We see, then, that Paul distinctly recognizes the distinction made above between sin as guilt and sin as depravity.

He distinguishes between sin as sinfulness, or unconscious transgression (ἡ ἁμαρτία), and sin as conscious transgression of a known command (παράβασις).

The consequence of the first is death, or moral and spiritual depravity; the consequence of the second is condemnation, or a sense of guilt.

Sinfulness, bringing with it depravity (the general demoralization of human nature), began with Adam. All became involved in sinfulness, and consequently all partook of the depravity which belongs to it as its wages.

It should, however, be observed that it is not the purpose of Paul to teach anything about Adam. His intention is to teach something about Christ. He refers to Adam's case as something they all are acquainted with; he compares Christ's case with it both by contrast and resemblance. But his object is not to instruct us about Adam, but about Christ. He uses Adam as an example to enforce his doctrine about Christ. Through Christ, goodness and happiness were to come into the world. He illustrated this fact, and made it appear probable, by the fact which they already knew—that through Adam sin and death had entered the world. If it seemed strange, in an age in which men were so disunited, that one man should be the medium of communicating goodness to the whole human race, they might remember that Adam also had been the medium of introducing sin to the whole human race. If the Jews wondered that Christ should bring salvation to those who were not under the law, they might remember that Adam had brought death to those not under the law, and who did not sin as he did. If they doubted how Christ's goodness could help to make men righteous, they might remember that in some way Adam's transgression had helped to make men sinners. Yet, after all, the main fact which he states is in the twelfth verse, chapter five—"that by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin." This amounts to saying that sin began with Adam. Then he adds, in the same verse, "that death has passed upon all men, because all have sinned." He therefore distinctly declares that every man is punished for his own sin, and not for the sin of Adam.

In the other passage (1 Cor. 15:22), Paul says, "As in Adam all die, even so, in Christ, shall all be made alive." He does not say here, either that "all sinned in Adam," or that "all fell in Adam," or that "all died in Adam." It is the present tense, "all die in Adam."

What he means by this, he explains himself afterwards. He tells us that as "souls" descended from Adam, we are liable to death; as spirits quickened by Christ, we are filled with spiritual and immortal life.

In the forty-fourth verse he gives the explanation. The body "is _sown_ a natural body" (σῶμα ψυχικὸν)—literally a soul-body, a body vitalized by the soul. "It is raised a spiritual body"—literally spirit-body (σῶμα πνευματικὸν), a body vitalized by the spirit. "There is a soul-body, and there in a spirit-body." "And so it is written, The first man, Adam, was made a living soul" (which is a quotation from Genesis 2:7—"and man became a living soul"), "but the last Adam," says Paul (meaning Christ), "became a life-making spirit." But, continues Paul, the soul-man (psychical man) comes first; the spiritual-man afterwards, according to a regular order. "The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second is the Lord from heaven." And then he adds,—and this is the key to the whole passage,—"_As we have borne the _ image of the earthy_, we shall also bear the image of _the heavenly_." The doctrine, then, is plainly this: that we have two natures—a soul-nature, which we derive from Adam, and share with all mankind, which nature is liable to weakness, sin, and death; and a spirit-nature, which we derive from God, which Christ comes to quicken and vitalize, and the life of which constitutes our true immortality.

The apostle Paul, therefore, does not by any means teach Calvinism. The Catechism says that "our first parents being the root of all mankind, the guilt of their sin was imputed to all their posterity." But Paul says, "So death passed upon all men, because all have sinned." The Catechism says that "this same death in sin, and corrupted nature, being conveyed to their posterity, makes us utterly indisposed and opposite to all good," and that "from this original corruption do proceed all actual transgressions."

But if this is so, there has been no such thing in the world as guilt since Adam fell. If all actual transgressions proceed from original corruption, and original corruption comes from the first transgression of Adam, it logically follows that there has been but one sin committed in the world since it was made, namely, the sin of Adam. All other sins have been pure misfortunes; his alone was guilt. His transgression alone came from a free choice; all others have come from an involuntary necessity of nature.

Nothing can be more certain from reason and Scripture than this—that transgressions which come from a corrupt nature are just so far done in us, and not done by us. This the apostle distinctly affirms when he says (7:17), "Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." No man is responsible for disease, when he has not brought that disease on himself, but inherited it from his ancestors. The disease may make him very odious, very disagreeable, but cannot make him blamable. Therefore, when Calvin says that hereditary depravity "renders us obnoxious to the divine wrath," he utters an absurdity. This confusion of ideas runs through all Orthodox statements on the subject, and the only cure is, that we should learn how to make this distinction between natural evil and moral evil, or the evil which proceeds from a corrupt nature and the evil which comes from a free will.

If we were to sum up the doctrine of the apostle Paul on this subject, it would be thus:—

1. The first man, Adam, consisted, as we all consist, of nature and will. His nature consisted of innocent tendencies and appetites. None were excessive; all were well balanced. His nature inclined him no more to evil than to good, but each faculty was in proper poise. The first sin, therefore, could not have been a gross one; it was a simple transgression; but its effect was to introduce what the apostle calls death; that is, a diseased or corrupt nature. The process is this: With the first conscious and free transgression there arises a sense of guilt. This sense of guilt leads the soul away from God. Adam and Eve hide in the garden. Every act of sin tends to create a habit, and so destroys the moral equipoise. There hence arises a tendency towards evil, and from good; and this is called death, because it takes us away from God, who is the source of life.

2. A tendency towards evil is thus introduced into the world by the transgression of the first man. His descendants are now born with a nature which is not in equipoise, but which leans more towards evil than towards good. Their will remains free as before; but they cannot perform the same amount of good as before. These corrupt tendencies tempt to greater sin than the pure tendencies did, and, whenever yielded to, bring a greater amount of moral evil into the race.

3. Things, therefore, are thus growing worse continually; for every new act of sin makes it easier to sin again. And this tendency to death, or estrangement from God, must go on increasing, unless some antagonist principle can be communicated to the race. This is actually done by Jesus Christ. The principle of life which Christ introduces consists in reconciliation to God. Sin separates us from God, and therefore tends to death. Christ reconciles us to God, and so gives life. The way in which Christ reconciles us to God is by manifesting God's pardoning and saving love to the sinful soul. In his own life, but especially by his death, he communicates this pardoning love, and so produces the atonement. This is the central, Pauline view of the relation of Adam and Christ to the race. Adam introduces death into the world: Christ introduces life. He does not speak at all of imputation, or transfer of guilt; but he speaks of an actual communication of death and life. Adam and Christ both stand in actual, and not merely ideal, connection with the whole race of man. Adam is a living soul; Christ, a life-giving spirit. By inheritance, we receive a depraved life of the soul from Adam; by communion, we receive an eternal or spiritual life from Christ. And, in regard to both of these acts, the notion of blame or merit is entirely excluded. We are not to blame for our inherited depravity derived from Adam. We deserve no credit for the salvation which comes to us from Christ. The compensation for the misfortune of inherited evil is the free gift of divine goodness in Jesus.

