio anni 1645, de Imputatione primi Peccati omnibus Adami posteris, cum Ecclesiarum et Doctorum Protestantium consensu, ex scriptis eorum ab Andrea Riveto collecto." This treatise is contained in the third volume of the folio edition of his works. His colleagues in the University published their formal endorsement of his work, and earnestly commended it as an antidote to the new doctrine of Placæus. The theologians of the other universities of Holland joined in this condemnation of the doctrine of mediate imputation. They call it the heurema Imputationis Mediatæ a "ficulneum nuditatis indecentis tegumentum," and insist that the imputation of Adam's sin is no more founded on our inherent corruption than the imputation of Christ's righteousness is founded on our inherent holiness. "Quomodo et justitia Christi electis imputatur, non mediate per renovationem et obedientiam horum propriam, sed immediate, ad quam hæc ipsa propria eorum obedientia demum subsequitur." [208] These two great doctrines were regarded as inseparably united. The Protestant theologians agree in holding that "Imputatio justitiæ Christi et culpæ Adami pari passu ambulant, et vel utraque ruit, vel utraque agnosci debet." [209]

Mediate Imputation outside of the French Church.

Although the doctrine of mediate imputation was thus generally condemned both by the Reformed and Lutheran Churches, it found some distinguished advocates beyond the pale of the French Church. The younger Vitringa, Venema, and Stapfer, in his "Polemical Theology," gave it their sanction. From the last named author it was adopted by President Edwards, in one chapter of his work on "Original Sin." It appears there, however, merely as an excrescence. It was not adopted into his system so as to qualify his theological views on other doctrines. Although President Edwards does clearly commit himself to the doctrine of Placæus, as he says, [210] "that the evil disposition is first, and the charge of guilt consequent," nevertheless he expressly teaches the doctrine of immediate imputation formally and at length in other portions of that work. (1.) He argues through a whole section to prove the federal headship of Adam. (2.) He holds that the threatening of death made to Adam included the loss of original righteousness and spiritual death. (3.) That that threatening included his posterity, and that the evils which they suffer in consequence of his sin are truly penal. If this be so, if the loss of original righteousness and inherent depravity are penal, they suppose antecedent guilt. That is, a guilt antecedent, and not consequent to the existence and view of the depravity. (4.) In his exposition of Rom. v. 12-21, he expressly teaches the common doctrine, and says, "As this place in general is very full and plain, so the doctrine of the corruption of nature, as derived from Adam, and also the imputation of his first sin, are both clearly taught in it. The imputation of Adam's one transgression, is indeed most directly and frequently asserted. We are here assured that by one man's sin death passed on all; all being adjudged to this punishment as having sinned (so it is implied) in that one man's sin. And it is repeated, over and over, that all are condemned, many are dead, many made sinners, etc., by one man's offence, by the disobedience of one, and by one offence." [211] As guilt precedes punishment, if, as Edwards says, depravity or spiritual death is a punishment, then the imputation of the guilt of Adam's first sin precedes depravity, and is not consequent upon it. This is the current representation throughout the work on Original Sin. It is only when in answer to the objection that it is unjust that we should be punished for the sin of Adam, that he enters on an abstruse metaphysical discussion on the nature of oneness or identity, and tries to prove [212] that Adam and his posterity are one, and not distinct agents. It is, therefore. after all, realism, rather than mediate imputation, that Edwards for the the adopted. Placæus and his associates, in order to defend the ground which they had taken, appealed to many passages in the writings of earlier theologians which seemed to ignore the immediate imputation of Adam's sin, and to place the condemnation of the race mainly, if not exclusively, upon the hereditary depravity derived from our first parent. Such passages were easily to be found, and they are easily accounted for without assuming, contrary to the clearest evidence, that the direct imputation of Adam's sin was either doubted or denied. Before Arius arose with the direct denial of the true divinity of Christ and of the doctrine of the Trinity, the language of ecclesiastical writers was confused and contradictory. In like manner, even in the Latin Church, and in the writings of Augustine himself, much may be found, before the rise of the Pelagian controversy, which it is hard to reconcile with the Augustinian system. Augustine was obliged to publish a volume of retractions, and in many cases where he had nothing to retract, he found much to modify and explain, It is not wonderful, therefore, that before anyone openly denied the doctrine of immediate imputation, and especially when the equally important doctrine of hereditary depravity was openly rejected by an influential party in the Romish Church, the Protestant theologians should apparently ignore a doctrine which no one denied, and devote their attention principally to the points which were then in controversy. Rivet, however, clearly shows that although not rendered prominent, the immediate imputation of Adam's sin as universally assumed. This is plain from the fact that all the evil consequences of Adam's apostasy, mortality, the loss of original righteousness, corruption of nature or spiritual death, etc., etc., were of the nature of punishment. What the Reformers were anxious to maintain was, that original hereditary depravity (concupiscence, in the language of the Latin Church) was of the nature of sin, and consequently that men do not perish eternally solely propter peccatum alienum, but also propter peccatum proprium. This was specially the case with Calvin. In the Confession of Faith which he drew up for the school in Geneva, it is said, "Singuli nascuntur originali peccato infecti . . . et a Deo damnati, non propter alienum delictum duntaxat, sed propter improbitatem, quæ intra eos est." And elsewhere he says: "Dicimus Deum justo judicio nobis in Adamo maledixisse, ac voluisse nos ob illius peccatum corruptos nasci, ut in Christo instauremur." Again: "Peccavit unus, omnes ad poenam trahuntur, neque id modo, sed ex unius vitio, contagionem omnes contrahunt." Again: "Si quæratur causa maledictionis, quæ incumbit omnibus posteris Adæ, dicitur esse alienum peccatum, et cujusque proprium." To the same effect, Beza says: [213] "Tria sunt quæ hominem reum constitunut coram Deo, (1.) Culpa promanans ex eo quod omnes peccavimus in proto lapso (Rom. v. 12). (2.) Corruptio quæ est pæna istius culpæ, impositam tam Adamo, quam posteris. (3.) Peccata quæ perpetrant homines adulti." [214] Principal Cunningham
[215] calls attention to the fact that the doctrine of immediate imputation of Adam's sin is much more explicitly stated in the Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms than in the Confession of Faith. This he very naturally accounts for by the supposition that the denial of that doctrine by Placæus had not attracted attention in England when the Confession was framed (1646), but did become known before the Catechisms were completed.

Objections to the Doctrine of Mediate Imputation.

The leading objections against the doctrine of mediate imputation are, --

1. That it denies what the Scriptures assert. The Scriptures assert that the sentence of condemnation has passed upon all men for the sin of one man. This the doctrine of mediate imputation denies, and affirms that the ground of that condemnation is inherent depravity. We are accounted partakers of Adam's sin only because we derive a corrupt nature from him. According to the Scriptures, however, the reason why we are depraved is, that we are regarded as partakers of his sin, or because the guilt of that sin is imputed to us. The guilt in the order of nature and fact precedes the spiritual death which is its penal consequent.

2. This doctrine denies the penal character of the hereditary corruption in which all men are born. According to the Scriptures and to the faith of the church universal, mortality, the loss of original righteousness, and hereditary corruption are inflicted upon mankind in execution of the threatening made against Adam, and are included in the comprehensive word, death, by which the threatened penalty was expressed. This is as emphatically taught by President Edwards as by any other of the Reformed theologians. He devotes a section of his work to prove that the death mentioned in Genesis, and of which the Apostle speaks in Rom. v. 12, included spiritual death, and that the posterity of Adam were included in that penalty. He says: "The calamities which come upon them in consequence of his sin, are brought on them as punishments." [216] He moreover says, it destroys the whole scope of the Apostle's argument "to suppose that the death of which he here speaks as coming on mankind by Adams sin, comes not as a punishment."
[217] And again: "I do not suppose the natural depravity of the posterity of Adam is owing to the course of nature only; it is also owing to the just judgment of God." [218] But punishment supposes guilt; if the loss of righteousness and the consequent corruption of nature are punishments, they suppose the antecedent imputation of guilt; and therefore imputation is immediate and not mediate; it is antecedent and not consequent to or upon inherent depravity. The view which the Reformed theologians uniformly present on this subject is, that God constituted Adam the head and representative of his race. The penalty attached to the covenant made with him, and which included his posterity, was the loss of the divine favour and fellowship. The consequences of the forfeiture of the divine favour in the case of Adam were, (1.) The loss of original righteousness; (2.) The consequent corruption of his whole nature; and, (3.) Exposure to eternal death. These consequences come on his posterity in the same order: first, the loss or rather destitution of original righteousness; and secondly, corruption of nature; and thirdly, exposure to eternal death; so that no child of Adam is exposed to eternal death irrespective of his own personal sinfulness and ill-desert. On this point Turrettin says: "Poena quam peccatum Adami in nos accersit, vel est privativa, vel positiva. Prior est carentia et privatio justitiæ originalis; posterior est mors tum temporalis, tum æterna, et in genere mala omnia, quæ peccatoribus immittuntur. Etsi secunda necessario sequitur primam ex natura rei, nisi intercedat Dei misericordia, non debet tamen cum ea confundi. Quoad primam dicimus Adami peccatum nobis imputari immediate ad poenam privativam, quia est causa privationis justitiæ originalis, et sic corruptionem antecedere debet saltem ordine naturæ; sed quoad posteriorem potest dici imputari mediate quoad poenam positivam, quia isti poenæ obnoxii non sumus, nisi postquam nati et corrupti sumus."
[219] Vogelsang [220] says: "Certe neminem sempiterna subire supplicia propter inobedientiam protoplasti, nisi mediante cognata perversitate." And Mark [221] says that if Placæus and others meant nothing more by mediate imputation than that "hominum natorum actualem punitionem ulteriorem non fieri nudo intuitur Adamicæ transgressionis absque interveniente etiam propria corruptione et fluentibus hinc sceleribus variis, neminem orthodoxum possent habere obloquentem." But he adds, they obviously meant much more. They deny the imputation of the first sin of Adam as the cause of this inherent corruption. As Adam by his apostasy became subject to eternal death, but through the intervention of redeeming grace was doubtless saved from it, so also although all his posterity become liable to the same dreadful penalty through their own inherent corruption, yet we have every reason to believe and hope that no human being ever actually perishes who does not personally incur the penalty of the law by his actual transgression. This however is through the redemption of Christ. All who die in infancy are doubtless saved, but they are saved by grace. It is nevertheless important that the real views of the Reformed Churches, on the doctrine of immediate imputation, should be clearly understood. Those churches do not teach that the first sin of Adam is the single and immediate ground of the condemnation of his posterity to eternal death, but that it is the ground of their forfeiture of the divine favour from which flows the loss of original righteousness and corruption of our whole nature, which in their turn become the proximate ground of exposure to final perdition, from which, however, as almost all Protestants believe, all are saved who have no other sins to answer for.

Mediate Imputation increases the Difficulties to be accounted for.

3. It is a further objection to the doctrine of mediate imputation that it increases instead of relieving the difficulty of the case. It denies that a covenant was made with Adam. It denies that mankind ever had a probation. It assumes that in virtue of a natural law of propagation when Adam lost the image of God and became sinful, his children inherit his character, and on the ground of that character are subject to the wrath and curse of God. All the evils therefore which the Scriptural and Church doctrine represent as coming upon the posterity of Adam as the judicial punishment of his first sin, the doctrine of mediate imputation represents as sovereign inflictions, or mere natural consequences. What the Scriptures declare to be a righteous judgment, Placæus makes to be an arbitrary dispensation.

Inconsistent with the Apostle's Argument in Rom. v. 12-21.

4. It is a still more serious objection that this doctrine destroys the parallel between Adam and Christ on which the Apostle lays so much stress in his Epistle to the Romans. The great point which he there labours to teach and to illustrate, and which he represents as a cardinal element of the method of salvation, is that men are justified for a righteousness which is not personally their own. To illustrate and confirm this great fundamental doctrine, he refers to the fact that men have been condemned for a sin which is not personally their own. He over and over insists that it was for the sin of Adam, and not for our own sin or sinfulness, that the sentence of death (the forfeiture of the divine favour) passed upon all men. It is on this ground he urges men the more confidently to rely upon the promise of justification on the ground a righteousness which is not inherently ours. This parallel destroyed, the doctrine and argument of the Apostle are overturned, if it be denied that the sin of Adam, as antecedent to any sin or sinfulness of our own is the ground of our condemnation. If we are partakers of the penal consequences of Adam's sin only because of the corrupt nature derived by a law of nature from him, then we are justified only on the ground of our own inherent holiness derived by a law of grace from Christ. We have thus the doctrine of subjective justification, which overthrows the great doctrine of the Reformation, and the great ground of the peace and confidence of the people of God, namely, that a righteousness not within us but wrought out for us, -- the righteousness of another, even the eternal Son of God, and therefore an infinitely meritorious righteousness, -- is the ground of our justification before God. Any doctrine which tends to invalidate or to weaken the Scriptural evidence of this fundamental article of our faith is fraught with evil greater than belongs to it in itself considered. This is the reason why the Reformed theologians so strenuously opposed the doctrine of La Place. They saw and said that on his principles the doctrine of the imputation of Christ's righteousness antecedent to our santification could not be defended.

The Doctrine founded on a False Principle.

5. Perhaps, however, the most serious objection against the doctrine of mediate imputation is drawn from the principle on which it rests, and the arguments of its advocates in its support. The great principle insisted upon in support of this doctrine is that one man cannot justly be punished for the sin of another. If this be so then it is unjust in God to visit the iniquities of the fathers upon their children. Then it was unjust in Christ to declare that the blood of the prophets slain from the beginning should come upon the men of his generation. Then it is unjust that the Jews of the present day, and ever since the crucifixion of our Lord, should be scattered and peeled, according to the predictions of the prophets, for the rejection of the Messiah. Then, also, were the deluge sent in wrath upon the world, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the extermination of the Canaanites, in which thousands of children perished innocent of the offences for which those judgments were inflicted, all acts of stupendous injustice. If this principle be sound, then the administration of the divine government over the world, God's dealings with nations and with the Church, admit of no defence. He has from the beginning and through all time held children responsible for the conduct of parents, included them without their consent in the covenants made with their fathers, and visited upon them the consequences of the violations of such covenants of which they were not personally guilty, as well as bestowed upon them rich blessings secured by the fidelity of their progenitors without anything meritorious on their part. Moreover, if the principle in question be valid, then the whole Scriptural doctrine of sacrifice and expiation is a delusion. And then, also, we must adopt the Socinian theory which makes the death of Christ instead of a penal satisfaction for sin, a mere symbolical inculcation of a truth -- a didactic and not an expiatory service. The Reformed theologians of the seventeenth century expressed their deep regret that men professing orthodoxy should adopt from Pelagianis et Pelagianizantibus, against the doctrine of immediate imputation, "exceptiones" et "objectiones . . . . petitas a Dei justitia et veritate, ab actus et personæ Adamicæ singularitate, ex sceleris longe ante nos præterito tempore, ex posterum nulla scientia vel consensione in illud, ex non imputatis aliis omnibus factis et fatis Adami, etc.," which had so often been answered in the controversies with the Socinians and Remonstrants. [222] It is very clear that if no such constitution can be righteously established between men, even by God, that one man may justly bear the iniquity of another, then the Bible and Providence become alike unintelligible, and the great doctrines of the Christian faith are overthrown.

The Theory of Propagation.

The theory of those who deny all imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity, whether mediate or immediate, and who account for the corruption of the race consequent on his apostasy, on the general law of propagation, that like begets like, differs only in terms from the doctrine of La Place. All he meant by mediate imputation was that the descendants of Adam, derived from him a corrupt nature, have the same moral character, and therefore are adjudged worthy of the same condemnation. This the advocates of the theory just mentioned are willing to admit. Their doctrine therefore is liable to all the objections which bear against the doctrine of mediate imputation, and therefore does not call forth a separate consideration. __________________________________________________________________

[204] See Quick's Synodicon, London, 1692.
[205] Tom. i. lib. ix. cap. v.

[206] Niemeyer's Collectio Confessionum, p. lxxxi.

[207] Art. x.; Niemeyer, p. 733.

[208] De Moor, Commentarius in Marckii Compendium, cap. xv. § 32, vol. iii. p. 280.

[209] Ibid. vol. iii. p. 255.

[210] Original Sin, IV. iii.; Works, edit. N. Y. 1829, vol. ii. p. 544.

[211] Original Sin, III. i.; Works, vol. ii. p. 512.

[212] Ibid. p. 546.
[213] Apolog. pro Justificatione.

[214] See Turrettin, locus. ix. quæs. 9, and De Moor's Commentarius in Johannis Marckin Compendium, caput XXV. § 32, vol. iii. 260 ff., where an extended account of this controversy may be found.

[215] The Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation, second edition, p. 383.

[216] Original Sin, II. i; Works, vol. ii. p. 432.

[217] Ibid. II. iv. ut supra, p. 481.
[218] Ibid. IV. ii. ut supra, p. 540.

[219] Loc. IX. quæst. ix. 14, edit. Edinburgh, 1847, p. 558.

[220] Quoted by De Moor, Commentarius, vol. iii. p. 275.

[221] Ibid. p. 278.

[222] De Moor, Coommentarius in Johannis Marckii Compendium, vol. iii. p. 279. __________________________________________________________________

§ 11. Preëxistence.

