Chapter VIII (continued, part 4)
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. 5:12–21
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 of a righteousness which is not inherently ours. This parallel is 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 sanctification 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. 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.
§ 11. Preëxistence
The principle that a man can be justly held responsible or regarded as guilty only for his own voluntary acts and for their 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 preëxistence. 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 preëxistence 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 preëxistence.
§ 12. Realistic Theory
Those who reject the untenable doctrine of preëxistence 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." 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 peculiar 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."2 "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." 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 true 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." 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."2 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."
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 selfmanifestation 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 to-day 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 to-day.
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 his 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 of 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 selfdetermination. 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 selfdetermination; 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. 5:12–21, 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 fulfil the law, and restore our nature to the image of God, by our own agency, we must perish for ever.
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 with 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.
§ 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." "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." "Peccatum haereditarium tam profunda et tetra est corruptio naturæ, ut nullius hominis ratione intelligi possit, sed ex Scripturæ patefactione agnoscenda, et credenda sit."
"Formula Corcordiæ." "Credendum est … quod sit per omnia totalis carentia, defectus seu privatio concreatae 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, ἀδυναμία 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 naturae et omnium virium, imprimis vero superiorum et principalium animae 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 reliquae transgressiones, tanquam e radice nascantur …) omnino habendum esse."
"Confessio Helvetica II." "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." "Credimus hoc vitium (ex propagatione manans) esse vere peccatum."
"Articuli XXXIX." "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." "Peccatum originis est corruptio totius naturæ et vitium hæreditarium, duo 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 naturae existit) "ex lapsu et inobedientia primorum parentum Adami et Evæ. Hinc natura nostra ita est depravata, ut omnes in peccatis concipiamur et nascamur."
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."
"The Westminster Confession." "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 from 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 Form 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
ἁμαρτία. This is acknowledged by Romanists who deny that such concupiscence after regeneration is of the nature of sin.
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 8:46, it is said, "There is no man that sinneth not." Eccl. 7:20, "There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not." Is. 53:6, "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one
to his own way." 64:6, "We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." Ps. 130:3, "If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?" Ps. 143:2, "In thy sight shall no man living be justified." Rom. 3:19, "The whole world (πᾶς ὁ κόσμος) is guilty before God." Verses 22, 23, "There is no difference: for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Gal. 3:22, "The Scripture hath concluded all under sin;" i.e., hath declared all men to be under the power and condemnation of sin. James 3:2, "In many things we offend all." 1 John 1:8, "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 5:19, "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 distinguishes 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. An 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. 6:5, 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 15:14–16, "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. 9:3, "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 11:12, "Man" is "born like a wild ass's colt." Ps. 58:3, "The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." Prov. 22:15, "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. 8:21. 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.