We have thus considered the truth and the error contained in the Orthodox doctrine of the fall. The truth of it is in its assertion of a depravity of nature, to which we are liable in consequence of ancestral sins: the error is in imputing guilt to us in consequence of them.



7. Orthodox View of Total Depravity and Inability.

In speaking of the fall of man, we necessarily anticipated somewhat the doctrine of total depravity. Still, we must say something further on this doctrine, because it is so important in the Church system: it is, indeed, at its foundation. Those who accept, in its strictness, the doctrine of total depravity cannot avoid any point of the severest Calvinism. Schleiermacher has shown, in his "Essay on Election," that this latter doctrine necessarily follows the doctrine of total depravity; for, if man is wholly depraved, he has no power to do anything for his own conversion; therefore God must do it. And if some are converted, and not others, it must be because God chooses to convert some, and does not choose to convert others.

Let us look, then, at what Orthodoxy says of the extent of human depravity. In all the principal creeds, this is stated to be unlimited. Man's sin is total and entire. There is nothing good in him. The Westminster Confession and the Confession of the New England Congregational churches describe him as "dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body." Other creeds use similar language.

In considering this theory, we are struck at first by the circumstance, that the Bible gives it very little support. The Bible continually speaks of man as a sinner; but there are very few texts which can, without straining, be made to seem to teach that he is totally depraved. Let us examine a few of them.



8. Proof Texts.

1. A text often cited is Genesis 6:5,—the reason given for destroying the human race, in the time of Noah, by the deluge: "And 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." But this seems to be a description of the state of the world at that particular time, not of its character in all ages. It is not a description of man's natural condition, but of an extremely degenerate condition. If the state of the world here described was its natural state, it would rather be a reason for not having created the race at first; or, if it was a reason for destroying it, it would, at best, seem to be as strong a one against creating it again. If a man plants a tree in his garden, whose nature he knows is to produce a certain kind of fruit, it would seem hardly a good reason for cutting it down, that it produced that kind of fruit: certainly it would not be a good reason for cutting it down, and planting another of precisely the same kind in its place. The reason why the race of men was destroyed was, that it had degenerated. But there were some good even then; for in the ninth verse we are told that "Noah was a just man, and perfect in his generation, and walked with God."

2. There is another passage, in the fourteenth Psalm which is quoted by Paul in Rom. 3: "There is none righteous; no, not one: there is none that understandeth, none that seeketh after God. They have all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable: there is none that doeth good; no, not one. There is no fear of God before their eyes."

This passage is relied on to prove total depravity. But we may reply, that—

This also is a degenerate condition, not a natural one. It was a condition into which men had fallen, not one in which they were born. "They have all gone out of the way; they are together become unprofitable." It does not, therefore, apply to men universally, but to men in those particular times.

It was not true of all, even at that particular time. It was not true of David himself, that he did not seek after God, or have the fear of God before his eyes; or else other passages in the same book are not true, in which he says the contrary. "O God! early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee; my flesh longeth for thee." He also frequently speaks of and to those who fear the Lord, and says, "I am a companion to all those that fear thee."

The "all" is not to be taken strictly. It means people generally at that time. Just so it is said, "There went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan;" which does not imply that no one staid at home.

"But," it may be said, "does not Paul teach that this is to be taken universally, when he quotes it, and adds, 'Now we know that what the law saith, it saith to those under the law, that every mouth be stopped, and all the world guilty before God' "? We think he means to say, that, as this is said to Jews, it proves that Jews, as well as Gentiles, are very guilty. He is addressing the Jews, who boasted of their knowledge of the law. Chap. 2: "Behold, thou art called a Jew," &c.

3. Jer. 17:9. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked."

If we suppose that we are to take this as an unlimited expression, and not merely a strong declaration of the wickedness of the Jews, it still does not prove total depravity of the nature, but merely that of the affections, or "the heart." Man's nature has other things besides desire: it has conscience, reason, and will; and it does not follow that these are also depraved.

4. Rom. 8:7. "The carnal mind is enmity against God."

This does not intend that the mind of man, in its natural state, is enmity, but in its carnal state; that is, when subject to fleshly desires. Nearly the same phrase is used in the verse before, and is translated, "To be carnally minded is death."

5. There is one famous passage, however, which seems to say that God is angry with us on account of our nature. This is a passage very much quoted, and we hear it so often that it seems as if the Bible was full of such texts. It is in Eph. 2:3. "We were by nature children of wrath, even as others." This is quoted to prove that God is angry with men for their natures, and hates them for being born evil—just as we may hate a snake, a scorpion, or spider, for its nature. But, as it happens, the very next verses show that this is impossible, unless God can be hating one of his creatures and loving it at the very same moment.

For, in the next verse Paul says that God loved us with a great love when we were dead in trespasses and sins, and children of wrath. It is therefore evident that "children of wrath" must mean something else. It may mean that men outside of Christianity—Jews and Gentiles—were afraid of God; living under a constant sense of his displeasure; that God seemed to them a terrible being, always disposed to punish them with severity. This was the fact. Jews and Gentiles were afraid of their gods, before Christ came, and so were "children of wrath." Or it may mean that men are exposed to the consequences of sin; for, in Scripture language,—

"God's wrathful said to be, when he doth do That without wrath which wrath doth force us to."

Moreover, "nature," in Scripture usage, does not necessarily mean, "as human beings." It often intends external position, origin, and race. So (in Gal. 2:15) we read, "Jews by nature;" and so (in Rom. 2:27) "uncircumcision, which is by nature."

The same word is used twice in James 3:7, and is translated kind. "Every kind of beasts, birds, serpents, things in the sea, is tamed of man-kind:" literally, "the whole animal race is tamed by the human race."

If φυσις here meant "constitutional depravity," the same word in Rom. 2:14 must mean constitutional goodness, where we are told that some "do by nature the things contained in the law." So, too, we read of the olive tree, wild by nature, in Rom. 11:24.

"By nature," here, plainly means the original condition, not the original constitution. Just so we say that wild animals are in a state of nature, and call savages the children of nature.

These five texts are the strongest in the Bible to support the doctrine of total depravity, and, as such, are constantly quoted. They have very little weight, and not one of them is from the words of Jesus.