The principle that a man can be justly held responsible or regarded as guilty only for his own voluntary acts and for then subjective consequences, is so plausible that to many minds it has the authority of an intuitive truth. It is, however, so clearly the doctrine of the Bible and the testimony of experience that men are born in sin, that they come into the world in a state of guilt and of moral pollution, that a necessity arises of reconciling this fact with what they regard as self-evidently true. Two theories have been proposed to effect this reconciliation. The first is that of preexistence. Origen, and after him here and there one in the history of the Church, down to the present day, assumed that men existed in another state of being before their birth in this world, and having voluntarily sinned against God in that previous state of being, they come into this world burdened with the guilt and pollution due to their own voluntary act. This view of the subject never having been adopted by any Christian church, it does not properly belong to Christian theology. It is sufficient to remark concerning it: --

1. That it does not pretend to be taught in the Scriptures, and therefore cannot be an article of faith. Protestants unite in teaching that "The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, and man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture, unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or the traditions of men." As the doctrine of the preexistence of souls is neither expressly set down in the Bible, nor deducible from it, as is admitted, it cannot be received as one of the formative principles of Christian doctrine. All that its Christian advocates claim is that it is not contradicted in Scripture, and therefore that they are free to hold it.

2. But even this cannot be conceded. It is expressly contrary to the plain teachings of the Word of God. According to the history of the creation, man was formed in the image of God. His body was fashioned out of the dust of the earth, and his soul was derived immediately from God, and was pronounced by him "very good." This is utterly inconsistent with the idea that Adam was a fallen spirit. The Bible also teaches that Adam was created in the image of God in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, and fell from that state here in this life, and not in a previous and higher state of being. The Scriptures also, as we have seen, say that it was by one man that sin entered into the world, and death by sin, because all sinned in that one man. There is a causal relation between the sin of Adam and the condemnation and sinfulness of his posterity. This contradicts the theory which refers the present sinfulness of men, not to the act of Adam, but to the voluntary act of each individual man, in a previous state of existence.

3. This doctrine is as destitute of all support from the testimony of consciousness as from the authority of Scripture. No man has any reminiscences of a previous existence. There is nothing in his present state which connects him with a former state of being. It is a simple, pure assumption, without the slightest evidence from any known facts.

4. The theory, if true, affords no relief. Sins of which we know nothing; which were committed by us before we were born; which cannot be brought home to the conscience as our own sins, can never be the righteous grounds of punishment, any more than the acts of an idiot. It is unnecessary however to pursue this subject further, as the objections against the realistic theory, in most instances, bear with equal force against the theory of preexistence. __________________________________________________________________

§ 12. Realistic Theory.

Those who reject the untenable doctrine of preexistence and yet hold to the principle that guilt can attach only to what is due to our agency, are driven to assume that Adam and his race are in such a sense one, that his act of disobedience was literally the act of all mankind. And consequently that they are as truly personally guilty on account of it, as Adam himself was; and that the inherent corruption flowing from that act, belongs to us in the same sense and in the same way, that it belonged to him. His sin, it is therefore said, "Is ours not because it is imputed to us; but it is imputed to us, because it is truly and properly our own." We have constantly to contend with the ambiguity of terms. There is a sense in which the above proposition is perfectly true, and there is a sense in which it is not true. It is true that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us because it is ours according to the terms of the covenant of grace; because it was wrought out for us by our great head and representative, who obeyed and suffered in our stead. But it is not true that it is ours in the sense that we were the agents by whom that righteousness was effected, or the persons in whom it inheres. In like manner, Adam's sin may be said to be imputed to us because it is ours, inasmuch as it is the sin of the divinely constituted head and representative of our race. But it is not ours in the same sense in which it was his. It was not our act, i.e., an act in which our reason, will, and conscience were exercised. There is a sense in which the act of an agent is the act of the principal. It binds him in law, as effectually as he could bind himself. But he is not, on that account, the efficient agent of the act. The sense in which many assert that the act of Adam was our act, is, that the same numerical nature or substance, the same reason and will which existed and acted in Adam, belong to us; so that we were truly and properly the agents of his act of apostasy.

President Edwards' Theory of Identity.

The assumption which President Edwards undertakes to controvert, is, "That Adam and his posterity are not one, but entirely distinct agents." [223] The theory on which he endeavours to prove that Adam and his posterity were one agent, is not exactly the old realistic theory, it is rather a theory of his own, and depends on his seculiar views of oneness or identity. According to him, all oneness depends upon "the arbitrary constitution of God." The only reason why a full grown tree is the same with its first germ; or that the body of an adult man is the same with his infant frame; is that God so wills to regard them. No creature is one and the same in the different periods of its existence, because it is numerically one and the same substance, or life, or organism; but simply because God "treats them as one, by communicating to them like properties, relations, and circumstances; and so leads us to regard and treat them as one." [224] "If the existence," he says, "of created substance, in each successive moment, be wholly the effect of God's immediate power in that moment, without any dependence on prior existence, as much as the first creation out of nothing, then what exists at this moment, by this power, is a new effect; and simply and absolutely considered, not the same with any past existence, though it be like it, and follows it according to a certain established method. And there is no identity or oneness in the case, but what depends on the arbitrary constitution of the Creator; who, by his wise and sovereign establishment so unites successive new effects, that he treats them as one." [225] He uses two illustrations which make his meaning perfectly plain. The brightness of the moon seems to us a permanent thing, but is really a new effect produced every moment. It ceases, and is renewed, in every successive point of time, and so becomes altogether a new effect at each instant. It is no more numerically the same thing with that which existed in the preceding moment, than the sound of the wind that blows now, is individually the same sound of the wind which blew just before. What is the of the brightness of the moon, he says, must be true also of its solidity, and of everything else belonging to its substance. Again, images of things placed before a mirror seem to remain precisely the same, with a continuing perfect identity. But it is known to be otherwise. These images are constantly renewed by the impression and reflection of new rays of light. The image which exists this moment is not at all derived from the image which existed the last preceding moment. It is no more numerically the same, than if painted anew by an artist with colours which vanish as soon as they are put on. The obvious fallacy of these illustrations is, that the cases are apparently, but not really alike. The brightness of the moon and the image on a mirror, are not substances having continued existence; they are mere effects on our visual organs. Whereas the substances which produce those effects are objective existences or entities, and not subjective states of our sensibility. Edwards, however, says that what is true of the images, must be true of the bodies themselves. "They cannot be the same, with an absolute identity, but must be wholly renewed every moment, if the case be as has been proved, that their present existence is not, strictly speaking, at all the effect of their past existence; but is wholly, every instant, the effect of a new agency or exertion of the powerful cause of their existence." [226] As therefore, there is no such thing as numerical identity of substance in created things, and as all oneness depends on "the arbitrary constitution of God," and things are one only because God so regards and treats them, there is "no solid reason," Edwards contends, why the posterity of Adam should not be "treated as one with him for the derivation . . . . of the loss of righteousness, and consequent corruption and guilt." [227] According to this doctrine of identity, everything that exists, even the soul of man, is, and remains one, not because of any continuity of life and substance, but as a series of new effects produced in every successive moment by the renewed efficiency of God. The whole theory resolves itself into the doctrine that preservation is continued creation. The argument of Edwards in proof of that point is, that "the existence of every created substance, is a dependent existence, and therefore is an effect and must have some cause; and the cause must be one of these two; either the antecedent existence of the same substance, or else the power of the Creator." It cannot be the antecedent existence of the same substance, and therefore must be the power of God. His conclusion is that God's upholding of created substance "is altogether equivalent to an immediate production out of nothing, at each moment." [228]

Objections to the Edwardian Theory.

The fatal consequences of this view of the nature of preservation were presented under the head of Providence. All that need be here remarked, is, --

1. That it proceeds upon the assumption that we can understand the relation of the efficiency of God to the effects produced in time. Because every new effect which we produce is due to a new exercise of our efficiency, it is assumed that such must be the case with God. He, however, inhabits eternity. With him there is no distinction between the past and future. All things are equally present to Him. As we exist in time and space, all our modes of thinking are conditioned by these circumstances of our being. But as God is not subject to the limitations of time or space, we have no right to transfer these limitations to Him. This only proves that we cannot understand how God produces successive effects. We do not know that it is by successive acts, and therefore it is most unreasonable and presumptuous to make that assumption the ground of explaining great Scriptural doctrines. It is surely just as conceivable or intelligible that God should will the continuous existence of the things which He creates, as that He should create them anew at every successive moment.

2. This doctrine of a continued creation destroys the Scriptural and common sense distinction between creation and preservation. The two are constantly presented as different, and they are regarded as different by the common judgment of mankind. By creation, God calls things into existence, and by preservation He upholds them in being. The two ideas are essentially distinct. Any theory, therefore, which confounds them must be fallacious. God wills that the things which He has created shall continue to be; and to deny that He can cause continuous existence is to deny his omnipotence.

3. This doctrine denies the existence of substance. The idea of substance is a primitive idea. It is given in the constitution of our nature. It is an intuitive truth, as is proved by its universality and necessity. One of the essential elements of that idea is uninterrupted continuity of being. Substance is that which stands; which remains unchanged under all the phenomenal mutations to which it is subjected. According to the theory of continued creation there is and can be no created substance. God is the only substance in the universe. Everything out of God is a series of new effects; there is nothing which has continuous existence, and therefore there is no substance.

4. It necessarily follows that if God is the only substance He is the only agent in the universe. All things out of God being every moment called into being out of nothing, are resolved into modes of God's efficiency. If He creates the soul every successive instant, He creates all its states. thoughts, feelings, and volitions. The soul is only a series of divine acts. And therefore there can be no free agency, no sin, no responsibility, no individual existence. The universe is only the self-manifestation of God. This doctrine, therefore, in its consequences, is essentially pantheistic.

5. In resolving all identity into an "arbitrary constitution of God," it denies that there is any real identity in any created things. Edwards expressly says, They are not numerically the same. They cannot be the same with an absolute identity. They are one only because God so regards them, and because they are alike, so that we look upon them as the same. This being the case, there seems to be no foundation even for guilt and pollution in the individual soul as flowing from its own acts, because there is nothing but an apparent, not a real connection between the present and the past in the life of the soul. It is not the same soul that is guilty today of the sin committed yesterday. Much less can such an arbitrary or assumed and merely apparent identity between Adam and his race be a just ground of their bearing the guilt of his first sin. In short, this doctrine subverts all our ideas. It assumes that things which, as the human soul, are really one, are not one in the sense of numerical sameness; and that things which are not identical, as Adam and his posterity, are one in the same sense that the soul of a man is one, or that identity can be predicated of any creature. This doctrine, therefore, which would account for the guilt and native depravity of men on the assumption of an arbitrary divine constitution of God, by which beings which are really distinct subsistences are declared to be one, is not only contrary to the Scriptures and to the intuitive convictions of men, but it affords no satisfactory solution of the facts which it is intended to explain. It does not bring home to any human conscience that the sin of Adam was his sin in the sense in which our sins of yesterday are our guilt of today.

The Proper Realistic Theory.

The strange doctrine of Edwards, above stated, agrees with the realistic theory so far as that he and the realists unite in saying that Adam and his race are one in the same sense in which a tree is one during its whole progress from the germ to maturity, or in which the human soul is one during all the different periods of its existence. It essentially differs, however, in that Edwards denies numerical sameness in any case. Identity, according to him, does not in any creature include the continued existence of one and the same substance. The realistic doctrine, on the contrary, makes the numerical sameness of substance the essence of identity. Every genus or species of plants or animals is one because all the individuals of those genera and species are partakers of one and the same substance. In every species there is but one substance of which the individuals are the modes of manifestation. According to this theory humanity is numerically one and the same substance in Adam and in all the individuals of his race. The sin of Adam was, therefore, the sin of all mankind, because committed by numerically the same rational and voluntary substance which constitutes us men. It was our sin in the same sense that it was sin, because it was our act (the act of our reason and will) as much as it was his. There are two classes of objections to this theory which might here properly come under consideration. First, those which bear against realism as a theory; and, secondly, those which relate to its application to the relation of the union between us and Adam as a solution of the problems of original sin.

Recapitulation of the Objections to the Realistic Theory.

The objections to the realistic doctrine were presented when the nature of man was under consideration. It was then stated, (1.) That realism is a mere hypothesis; one out of many possible assumptions. Possibility is all that can be claimed for it. It cannot be said to be probable, much less certain; and therefore cannot legitimately be made the basis of other doctrines. (2.) That it has no support from the Scriptures. The Bible indeed does say that Adam and his race are one; but it also says that Christ and his people are one; that all the multitudes of believers of all ages and in heaven and earth are one. So in common life we speak of every organized community as one. The visible Church is one. Every separate state or kingdom is one. Everything depends on the nature of this oneness. And that is to be determined by the nature of the thing spoken of, and the usus loquendi of the Bible and of ordinary life. As no man infers from the fact that the Scriptures declare Christ and his people to be one, that they are numerically the same substance; or from the unity predicated of believers as distinguished from the rest of mankind, that they are one substance and the rest of men of a different substance; so we have no right to infer from the fact that the Bible says that Adam and his posterity are one that they are numerically the same substance. Neither do the Scriptures so describe the nature and effects of the union between us and Adam as to necessitate or justify the realistic doctrine. The nature and effects of our oneness with Adam are declared in all essential points to be analogous to the nature and effects of our oneness with Christ. As the latter is not a oneness of substance, so neither is the other. (3.) It was shown that realism has no support from the consciousness of men, but on the contrary, that it contradicts the teachings of consciousness as interpreted by the vast majority of our race, learned and unlearned. Every man is revealed to himself as an individual substance. (4.) Realism, as argued above, contradicts the doctrine of the Scriptures in so far that it is irreconcilable with the Scriptural doctrine of the separate existence of the soul. (5.) It subverts the doctrine of the Trinity in so far that it makes the Father, Son, and Spirit one God only in the sense in which all men are one man. The persons of the Trinity are one God, because they are one in essence or substance; and all men are one man because they are one in essence. The answers which Trinitarian realists give to this objection are unsatisfactory, because they assume the divisibility, and consequently the materiality of Spirit. (6.) It is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile the realistic theory with the sinlessness of Christ. If the one numerical essence of humanity became guilty and polluted in Adam, and if we are guilty and polluted because we are partakers of that fallen substance, how can Christ's human nature have been free from sin if He took upon Him the same numerical essence which sinned in Adam. (7.) The above objections are theological or Scriptural; others of a philosophical character have availed to banish the doctrine of realism from all modern schools of philosophy, except so far as it has been merged in the higher forms of pantheistic monism.

Realism no Solution of the Problem of Original Sin.

The objections which bear against this theory as a solution of the problems of original sin are no less decisive. There are two things which realism proposes to explain. First, the fact that we are punished for the sin of Adam; and, secondly, that hereditary depravity is in us truly and properly sin, involving guilt as well as pollution. The former is accounted for on the ground that Adam's sin was our own act; and the latter on the ground that native depravity is the consequence of our own voluntary action. As a man is responsible for his character or permanent state of mind produced by his actual transgressions, so we are responsible for the character with which we come into the world, because it is the result of our voluntary apostasy from God. To this it is an obvious objection, --

1. That admitting realism to be true; admitting that humanity is numerically one and the same substance, of which individual men are the modes of manifestation; and admitting that this generic humanity sinned in Adam, this affords no satisfactory solution of either of the facts above stated. Two things are necessary in order to vindicate the infliction of punishment for actual sin on the ground of personal responsibility. First, that the sin be an act of conscious self-determination. Otherwise it cannot be brought home upon the conscience so as to produce the sense of criminality. And suffering without the sense of criminality or blameworthiness, so far as the sufferer is concerned, is not punishment, but wanton cruelty. And, secondly, to vindicate punishment in the eye of justice, in the case supposed, there must be personal criminality manifest to all intelligent beings cognizant of the case. If a man should commit an offence in a state of somnambulism or of insanity, when he did not know what he did, and all recognition of which on his restoration to a normal condition is impossible, it is plain that such an offence could not justly be the ground of punishment. Suffering inflicted on such ground would not be punishment in the view of the sufferer, or righteous in the view of others. It is no less plain that if a man should commit a crime in a sound state of mind, and afterwards become insane, he could not justly be punished so long as he continued insane. The execution of a maniac or idiot for any offence committed prior to the insanity or idiocy would be an outrage. If these principles are correct then it is plain that, even admitting all that realists claim, it affords no relief. It gives no satisfactory solution either of our being punished for Adam's sin or for the guilt which attaches to our inherent hereditary depravity. A sin of which it is impossible that we should be conscious as our voluntary act, can no more be the ground of punishment as our act, than the sin of an idiot, of a madman, or of a corpse. When the body of Cromwell was exhumed and gibbeted, Cromwell was not punished; and the act was, in the sight of all mankind, merely a manifestation of impotent revenge.

2. But the realistic theory cannot be admitted. The assumption that we acted thousands of years before we were born, so as to be personally responsible for such act, is a monstrous assumption. It is, as Baur says, an unthinkable proposition; that is, one to which no intelligible meaning can be attached. We can understand how it may be said that we died in Christ and rose with Him; that his death was our death and his resurrection our resurrection, in the sense that He acted for us as our substitute, head, and representative. But to say that we actually and really died and rose in Him; that we were the agents of his acts, conveys no idea to the mind. In like manner we can understand how it may be said that we sinned in Adam and fell with him in so far as he was the divinely appointed head and representative of his race. But the proposition that we performed his act of disobedience is to our ears a sound without any meaning. It is just as much an impossibility as that a nonentity should act. We did not then exist. We had no being before our existence in this world; and that we should have acted before we existed is an absolute impossibility. It is to be remembered that an act implies an agent; and the agent of a responsible voluntary act must be a person. Before the existence of the personality of a man that man cannot perform any voluntary action. Actual sin is an act of voluntary self-determination; and therefore before the existence of the self, such determination is an impossibility. The stuff or substance out of which a man is made may have existed before he came into being, but not the man himself. Admitting that the souls of men are formed out of the generic substance of humanity, that substance is no more the man than the dust of the earth out of which the body of Adam was fashioned was his body. Voluntary agency, responsible action, moral character, and guilt can be predicated only of persons, and cannot by possibility be predicable of them, or really belong to them before they exist. The doctrine, therefore, which supposes that we are personally guilty of the sin of Adam on the ground that we were the agents of that act, that our will and reason were so exercised in that action as to make us personally responsible for it and for its consequences, is absolutely inconceivable.