On the other hand, there are many passages which seem to declare that there is something good in man in his unconverted or natural state, and that even in that state he may turn towards the light, and struggle against evil.

John 3:20, 21. "Every one that doeth truth cometh to the light."

Matt. 26:41. "... The spirit is willing, the flesh is weak."

Rom. 2:24. "Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, and show the work of that law which is written in the heart."

Acts 10:35. "In every nation, he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him."

But the passage most strikingly and thoroughly opposed to the doctrine of total depravity, is the description, in the seventh chapter of Romans, of the conflict between the law in the members and the law of the mind. Paul, speaking evidently from his own experience in his unconverted state, describes the condition of one morally depraved, who is trying to do right, but is prevented by evil habits which have become a part of himself. He describes this as moral death, but not guilt. He says, "It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." He describes himself as morally impotent—wishing to do right, but unable to do it. He says he delights in the law of God after the inner man. The inmost is right, but outside of that are evil habits, in the body, which drag down the soul and enslave it. Paul therefore distinctly says that a man in such a condition is not himself a sinner, because he does not commit the sin. Thus he makes clear and strong the distinction we referred to above, between depravity and guilt—between natural evil and moral evil.

Paul teaches that man is not totally depraved, but that even in the carnal man there is a good principle, only that it is conquered by the evil. If the mind delights in the law of God, and the will to do right is present with us, we evidently are not totally depraved; but the total depravity, if anywhere, is in the flesh only, as Paul plainly says: "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing;" that is, the depravity is physical, not moral. But physical depravity is not guilt, but only disease.



9. Truth in the Doctrine of Total Depravity.

Nevertheless there is a sense in which man may be said to be often totally sinful; but this is only in a total alienation of the will from God. It is not a total depravity, but a total alienation. There is a natural depravity, but it is not total. But the choice may be totally perverted, when it chooses darkness instead of light, evil instead of good.

Let us see what there is of this in man.

The gospel of Christ, as we understand it, undertakes to effect an entire change, a radical reformation, in human character. It proposes to reform the life by changing the heart, by giving new aims, new affections, new aspirations, new objects of love and pursuit. Jesus does not endeavor to alter and improve, a little here and a little there, on the outside of the character, to improve a little our modes of action in this and the other particular; but he alters the conduct and character by altering the fundamental ideas, and inspiring an inward life. This wonderful change, which takes place in the profoundest depth of our nature, under the influence of the Gospel,—this great event of life, which forms the turning-point of our being and history,—is called in the New Testament "the new birth," "regeneration," "to be born again," "conversion," "a new creation," "to be born of God," "to be baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire," "to put off the old man," "to have Christ formed within us." It is a very superficial view which explains away the meaning of all these profound expressions, and supposes that they only signify a little outward improvement and reformation. We need just such a change as is here described—a radical one, not a superficial one. All need it. Those who are the most pure in heart and most blameless in character (spotless children, as they seem to us, of a heavenly world) feel their own need of this change no less than do the profligate and openly vicious. Parents and friends say, "We have no fault to find with them." They do not say they have no fault to find with themselves. They feel they have all kinds of fault to find with themselves, and nothing is so painful to them as this commendation. They say, "Outwardly we may seem innocent, but we feel an inward want that weighs on our heart like a frost."

"This is a true saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." It is because we are sinners that we need to experience this great change. We do not wish to exaggerate the amount of human sinfulness. Theologians have carried their attacks on human nature quite too far, and the result has often been that men have looked on sin as a sort of theological matter, which has nothing to do with actual life. They have cheerfully admitted that they were totally depraved by nature, and could not think or will a good thing, and then have thought no worse of themselves than before. We know that there is something good in man, something which God loves, some pure aspiration even in the natural heart, some throbs of generosity, some warnings of conscience, some pure love, some courageous virtue, in the humblest, the most depraved, the most abandoned. There are some flowers of sweetest perfume which spring up in the uncultivated soil of the natural heart on which God and his angels smile, for the seeds of those flowers God himself planted. We have seen harebells, graceful and lovely as the sweetest greenhouse plant, growing out of a sand-heap; and we have seen some disinterested, generous benevolence in the mind of a hardened profligate. It is not, therefore, because there is nothing good in man that he needs a change of heart, but because he is destitute of a deep-rooted and living goodness till this change has taken place.

Look at the actual sins of men. The majority of men, in a civilized community like ours, do not commit great crimes, or fall into flagrant vices, because they have little to attract them to such a course, and much to deter them from it. They are aiming at those objects which they need the countenance, aid, and good opinion of their fellow-men to obtain, to be glaringly vicious would make it impossible. Also, there is a certain amount of conscience which restrains them—the influence of good education and good habits which preserves a certain uprightness and purity of character. But is it a deep principle? If so, why do the vast majority of men allow themselves in many small violations of the same laws which they would not break on a large scale? They would not steal; yet they commit every day some slight acts not perfectly honest; they take advantage of others in little things. They would not lie; yet they exaggerate, and conceal part of the truth, and color their statements to produce an effect. They would not kill; but they are willing to injure one who has interfered with their interests. With these tendencies and feelings, why would they not, under different influences, commit greater crimes? How often do we feel, in talking with the criminal and abandoned, that, in their circumstances and with their temptations, we might have been as bad as they!

Does not all this show that there is a deep and hidden fountain of evil within our hearts which is restrained by external influences, by checks and barriers with which God has kindly surrounded us? and if these were taken away, it would break out into something far worse than now appears. How much there is of evil under the smooth surface of refined society! How many thoughts of sin pass to and fro in the heart while the countenance seems pure and calm! Who ever looked into the interior depths of our most moral community, and saw all the secret sins and pollutions which are hidden there? Every now and then there occurs in the midst of the most refined classes some startling revelation of long-concealed wickedness which makes men look each other in the face and draw a long breath, as though they should say, "Which of us will next fall?" So in the midst of a fruitful country, of lakes, and valleys, and vine-clad hills, the earth will sometimes open, and a river of melted lava pour forth, desolating all around. We hear of this with wonder, and do not think that right beneath our own feet, a few miles down, under these smooth fields and gentle plains, that same fiery ocean is rolling its red billows. God has laid his hand upon our heart, and restrains its lawless passions as he restrains the tornadoes, and earthquakes, and volcanic fires; else they might easily hurry us to swift destruction.

Still, if this were all, no radical change might be necessary. It might be enough that by effort, and self-discipline, and direction of the thoughts, we gradually overcome our evil habits and tendencies; but when we resolve to do so, and make the effort, we meet with an unexpected resistance. "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." "I find a law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin in my members." The Church has long asserted the doctrine of an hereditary depravity; and we have seen that there is more truth in it than we have sometimes supposed. It is not total, but it is real. Besides the sins of our own committing, there are the sins which our ancestors have committed, which have made themselves part of our bone and flesh. We are not exactly balanced in our natural state; there is a preponderating tendency towards evil in one or another direction.

This forms too fearful an alliance with circumstances, the moment they become powerful to draw us away from good. A friend of ours, some years since, was making a trip up the Lakes, late in the season. As they entered Lake Huron from the River St. Clair in the noble steamer, the skies were serene, and she ploughed her way on towards the north, so that by night the land had sunk almost out of sight. But then the wind began to freshen, the sea rose, and as the night advanced, and the wind blew harder and harder, the boat strained and staggered along, occasionally struck hard by a heavier sea, till at last one of her wheels was carried away, and the fires were put out by the water. How long and anxious was that night! How many prayed then who never prayed before! When morning came, the boat was found to be drifting before the wind and waves, directly upon a rocky shore on the south-east side of the lake. There was no help in man; but a gracious Providence all at once caused the storm to lull, so that a fire could be built, and with one wheel the boat got into a harbor. Man seems a powerful being when he is surrounded by favorable circumstances, and is going with a fair wind and fair weather; but let the wind change, and his weakness becomes apparent. He who just now breasted the tide, is now drifting helplessly before it.

But there is a difficulty far worse than any we have mentioned. We might conquer the sin which most easily besets us, we might conquer our inherent evil tendencies, and outgrow them, if we really wished to do so; but the deepest of all evils is a want of love for God and for goodness. We know that we ought to love and obey God; but our heart is alienated from him. The great mass of men are living away from God. They are not conscious of his presence, though they know that he is near to them. Though they know that his eye is upon them, it does not restrain them from sin. Though they know that their heavenly Father and best Friend is close at hand, how seldom do they pray! how seldom look up with gratitude for all their mercies and joys! This shows a terrible estrangement of soul from God. The veil is on their hearts, not on their minds.

The question is sometimes asked, "whether sin is a positive or merely a negative evil." Now, whatever may be the case with other kinds of sin, this alienation of the heart seems to us a very positive evil; for it is an antagonism, and resistance of goodness. If the supreme goodness of God does not attract us, does not excite our affection, does not irresistibly draw us to him, then it repels us; it makes the thought of his presence a restraint and burden; it makes us wish to go away from God. The goodness of God is so very positive a thing, that we cannot be indifferent to it; we cannot be neutral in regard to it. If we do not love it, it is disagreeable, and we are uncomfortable in the thought of it. Swedenborg relates that certain wicked persons were allowed to enter heaven on a certain occasion; but they immediately became almost lifeless, and, from the torment and pain in their head and body, prostrated themselves on the ground, and writhed like worms; but, being taken and carried into hell, became comparatively comfortable. What can be more terrible than the idea thus conveyed of our aversion to goodness, which makes heaven intolerable, and the presence of God insufferable torture! Can anything express, more than this, the need of a change of heart?

Jesus, we think, asserts a similar view when he says, "He that is not with me is against me." "No man can serve two masters; for he will either love the first and hate the last, or love the last and hate the first." He will not be indifferent to either, if their characters and commands are of an opposite kind.

We do not mean to say that we hate God; but we mean that there is something within us, while our hearts are not wholly his, which makes it unpleasant and burdensome to think of God and pray to him. We feel a certain repugnance to a familiar and happy intercourse with our heavenly Father. Our prayers, if we pray, are formal and cold; our hearts are hard, and their affections do not flow easily upward.

Now, if there be such a thing as a change of heart, which will make it a pleasure to pray, a joy to think of God; which will make it natural to us to approach him, and dwell on the thought of his goodness; which will enable us to see him in the majesty and sweetness of nature, in the rise of empires or the death of an infant, in the coming of Christ, and in every good thought which swells in our souls,—then it is evident that this is what we need. Let us dig deep, and build our house upon a rock.

We shall see in another section that there is such a change of heart as we have described. Jesus saves sinners by taking away the heart of stone, and giving a heart of flesh. He saw the whole depth and extent of the disease which he came to cure. There are some preachers who do not know how great an evil sin is, and would not know what to do for a penitent and anxious soul which really saw the greatness of its needs. Thus, when George Fox went to the rector of his church to ask advice for the distress of his soul, he was told to amuse himself and divert his mind. But Jesus saw all the extent of sin, and yet was ready to encourage and help the sinner. He knew that his remedy was equal to the emergency. The gospel of Christ can give to us love to God and love to man; can soften our hearts in humility, can enable us to fight with and conquer even the hereditary evil of our organization; can ultimately redeem us from all evil. This is the depravity we are to conquer; not of nature, but of will, and aim, and purpose.



10. Ability and Inability.

One of the pivotal points in the Orthodox theory of evil is that of moral inability. Indeed, the doctrine of total depravity seems to be taught for the sake of this. Total depravity resolves itself, in the mind of the Orthodox teacher, into total inability, and means that man, unable to do right by any power in himself, must throw himself wholly and absolutely on the divine grace. The secret motive of the whole Orthodox doctrine of evil is to lead through a sense of sin to humility, and at last to dependence. Orthodoxy here becomes intelligible, so soon as we perceive that its purpose is not speculative, but practical. As religion consists so greatly in the sentiment of dependence, it is a leading purpose in the Orthodox system to produce this sense of dependence. That group of graces—reverence, humility, submission, trust, prayer—which lend such an ineffable charm to the moral nature, which purify and refine it to its inmost depths,—these spring almost wholly from the sense of dependence on a higher and better being than ourselves. These being absent, the elevating principle is wanting; the man cannot rise above himself. There may be truth, courage, conscience, purity, but they are all stoical and self-relying. It is only he who relies on a higher power, clings to a higher being, and draws his moral life from above, who can ascend. He who humbles himself, and he only, shall be exalted. But humility does not consist in looking down, but in looking up. It does not come from looking at our own meanness, but at something higher and better than ourselves. The sense of sin is only elevating when connected with the sight of a higher beauty and holiness.

It is, therefore, in order to produce a conviction of absolute dependence that Orthodoxy urges so strongly the doctrines of total depravity and total inability. A man will not pray, says the Orthodox system, till he feels himself helpless. He will not seek a Saviour so long as he hopes to save himself. He must see that he can do nothing more for himself; and then, for the first time, he exercises a real faith in God, and casts himself on the divine mercy.