3. It is a further objection to this theory that it assigns no reason why we are responsible for Adam's first sin and not for his subsequent transgressions. If his sin is ours because the whole of humanity, as a generic nature, acted in him, this reason applies as well to all his other sins as to his first act of disobedience, at least prior to the birth of his children. The genus was no more individualized and concentrated in Adam when he was in the garden, than after he was expelled from it. Besides, why is it the sin of Adam rather than, or more than the sin of Eve for which we are responsible? That mankind do bear a relation to the sin of Adam which they do not sustain to the sin of Eve is a plain Scriptural fact. We are said to bear the guilt of his sin, but never to bear the guilt of hers. The reason is that Adam was our representative. The covenant was made with him; just as in after generations the covenant was made with Abraham and not with Sarah. On this ground there is an intelligible reason why the guilt of Adam's sin should be imputed to us, which does not apply to the sin of Eve. But on the realistic theory the reverse is the case. Eve sinned first. Generic humanity as individualized in her, apostatized from God, before Adam had offended; and therefore it was her sin rather than his, or more than his, which ruined our common nature. But such is not the representation of Scripture.

4. The objection urged against the doctrine of mediate imputation, that it is inconsistent with the Apostle's doctrine of justification, and incompatible with his argument in Rom. v. 12-21, bears with equal force against the realistic theory. What the Apostle teaches, what he most strenuously insists upon, and what is the foundation of every believer's hope, is that we are justified for acts which were not our own; of which we were not the agents, and the merit of which does not attach to us personally and does not constitute our moral character. This he tells us is analogous to the case of Adam. We were not the agents of his act. His sin was not our sin. Its guilt does not belong to us personally. It is imputed to us as something not our own, a peccatum alienum, and the penalty of it, the forfeiture of the divine favour, the loss of original righteousness, and spiritual death, are its sad consequences. Just as the righteousness of Christ is not our own but is imputed to us, and we have a title in justice on the ground of that righteousness, if we accept and trust it, to all the benefits of redemption. This, which is clearly the doctrine of the Apostle and of the Protestant churches, the realistic doctrine denies. That is, it denies that the sin of Adam as the sin of another is the ground of our condemnation; and in consistency it must also deny (as in fact the great body of Realists do deny) that the righteousness of Christ, as the righteousness of another, is the ground of our justification. What makes this objection the more serious, is that the reasons assigned for denying that Adam's sin, if not our own, can justly be imputed to us, bear with like force against the imputation of a righteousness which is not personally our own. The great principle which is at the foundation of the realistic, as of other false theories concerning original sin, is, that a man can be responsible only for his own acts and for his self-acquired character. If this be so, then, according to the Apostle, unless we can perfectly fulfill the law, and restore our nature to the image of God, by our own agency, we must perish forever.

5. Finally, the solution presented by Realists to explain our relation to Adam and to solve the problems of original sin, ought to be rejected, because Realism is a purely philosophical theory. It is indeed often said that the doctrine of our covenant relation to Adam, and of the immediate imputation of his sin to his posterity, is a theory. But this is not correct. It is not a theory, but the simple statement of a plain Scriptural fact. The Bible says, that Adam's sin was the cause of the condemnation of his race. It tells us that it is not the mere occasional cause, but the judicial ground of that condemnation; that it was for, or on account of, his sin, that the sentence of condemnation was pronounced upon all men. This is the whole doctrine of immediate imputation. It is all that that doctrine includes. Nothing is added to the simple Scriptural statement. Realism, however, is a philosophical theory outside of the Scriptures, intended to account for the fact that Adam's sin is the ground of the condemnation of our race. It introduces a doctrine of universals, of the relation of individuals to genera and species, concerning which the Scriptures teach nothing, and it makes that philosophical theory an integral part of Scripture doctrine. This is adding to the word of God. It is making the truth of Scriptural doctrines to depend on the correctness of philosophical speculations. It is important to bear in mind the relation which philosophy properly sustains to theology. (1.) The relation is intimate and necessary. The two sciences embrace nearly the same spheres and are conversant with the same subjects. (2.) There is a philosophy which underlies all Scriptural doctrines; or which the Scriptures assume in all their teachings. (3.) As the doctrines of the Bible are from God, and therefore infallible and absolutely true, no philosophical principle can be admitted as sound, which does not accord within those doctrines. (4.) Therefore the true office and sphere of Christian philosophy, or of philosophy in the hands of a Christian, is to ascertain and teach those facts and principles concerning God, man, and nature, which are in accordance with the divine word. A Christian cannot assume a certain theory of human freedom and by that theory determine what the Bible teaches of foreordination and providence; but on the contrary, he should allow the teachings of the Bible to determine his theory of liberty. And so of all other doctrines; and this may be done in full assurance that the philosophy which we are thus led to adopt, will be found to authenticate itself as true at the bar of enlightened reason. The objection to Realism is, that it inverts this order. It assumes to control Scripture, instead of being controlled by it. The Bible says we are condemned for Adam's sin. Realism denies this, and says no man is or can be condemned except for his own sin. __________________________________________________________________

[223] Original Sin, IV. iii.; Works, edit. N. Y. 1829, vol. ii. p. 546.

[224] Ibid. p. 556.
[225] Ibid. pp. 555, 556.

[226] Original Sin, IV. iii.; Works, vol. ii., p. 555, note.

[227] Ibid. p. 557.

[228] Ibid. p. 554. __________________________________________________________________

§ 13. Original Sin.

The effects of Adam's sin upon his posterity are declared in our standards to be, (1.) The guilt of his first sin. (2.) The loss of original righteousness. (3.) The corruption of our whole nature, which (i.e., which corruption), is commonly called original sin. Commonly, but not always. Not unfrequently by original sin is meant all the subjective evil consequences of the apostasy of our first parent, and it therefore includes all three of the particulars just mentioned. The National Synod of France, therefore, condemned the doctrine of Placæus, because he made original sin to consist of inherent, hereditary depravity, to the exclusion of the guilt of Adam's first sin.

This inherent corruption in which all men since the fall are born, is properly called original sin, (1.) Because it is truly of the nature of sin. (2.) Because it flows from our first parents as the origin of our race. (3.) Because it is the origin of all other sins; and (4.) Because it is in its nature distinguished from actual sins.

The Nature of Original Sin.

As to the nature of this hereditary corruption, although the faith of the Church Catholic, at least of the Latin, Lutheran, and Reformed churches, has been, in all that is essential, uniform, yet diversity of opinion has prevailed among theologians. (1.) According to many of the Greek fathers, and in later times, of the extreme Remonstrants or Arminians, it is a physical, rather than a moral evil. Adam's physical condition was deteriorated by his apostasy, and that deteriorated natural constitution has descended to his posterity. (2.) According to others, concupiscence, or native corruption, is such an ascendency of man's sensuous, or animal nature over his higher attributes of reason and conscience, as involves a great proneness to sin, but is not itself sinful. Some of the Romish theologians distinctly avow this doctrine, and some Protestants, as we have seen, maintain that this is the symbolical doctrine of the Roman Church itself. The same view has been advocated by some divines of our own age and country. (3.) Others hold a doctrine nearly allied to that just mentioned. They speak of inherent depravity; and admit that it is of the nature of a moral corruption, but nevertheless deny that it brings guilt upon the soul, until it is exercised, assented to, and cherished. (4.) The doctrine of the Reformed and Lutheran churches upon this subject is thus presented in their authorized Confessions: --

The "Augsburg Confession." [229] "Docent quod post lapsum Adæ omnes homines, secundum naturam propagati, nascantur cum peccato, hoc est, sine metu Dei, sine fiducia erga Deum, et cum concupiscentia."

"Articuli Smalcaldici." [230] "Peccatum hæreditarium tam profunda et tetra est corruptio naturæ, ut nullius hominis ratione intelligi possit, sed ex Scripturæ patefactione agnoscenda, et credenda sit."

"Formula Corcordiæ." [231] "Credendum est . . . . quod sit per omnia totalis carentia, defectus seu privatio concreatæ in Paradiso justitiæ originalis seu imaginis Dei, ad quam homo initio in veritate, sanctitate atque justitia creatus fuerat, et quod simul etiam sit impotentia et inaptitudo, adunamia et stupiditas, qua homo ad omnia divina seu spiritualia sit prorsus ineptus. . . . . Præterea, quod peccatum originale in humana natura non tantummodo sit ejusmodi totalis carentia, seu defectus omnium bonorum in rebus spiritualibus ad Deum pertinentibus: sed quod sit etiam, loco imaginis Dei amissæ in homine, intima, pessima, profundissima (instar cujusdam abyssi), inscrutabilis et ineffabilis corruptio totius naturæ et omnium virium, imprimis vero superiorum et principalium animæ facultatum, in mente, intellectu, corde et voluntate."

"Constat Christianos non tantum actualia delicta . . . peccata esse agnoscere et definire debere, sed etiam . . . hæreditarium morbum . . . imprimis pro horribili peccato, et quidem pro principio et capite omnium peccatorum (e quo reliquæ transgressiones, tanquam e radice nascantur . . .) omnino habendum esse." [232]

"Confessio Helvetica II." [233] "Qualis (homo Adam) factus est a lapsu, tales sunt omnes, qui ex ipso prognati sunt, peccato inquam, morti, variisque obnoxii calamitatibus. Peccatum autem intelligimus esse nativam illam hominis corruptionem ex primis illis nostris parentibus in nos omnes derivatam vel propagatam, qua concupiscentiis pravis immersi et a bono aversi, ad omne vero malum propensi, pleni omni nequitia, diffidentia, contemptu et odio Dei, nihil boni ex nobis ipsis facere, imo ne cogitare quidem possumus."

"Confessio Gallicana." [234] "Credimus hoc vitium (ex propagatione manans) esse vere peccatum."

"Articuli XXXIX." [235] "Peccatum originis . . . est vitium et depravatio naturæ cujuslibet hominis ex Adamo naturaliter propagati, qua fit ut ab originali justitia quam longissime distet; ad malum sua natura propendeat et caro semper adversus spiritum concupiscat, unde in unoquoque nascentium iram Dei atque damnationem meretur."

"Confessio Belgica." [236] "Peccatum originis est corruptio totius naturæ et vitium hæreditarium, quo et ipsi infantes in matris utero polluti sunt: quodque veluti noxia quædam radix genus omne peccatorum in homine producit, estque tam foedum atque execrabile coram Deo, ut ad universi generis humani condemnationem sufficiat."

"Catechesis Heidelbergensis." (Pravitas humanæ naturæ existit) "ex lapsu et inobedientia primorum parentum Adami et Evæ. Hinc natura nostra ita est depravata, ut omnes in peccatis concipiamur et nascamur." [237]

By nature in these Confessions it is expressly taught, we are not to understand essence or substance (as was held by Matthias Flacius, and by him only at the time of the Reformation). On this point the Form of Concord says: That although original sin corrupts our whole nature, yet the essence or substance of the soul is one thing, and original sin is another. "Discrimen igitur retinendum est inter naturam nostram, qualis a Deo creata est, hodieque conservatur, in qua peccatum originale habitat, et inter ipsum peccatum originis, quod in natura habitat. Hæc enim duo secundum sacræ Scripturæ regulam distincte considerari, doceri et credi debent et possunt." [238]

"The Westminster Confession." [239] "By this sin they (our first parents) fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body. 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. 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. 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."

Statement of the Protestant Doctrine.

From the above statements it appears that, according to the doctrine of the Protestant churches, original sin, or corruption of nature derived front Adam, is not, (1.) A corruption of the substance or essence of the soul. (2.) Neither is it an essential element infused into the soul as poison is mixed with wine. The Forum of Concord, for example, denies that the evil dispositions of our fallen nature are "conditiones, seu concreatæ essentiales naturæ proprietates." Original sin is declared to be an "accidens, i.e., quod non per se subsistit, sed in aliqua substantia est, et ab ea discerni potest." The affirmative statements on this subject are (1.) That this corruption of nature affects the whole soul. (2.) That it consists in the loss or absence of original righteousness, and consequent entire moral depravity of our nature, including or manifesting itself in an aversion from all spiritual good, or from God, and an inclination to all evil. (3.) That it is truly and properly of the nature of sin, involving both guilt and pollution. (4.) That it retains its character as sin even in the regenerated. (5.) That it renders the soul spiritually dead, so that the natural, or unrenewed man, is entirely unable of himself to do anything good in the sight of God.

This doctrine therefore stands opposed, --

1. To that which teaches that the race of man is uninjured by the fall of Adam.

2. To that which teaches that the evils consequent on the fall are merely physical.

3. To the doctrine which makes original sin entirely negative, consisting in the want of original righteousness.

4. To the doctrine which admits a hereditary depravity of nature, and makes it consist in an inclination to sin, but denies that it is itself sinful. Some of the orthodox theologians made a distinction between vitium and peccatum. The latter term they wished to confine to actual sin, while the former was used to designate indwelling and hereditary sinfulness. There are serious objections to this distinction: first, that vitium, as thus understood, is really sin; it includes both guilt and pollution, and is so defined by Vitringa and others who make the distinction. Secondly, it is opposed to established theological usage. Depravity, or inherent hereditary corruption, has always been designated peccatum, and therefore to say that it is not peccatum, but merely vitium, produces confusion and leads to error. Thirdly, it is contrary to Scripture for the Bible undeniably designates indwelling or hereditary corruption, or vitium, as hamartia. This is acknowledged by Romanists who deny that such concupiscence after regeneration is of the nature of sin. [240]

5. The fifth form of doctrine to which the Protestant faith stands opposed, is that which admits a moral deterioration of our nature, which deserves the displeasure of God, and which is therefore truly sin, and yet denies that the evil is so great as to amount to spiritual death, and to involve the entire inability of the natural man to what is spiritually good.

6. And the doctrine of the Protestant churches is opposed to the teachings of those who deny that original sin affects the whole man, and assert that it has its seat exclusively in the affections or the heart, while the understanding and reason are uninjured or uninfluenced.

In order to sustain the Augustinian (or Protestant) doctrine of original sin, therefore, three points are to be established: I. That all mankind descending from Adam by ordinary generation are born destitute of original righteousness, and the subjects of a corruption of nature which is truly and properly sin. II. That this original corruption affects the whole man; not the body only to the exclusion of the soul; not the lower faculties of the soul to the exclusion of the higher; and not the heart to the exclusion of the intellectual powers. III. That it is of such a nature as that before regeneration fallen men are "utterly indisposed, disabled, and opposed to all good."

Proof of the Doctrine of Original Sin.
First Argument from the Universality of Sin.

The first argument in proof of this doctrine is drawn from the universal sinfulness of men. All men are sinners. This is undeniably the doctrine of the Scriptures. It is asserted, assumed, and proved. The assertions of this fact are too numerous to be quoted. In 1 Kings viii. 46, it is said, "There is no man that sinneth not." Eccl. vii. 20, "There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not." Is. liii. 6, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way." lxiv. 6, "We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." Ps. cxxx. 3, "If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?" Ps. cxliii. 2, "In thy sight shall no man living be justified." Rom. iii. 19, "The whole world (pas ho kosmos) is guilty before God." Verses 22, 23, "There is no difference: for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Gal. iii. 22, "The Scripture hath concluded all under sin;" i.e., hath declared all men to be under the power and condemnation of sin. James iii. 2, "In many things we offend all." 1 John i. 8, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Verse 10, "If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. 1 John v. 19, "The whole world lieth in wickedness." Such are only a few of the assertions of the universal sinfulness of men with which the Scriptures abound.

But in the second place, this melancholy fact is constantly assumed in the Word of God. The Bible everywhere addresses men as sinners. The religion which it reveals is a religion for sinners. All the institutions of the Old Testament, and all the doctrines of the New, take it for granted that men universally are under the power and condemnation of sin. "The world," as used in Scripture, designates the mass of mankind, as distinguished from the church, or the regenerated people of God, and always involves in its application the idea of sin. The world hateth you. I am not of the world. I have chosen you out of the world. All the exhortations of the Scriptures addressed to men indiscriminately, calling them to repentance, of necessity assume the universality of sin. The same is true of the general threatenings and promises of the Word of God. In short, if all men are not sinners, the Bible is not adapted to their real character and state.

But the Scriptures not only directly assert and everywhere assume the universality of sin among men, but this is a point which perhaps more than any other is made the subject of a formal and protracted argument. The Apostle, especially in his Epistle to the Romans, begins with a regular process of proof, that all, whether Jews or Gentiles, are under sin. Until this fact is admitted and acknowledged, there is no place for and no need of the Gospel, which is God's method of saving sinners. Paul therefore begins by asserting God's purpose to punish all sin. He then shows that the Gentiles are universally chargeable with the sin of impiety; that although knowing God, they neither worship him as God, nor are thankful. The natural, judicial, and therefore the unavoidable consequence of impiety, according to the Apostle's doctrine, is immorality. Those who abandon Him, God gives up to the unrestrained dominion of evil. The whole Gentile world therefore was sunk in sin. With the Jews, he tells us, the case was no better. They had more correct knowledge of God and of his law, and many institutions of divine appointment, so that their advantages were great every way. Nevertheless they were as truly and as universally sinful as the Gentiles. Their own Scriptures, which of course were addressed to them, expressly declare, There is none righteous, no not one. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no not one. Therefore, he concludes, The whole world is guilty before God. Jews and Gentiles are all under sin. Therefore by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified. This is the foundation of the Apostle's whole doctrinal system, and of the religion of the Bible. Jesus Christ came to save his people from their sins. If men are not sinners Christ is not the Salvator Hominum.

What the Scriptures so clearly teach is taught no less clearly by experience and history. Every man knows that he himself is a sinner. He knows that every human being whom he ever saw, is in the same state of apostasy from God. History contains the record of no sinless man, save the Man Christ Jesus, who, by being sinless, is distinguished from all other men. We have no account of any family, tribe, or nation free from the contamination of sin. The universality of sin among men is therefore one of the most undeniable doctrines of Scripture, and one of the most certain facts of experience.

Second Argument from the Entire Sinfulness of Men.

This universal depravity of men is no slight evil. The whole human race, by their apostasy from God, are totally depraved. By total depravity, is not meant that all men are equally wicked; nor that any man is as thoroughly corrupt as it is possible for a man to be; nor that men are destitute of all moral virtues. The Scriptures recognize the fact, which experience abundantly confirms, that men, to a greater or less degree, are honest in dealings, kind in their feelings, and beneficent in their conduct. Even the heathen, the Apostle teaches us, do by nature the things of the law. They are more or less under the dominion of conscience, which approves or disapproves their moral conduct. All this is perfectly consistent with the Scriptural doctrine of total depravity, which includes the entire absence of holiness; the want of due apprehensions of the divine perfections, and of our relation to God as our Creator, Preserver, Benefactor, Governor, and Redeemer. There is common to all men a total alienation of the soul from God so that no unrenewed man either understands or seeks after God; no such man ever makes God his portion, or God's glory the end of his being. The apostasy from God is total or complete. All men worship and serve the creature rather than, and more than the Creator. They are all therefore declared in Scripture to be spiritually dead. They are destitute of any principle of spiritual life. The dreadful extent and depth of this corruption of our nature are proved, --

1. By its fruits; by the fearful prevalence of the sins of the flesh, of sins of violence, of the sins of the heart, as pride, envy, and malice; of the sins of the tongue, as slander and deceit; of the sins of irreligion, of ingratitude, profanity, and blasphemy; which have marked the whole history of our race, and which still distinguish the state of the whole world.

2. By the consideration that the claims of God on our supreme reverence, love, and obedience, which are habitually and universally disregarded by unrenewed men, are infinitely great. That is, they are so great that they cannot be imagined to be greater. These claims are not only ignored in times of excitement and passion, but habitually and constantly. Men live without God. They are, says the Apostle, Atheists. This alienation from God is so great and so universal, that the Scriptures say that men are the enemies of God; that the carnal mind, i.e., that state of mind which belongs to all men in their natural state, is enmity against God. This is proved not only by neglect and disobedience, but also by direct rebellion against his authority, when in his providence he takes away our idols; or when his law, with its inexorable demands and its fearful penalty, is sent home upon the conscience, and God is seen to be a consuming fire.

3. A third proof of the dreadful evil of this hereditary corruption is seen in the universal rejection of Christ by those whom He came to save. He is in himself the chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely; uniting in his own person all the perfections of the Godhead, and all the excellences of humanity. His mission was one of love, of a love utterly incomprehensible, unmerited, immutable, and infinite. Through love He not only humbled himself to be born of a woman, and to be made under the law, but to live a life of poverty, sorrow, and persecution; to endure inconceivably great sufferings for our sakes, and finally to bear our sins in his own body on the tree. He has rendered it possible for God to be just and yet justify the ungodly. He therefore offers blessings of infinite value, without money and without price, to all who will accept them. He has secured, and offers to us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption; to make us kings and priests unto God, and to exalt us to an unending state of inconceivable glory and blessedness. Notwithstanding all this; notwithstanding the divine excellence of his person, the greatness of his love, the depth of his sufferings, and the value of the blessings which He has provided, and without which we must perish eternally, men universally, when left to themselves, reject Him. He came to his own and his own received Him not. The world hated, and still hates Him; will not recognize Him as their God and Saviour; will not accept of his offers; will neither love nor serve Him. The conduct of men towards Christ is the clearest proof of the apostasy of our race, and of the depth of the depravity into which they are sunk; and, so far as the hearers of the gospel are concerned, is the great ground of their condemnation. All other grounds seem merged into this, for our Lord says, that men are condemned because they do not believe in the only begotten Son of God. And the Holy Spirit, by the mouth of the Apostle, says, "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be anathema maranatha;" a sentence which will be ratified in the day of judgment by every rational creature, fallen and unfallen, in the universe.

The Sinfulness of Men Incorrigible.

4. Another proof of the point under consideration is found in the incorrigible nature of original sin. It is, so far as we are concerned, an incurable malady. Men are not so besotted even by the fall as to lose their moral nature. They know that sin is an evil, and that it exposes them to the righteous judgment of God. From the beginning of the world, therefore, they have tried not only to expiate, but also to destroy it. They have resorted to all means possible to them for this purpose. They have tried the resources of philosophy and of moral culture. They have withdrawn from the contaminating society of their fellow-men. They have summoned all the energies of their nature, and all the powers of their will. They have subjected themselves to the most painful acts of self-denial, to ascetic observances in all their forms. The only result of these efforts has been that these anchorites have become like whitened sepulchres, which appear outwardly beautiful, while within they are filled with dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Men have been slow to learn what our Lord teaches, that it is impossible to make the fruit good until the tree is good. And evil, however, which is so indestructible must be very great.

Argument from the Experience of God's People.

5. We may appeal on this subject to the experience of God's people in every age and in every part of the world. In no one respect has that experience been more uniform, than in the conviction of their depravity in the sight of an infinitely Holy God. The patriarch Job, represented as the best man of his generation, placed his hand upon his mouth, and his mouth in the dust before God, and declared that he abhorred himself, and repented in dust and ashes. David's Penitential Psalms are filled not only with the confessions of sin, but also with the avowals of his deep depravity in the sight of God. Isaiah cried out, Woe is me! I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips. The ancient prophets, even when sanctified from the womb, pronounced their own righteousnesses as filthy rags. What is said of the body politic is everywhere represented as true of the individual man. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot, even unto the head, there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores. In the New Testament the sacred writers evince the same deep sense of their own sinfulness, and strong conviction of the sinfulness of the race to which they belong. Paul speaks of himself as the chief of sinners. He complains that he was carnal, sold under sin. He groans under the burden of an evil nature, saying, O, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? From the days of the Apostles to the present time, there has been no diversity as to this point in the experience of Christians. There is no disposition ever evinced by them to palliate or excuse their sinfulness before God. They uniformly and everywhere, and just in proportion to their holiness, humble themselves under a sense of their guilt and pollution, and abhor themselves repenting in dust and ashes. This is not an irrational, nor is it an exaggerated experience. It is the natural effect of the apprehension of the truth; of even a partial discernment of the holiness of God, of the spirituality of the law, and of the want of conformity to that divine standard. There is always connected with this experience of sin, the conviction that our sense of its evil and its power over us, and consequently of our guilt and pollution, is altogether inadequate. It is always a part of the believer's burden, that he feels less than his reason and conscience enlightened by the Scriptures, teach him he ought to feel of his moral corruption and degradation.

6. It need scarcely be added, that what the Scriptures so manifestly teach indirectly of the depth of the corruption of our fallen nature, they teach also by direct assertion. The human heart is pronounced deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Even in the beginning (Gen. vi. 5, 6), it was said, "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Job xv. 14-16, "What is man, that he should be clean? And he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous? Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water." Eccl. ix. 3, "The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead." With such passages the Word of God is filled. It in the most explicit terms pronounces the degradation and moral corruption of man consequent on the fall, to be a total apostasy from God; a state of spiritual death, as implying the entire absence of any true holiness.

Third Argument from the early Manifestation of Sin.

A third great fact of Scripture and experience on this subject is the early manifestation of sin. As soon as a child is capable of moral action, it gives evidence of a perverted moral character. We not only see the manifestations of anger, malice, selfishness, envy, pride, and other evil dispositions, but the whole development of the soul is toward the world. The soul of a child turns by an inward law from God to the creature, from the things that are unseen and eternal to the things that are seen and temporal. It is in its earliest manifestations, worldly, of the earth, earthy. As this is the testimony of universal experience, so also it is the doctrine of the Bible. Job xi. 12, "Man" is "born like a wild ass's colt." Ps. lviii. 3, "The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." Prov. xxii. 15, "Foolishness (moral evil) is bound in the heart of a child."

These three undeniable facts, the universality of sin among men, its controlling power, and its early manifestation, are clear proof of the corruption of our common nature. It is a principle of judgment universally recognized and acted upon, that a course of action in any creature, rational or irrational, which is universal and controlling, and which is adopted uniformly from the beginning of its being, determines and reveals its nature. That all individuals of certain species of animals live on prey; that all the individuals of another species live on herbs; that some are amphibious, and others live only on the land; some are gregarious, others solitary; some mild and docile, others ferocious and untamable; not under certain circumstances and conditions, but always and everywhere, under all the different circumstances of their being, is regarded as proof of their natural constitution. It shows what they are by nature, as distinguished from what they are, or may be made by external circumstances and culture. The same principle is applied to our judgments of men. Whatever is variable and limited in its manifestations; whatever is found in some men and not in others, we attribute to peculiar and limited causes, but what is universal and controlling is uniformly referred to the nature of man. Some of these universally manifested modes of action among men are referrible to the essential attributes of their nature, as reason and conscience. The fact that all men perform rational actions is a clear proof that they are rational creatures; and the fact that they perform moral actions is proof that they have a moral nature. Other universal modes of action are referred not to the essential attributes of human nature, but to its present abiding state. That all men seek ease and self-indulgence and prefer themselves to others, is not to be attributed to our nature as men, but to our present state. As the fact that all men perform moral actions is proof that they have a moral nature, so the fact that such moral action is always evil, or that all men sin from the earliest development of their powers, is a proof that their moral nature is depraved. It is utterly inconsistent with all just ideas of God that He created man with a nature which with absolute uniformity leads him to sin and destruction; or that He placed him in circumstances which inevitably secure his ruin. The present state of human nature cannot therefore be its normal and original condition. We are a fallen race. Our nature has become corrupted by our apostasy from God, and therefore every imagination (i.e., every exercise) of the thoughts of man's heart is only evil continually. See also Gen. viii.
21. This is the Scriptural and the only rational solution of the undeniable fact of the deep, universal, and early manifested sinfulness of men in all ages, of every class, and in every part of the world.

Evasions of the Foregoing Arguments.

The methods adopted by those who deny the doctrine of original sin, to account for the universality of sin, are in the highest degree unsatisfactory.

1. It is not necessary here to refer to the theories which get over this great difficulty either by denying the existence of sin, or by extenuating its evil nature, so that the difficulty ceases to exist. If there be really no such evil as sin, there is no sin to account for. But the fact of the existence of sin, of its universality and of its power, is too palpable and too much a matter of consciousness to admit of being denied or ignored.

2. Others contend that we have in the free agency of man a sufficient solution of the universality of sin. Men can sin; they choose to sin, and no further reason for the fact need be demanded. If Adam sinned without an antecedent corrupt nature, why, it is asked, must corruption of nature be assumed to account for the fact that other men sin? A uniform effect, however, demands a uniform cause. That a man can walk is no adequate reason why he always walks in one direction. A man may exercise his faculties to attain one object or another; the fact that he does devote them through a long life to the acquisition of wealth is not accounted for by saying that he is a free agent. The question is, Why his free agency is always exercised in one particular direction. The fact, therefore, that men are free agents is no solution for the universal sinfulness and total apostasy of our race from God.

3. Others seek in the order of development of the constituent elements of our nature, an explanation of the fact in question. We are so constituted that the sensuous faculties are called into exercise before the higher powers of reason and conscience. The former therefore attain an undue ascendency, and lead the child and the man to obey the lower instincts of his nature, when he should be guided by his higher faculties. But, in the first place, this is altogether an inadequate conception of our hereditary depravity. It does not consist exclusively or principally in the ascendency of the flesh (in the limited sense of that word) over the Spirit. It is a far deeper and more radical evil. It is spiritual death, according to the express declarations of the Scriptures. And, in the second place, it cannot be the normal condition of man that his natural faculties should develop in such order as inevitably and universally to lead to his moral degradation and ruin. And, in the third place, this theory relieves no difficulties while it accounts for no facts. It is as hard to reconcile with the justice and goodness of God that men should be born with a nature so constituted as certainly to lead them to sin, as that they should be born in a state of sin. It denies any fair probation to the race. According to the Scriptures and the doctrine of the Church, mankind had not only a fair but a favourable probation in Adam, who stood for them in the maturity and full perfection of his nature; and with every facility, motive and consideration adapted to secure his fidelity. This is far easier of belief than the assumption that God places the child in the first dawn of reason on its probation for eternity, with a nature already perverted, and under circumstances which in every case infallibly lead to its destruction. The only solution therefore which at all meets the case is the Scriptural doctrine that all mankind fell in Adam's first transgression, and bearing the penalty of his sin, they come into the world in a state of spiritual death, the evidence of which is seen and felt in the universality, the controlling power, and the early manifestation of sin.

The Scriptures expressly Teach the Doctrine.

The Scriptures not only indirectly teach the doctrine of original sin, or of the hereditary, sinful corruption of our nature as derived from Adam, by teaching, as we have seen, the universal and total depravity of our race, but they directly assert the doctrine. They not only teach expressly that men sin universally and from the first dawn of their being, but they also assert that the heart of man is evil. It is declared to be "Deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: Who can know it?" (Jer. xvii. 9.) "The heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." (Eccl. viii. 11.) Every imagination of the thoughts of his (man's) heart is only evil." (Gen. vi. 5); or as it is in Gen. viii. 21, "The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth." By heart in Scriptural language is meant the man himself; the soul; that which is the seat and source of life. It is that which thinks, feels, desires, and wills. It is that out of which good or evil thoughts, desires, and purposes proceed. It never signifies a mere act, or a transient state of the soul. It is that which is abiding, which determines character. It bears the same relation to acts that the soil does to its productions. As a good soil brings forth herbs suited for man and beast, and an evil soil brings forth briars and thorns, so we are told that the human heart (human nature in its present state), is proved to be evil by the prolific crop of sins which it everywhere and always produces. Still more distinctly is this doctrine taught in Matt. vii. 16-19, where our Lord says that men are known by their fruits. "Do men gather grapes or thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." And again, in Matt. xii. 33, "Either make the tree good and his fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit." The very pith and point of these instructions is, that moral acts are a revelation of moral character. They do not constitute it, but simply manifest what it is. The fruit of a tree reveals the nature of the tree. It does not make that nature, but simply proves what it is. So in the case of man, his moral exercises, his thoughts and feelings, as well as his external acts, are determined by an internal cause. There is something in the nature of the man distinct from his acts and anterior to them, which determines his conduct (i.e., all his conscious exercises), to be either good or evil. If men are universally sinful, it is, according to our Lord's doctrine, proof positive that their nature is evil; as much so as corrupt fruit proves the tree to be corrupt. When therefore the Scriptures assert that the heart of man is "desperately wicked," they assert precisely what the Church means when she asserts our nature to be depraved. Neither the word, heart, nor nature, in such connections means substance or essence, but natural disposition. The words express a quality as distinguished from an essential attribute or property. Even when we speak of the nature of a tree, we do not mean its essence, but its quality; something which can be modified or changed without a change of substance. Thus our Lord speaks of making a tree good, or making it evil. The explanation of the Scriptural meaning of the word heart given above is confirmed by analogous and synonymous forums of expression used in the Bible. What is sometimes designated as an evil heart is called "the old man," "a law of sin in our members," "the flesh," "the carnal mind," etc. And on the other hand, what is called "a new heart," is called "the new man," "a new creature" (or nature), "the law of the Spirit," "the spiritual mind," etc. All these terms and phrases designate what is inherent, immanent, and abiding, as opposed to what is transient and voluntary. The former class of terms is used to describe the nature of man before it is regenerated, and the other to describe the change consequent on regeneration. The Scriptures, therefore, in declaring the heart of man to be deceitful and desperately wicked, and its imaginations or exercises to be only evil continually, assert in direct terms the Church doctrine of original sin.