Reasoning in this way, consciously or unconsciously, Orthodoxy has built up its doctrine of human inability, which we will proceed to state,—first, however, indicating the scriptural view of this subject.

Scripture teaches that man is able to choose the right, but not always able to perform it. He is free in his spirit, but bound by circumstances of position, and by bodily organization. He is free to choose, but not free to do. His freedom is in effort, not necessarily in accomplishment. He can always try; he cannot always effect what he tries.

Thus Jesus says (Matt. 26:41), "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." And so Paul says, in the passage on this subject before referred to (Rom. 7:18), "To will is present with me, but how to perform that which I will, I find not."

Without attempting here to enter into the tormented question of fate and freedom, of necessity so irrefragably demonstrated by the logic of Edwards and others,—of free-will perpetually reasserted by the intuitive reason in the soul,—we may say this: Whether there be such a thing as metaphysical freedom or not, there is such a thing as moral freedom. In proportion as man sinks into the domain of nature, he is bound by irresistible laws. In proportion as he rises into the sphere of reason, justice, truth, love, he is emancipated, and can direct his own course. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." "If the Son, therefore, shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." (John 8:32, 36.) "Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free." (Gal. 5:1.) It is therefore true that only as we direct our course by eternal laws, we rise above the controlling influence of habit, prejudice, public opinion, inherited and original tendencies of the blood and brain. According to Paul (Rom. 6:16-22), man must be either the servant of sin or the servant of God. He must serve, willingly or unwillingly. He must be the degraded slave of desire and selfishness, or the willing, loyal subject of truth and right. Paradoxically enough, however, he only feels free in these two cases. For in these two states he is doing what he chooses to do. When he is blindly and willingly following his lower instincts he feels free. When he is rationally and freely choosing right, and doing it, he also feels free. But when half way between these two states, when his conscience is pulling one way and his desires drawing him the other, when he is choosing right and doing wrong, he feels himself a slave.

There are therefore these three conditions of the will, corresponding to the Pauline division of man into spirit, soul, and body (1 Tim. 5:23)—a view of man which was held throughout antiquity. The carnal man (σαρκικος) is one in whom the earthly appetites are supreme, and the soul, (ψυχη) and spirit (πνευμα) subordinate. The natural man (ψυχικος ανθρωπος, 1 Cor. 2:14) is one in whom the soul, or central principle, the finite will, is supreme. The spiritual man (πνευματικος, 1 Cor. 2:15) is he in whom the infinite principle, the sense of eternal truth and right, is supreme. In the first condition—that of the carnal man—one is the slave of sin, but without knowing it, because there is no wish to become anything different. In the second state—that of the natural man (or psychical man)—the soul chooses the good, but is drawn down by the evil. The law of the mind is warring against the law of the members, and the man is torn asunder by this conflict. He tries to do right, and does wrong. He now first feels himself a slave; yet he is in reality less a slave than before, for now he is endeavoring to escape. His will is emancipated, though his habits of conduct, his habits of thought, his habits of feeling, still bind him fast. In the third condition, that of the spiritual man, he has broken these chains. He not only wills to do right, but does it. His body shares in the new life of his soul. He now is made free by the truth and the spirit from the service of evil, and shares in "the glorious liberty of the children of God."

In all these conditions the human being has some freedom, but differing in degree in each. In the lowest state he has freedom of action, for he does what he wishes to do; but he has not freedom of choice, for he does not choose at all. He acts not by intelligent choice, but by blind instinct, habit or custom. In the middle state he has freedom of choice, but not of action. He chooses the good, but performs the evil. This is the condition described by Ovid, and other profane writers, before Paul described it in the seventh chapter of Romans.(15) But in the highest state—a spiritual condition—he has both freedoms; he can both choose and perform. The carnal man seems to be free, but is most thoroughly enslaved of all. The psychical man seems to himself to be enslaved, but has begun to be free. The spiritual man both seems to be free and is so. The apparent freedom of the carnal man differs from the real freedom of the spiritual man in this—the spiritual man could do wrong if he chose to do so, but chooses to do right. But the carnal man could not do right if he should choose. A good man, if he chose to do so, might lie, and steal, and drink, and be profane; but a bad man could not, by choosing, become temperate, pure, truthful, and honest.

Scripture and experience give, therefore, the same account of human ability and inability. In the lowest state man is the servant of sense, and can neither will nor do right. In the higher condition he can will, but cannot perform; for his ideal aim is above his actual power. In the highest, or regenerate, state he can both will and do. Body, as well as soul, serve the spirit.

——————————————————-

These are the truths which lie at the basis of the Orthodox doctrine of inability. But Orthodoxy, in its desire to awaken a sense of dependence, has pushed them to an unreasonable extreme. It asserts that man, in his natural state, before he is regenerated, has no power to will or to do right. It is evident, however, that all men have power to will and to do many right things. Even in the lowest condition, a man wills and does much that is right. Though the governing principle be the lowest one, he can yet perform many good actions. In the second condition also, the psychical man, though not able always to do right, often succeeds in doing so. And in this state the apostle declares that he does not do the evil, but "sin that dwells in him." So long as his purpose is right, he is right.



11. Orthodox Doctrine of Inability.

Let us see what Orthodoxy says of the inability of the unregenerate man. The Assembly's Confession declares (chap. 6, 4), that by our corrupt nature "we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil." In chap. 9, 3, it says that "man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation."

This seems plain enough. It would justify the charge made by Dr. Cox, that there are those who teach that "a man has no ability to do his duty,"(16) and "that, where the means of grace are abundantly vouchsafed, a man can do nothing for, but can only counteract, his own salvation." It would also seem to lay a fit foundation for that kind of Calvinistic preaching which, according to Professor Finney, of Oberlin (see "Revival Lectures"), virtually amounts to saying,

"You can, and you can't; You shall, and you shan't; You will, and you won't; You'll be damned if you don't."

These charges, it must be noticed, are brought against Calvinism, not by us, but by Presbyterian divines, themselves holding to this same Westminster Confession.

But let us look at some of the expositions given to this doctrine of inability by modern Orthodox authorities.

(a.) The Old School Presbyterians.—As stated by one of their own number (Professor Atwater, of Princeton College, Bibliotheca Sacra, January, 1864), they hold an inability "moral, sinful, and real," "irremovable by the sinner's own power." He sets aside the objection that we are not bound to do what we are unable to do, by saying that this applies to actions only, not to sinful dispositions. He illustrates this by saying that an irrepressible disposition to slander would be only so much more culpable. But in this he is evidently wrong. Such a habit has become a disease, and the unfortunate victim is no longer accountable for what he does.