The Psalmist also directly asserts this doctrine when he says (Ps. li. 5), "Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." In the preceding verses he had confessed his actual sins; and he here humbles himself still more completely before God by acknowledging his innate, hereditary depravity; a depravity which he did not regard as a mere weakness, or inclination to evil, but which he pronounces iniquity and sin. To this inherent, hereditary corruption he refers in the subsequent parts of the Psalm as his chief burden from which he most earnestly desired to be delivered. "Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts; and in the hidden part shalt thou make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. . . . . Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." It was his inward parts, his interior nature, which had been shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin, which he prayed might be purified and renewed. The whole spirit of this Psalm and the connection in which the words of the fifth verse occur, have constrained the great majority of commentators and readers of the Scripture to recognize in this passage a direct affirmation of the doctrine of original sin. Of course no doctrine rests on any one isolated passage. What is taught in one place is sure to be assumed or asserted in other places. What David says of himself as born in sin is confirmed by other representations of Scripture, which show that what was true of him is no less true of all mankind. Thus (Job xiv. 4), "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean." (xv. 14), "What is man that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?" Thus also our Lord says (John iii. 6), "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." This clearly means that, That which is born of corrupt parents is itself corrupt; and is corrupt in virtue of its descent or derivation. This is plain, (1.) From the common usage of the word flesh in a religious sense in the Scriptures. Besides the primary and secondary meanings of the word it is familiarly used in the Bible to designate our fallen and corrupt nature. Hence to be "in the flesh" is to be in a natural, unrenewed state; the works of the flesh, are works springing from a corrupt nature; to walk after the flesh, is to live under the controlling influence of a sinful nature. Hence to be carnal, or carnally minded, is to be corrupt, or, as Paul explains it, sold under, a slave to sin. (2.) Because the flesh is here opposed to the Spirit. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." As the latter member of this verse undoubtedly means that, That which is derived from the Holy Spirit is holy, or conformed to the nature of the Holy Spirit; the former member must mean that, That which is derived from an evil source is itself evil. A child born of fallen parents derives from them a fallen, corrupt nature. (3.) This interpretation is demanded by the context. Our Lord is assigning the reason for the necessity of regeneration or spiritual birth. That reason is, the derivation of a corrupt nature by our natural birth. It is because we are born in sin that the renewing of the Holy Ghost is universally and absolutely necessary to our salvation.

Another passage equally decisive is Eph. ii. 3: "We also" (i.e., we Jews as well as the Gentiles) "were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." Children of wrath, according to a familiar Hebrew idiom, means the objects of wrath. We, says the Apostle, as well as other men, are the objects of the divine wrath. That is, under condemnation, justly exposed to his displeasure. This exposure to the wrath of God, as He teaches, is not due exclusively to our sinful conduct, it is the condition in which we were born. We are by nature the children of wrath. The word nature in such forms of speech always stands opposed to what is acquired, or superinduced, or to what is due to ab extra influence or inward development. Paul says that he and Peter were by nature Jews, i.e., they were Jews by birth, not by proselytism. He says the Gentiles do by nature the things of the law; i.e., in virtue of their internal constitution, not by external instruction. The gods of the heathen, he says, are by nature no gods. They are such only in the opinions of men. In classic literature as in ordinary language, to say that men are by nature proud, or cruel, or just, always means that the predicate is due to them in virtue of their natural constitution or condition, and not simply on account of their conduct or acquired character. The dative phusei in this passage does not mean on account of, because phusis means simply nature, whether good or bad. Paul does not say directly that it is "on account of our (corrupt) nature we are the children of wrath," which interpretation requires the idea expressed by the word corrupt to be introduced into the text. He simply asserts that we are the children of wrath by nature; that is, as we were born. We are born in a state of sin and condemnation. And this is the Church doctrine of original sin. Our natural condition is not merely a condition of physical weakness, or of proneness to sin, or of subjection to evil dispositions, which, if cherished, become sinful; but we are born in a state of sin. Rueckert, a rationalistic commentator, says in reference to this passage: [241] "It is perfectly evident, from Rom. v. 12-20, that Paul was far from being opposed to the view expressed in Ps. li. 7, that men are born sinners; and as we interpret for no system, so we will not attempt to deny that the thought, We were born children of wrath,' i.e.. such as we were from our birth we were exposed to the divine wrath, is the true sense of these words."

The Bible Represents Men as Spiritually Dead.

Another way in which the Scriptures clearly teach the doctrine of original sin is to be found in the passages in which they describe the natural state of man since the fall. Men, all men, men of every nation, of every age, and of every condition, are represented as spiritually dead. The natural man, man as he is by nature, is destitute of the life of God, i.e., of spiritual life. His understanding is darkness, so that he does not know or receive the things of God. He is not susceptible of impression from the realities of the spiritual world. He is as insensible to them as a dead man to the things of this world. He is alienated from God, and utterly unable to deliver himself from this state of corruption and misery. Those, and those only, are represented as delivered from this state in which men are born, who are renewed by the Holy Ghost; who are quickened, or made alive by the power of God, and who are therefore called spiritual as governed and actuated by a higher principle than any which belongs to our fallen nature. "The natural man," says the Apostle (that is, man as he is by nature), "receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them; because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor. ii. 14.) "You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins;" and not only you Gentiles, but "even us," when dead in sins, hath God "quickened together with Christ." (Eph. ii. 1, 5.) The state of all men, Jews and Gentiles, prior to regeneration, is declared to be a state of spiritual death. In Eph. iv. 17, 18, this natural state of man is described by saying of the heathen that they "walk in the vanity of their mind (i.e., in sin), having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart." Man's natural state is one of darkness, of which the proximate effect is ignorance and obduracy, and consequent alienation from God. It is true this is said of the heathen, but the Apostle constantly teaches that what is true of the heathen is no less true of the Jews; for there is no difference, since all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. With these few passages the whole tenour of the word of God agrees. Human nature in its present state is always and everywhere described as thus darkened and corrupted.

Argument from the Necessity of Redemption.

Another argument in support of the doctrine of original sin is that the Bible everywhere teaches that all men need redemption through the blood of Christ. The Scriptures know nothing of the salvation of any of the human family otherwise than through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. This is so plainly the doctrine of the Bible that it never has been questioned in the Christian Church. Infants need redemption as well as adults, for they also are included in the covenant of grace. But redemption, in the Christian sense of the term, is deliverance through the blood of Christ, from the power and consequences of sin. Christ came to save sinners. He saves none but sinners. If He saves infants, infants must be in a state of sin. There is no possibility of avoiding this conclusion, except by denying one or the other of the premises from which it is drawn. We must either deny that infants are saved through Christ, which is such a thoroughly anti-Christian sentiment, that it has scarcely ever been avowed within the pale of the Church; or we must deny that redemption, in the Christian sense of the term, includes deliverance from sin. This is the ground taken by those who deny the doctrine of original sin, and yet admit that infants are saved through Christ. They hold that in their case redemption is merely preservation from sin. For Christ's sake, or through his intervention, they are transferred to a state of being in which their nature develops in holiness. In answer to this evasion it is enough to remark, (1.) That it is contrary to the plain and universally received doctrine of the Bible as to the nature of the work of Christ. (2.) That this view supersedes the necessity of redemption at all. The Bible, however, clearly teaches that the death of Christ is absolutely necessary; that if there had been any other way in which men could be saved Christ is dead in vain. (Gal. ii. 21; iii. 21.) But, according to the doctrine in question, there is no necessity for his death. If men are an unfallen, uncorrupted race, and if they can be preserved from sin by a mere change of their circumstances, why should there be the costly array of remedial means, the incarnation, the sufferings and death of the Eternal Son of God, for their salvation. It is perfectly plain that the whole Scriptural plan of redemption is founded in the apostasy of the whole human race from God. It assumed that men, all men, infants as well as adults, are in a state of sin and misery, from which none but a divine Saviour can deliver them.

Argument from the Necessity of Regeneration.

This is still further plain from what the Scriptures teach concerning the necessity of regeneration. By regeneration is meant both in Scripture and in the language of the Church, the renewing of the Holy Ghost; the change of heart or of nature effected by the power of the Spirit, by which the soul passes from a state of spiritual death into a state of spiritual life. It is that change from sin to holiness, which our Lord pronounces absolutely essential to salvation. Sinners only need regeneration. Infants need regeneration. Therefore infants are in a state of sin. The only point in this argument which requires to be proved, is that infants need regeneration in the sense above explained. This, however, hardly admits of doubt. (1.) It is proved by the language of the Scriptures which assert that all men must be born of the Spirit, in order to enter the Kingdom of God. The expression used, is absolutely universal. It means every human being descended from Adam by ordinary generation. No exception of class, tribe, character, or age is made; and we are not authorized to make any such exception. But besides, as remarked above, the reason assigned for this necessity of the new birth, applies to infants as well as to adults. All who are born of the flesh, and because they are thus born, our Lord says, must be born again (2.) Infants always have been included with their parents in every revelation or enactment of the covenant of grace. The promise to our first parents of a Redeemer, concerned their children as well as themselves. The covenant with Abraham was not only with him, but also with his posterity, infant and adult. The covenant at Mount Sinai, which as Paul teaches, included the covenant of grace, was solemnly ratified with the people and with their "little ones." The Scriptures, therefore, always contemplate children from their birth as needing to be saved, and as interested in the plan of salvation which it is the great design of the Bible to reveal. (3.) This is still further evident from the fact that the sign and seal of the covenant of grace, circumcision under the Old dispensation, and baptism under the New, was applied to new-born infants. Circumcision was indeed a sign and seal of the national covenant between God and the Hebrews as a nation. That is, it was a seal of those promises made to Abraham, and afterwards through Moses, which related to the external theocracy or Commonwealth of Israel. But nevertheless, it is plain, that besides these national promises, there was also the promise of redemption made to Abraham, which promise, the Apostle expressly says, has come upon us. (Gal. iii.
14) That is, we (all believers) are included in the covenant made with Abraham. It is no less plain that circumcision was the sign and seal of that covenant. This is clear, because the Apostle teaches that Abraham received circumcision as a seal of the righteousness of faith. That is, it was the seal of that covenant which promised and secured righteousness on the condition of faith. It is also plain because the Scriptures teach that circumcision had a spiritual import. It signified inward purification. It was administered in order to teach men that those who received the rite, needed such purification, and that this great blessing was promised to those faithful to the covenant, of which circumcision was the seal. Hence, the Scriptures speak of the circumcision of the heart; of an inward circumcision effected by the Spirit as distinguished from that which was outward in the flesh. Compare Deut. x. 16; xxx. 6; Ezek. xliv. 7; Acts vii. 51; Rom. ii. 28. From all this it is clear that circumcision could not be administered according to its divinely constituted design to any who did not need the circumcision or regeneration of heart, to fit them for the presence and service of God. And as it was by divine command administered to infants when eight days old, the conclusion is inevitable that in the sight of God such infants need regeneration, and therefore are born in sin.

The same argument obviously applies to infant baptism. Baptism is an ordinance instituted by Christ, to signify and seal the purification of the soul, by the sprinkling of his blood, and its regeneration by the Holy Ghost. It can therefore be properly administered only to those who are in a state of guilt and pollution. It is, however, administered to infants, and therefore infants are assumed to need pardon and sanctification. This is the argument which Pelagius and his followers, more than all others, found it most difficult to answer. They could not deny the import of the rite. They could not deny that it was properly administered to infants, and yet they refused to admit the unavoidable conclusion, that infants are born in sin. They were therefore driven to the unnatural evasion, that baptism was administered to infants, not on the ground of their present state, but on the assumption of their probable future condition. They were not sinners, but would probably become such, and thus need the benefits of which baptism is the sign and pledge. Even the Council of Trent found it necessary to protest against such a manifest perversion of a solemn sacrament, which reduced it to a mockery. The form of baptism as prescribed by Christ, and universally adopted by the Church, supposes that those to whom the sacrament is administered are sinners and need the remission of sin and the renewal of the Holy Ghost. Thus the doctrine of original sin is inwrought into the very texture of Christianity, and lies at the foundation of the institutions of the gospel.

Argument from the Universality of Death.

Another decisive argument on this subject, is drawn from the universality of death. Death, according to the Scriptures, is a penal evil. It presupposes sin. No rational moral creature is subject to death except on account of sin. Infants die, therefore infants are the subjects of sin. The only way to evade this argument is to deny that death is a penal evil. This is the ground taken by those who reject the doctrine of original sin. They assert that it is a natural evil, flowing from the original constitution of our nature, and that it is therefore no more a proof that all men are sinners, than the death of brutes is a proof that they are sinners. In answer to this objection, it is obvious to remark that men are not brutes. That irrational animals, incapable of sin, are subject to death, is therefore no evidence that moral creatures may be justly subject to the same evil, although free from sin. But, in the second place, what is of far more weight, the objection is in direct opposition to the declarations of the Word of God. According to the Bible, death in the case of man is a punishment. It was threatened against Adam as the penalty of transgression. If he had not sinned, neither had he died. The Apostle expressly declares that death is the wages (or punishment) of sin; and death is on account of sin. (Rom. vi. 23 and v. 12.) He not only asserts this as a fact, but assumes it as a principle, and makes it the foundation of his whole argument in Rom. v. 12-20. His doctrine as there stated is, where there is no law there is no sin. And where there is no sin there is no punishment. All men are punished, therefore all men are sinners. That all men are punished, he proves from the fact that all men die. Death is punishment. Death, he says, reigned from Adam to Moses. It reigns even over those who had not sinned in their own persons, by voluntary transgression, as Adam did. It reigns over infants. It has passed absolutely on all men because all are sinners. It cannot be questioned that such is the argument of the Apostle; neither can it be questioned that this argument is founded on the assumption that death, in the case of man, is a penal evil, and its infliction an undeniable proof of guilt. We must, therefore, either reject the authority of the Scriptures, or we must admit that the death of infants is a proof of their sinfulness.

Although the Apostle's argument as above stated is a direct proof of original sin (or inherent, hereditary corruption), it is no less a proof, as urged on another occasion, of the imputation of Adam's sin. Paul does argue, in Rom. v. 12-20, to prove that as in our justification the righteousness on the ground of which we are accepted is not subjectively ours, but the righteousness of another, even Christ; so the primary ground of our condemnation to death is the sin of Adam, something outside of ourselves, and not personally ours. But it is to be borne in mind that the death of which he speaks in accordance with the uniform usage of Scripture, in such connections, is the death of a man; a death appropriate to his nature as a moral being formed in the image of God. The death threatened to Adam was not the mere dissolution of his body, but spiritual death, the loss of the life of God. The physical death of infants is a patent proof that they are subject to the penalty which came on men (which entered the world and passed on all men) on account of one man, or by one man's disobedience. And as that penalty was death spiritual as well as the dissolution of the body, the death of infants is a Scriptural and decisive proof of their being born destitute of original righteousness and infected with a sinful corruption of nature. Their physical death is proof that they are involved in the penalty the principal element of which is the spiritual death of the soul. It was by the disobedience of one man that all are constituted sinners, not only by imputation (which is true and most important), but also by inherent depravity; as it is by the obedience of one that all are constituted righteous, not only by imputation (which also is true and vitally important), but also by the consequent renewing of their nature flowing from their reconciliation to God.

Argument from the Common Consent of Christians.

Finally, it is fair, on this subject, to appeal to the faith of the Church universal. Protestants, in rejecting the doctrine of tradition, and in asserting that the Word of God as contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments is the only infallible rule of faith and practice, do not reject the authority of the Church as a teacher. They do not isolate themselves from the great company of the faithful in all ages, and set up a new faith. They hold that Christ promised the Holy Spirit to lead his people into the knowledge of the truth; that the Spirit does dwell as a teacher in all the children of God, and that those who are born of God are thus led to the knowledge and belief of the truth. There is therefore to the true Church, or the true people of God, but one faith, as there is but one Lord and one God the Father of all. Any doctrine, therefore, which can be proved to be a part of the faith (not of the external and visible Church, but) of the true children of God in all ages of the world, must be true. It is to be received not because it is thus universally believed, but because its being universally believed by true Christians is a proof that it is taught by the Spirit both in his Word and in the hearts of his people. This is a sound principle recognized by all Protestants. This universal faith of the Church is not to be sought so much in the decisions of ecclesiastical councils, as in the formulas of devotion which have prevailed among the people. It is, as often remarked, in the players, in the hymnology, in the devotional writings which true believers make the channel of their communion with God, and the medium through which they express their most intimate religious convictions, that we must look for the universal faith. From the faith of God's people no man can separate himself without forfeiting the communion of saints, and placing himself outside of the pale of true believers. If these things be admitted we must admit the doctrine of original sin. That doctrine has indeed been variously explained, and in many cases explained away by theologians and by councils, but it is indelibly impressed on the faith of the true Church. It pervades the prayers, the worship, and the institutions of the Church. All true Christians are convinced of sin; they are convinced not only of individual transgressions, but also of the depravity of their heart and nature. They recognize this depravity as innate and controlling. They groan under it as a grievous burden. They know that they are by nature the children of wrath. Parents bring their children to Christ to be washed by his blood and renewed by his Spirit, as anxiously as mothers crowded around our Lord when on earth, with their suffering infants that they might be healed by his grace and power. Whatever difficulties, therefore, may attend the doctrine of original sin, we must accept it as clearly taught in the Scriptures, confirmed by the testimony of consciousness and history, and sustained by the faith of the Church universal.

Objections.

The objections to this doctrine, it must be admitted, are many and serious. But this is true of all the great doctrines of religion, whether natural or revealed. Nor are such difficulties confined to the sphere of religion. Our knowledge in every department is limited, and in a great measure confined to isolated facts. We know that a stone falls to the ground, that a seed germinates and produces a plant after its own kind; but it is absolutely impossible for us to understand how these familiar effects are accomplished. We know that God is, and that He governs all his creatures, but we do not know how his effectual controlling agency is consistent with the free agency of rational beings. We know that sin and misery exist in the world, and we know that God is infinite in power, holiness, and benevolence. How to reconcile the prevalence of sin with the character of God we know not. These are familiar and universally admitted facts as well in philosophy as in religion. A thing may be, and often certainly is true, against which objections may be urged which no man is able to answer. There are two important practical principles which follow from the facts just mentioned. First, that it is not a sufficient or a rational ground for rejecting any well authenticated truth that we are not able to free it from objections or difficulties. And, secondly, any objection against a religious doctrine is to be regarded as sufficiently answered if it can be shown to bear with equal force against an undeniable fact. If the objection is not a rational reason for denying the fact it is not a rational reason for rejecting the doctrine. This is the method which the sacred writers adopt in vindicating truth.

It will be seen that almost all the objections against the doctrine of original sin are in conflict with one or the other of the principles just mentioned. Either they are addressed not to the evidences of the truth of the doctrine whether derived from Scripture or from experience, but to the difficulty of reconciling it with other truths; or these objections are insisted upon as fatal to the doctrine when they obviously are as valid against the facts of providence as they are against the teachings of Scripture.

The Objection that Men are Responsible only for their Voluntary Acts.

1. The most obvious objection to the doctrine of original sin is rounded on the assumption that nothing can have moral character except voluntary acts and the states of mind resulting from or produced by our voluntary agency, and which are subject to the power of the will. This objection rests on a principle which has already been considered. It reaches very far. If it be sound, then there can be no such thing as concreated holiness, or habitual grace, or innate, inherent, or indwelling sin. But we have already seen, when treating of the nature of sin, that according to the Scriptures, the testimony of consciousness, and the universal judgment of men) the moral character of dispositions depends on their nature and not on their origin. Adam was holy, although so created. Saints are holy, although regenerated and sanctified by the almighty power of God. And therefore the soul is truly sinful if the subject of sinful dispositions, although those dispositions should be innate and entirely beyond the control of the will. Here it will be seen that the objection is not against the Scriptural evidence of the doctrine that men are born in sin, nor against the testimony of facts to the truth of that doctrine; but it is founded on the difficulty of reconciling the doctrine of innate sin with certain assumed principles as to the nature and grounds of moral obligation. Whether we can refute those principles or not, does not affect the truth of the doctrine. We might as well deny all prophecy and all providence, because we cannot reconcile the absolute control of free agents with their liberty. If the assumed moral axiom that a man can be responsible only for his own acts, conflicts with the facts of experience and the teachings of Scriptures, the rational course is to deny the pretended axiom, and not to reject the facts with which it is in conflict. The Bible, the Church, the mass of mankind, and the conscience, hold a man responsible for his character, no matter how that character was formed or whence it was derived; and, therefore, the doctrine of original sin is not in conflict with intuitive moral truths.

Objection Founded on the Justice of God.

2. It is objected that it is inconsistent with the justice of God that men should come into the world in a state of sin. In answer to this objection it may be remarked, (1.) That whatever God does must be right. If He permits men to be born in sin, that fact must be consistent with his divine perfection. (2.) It is a fact of experience no less than a doctrine of Scripture that men are either, as the Church teaches, born in a state of sin and condemnation, or, as all men must admit, in a state which inevitably leads to their becoming sinful and miserable. The objection, therefore, bears against a providential fact as much as against a Scriptural doctrine. We must either deny God or admit that the existence and universality of sin among men is compatible with his nature and with his government of the world. (3.) The Bible, as often before remarked, accounts for and vindicates the corruption of our race on the ground that mankind had a full and fair probation in Adam, and that the spiritual death in which they are born is part of the judicial penalty of his transgression. If we reject this solution of the fact, we cannot deny the fact itself, and, being a fact, it must be consistent with the character of God.

The Doctrine represents God as the Author of Sin.

3. A third objection often and confidently urged is, that the Church doctrine on this subject makes God the author of sin. God is the author of our nature, If our nature be sinful, God must be the author of sin. The obvious fallacy of this syllogism is, that the word nature is used in one sense in the major proposition, and in a different sense in the minor. In the one it means substance or essence; in the other, natural disposition. It is true that God is the author of our essence. But our essence is not sinful. God is indeed our Creator. He made us, and not we ourselves. We are the work of his hands. He is the Father of the spirits of all men. But He is not the author of the evil dispositions with which that nature is infected at birth. The doctrine of original sin attributes no efficiency to God in the production of evil. It simply supposes that He judicially abandons our apostate race, and withholds from the descendants of Adam the manifestations of his favour and love, which are the life of the soul. That the inevitable consequence of this judicial abandonment is spiritual death, no more makes God the author of sin, than the immorality and desperate and unchanging wickedness of the reprobate, from whom God withholds his Spirit, are to be referred to the infinitely Holy One as their author. It is moreover a historical fact universally admitted, that character, within certain limits, is transmissible from parents to children. Every nation, separate tribe, and even every extended family of men, has its physical, mental, social, and moral peculiarities which are propagated from generation to generation. No process of discipline or culture can transmute a Tartar into an Englishman, or an Irishman into a Frenchman. The Bourbons, the Hapsburgs, and other historical families, have retained and transmitted their peculiarities for ages. We may be unable to explain thus, but we cannot deny it. No one is born an absolute man, with nothing but generic humanity belonging to him. Everyone is born a man in a definite state, with all those characteristics physical, mental, and moral, which make up his individuality. There is nothing therefore in the doctrine of hereditary depravity out of analogy with providential facts.

It is said to destroy the Free Agency of Men.

4. It is further objected to this doctrine that it destroys the free agency of man. If we are born with a corrupt nature by which we are inevitably determined to sinful acts, we cease to be free in performing those acts, and consequently are not responsible for them. This objection is founded on a particular theory of liberty, and must stand or fall with it. The same objection is urged against the doctrines of decrees, of efficacious grace, of the perseverance of the saints, and all other doctrines which assume that a free act can be absolutely certain as to its occurrence. It is enough here to remark that the doctrine of original sin supposes men to have the same kind and degree of liberty in sinning under the influence of a corrupt nature, that saints and angels have in acting rightly under the influence of a holy nature. To act according to its nature is the only liberty which belongs to any created being. __________________________________________________________________

[229] I. ii. 1; Hase, Libre Symbolici, p. 9.
[230] III. i. 3; Ibid. p. 317.

[231] I. 10. 11; Ibid. p. 640, the second of that number.

[232] I. 5; Ibid. p. 640, the first of that number.

[233] VIII.; Niemeyer, Collectio Confessionum, p. 477.

[234] XI.; Ibid. p. 332.
[235] IX.; Niemeyer, p. 603.
[236] XV.; Ibid. p. 370.
[237] VII.; Ibid. p. 431.
[238] I. 33; Hase, p. 645.
[239] Chapter VI. §§ 2-5.
[240] See above, pp. 178, 179.

[241] Der Brief Pauli an die Epheser. Leipzig, 1834, p. 88. __________________________________________________________________

§ 14. The Seat of Original Sin.

Having considered the nature of original sin, the next question concerns its seat. According to one theory it is in the body. The only evil effect of Adam's sin upon his posterity, which some theologians admit, is the disorder of his physical nature, whereby undue influence is secured to bodily appetites and passions. Scarcely distinguishable from this theory is the doctrine that the sensuous nature of man, as distinguished from the reason and conscience, is alone affected by our hereditary depravity. A third doctrine is, that the heart, considered as the seat of the affections as distinguished from the understanding, is the seat of natural depravity. This doctrine is connected with the idea that all sin and holiness are forms of feeling or states of the affections. And it is made the ground on which the nature of regeneration and conversion, the relation between repentance and faith, and other points of practical theology are explained. Everything is made to depend on the inclinations or state of the feelings. Instead of the affections following the understanding, the understanding it is said, follows the affections. A man understands and receives the truth only when he loves it. Regeneration is simply a change in time state of the affections, and the only inability under which sinners labour as to the things of God, is disinclination. In opposition to all these doctrines Augustinianism, as held by the Lutheran and Reformed Churches, teaches that the whole man, soul and body, the higher as well as the lower, the intellectual as well as the emotional faculties of the soul, is affected by the corruption of our nature derived from our first parents.

As the Scriptures speak of the body being sanctified in two senses, first, as being consecrated to the service of God; and secondly, as being in a normal condition in all its relations to our spiritual nature, so as to be a fit instrument unto righteousness; and also as a partaker of the benefits of redemption; so also they represent the body as affected by the apostasy of our race. It is not only employed in the service of sin or as an instrument to unrighteousness; but it is in every respect deteriorated. It is inordinate in its cravings, rebellious, and hard to restrain. It is as the Apostle says, the opposite of the glorious, spiritual body with which the believer is hereafter to be invested.

The Whole Soul the Seat of Original Sin.

The theory that the affections (or, the heart in the limited sense of that word), to the exclusion of the rational faculties, are alone affected by original sin, is unscriptural, and the opposite doctrine which makes the whole soul the subject of inherent corruption, is the doctrine of the Bible, as appears, --

1. Because the Scriptures do not make the broad distinction between the understanding and the heart, which is commonly made in our philosophy. They speak of "the thoughts of the heart," of "the intents of the heart," and of "the eyes of the heart," as well as of its emotions and affections. The whole immaterial principle is in the Bible designated as the soul, the spirit, the mind, the heart. And therefore when it speaks of the heart, it means the man, the self, that in which personal individuality resides. If the heart be corrupt the whole soul in all its powers is corrupt.

2. The opposite doctrine assumes that there is nothing moral in our cognitions or judgments; that all knowledge is purely speculative. Whereas, according to the Scripture the chief sins of men consist in their wrong judgments, in thinking and believing evil to be good, and good to be evil. This in its highest form, as our Lord teaches us, is the unpardonable sin, or blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. It was because the Pharisees thought that Christ was evil, that his works were the works of Satan, that He declared that they could never be forgiven. It was because Paul could see no beauty in Christ that he should desire Him, and because he verily thought he was doing God service in persecuting believers, that he was, and declared himself to be, the chief of sinners. It is, as the Bible clearly reveals, because men are ignorant of God, and blind to the manifestation of his glory in the person of his Son, that they are lost. On the other hand the highest form of moral excellence consists in knowledge. To know God is eternal life. To know Christ is to be like Christ. The world, He says, hath not known me, but these (believers) have known me. True religion consists in the knowledge of the Lord, and its universal prevalence among men is predicted by saying, "All shall know Him from the least unto the greatest." Throughout the Scriptures wisdom is piety, the wise are the good; folly is sin, and the foolish are the wicked. Nothing can be more repugnant to the philosophy of the Bible than the dissociation of moral character from knowledge; and nothing can be more at variance with our own consciousness. We know that every affection in a rational creature includes an exercise of the cognitive faculties; and every exercise of our cognitive faculties, in relation to moral and religious subjects, includes the exercise of our moral nature.

3. A third argument on this subject is drawn from the fact that the Bible represents the natural or unrenewed man as blind or ignorant as to the things of the Spirit. It declares that he cannot know them. And the fallen condition of human nature is represented as consisting primarily in this mental blindness. Men are corrupt, says the Apostle, through the ignorance that is in them.

4. Conversion is said to consist in a translation from darkness to light. God is said to open the eyes. The eyes of the understanding (or heart) are said to be enlightened. All believers are declared to be the subjects of a spiritual illumination. Paul describes his own conversion by saying that, "God revealed his Son in him." He opened his eyes to enable him to see that Jesus was the Son of God, or God manifest in the flesh. He thereby became a new creature, and his whole life was thenceforth devoted to the service of Him, whom before he hated and persecuted.

5. Knowledge is said to be the effect of regeneration. Men are renewed so as to know. They are brought to the knowledge of the truth; and they are sanctified by the truth. From all these considerations it is evident that the whole man is the subject of original sin; that our cognitive, as well as our emotional nature is involved in the depravity consequent on our apostasy from God that in knowing as well as in loving or in willing, we are under the influence and dominion of sin. __________________________________________________________________

§ 15. Inability.

The third great point included in the Scriptural doctrine of original sin, is the inability of fallen man in his natural state, of himself to do anything spiritually good. This is necessarily included in the idea of spiritual death. On this subject it is proposed: (1.) To state the doctrine as presented in the symbols of the Protestant churches. (2.) To explain the nature of the inability under which the sinner is said to labour. (3.) To exhibit the Scriptural proofs of the doctrine; and (4.) To answer the objections usually urged against it.

The Doctrine as stated in Protestant Symbols.

There have been three general views as to the ability of fallen man, which have prevailed in the Church. The first, the Pelagian doctrine, which asserts the plenary ability of sinners to do all that God requires of them. The second is the Semi-Pelagian doctrine (taking the word Semi-Pelagian in its wide and popular sense), which admits the powers of man to have been weakened by the fall of the race, but denies that he lost all ability to perform what is spiritually good. And thirdly, the Augustinian or Protestant doctrine which teaches that such is the nature of inherent, hereditary depravity that men since the fall are utterly unable to turn themselves unto God, or to do anything truly good in his sight. With these three views of the ability of fallen men are connected corresponding views of grace, or the influence and operations of the Holy Spirit in man's regeneration and conversion. Pelagians deny the necessity of any supernatural influence of the Spirit in the regeneration and sanctification of men. Semi-Pelagians admit the necessity of such divine influence to assist the enfeebled powers of man in the work of turning unto God, but claim that the sinner coöperates in that work and that upon his voluntary coöperation the issue depends. Augustinians and Protestants ascribe the whole work of regeneration to the Spirit of God, the soul being passive therein, the subject, and not the agent of the change; although active and coöperating in all the exercises of the divine life of which it has been made the recipient.

The doctrine of the sinner's inability is thus stated in the symbols of the Lutheran Church. The "Augsburg Confession" [242] says: "Humana voluntas habet aliquam libertatem ad efficiendam civilem justitiam et deligendas res rationi subjectas. Sed non habet vim sine Spiritu Sancto efficiendæ justitiæ Dei, seu justitiæ spiritualis, quia animalis homo non percepit ea quæ sunt Spiritus Dei (1 Cor. ii. 14); sed hæc fit in cordibus, cum per verbum Spiritus Sanctus concipitur. Hæc totidem verbis dicit Augustinus; [243] est, fatemur, liberum arbitrium omnibus hominibus; habens quidem judicium rationis, non per quod sit idoneum, quæ ad Deum pertinent, sine Deo aut inchoare aut certe peragere: sed tantum in operibus vitæ presentis, tam bonis, quam etiam malis."

"Formula Concordiæ:" [244] "Etsi humana ratio seu naturalis intellectus hominis, obscuram aliquam notitiæ illius scintillulam reliquam habet, quod sit Deus, et particulam aliquam legis tenet: tamen adeo ignorans, coeca, et perversa est ratio illa, ut ingeniosissimi homines in hoc mundo evangelium de Filio Dei et promissiones divinas de æterna salute legant vel audiant, tamen ea propriis viribus percipere, intelligere, credere et vera esse, statuere nequeant. Quin potius quanto diligentius in ea re elaborant, ut spirituales res istas suæ rationis acumine indagent et comprehendant, tanto minus intelligunt et credunt, et ea omnia pro stultitia et meris nugis et fabulis habent, priusquam a Spiritu Sancto illuminentur et doceantur." Again, [245] "Natura corrupta viribus suis coram Deo nihil aliud, nisi peccare possit."

"Sacræ literæ hominis non renati cor duro lapidi, qui ad tactum non cedat, sed resistat, idem rudi trunco, interdum etiam feræ in domitæ comparant, non quod homo post lapsum non amplius sit rationalis creatura, aut quod absque auditu et meditatione verbi divini ad Deum convertatur, aut quod in rebus externis et civilibus nihil boni aut mali intelligere possit, aut libere aliquid agere vel omittere queat."
[246]

"Antequam homo per Spiritum Sanctum illuminatur, convertitur, regeneratur et trahitur, ex sese, et propriis naturalibus suis viribus in rebus spiritualibus, et ad conversionem aut regenerationem suam nihil inchoare, operari, aut coöperari potest, nec plus, quam lapis, truncus, aut limus." [247]

The doctrine of the Reformed churches is to the same effect. [248] "Confessio Helvetica II.:" "Non sublatus est quidem homini intellectus, non erepta ei voluntas, et prorsus in lapidem vel truncum est commutatus: cæterum illa ita sunt immutata et inminuta in homine, ut non possint amplius, quod potuerunt ante lapsum. Intellectus enim obscuratus est: voluntas vero ex libera, facta est voluntas serva. Nam servit peccato, non nolens, sed volens. Etenim voluntas, non noluntas dicitur. . . . .

"Quantum vero ad bonum et ad virtutes, intellectus hominis, non recte judicat de divinis ex semetipso. . . . Constat vero mentem vel intellectum ducem esse voluntatis, cum autem coecus sit dux, claret quousque et voluntas pertingat. Proinde nullum est ad bonum homini arbitrium liberum, nondum renato; vires nullæ ad perficiendum bonum. . . . . [249] Cæterum nemo negat in externis, et regenitos et non regenitos habere liberum arbitrium. . . . . Damnamus in hac causa Manichæos, qui negant homini bono, ex libero arbitrio fuisse initium mali. Damnamus etiam Pelagianos, qui dicunt hominem malum sufficienter habere liberum arbitrium, ad faciendum præceptum bonum."