(b.) The New School Presbyterians.—(Rev. George Duffield, in Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1863.) Although Dr. Duffield objects to the language of the Old School Presbyterians in denying "free agency," and regarding man "as destitute of ability as a block of marble," he yet declares that the New School, as well as the Old, believe that in the unconverted state "man can do nothing morally good." Still, he adds, men can accept the offers of salvation made by Jesus Christ. But he positively denies that "man, in his natural state, independent of the gospel and Spirit of Christ, has ability perfectly to obey all the commandments of God." We suppose that most persons would agree with him in this statement.

(c.) The Old School in New England Theology.—(Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1863. Article by Professor Lawrence, East Windsor, Connecticut.) This writer contends that human inability is moral, and not natural—a distinction much dwelt upon by the Hopkinsians, but rejected by the Old School Presbyterians. This system differs from the Arminian or Methodist view in insisting that man has power enough to sin, though not enough to obey.

(d.) Hopkinsianism.—(Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1862.) The Hopkinsians profess to contend for free agency, in order to save responsibility. They adopt the ideas of Edwards on free agency. But freedom, with them, consists only in choice. Whatever we choose, we choose freely. The carnal man is as free in choosing evil as the spiritual man in choosing good. All real freedom in this system disappears in a juggle of words.

The result of this examination will show that the great body of the Orthodox, of all schools, continues to deny any real ability in the unregenerate man to do the will of God. They do not say that "man has no power to do his duty," but that is the impression left by their teaching. The distinction between natural and moral inability is insufficient; for it is as absurd to say that a man is unable not to sin, when you only mean that he chooses to sin, as it would he to say, when invited to eat your dinner, "I am unable to eat," meaning only that you were unwilling. Besides, if inability is moral, it is in the will, and not in the nature, and so is not natural depravity at all. It is also making God unjust to teach that he considers us guilty for a misfortune. If we derive a corrupted nature from Adam, that is our misfortune, and not our fault, and God owes us not anger, but pity. Instead of punishing us, he should compensate us for this disaster.

Therefore the unreason, the want of logic, and the absence of any just view of God, appear, more or less, throughout these statements. For where there is no ability, there can be no guilt. Just as soon as man ceases to have the power to do right, he ceases to have the power to do wrong. Inability and guilt, which are connected by all these creeds, logically exclude each other. If our nature is incapable of doing good, then it is incapable of committing sin. One or the other must be given up. Keep which you will, but you cannot keep both. We may be totally depraved by our nature; but then we cease to be sinners, and cease to be guilty. Or we may be going wholly wrong, and so be sinful, but then we have the power of going right.

This is the inconsistency in almost all Orthodox systems. By dwelling so much on human weakness, they destroy at last the sense of responsibility.



12. Some further Features of Orthodox Theology concerning Human Sinfulness.

In the article in the Bibliotheca Sacra before referred to (April, 1863), by Edward A. Lawrence, D. D., Professor at East Windsor, Connecticut, on "The Old School in New England Theology," the writer gives the following account of the doctrines of this body concerning sin:—

"God created man a holy being. He was not merely innocent, as not having committed sin, not merely pure, as not inheriting any derived evil, but was positively holy in his very being." This, we suppose, must mean that he was inclined by nature to do right, rather than wrong. It was as natural for him to love God as for a fish to swim or a bird to fly. Nothing less than this, certainly, would deserve to be called "holiness of being."

"The first man," says Professor Lawrence, "was the federal head of this race, representatively and by covenant, as no other father has been or can be with his children." This is illustrated by the fact of a legal corporation, whose members are responsible in law for the actions of their agent.

Professor Lawrence explains the belief of the Old School in the imputation of Adam's sin thus: It was not the personal guilt of Adam which was imputed to his descendants, but "certain disastrous consequences." They, as well as he, became "subject to temporal and eternal death." The next consequence of Adam's sin we must give in Professor Lawrence's own language, in order not to misrepresent him. "The first evil disposition which led to the evil choice was not only confirmed in him as an individual, but also as a quality of human nature, and it reappears, successively, in each one of them." Imputation, therefore, means not the transfer of guilt, but of a corrupt nature. "It is not a sin to be born sinful; but the sin with which men are born is nevertheless sinful." Then follows this statement: "We are strictly guilty only for our own sin; but the sinfulness with which we are born is as really ours as if it originated in our own act."

This, again, is explained by defining guilt as liability to punishment on account of the acts of another, "as when the members of a corporation suffer from the ill management of its agent." This he calls corporate guilt.

The Old School doctrine, according to this writer, concerning sin, makes it a state rather than an act. It is not merely the act of disobedience, but the wrong bias of the will, out of which the act proceeds. He thinks it wrong to call "sin a nature," for neither the substance of the soul, nor its faculties, are sinful. The depravity of nature is not choice, so much as tendency which leads to choice. It is hereditary, being transmitted from father to son.

The old theology, therefore, predicates sinfulness of human nature; affirms sin to be a wrong state or bias of will; considers it to be hereditary; regards new-born infants as depraved, but thinks that those of them who die in infancy, before actual transgression, are renewed and saved by the blood of Christ; and considers temporal death as a part of the penalty of sin.

Upon this statement of the Old School doctrine, the following criticisms naturally occur:—

First. If original righteousness was holiness of nature, and not mere innocence; if it was a positive tendency to good, and not merely a state of indifference between good and evil; then, we ask, What produced the fall? What motive led to the commission of the first sin? If the nature of the first man was holy, there was nothing in it which could lead him to sin, and any external temptation addressed to such a nature must fall powerless before it. It would be like trying to tempt a fish to fly in the air, or like tempting a bird to go into the water. Even if the first man could have been induced by any deception or external influence to commit a wrong act, this would not be sinful, because there would be no sinful motive behind it. A wrong act proceeding from a holy nature is either an impossibility or a mere innocent mistake. Our first criticism, therefore, on the Old School doctrine of sin, is, that it makes Adam's fall an impossibility.

Second. As regards Adam's federal headship and the illustration of a corporation, we say, that the members of a corporation are not considered guilty in consequence of the acts of their agent, although they may suffer in consequence of these acts. If he commits forgery they may lose money thereby, but no one would think of calling them forgers. The sin of a parent may be visited upon his children to the third or fourth generation, but in their case it is neither punishment nor guilt, but only misfortune. When Professor Lawrence, therefore, says, that "we are guilty for the sinfulness with which we are born, because it is really ours," he utters a moral absurdity, and strikes at the root of all moral distinctions. He says, "The sinfulness with which we are born is really ours;" but in what sense ours? Only as any congenital disease may be called ours. If a man is born with a tendency to consumption, blindness, lameness, he may say, "my lameness, my near-sightedness." But no one would suppose that he meant thereby to hold himself responsible for them, or to consider himself guilty because of them. It is absurd to speak of "corporate guilt." The corporate guilt, for example, of the stockholders of a bank, because of the crime of an absconding teller!