"Confessio Gallicana:" "Etsi enim nonnullam habet boni et mali discretionem: affirmamus tamen quicquid habet lucis mox fieri tenebras, cum de quærendo Deo agitur, adeo ut sua intelligentia et ratione nullo modo possit ad eum accedere: item quamvis voluntate sit præditus, qua ad hoc vel illud movetur, tamen quum ea sit penitus sub peccato captiva, nullam prorsus habet ad bonum appetendum libertatem, nisi quam ex gratia et Dei dono acceperit." [250]

"Articuli XXXIX:" "Ea est hominis post lapsum Adæ conditio, ut sese naturalibus suis viribus et bonis operibus ad fidem et invocationem Dei convertere ac præparare non possit. Quare absque gratia Dei quæ per Christum est nos præveniente, ut velimus et cooperante dum volumus, ad pietatis opera facienda, quæ Deo grata sunt ac accepta, nihil valemus."
[251]

"Opera quæ fiunt ante gratiam Christi, et Spiritus ejus afflatum, cum ex fide Christi non prodeant minime Deo grata sunt. . . . . Immo, cum non sint facta ut Deus illa fieri voluit et præcepit, peccati rationem habere non dubitamus." [252]

"Canones Dordrechtanæ," [253] "Omnes homines in peccato concipiuntur, et filii iræ nascuntur, inepti ad omne bonum salutare, propensi ad malum, in peccatis mortui, et peccati servi; et absque Spiritus Sancti regenerantis gratia, ad Deum redire, naturam depravatam corrigere, vel ad ejus correctionem se disponere nec volunt, nec possunt."

"Residuum quidem est post lapsum in homine lumen aliquod naturæ, cujus beneficio ille notitias quasdam de Deo, de rebus naturalibus, de discrimine honestorum et turpium retinet, et aliquod virtutis ac disciplinæ externæ studium ostendit: sed tantum abest, ut hoc naturæ lumine ad salutarem Dei cognitionem pervenire, et ad eum se convertere possit, ut ne quidem eo in naturalibus ac civilibus recte utatur, quinimo qualecumque id demum sit, id totum variis modis contaminet atque in injustitia detineat, quod dum facit, coram Deo inexcusabilis redditur." [254]

"Westminster Confession." [255] Original sin is declared in sections second and third to include the loss of original righteousness, and a corrupted nature; "whereby," in section fourth, it is declared, "we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil."

"Their (believers') ability to do good works is not at all of themselves, but wholly from the Spirit of Christ." [256]

Effectual calling "is of God's free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man, who is altogether passive therein, until, being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit, he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it." [257]

The Nature of the Sinner's Inability.

It appears from the authoritative statements of this doctrine, as given in the standards of the Lutheran and Reformed churches, that the inability under which man, since the fall, is said to labour, does not arise: --

Inability does not arise from the Loss of any Faculty of the Soul.

1. From the loss of any faculty of his mind or of any original, essential attribute of his nature. He retains his reason, will, and conscience. He has the intellectual power of cognition, the power of self-determination, and the faculty of discerning between moral good and evil. His conscience, as the Apostle says, approves or disapproves of his moral acts.

Nor from the Loss of Free-agency.

2 The doctrine of man's inability, therefore, does not assume that man has ceased to be a free moral agent. He is free because he determines his own acts. Every volition is an act of free self-determination. He is a moral agent because he has the consciousness of moral obligation, and whenever he sins he acts freely against the convictions of conscience or the precepts of the moral law. That a man is in such a state that he uniformly prefers and chooses evil instead of good, as do the fallen angels, is no more inconsistent with his free moral agency than his being in such a state as that he prefers and chooses good with the same uniformity that the holy angels do.

Inability not mere Disinclination.

3. The inability of sinners, according to the above statement of the doctrine, is not mere disinclination or aversion to what is good. This disinclination exists, but it is not the ultimate fact. There must be some cause or reason for it. As God and Christ are infinitely lovely, the fact that sinners do not love them is not accounted for by saying that they are not inclined to delight in infinite excellence. That is only stating the same thing in different words. If a man does not perceive the beauty of a work of art, or of a literary production, it is no solution of the fact to say that he has no inclination for such forms of beauty. Why is it that what is beautiful in itself, and in the judgment of all competent judges, is without form or comeliness in his eyes? Why is it that the supreme excellence of God, and all that makes Christ the chief among ten thousand and the one altogether lovely in the sight of saints and angels, awaken no corresponding feelings in the unrenewed heart? The inability of the sinner, therefore, neither consists in his disinclination to good nor does it arise exclusively from that source.

It Arises from the Want of Spiritual Discernment.

4. According to the Scriptures and to the standards of doctrine above quoted, it consists in the want of power rightly to discern spiritual things, and the consequent want of all right affections toward them. And this want of power of spiritual discernment arises from the corruption of our whole nature, by which the reason or understanding is blinded, and the taste and feelings are perverted. And as this state of mind is innate, as it is a state or condition of our nature, it lies below the will, and is beyond its power, controlling both our affections and our volitions. It is indeed a familiar fact of experience that a man's judgments as to what is true or false, right or wrong, are in many cases determined by his interests or feelings. Some have, in their philosophy, generalized this fact into a law, and teach that as to all æsthetic and moral subjects the judgments and apprehensions of the understanding are determined by the state of the feelings. In applying this law to the matters of religion they insist that the affections only are the subject of moral corruption, and that if these be purified or renewed, the understanding then apprehends and judges rightly as a matter of course. It would be easy to show that this, as a philosophical theory, is altogether unsatisfactory. The affections suppose an object. They can be excited only in view of an object. If we love we must love something. Love is complacency and delight in the thing loved, and of necessity supposes the apprehension of it as good and desirable. It is clearly impossible that we should love God unless we apprehend his nature and perfections; and therefore to call love into exercise it is necessary that the mind should apprehend God as He really is. Otherwise the affection would be neither rational nor holy. This, however, is of subordinate moment. The philosophy of one man has no authority for other men. It is only the philosophy of the Bible, that which is assumed or presupposed in the doctrinal statements of the Word of God, to which we are called upon unhesitatingly to submit. Everywhere in the Scriptures it is asserted or assumed that the feelings follow the understanding, that the illumination of the mind in the due apprehension of spiritual objects is the necessary preliminary condition of all right feeling and conduct. We must know God in order to love Him. This is distinctly asserted by the Apostle in 1 Cor. ii. 14. He there says, (1.) That the natural or unrenewed man does not receive the things of the Spirit. (2.) The reason why he does not receive them is declared to be that they are foolishness unto him, or that he cannot know them. (3.) And the reason why he cannot know them is that they are spiritually discerned. It is ignorance, the want of discernment of the beauty, excellence, and suitableness of the things of the Spirit (i.e., of the truths which the Spirit has revealed), that is the reason or cause of unbelief. So also in Eph. iv. 18, he says, The heathen (unconverted men) are "alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them." Hence his frequent prayers for the illumination of his readers; and the supplication of the Psalmist that his eyes might be opened. Hence, also, true conversion is said to be effected by a revelation. Paul was instantaneously changed from a persecutor to a worshipper of Christ, when it pleased God to reveal his Son in him. Those who perish are lost because the god of this world has blinded their eyes so that they fail to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. It is in accordance with this principle that knowledge is essential to holiness, that true religion and life everlasting are said to consist in the knowledge of God (John xvii. 3); and that men are said to be saved and sanctified by the truth. It is therefore the clear doctrine of the Bible that the inability of men does not consist in mere disinclination or opposition of feeling to the things of God, but that this disinclination or alienation, as the Apostle calls it, arises from the blindness of their minds. We are not, however, to go to the opposite extreme, and adopt what has been called the "light system," which teaches that men are regenerated by light or knowledge, and that all that is needed is that the eyes of the understanding should be opened. As the whole soul is the subject of original sin the whole soul is the subject of regeneration. A blind man cannot possibly rejoice in the beauties of nature or art until his sight is restored. But, if uncultivated, the mere restoration of sight will not give him the perception of beauty. His whole nature must be refined and elevated. So also the whole nature of apostate man must be renewed by the Holy Ghost; then his eyes being opened to the glory of God in Christ, he will rejoice in Him with joy unspeakable and full of glory. But the illumination of the mind is indispensable to holy feelings, and is their proximate cause. This being the doctrine of the Bible, it follows that the sinner's disability does not consist in mere disinclination to holiness.

Inability Asserted only in Reference to the "Things of the Spirit."

5. This inability is asserted only in reference to "the things of the Spirit." It is admitted in all the Confessions above quoted that man since the fall has not only the liberty of choice of self-determination, but also is able to perform moral acts, good as well as evil. He can be kind and just, and fulfil his social duties in a mariner to secure the approbation of his fellow-men. It is not meant that the state of mind in which these acts are performed, or the motives by which they are determined, are such as to meet the approbation of an infinitely holy God; but simply that these acts, as to the matter of them, are prescribed by the moral law. Theologians, as we have seen, designate the class of acts as to which fallen man retains his ability as "justitia civilis," or "things external." And the class as to which his inability is asserted is designated as "the things of God," "the things of the Spirit," "things connected with salvation." The difference between these two classes of acts, although it may not be easy to state it in words, as universally recognized. There is an obvious difference between morality and religion; and between those religious affections of reverence and gratitude which all men more or less experience, and true piety. The difference lies in the state of mind, the motives, and the apprehension of the objects of these affections. It is the difference between holiness and mere natural feeling. What the Bible and all the Confessions of the churches of the Reformation assert is, that man, since the fall, cannot change his own heart he cannot regenerate his soul; he cannot repent with godly sorrow, or exercise that faith which is unto salvation. He cannot, in short, put forth any holy exercise or perform any act in such a way as to merit the approbation of God. Sin cleaves to all he does, and from the dominion of sin he cannot free himself.

In one Sense this Inability is Natural.

6. This inability is natural in one familiar and important sense of the word. It is not natural in the same sense that reason, will, and conscience are natural. These constitute our nature, and without them or any one of them, we should cease to be men. In the second place, it is not natural as arising from the necessary limitations of our nature and belonging to our original and normal condition. It arises out of the nature of man as a creature that he cannot create, and cannot produce any effect out of himself by a mere volition. Adam in the state of perfection could not will a stone to move, or a plant to grow. It is obvious that an inability arising from either of the sources above mentioned, i.e., from the want of any of the essential faculties of our nature, or from the original and normal limitations of our being, involves freedom from obligation. In this sense nothing is more true than that ability limits obligation. No creature can justly be required to do what surpasses his powers as a creature.

On the other hand, although the inability of sinners is not natural in either of the senses above stated, it is natural in the sense that it arises out of the present state of his nature. It is natural in the same sense as selfishness, pride, and worldly mindedness are natural. It is not acquired, or super-induced by any ab extra influence, but flows from the condition in which human nature exists since the fall of Adam.

In another Sense it is Moral.

7. This inability, although natural in the sense just stated, is nevertheless moral, inasmuch as it arises out of the moral state of the soul, as it relates to moral action, and as it is removed by a moral change, that is, by regeneration.

Objections to the Popular Distinction between Natural and Moral Ability.

In this country much stress has been laid upon the distinction between moral and natural ability. It has been regarded as one of the great American improvements in theology, and as marking an important advance in the science. It is asserted that man since the fall has natural ability to do all that is required of him, and on this ground his responsibility is made to rest; but it is admitted that he is morally unable to turn unto God, or perfectly keep his commandments. By this distinction, it is thought, we may save the great principle that ability limits obligation, that a man cannot be bound to do what he cannot do, and at the same time hold fast the Scriptural doctrine which teaches that the sinner cannot of himself repent or change his own heart. With regard to this distinction as it is commonly and popularly presented, it may be remarked: --

1. That the terms natural and moral are not antithetical. A thing may be at once natural and moral. The inability of the sinner, as above remarked, although moral, is in a most important sense natural. And, therefore, it is erroneous to say, that it is simply moral and not natural.

2. The terms are objectionable not only because they lack precision, but also because they are ambiguous. One man means by natural ability nothing more than the possession of the attributes of reason, will, and conscience. Another means plenary power, all that is requisite to produce a given effect. And this is the proper meaning of the words. Ability is the power to do. If a man has the natural ability to love God, he has full power to love Him. And if He has the power to love Him, he has all that is requisite to call that love into exercise. As this is the proper meaning of the terms, it is the meaning commonly attached to them. Those who insist on the natural ability of the sinner, generally assert that he has full power, without divine assistance, to do all that is required of him: to love God with all his soul and mind and strength, and his neighbour as himself. All that stands in the way of his thus doing is not an inability, but simply disinclination, or the want of will. An ability which is not adequate to the end contemplated, is no ability. It is therefore a serious objection to the use of this distinction, as commonly made, that it involves a great error. It asserts that the sinner is able to do what in fact he cannot do.

3. It is a further objection to this mode of stating the doctrine that it tends to embarrass or to deceive. It must embarrass the people to be told that they can and cannot repent and believe. One or the other of the two propositions, in the ordinary and proper sense of the terms, must be false. And and esoteric or metaphysical sense in which the theologian may attempt to reconcile them, the people will neither appreciate nor respect. It is a much more serious objection that it tends to deceive men to tell them that they can change their own hearts, can repent, and can believe. This is not true, and every man's consciousness tells him that it is untrue. It is of no avail for the preacher to say that all he means by ability is that men have all the faculties of rational beings, and that those are the only faculties to be exercised in turning to God or in doing his will. We might as reasonably tell an uneducated man that he can understand and appreciate the Iliad, because he has all the faculties which the scholar possesses. Still less does it avail to say that the only difficulty is in the will. And therefore when we say that men can love God, we mean that they can love Him if they will. If the word will, be here taken in its ordinary sense for the power of self-determination, the proposition that a man can love God if he will, is not true; for it is notorious that the affections are not under the power of the will. If the word be taken in a wide sense as including the affections, the proposition is a truism. It amounts to saying, that we can love God if we do love Him.

4. The distinction between natural and moral ability, as commonly made, is unscriptural. It has already been admitted that there is an obvious and very important distinction between an inability arising out of the limitations of our being as creatures, and an inability arising out of the apostate state of our nature since the Fall of Adam. But this is not what is commonly meant by those who assert the natural ability of men to do all that God requires of them. They mean and expressly assert that man, as his nature now is, is perfectly able to change his own heart, to repent and lead a holy life; that the only difficulty in the way of his so doing is the want of inclination, controllable by his own power. It is this representation which is unscriptural. The Scriptures never thus address fallen men and assure them of their ability to deliver themselves from the power of sin.

5. The whole tendency and effect of this mode of statement are injurious and dangerous. If a sinner must be convinced of his guilt before he can trust in the righteousness of Christ for his justification, he must be convinced of his helplessness before he can look to God for deliverance. Those who are made to believe that they can save themselves, are, in the divine administration, commonly left to their own resources.

In opposition therefore to the Pelagian doctrine of the sinner's plenary ability, to the Semi-Pelagian or Arminian doctrine of what is called "a gracious ability," that is, an ability granted to all who hear the gospel by the common and sufficient grace of the Holy Spirit, and to the doctrine that the only inability of the sinner is his disinclination to good, Augustinians have ever taught that this inability is absolute and entire. It is natural as well as moral. It is as complete, although different in kind, as the inability of the blind to see, of the deaf to hear, or of the dead to restore themselves to life.

Proof of the Doctrine.

1. The first and most obvious argument in support of the Augustinian or Orthodox argument on this subject is the negative one. That is, the fact that the Scriptures nowhere attribute to fallen men ability to change their own hearts or to turn themselves unto God. As their salvation depends on their regeneration, if that work was within the compass of their own powers, it is incredible that the Bible should never rest the obligation of effecting it upon the sinner's ability. If he had the power to regenerate himself, we should expect to find the Scriptures affirming his possession of this ability, and calling upon him to exercise it. It may indeed be said that the very command to repent and believe implies the possession of everything that is requisite to obedience to the command. It does imply that those to whom it is addressed are rational creatures, capable of moral obligation, and that they are free moral agents. It implies nothing more. The command is nothing more than the authoritative declaration of what is obligatory upon those to whom it is addressed. We are required to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. The obligation is imperative and constant. Yet no sane man can assert his own ability to make himself thus perfect. Notwithstanding therefore the repeated commands given in the Bible to sinners to love God with all the heart, to repent and believe the gospel, and live without sin, it remains true that the Scriptures nowhere assert or recognize the ability of fallen man to fulfil these requisitions of duty.

Express Declarations of the Scriptures.

2. Besides this negative testimony of the Scriptures, we have the repeated and explicit declarations of the Word of God on this subject. Our Lord compares the relation between himself and his people to that which exists between the vine and its branches. The point of analogy is the absolute dependence common to both relations. "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me Without me ye can do nothing." (John xv. 4, 5.) We are here taught that Christ is the only source of spiritual life; that those out of Him are destitute of that life and of all ability to produce its appropriate fruits; and even with regard to those who are in Him, this ability is not of themselves, it is derived entirely from Him. In like manner the Apostle asserts his insufficiency (or inability) to do anything of himself. Our "sufficiency," he says, "is of God." (2 Cor. iii. 5.) Christ tells the Jews (John vi. 44), "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him." This is not weakened or explained away by his saying in another place, "Ye will not come to me that ye might have life." The penitent and believing soul comes to Christ willingly. He wills to come. But this does not imply that he can of himself produce that willingness. The sinner wills not to come; but that does not prove that coming is in the power of his will. He cannot have the will to come to the saving of his soul unless he has a true sense of sin, and a proper apprehension of the person, the character and the work of Christ, and right affections towards Him. How is he to get these? Are all these complex states of mind, this knowledge, these apprehensions, and these affections subject to the imperative power of the will? In Rom. viii. 7, the Apostle says, "The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." Those who are "in the flesh, are distinguished from those who are "in the Spirit." The former are the unrenewed, men who are in a state of nature, and of them it is affirmed that they cannot please God. Faith is declared to be the gift of God, and yet without faith, we are told it is impossible that we should please God. (Heb. xi. 6.) In 1 Cor. ii. 14, it is said, "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." The natural man is distinguished from the spiritual man. The latter is one in whom the Holy Spirit is the principle of life and activity, or, who is under the control of the Spirit, the former is one who is under the control of his own fallen nature, in whom there is no principle of life and action but what belongs to him as a fallen creature. Of such a man the Apostle asserts, first, that he does not receive the things of the Spirit, that is, the truths which the Spirit has revealed; secondly, that they are foolishness to him; thirdly, that he cannot know them; and fourthly, that the reason of this inability is the want of spiritual discernment, that is, of that apprehension of the nature and truth of divine things which is due to the inward teaching or illumination of the Holy Ghost. This passage therefore not only asserts the fact of the sinner's inability, but teaches the ground or source of it. It is no mere aversion or disinclination, but the want of true knowledge. No man can see the beauty of a work of art without æsthetic discernment; and no man, according to the Apostle, can see the truth and beauty of spiritual things without spiritual discernment. Such is the constant representation of Scripture. Men are everywhere spoken of and regarded not only as guilty and polluted, but also as helpless.

Involved in the Doctrine of Original Sin.

3. The doctrine of the sinner's inability is involved in the Scriptural doctrine of original sin. By the apostasy of man from God he not only lost the divine image and favour, but sunk into a state of spiritual death. The Bible and reason alike teach that God is the life of the soul; his favour, and communion with Hun, are essential not only to happiness but also to holiness. Those who are under his wrath and curse and are banished from his presence, are in outer darkness. They have no true knowledge, no desire after fellowship with a Being who to them is a consuming fire. To the Apostle it appears as the greatest absurdity and impossibility that a soul out of favour with God should be holy. This is the fundamental idea of his doctrine of sanctification. Those who are under the law are under the curse, and those who are under the curse are absolutely ruined. It is essential, therefore, to holiness that we should be delivered from the law and restored to the favour of God before any exercise of love or any act of true obedience can he performed or experienced on our part. We are free from sin only because we are not under the law, put under grace. The whole of the sixth and seventh chapters of the Epistle to the Romans is devoted to the development of this principle. To the Apostle the doctrine that the sinner has ability of himself to return to God, to restore to his soul the image of God, and live a holy life, must have appeared as thorough a rejection of his theory of salvation as the doctrine that we are justified by works. His whole system is founded on the two principles that, being guilty, we are condemned, and can be justified only on the ground of the righteousness of Christ; and, being spiritually dead, no objective presentation of the truth, no authoritative declarations of the law, no effort of our own can originate spiritual life, or call forth any spiritual exercise. Being justified freely and restored to the divine favour, we are then, and only then, able to bring forth fruit unto God. "Ye are become dead to the law by the body of Christ: that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members, to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." (Rom. vii. 4-6.) This view of the matter necessarily implies that the natural state of fallen men is one of entire helplessness and inability. They are "utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good." The Bible, therefore, as we have already seen, uniformly represents men in their natural state since the fall as blind, deaf, and spiritually dead; from which state they can no more deliver themselves than one born blind can open his own eyes, or one corrupting in the grave can restore himself to life.

The Necessity of the Spirit's influence.

4. The next argument on this subject is derived from what the Scriptures teach of the necessity and nature of the Spirit's influence in regeneration and sanctification. If any man will take a Greek Concordance of the New Testament, and see how often the words Pneuma and To Pneuma to hagion are used by the sacred writers, he will learn how prominent a part the Holy Spirit takes in saving men, and how hopeless is the case of those who are left to themselves. What the Scriptures clearly teach as to this point is, (1.) That the Holy Spirit is the source of spiritual life and all its exercises; that without his supernatural influence we can no more perform holy acts than a dead branch, or a branch separated from the vine can produce fruit. (2.) That in the first instance (that is, in regeneration) the soul is the subject and not the agent of the change produced. The Spirit gives life, and then excites and guides all its operations; just as in the natural world God gives sight to the blind, and then light by which to see, and objects to be seen, and guides and sustains all the exercises of the power of vision which He has bestowed. (3.) That the nature of the influence by which regeneration, which must precede all holy exercises, is produced, precludes the possibility of preparation or coöperation on the part of the sinner. Some effects are produced by natural causes, others by the simple volition or immediate efficiency of God. To this latter class belong creation, miracles, and regeneration. (4.) Hence the effect produced is called a new creature, a resurrection, a new birth. These representations are designed to teach the utter impotence and entire dependence of the sinner. Salvation is not of him that wills nor of him who runs, but of God who showeth mercy, and who works in us to will and to do according to his own good pleasure. These are all points to be more fully discussed hereafter. It is enough in this argument to say that the doctrines of the Bible concerning the absolute necessity of grace, or the supernatural influence of the Spirit, and of the nature and effects of that influence, are entirely inconsistent with the doctrine that the sinner is able of himself to perform any holy act.

The Argument from Experience.

5. This is a practical question. What a man is able to do is best determined not by à priori reasoning, or by logical deductions from the nature of his faculties, but by putting his ability to the test. The thing to be done is to turn from sin to holiness; to love God perfectly and our neighbour as ourselves; to perform every duty without defect or omission, and keep ourselves from all sin of thought, word, or deed, of heart or life. Can any man do this? Does any man need argument to convince him that he cannot do it? He knows two things as clearly and as surely as he knows his own existence: first, that he is bound to be morally perfect, to keep all God's commands, to have all right feelings in constant exercise as the occasion calls for them, and to avoid all sin in feeling as well as in act; and, secondly, that he can no more do this than he can raise the dead. The metaphysician may endeavour to prove to the people that there is no external world, that matter is thought; and the metaphysician may believe it, but the people, whose faith is determined by the instincts and divinely constituted laws of their nature, will retain their own intuitive convictions. In like manner the metaphysical theologian may tell sinners that they can regenerate themselves, can repent and believe, and love God perfectly, and the theologian may, by a figure of speech, be said to believe it but the poor sinners know that it is not true. They have tried a thousand times, and would give a thousand worlds could they accomplish the work, and make themselves saints and heirs of glory by a volition, or by the exercise of their own powers, whether transient or protracted.

It is universally admitted, because a universal fact of consciousness, that the feelings and affections are not under the control of the will. No man can love what is hateful to him, or hate what he delights in, by any exercise of his self-determining power. Hence the philosophers, with Kant, pronounce the command to love, an absurdity, as sceptics declare the command to believe, absurd. But the foolishness of men is the wisdom of God. It is right that we should be required to love God and believe his Word, whether the exercise of love and faith be under the control of our will or not. The only way by which this argument from the common consciousness of men can be evaded, is by denying that feeling has any moral character; or by assuming that the demands of the law are accommodated to the ability of the agent. If he cannot love holiness, he is not bound to love it. If he cannot believe all the gospel, he is required to believe only what he can believe, what he can see to be true in the light of his own reason. Both these assumptions, however, are contrary to the intuitive convictions of all men, and to the express declarations of the Word of God. All men know that moral character attaches to feelings as well as to purposes or volitions; that benevolence as a feeling is right and malice as a feeling is wrong. They know with equal certainty that the demands of right are immutable, that the law of God cannot lower itself to the measure of the power of fallen creatures. It demands of them nothing that exceeds the limitations of their nature as creatures; but it does require the full and constant, and therefore perfect, exercise of those powers in the service of God and in accordance with his will. And this is precisely what every fallen rational human being is fully persuaded he cannot do. The conviction of inability, therefore, is as universal and as indestructible as the belief of existence, and all the sophisms of metaphysical theologians are as impotent as the subtleties of the idealist or pantheist. Any man or set of men, any system of philosophy or of theology which attempts to stem the great stream of human consciousness is certain to be swept down into the abyss of oblivion or destruction.

Conviction of Sin.

There is another aspect of this argument which deserves to be considered. What is conviction of sin? What are the experiences of those whom the Spirit of God brings under that conviction? The answer to these questions may be drawn from the Bible, as for example time seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, from the records of the inward life of the people of God in all ages, and from every believer's own religious experience. From all these sources it may be proved that every soul truly convinced of sin is brought to feel and acknowledge, (1.) That he is guilty in the sight of God, and justly exposed to the sentence of his violated law. (2.) That he is utterly polluted and defiled by sin; that his thoughts, feelings, and acts are not what conscience or the divine law can approve; and that it is not separate, transient acts only by which he is thus polluted, but also that his heart is not right, that sin exists in him as a power or a law working in him all manner of evil. And, (3.) That he can make no atonement for his guilt, and that he cannot free himself from the power of sin; so that he is forced to cry out, O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death! This sense of utter helplessness, of absolute inability, is as much and as universally an element of genuine conviction as a sense of guilt or the consciousness of defilement. It is a great mercy that the theology of the heart is often better than the theology of the head.

6. The testimony of every man's consciousness is confirmed by the common consciousness of the Church and by the whole history of our race. Appeal may be made with all confidence to the prayers, hymns, and other devotional writings of the people of God for proof that no conviction is more deeply impressed on the hearts of all true Christians than that of their utter helplessness and entire dependence upon the grace of God. They deplore their inability to love their Redeemer, to keep themselves from sin, to live a holy life in any degree adequate to their own convictions of their obligations. Under this inability they humble themselves, they never plead it as an excuse or palliation; they recognize it as the fruit and evidence of the corruption of their nature derived as a sad inheritance from their first parents. They refer with one voice, whatever there is of good in them, not to their own ability, but to the Holy Spirit. Everyone adopts as expressing the inmost conviction of his heart, the language of the Apostle, "Not I, but the grace of God which was with me." As this is the testimony of the Church so also it is the testimony of all history. The world furnishes no example of a self-regenerated man. No such man exists or ever has existed; and no man ever believed himself to be regenerated by his own power. If what men can do is to be determined by what men have done, it may safely be assumed that no man can change his own heart, or bring himself to repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. An ability which has never in the thousands of millions of our race accomplished the desired end, even if it existed, would not be worth contending for. There is scarcely a single doctrine of the Scriptures either more clearly taught or more abundantly confirmed by the common consciousness of men, whether saints or sinners, than the doctrine that fallen man is destitute of all ability to convert himself or to perform any holy act until renewed by the almighty power of the Spirit of God.

Objections.

1. The most obvious and plausible objection to this doctrine is the old one so often considered already, namely, that it is inconsistent with moral obligation. A man, it is said, cannot be justly required to do any thing for which he has not the requisite ability. The fallacy of this objection lies in the application of this principle. It is self-evidently true in one sphere, but utterly untrue in another. It is true that the blind cannot justly be required to see, or the deaf to hear. A child cannot be required to understand the calculus, or an uneducated man to read the classics. These things belong to the sphere of nature. The inability which thus limits obligation arises out of the limitations which God has imposed on our nature. The principle in question does not apply in the sphere cf morals and religion, when the inability arises not out of the limitation, but out of the moral corruption of our nature. Even in the sphere of religion there is a bound set to obligation by the capacity of the agent. An infant cannot be expected or required to have the measure of holy affections which fills the souls of the just made perfect. It is only when inability arises from sin and is removed by the removal of sin, that it is consistent with continued obligation. And as it has been shown from Scripture that the inability of the sinner to repent and believe, to love God and to lead a holy life, does not arise from the limitation of his nature as a creature (as is the case with idiots or brutes); nor from the want of the requisite faculties or capacity, but simply from the corruption of our nature, it follows that it does not exonerate him from the obligation to be and to do all that God requires. This, as shown above, is the doctrine of the Bible and is confirmed by the universal consciousness of men, and especially by the experience of all the people of God. They with one voice deplore their helplessness and their perfect inability to live without sin, and yet acknowledge their obligation to be perfectly holy.

We are responsible for external acts, because they depend on our volitions. We are responsible for our volitions because they depend on our principles and feelings; and we are responsible for our feelings and for those states of mind which constitute character, because (within the sphere of morals and religion) they are right or wrong in their own nature. The fact that the affections and permanent and even immanent states of the mind are beyond the power of the will does not (as has been repeatedly shown in these pages), remove them out of the sphere of moral obligation. As this is attested by Scripture and by the general judgment of men, the assumed axiom that ability limits obligation in the sphere of morals cannot be admitted.

Moral obligation being founded upon the possession of the attributes of a moral agent, reason, conscience, and will, it remains unimpaired so long as these attributes remain. If reason be lost all responsibility for character or conduct ceases. If the consciousness of the difference between right and wrong, the capacity to perceive moral distinctions does not exist in a creature or does not belong to its nature, that creature is not the subject of moral obligation, and in like manner if he is not an agent, is not invested with the faculty of spontaneous activity as a personal being, he ceases, so far as his conscious states are concerned, to be responsible for what he is or does. Since the Scriptural and Augustinian doctrine admits that man since the fall retains his reason, conscience, and will, it leaves the grounds of responsibility for character and conduct unimpaired.

It does not weaken the Motives to Exertion.

2. Another popular objection to the Scriptural doctrine on this subject is, that it destroys all rational grounds on which rests the use of the means of grace. If we cannot accomplish a given end, why should we use the means for its accomplishment? So the farmer might say, If I cannot secure a harvest, why should I cultivate my fields? In every department of human activity the result depends on the coöperation of causes over which man has no control. He is expected to use the means adapted to the desired end and trust for the coöperation of other agencies without which his own efforts are of no avail. The Scriptural grounds on which we are bound to use the means of grace are, (1.) The command of God. This of itself is enough. If there were no apparent adaptation of the means to the end, and no connection which we could discover between them, the command of God would be a sufficient reason and motive for their diligent use. There was no natural adaptation in the waters of the Jordan to heal the leprosy, or in those of the pool of Siloam to restore sight to the blind. It had, however, been fatal folly on the part of Naaman to refuse on that account to obey the command to bathe himself seven times; and in the blind man to refuse to wash in the pool as Jesus directed. (2.) If the command of God is enough even when there is no apparent connection between the means and the end, much more is it enough when the means have a natural adaptation to the end. We can see such adaptation in the department of nature, and it is no less apparent in that of grace. There is an intimate connection between truth and holiness, as between sowing the grain and reaping the harvest. Man sows but God gives the increase in the one case as well as in the other. (3.) There is not only this natural adaptation of the means of grace to the end to be accomplished, but in all ordinary cases, the end is not attained otherwise than through the use of those means. Men are not saved without the truth. Those who do not seek fail to find. Those who refuse to ask do not receive. This is as much the ordinary course of the divine administration in the kingdom of grace, as in the kingdom of nature. (4.) There is not only this visible connection between the means of grace and the salvation of the soul, as a fact of experience, but the express promise of God that those who seek shall find, that those who ask shall receive, and that to those who knock it shall be opened. More than this cannot be rationally demanded. It is more than is given to the men of the world to stimulate them in their exertions to secure wealth or knowledge. The doctrine of inability, therefore, does not impair the force of any of the motives which should determine sinners to use all diligence in seeking their own salvation in the way which God has appointed.

The Doctrine does not encourage Delay.

3. Still another objection is everywhere urged against this doctrine. It is said that it encourages delay. If a man believes that he cannot change his heart, cannot repent and believe the gospel, he will say, "I must wait God's time. As He gives men a new heart, as faith and repentance are his gifts I must wait until He is pleased to bestow those gifts on me." No doubt Satan does tempt men thus to argue and thus to act, as he tempts them in other ways to egregious folly. The natural tendency of the doctrine in question, however, is directly the reverse. When a man is convinced that the attainment of a desirable end is beyond the compass of his own powers, he instinctively seeks help out of himself. If ill, if he knows he cannot cure himself, he sends for a physician. If persuaded that the disease is entirely under his own control, and especially if any metaphysician could persuade him that all illness is an idea, which can be banished by a volition, then it would be folly in him to seek aid from abroad. The blind, the deaf, the leprous, and the maimed who were on earth when Christ was present in the flesh, knew that they could not heal themselves, and therefore they went to Him for help. No more soul-destroying doctrine could well be devised than the doctrine that sinners can regenerate themselves, and repent and believe just when they please. Those who really embrace such a doctrine would never apply to the only source whence these blessings can in fact be obtained. They would be led to defer to the last moment of life a work which was entirely in their own hands and which could be accomplished in a moment. A miser on his death-bed may by a volition give away all his wealth. If a sinner could as easily change his own heart, he would be apt to cleave to the world as the miser to his wealth, till the last moment. All truth tends to godliness; all error to sin and death. As it is a truth both of Scripture and of experience that the unrenewed man can do nothing of himself to secure his salvation, it is essential that he should be brought to a practical conviction of that truth. When thus convinced, and not before, he seeks help from the only source whence it can be obtained. __________________________________________________________________

[242] I. xviii.; Hase, Libri Symbolici, pp. 14, 15.

[243] Hypomnesticon, seu Hypognosticon, lib. III. iv. 5; Works, edit. Benedictines, vol. x. p. 2209, a.

[244] II. 9; Hase, p. 657.
[245] I. 25; Ibid. p. 643.
[246] II. 19; Ibid. p. 661.
[247] II. 24; Ibid. p. 662.

[248] IX.; Niemeyer, Collectio Confessionum, p. 479.

[249] Niemeyer, p. 481.
[250] ix.; Ibid. p. 331.
[251] x.; Ibid. p. 603.
[252] xiii.; Ibid. p. 604.
[253] III. iii.; Ibid. p. 709.
[254] III. iv.; Niemeyer.
[255] Chapter vi.
[256] Ibid. ch. XV. i. § 3.

[257] Ibid. ch. x. § 2. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________