The natural objection to this illustration of a corporation is, that those who enter into a corporation do it by a free act, and make themselves voluntarily responsible. But we did not consent that Adam should be our agent. We did not agree that if Adam should commit a single act of disobedience we should be born totally depraved, and liable to everlasting torments in consequence. Professor Lawrence replies, that it would have been impossible for God to ask our consent, and therefore, apparently he supposes that God took for granted that we would consent. This seems to be no answer to the objection. If it was impossible for God to obtain our consent, before we were born, to incur this awful danger, he was not compelled to expose us to it. It is an insult to the justice of the Almighty to assume that he could have done so.

Third. Professor Lawrence does not think it correct to say that "sin is a nature." But why not, if it be a universal and constant element, an original and permanent state of the soul? To say that human nature is sinful, but deny that sin is a nature, seems to be making a distinction without a difference. It is a disposition to sin born with the child. Now, say what we will, such a disposition to sin thus born with us is not guilt but misfortune. A just God will not hold us responsible for it, but will hold himself responsible to help us out of it. As a faithful Creator, he is bound to do so, and will do so.

It is common for theologians to deny all such assertions as these last. They hold it irreverent to say that God owes anything to his creatures. They accumulate responsibility upon man, but deny responsibility to God. But in doing this they take from the Almighty all moral character. Calvinism, especially, makes of the Deity infinite power and infinite will. But no blasphemy is worse than that which, though with the best intentions, virtually destroys the moral character of the Almighty, reducing him to an infinite will: that is, making of him an infinite tyrant. For the essence of tyranny is the union of power and will in a ruler, who recognizes no obligations towards his subjects.

The book of Job seems to have been written partly to refute this sort of Calvinism. The friends of Job were Calvinists in this sense. The sum of their argument was that, since God was all-powerful, therefore whatever he did must be right; and, since he punished Job, Job must be a sinner, and ought to confess his sin whether he saw it or not. This has been, in all ages, the substance of Calvinism—Jewish Calvinism, Mohammedan Calvinism, Christian Calvinism. It declares that we are bound to submit to God, not because he is good, but because he is powerful. But the answer of Job to his friends is a rebuke to the same spirit wherever shown. He asks them "if they will speak with unfairness for God," and "speak deceitfully for him," and "accept his person." He declares that if he could find God he would go before his throne and defend his own cause. "Would he contend with me with his mighty power? No! he would have regard unto me."

This is the sin of Calvinism, that it "accepts the person of the Almighty," assuming that he has a right to do as he pleases with his creatures, and that they have no rights which he is bound to respect, except that of being punished. Thus it destroys the moral character of the Almighty.

Fourth. Professor Lawrence says, "It is the general belief of the Old School that those who die in infancy before actual transgression, are renewed and saved by the blood of Christ."

The power of infancy is wonderful. It can even break down the logic of Calvinism. Wordsworth was right in calling the infant—

"Mighty prophet! Seer blest! On whom those truths do rest Which we are toiling all our lives to find."

Every kind of theology, however savage and bitter it may be against adult sinners, sending them into an eternal hell without the least hesitation or remorse, hesitates and stammers when it comes to speak of little children. Even the idolatrous Jews, sacrificing their children to Moloch in the valley of Hinnom, beat drums to drown their cries, which they could not bear to hear. Both schools of theology, Old and New, hasten to say that infants are not to be damned. But why not, if they are born with a depraved nature, and die without being converted? Both the great schools of Presbyterian theology hold to the doctrine of the Assembly's Catechism, which declares (chap. 6, 6), that "every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, doth, in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God." Therefore the infant who dies before he has exercised repentance and faith in Christ, is under the wrath of God. Orthodoxy does not allow of repentance in the other life: how, then, can infants be saved according to Orthodoxy? Professor Lawrence can only reply, that it is a general belief that they will be saved. The Catechism declares, less decidedly, that "elect infants" will be saved. Dr. Whedon (Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1862), on behalf of the Methodists, says, "That the dying infant is saved, and saved by the atonement, all agree." But how he is saved, or what reason they have to think him saved, except their wish to believe it, no one can tell. Death, in fact, becomes to the infant a saving sacrament. As long as he lives he is believed unregenerate and unconverted. As soon as he dies he is considered ready for heaven. But he cannot be ready for heaven until he is regenerate; and after death there is no such thing as obtaining a new heart, and no opportunity for repentance. Logically, therefore, the infant is converted by the mere act of dying. We presume that no Orthodox theologians would assert this; and yet we really do not see how they can avoid the conclusion.

But why is it any worse for children to be damned in consequence of Adam's sin than for adults to be damned? Orthodoxy assures us that in consequence of Adam's sin we are born depraved. Dr. Duffield, stating and defending the doctrines of the New School Presbyterian Church (Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1863), says that Adam subjected his posterity to such a loss that they are born without any righteousness, are exposed to the consequences of his transgression, and all become sinners as soon as they are capable of it. He quotes with approbation from a protest of the New School minority, in the General Assembly of 1837 (which he calls a document of great historic value), an assertion that "by reason of the sin of Adam, the race are treated as if they had sinned;" and from another document of the same school which says, that "we are all born with a tendency to sin, which makes it morally certain that we shall do so." Now, we do not see why it is any worse to send infants to hell because of this depraved nature, than to send grown persons there who have sinned in consequence of possessing such a depraved nature. If it be said that adults have had an opportunity to repent, and have not accepted it, we reply, that to the mass of mankind no such opportunity is offered; that, where it is offered, no one has the power to accept it, except he be one of the elect; and that at all events, since infants are sure to be saved, and a very large proportion of adults are very likely to be lost, death in infancy is the most desirable thing possible. According to this doctrine, child-murder becomes almost a virtue.

The radical difficulty in all these theories consists in refusing to apply to God the same rules of justice which we apply to man. To do so implies no irreverence, but the highest reverence. There is nothing more honorable to the Almighty than to believe him to be actuated by the same great principles of right which he has written in our conscience and heart. Those laws of eternal justice, so deeply engraven on the fleshly tables of the heart, are a revelation of the character of God himself. If we think to honor him by rejecting these intuitions of the reason, and by substituting for this divine idea of a God of justice that of a being of arbitrary will, who is under no obligations to his creatures, we deeply dishonor the Almighty and fatally injure our own character. From this perverted view of God comes a cynical view of man. When we make will supreme in God, we legitimate all tyranny and contempt from man to man. Then comes the state of things described by Shakespeare:—

"Force should be right, or, rather, right and wrong (Between whose endless jar justice resides) Should lose their names, and so should justice too. Then everything includes itself in power, Power into will, will into appetite; And appetite, a universal wolf, So doubly seconded with will and power, Must make perforce a universal prey, And, last, eat up himself."

Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida.



CHAPTER VII. CONVERSION AND REGENERATION.



1. Orthodoxy recognizes only two Conditions in which Man can be found.

Orthodoxy knows only two states in which man can be found. Man is either in the natural state, and then he is totally depraved; or he is in the supernatural state, in which the chain of sin has been broken. He is either impenitent or penitent, either unregenerated or regenerate, unconverted or converted, a sinner or a saint.

There is no gradation, no shading off, no twilight between this midnight gloom and midday splendor. To the common eye, and in the judgment of their friends and neighbors, the people who enter a church seem of all degrees of goodness; and every one has good and bad qualities mixed up together in his character. But, as the Orthodox minister looks at them from the pulpit, they instantly fall into two classes, and become "my impenitent hearers," and "my penitent hearers."

Moreover, it is assumed that the distinction between these two classes is so marked and plain, that it can be recognized by any one who will. Orthodox people inquire, "Is he pious?" just as they would ask, "Is he married?"

Again, the change from one state to the other is assumed to be so distinct and marked, that he who runs can read. One may say to another, "Where were you converted?" just as they may say, "Where did you go to college?" "Where were you born?" said an English bishop to Summerfield, the Methodist preacher. "In Dublin and Liverpool," he answered. "Were you born in two places?" said the bishop. " 'Art thou a master in Israel, and knowest not these things?' " replied Summerfield.

On the other hand, it is quite common among Liberal Christians to doubt the reality, or deny the importance, of such changes altogether. With them the Christian life consists, not in change, but in progress. In the Christian source, Orthodoxy lays the main stress on the commencement; Liberal Christianity, on the progress. The one wishes you to begin the journey, without seeming to care whether you go forward: the other urges you to go forward, without inquiring whether you have begun to go. According to one, Christianity is nothing but a CRISIS; according to the other, nothing but a DEVELOPMENT.



2. Crisis and Development.

Is there any truth in this Orthodox view of man? anything essential, substantial, vital? And is there any formal error? If there is, what is it? Is Christianity crisis or development, or both?

Common sense and the analogies of common life must answer, "Both." If Christianity is a life, it must begin with a birth; if a journey, it cannot be taken except we set out; if an education, we must determine to commence the education; if labor in God's vineyard, we must go into the vineyard, and begin. There are only two classes—those who are alive, and those who are not alive; those who are taking the journey, and those who have not yet set out; those who are studying, and those who have not yet begun to study; those who are at work for God, and those who are standing idle. The distinction into two classes seems, therefore, substantial and real. It does not follow, to be sure, that these two classes can be distinguished so easily by the eye of man; but they certainly can be by the eye of God. Nor does this primary distinction interfere with other distinctions and many degrees of difference—greater or less differences and degrees of progress, usefulness, goodness. Nor does it follow that those who are now on the right side may not change again to the wrong, and again to the right. There may be conversion, and re-conversion; but that, at any moment, every person must be either endeavoring to do right, or not so endeavoring, is evident. This view is confirmed by the New Testament: "No man can serve two masters."

That in the religious life there should be both crisis and development, accords with the analogies of nature. The seed lies in the ground in a dormant state, perhaps for a long period. After a time comes a crisis; thrills of life vibrate through it; the germ is stirred; it sends its roots downward; its stalk pierces the mould, moving upward into light and air. After this great change, there comes a period of progress and development. The plant grows; its roots multiply; its stalk ascends, and divides into leaves. Then there comes a second crisis. The plant blossoms. In the course of a few hours, after weeks of growth, the bud bursts into beautiful petals, surrounding the delicate stamens and precious pistil. Then there comes a second long period of slow development. The petals fall, and the fruit slowly swells through many weeks of growth. At last there comes a day when the fruit is ripe. Yesterday it was not ripe; to-day it is. This is the third crisis. And so, in human life, long periods of development terminate in critical hours—the seeds of another long growth. So it is in other things; so also in religion.



3. Nature of the Change.

The next position of Orthodoxy is, that man, in the second or regenerate state, is a new creature. It asserts the change to be entire and radical, and the difference immense. Not only the whole direction of the life is changed, but the motive power is different, and the spirit different. Instead of ambition, there is content; in the place of sensitive vanity, there comes humility; instead of anxiety, trust in God. The burden of sin is taken away; the sense of our unworthiness no longer torments us: for God has forgiven our sins. Duty no longer seems arduous and difficult; for there is joy in doing anything for the sake of God. The law is written in the heart. We are born into a new life, the principle of which is faith. "The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God." This faith enables us to see God as he is, not as a stern King, or a distant Power, or an abstract Law, but as a Friend, Father, watchful Providence, surrounding Love, inflowing Life; Source from which we are always coming, and towards which we are always tending. This life of faith makes all things new. Old things have passed away, and the outward world is fresh as on the first morning of creation. Our inward and outward life are both new. We have new convictions, new affections, new aims, new hopes, new joys. Nature is new, life is new, the Bible is new, the future world is new. Such and so great is the change which Orthodoxy assumes as the result of conversion.



4. Its Reality and Importance.

And the experience of the whole Church, the biographies of the saints in every denomination, assure us of the substantial truth of this description. Even in churches which are not Orthodox,—churches like our own, which insist more upon development than upon crisis,—observation verifies this description. Even those who do not expect such a change, nor believe in it, often come to it unexpectedly. In the course of each one's experience as a Christian minister, though he may never have insisted on the importance of sudden changes, and though he may be no revival preacher, he must have known numerous instances of those who seem to have passed from death to life in the course of a day or an hour. And is not this change, either sudden or gradual, that which makes Christianity a gospel? It is the good news, not of a future and distant heaven, but of a present heaven,—a heaven not outward, but inward; a present salvation from the power of sin; a present relief from the sense of guilt; a present joy and peace in believing; happiness in serving God; sympathy and good-will to man, instead of envy and uncharitableness; peace with God, with man, with ourselves, with our condition and circumstances.

That such a state is possible for every human being who desires it, is the good news which Christ brings; and the experience of ten thousand times ten thousand grateful hearts declares that it is a reality.



5. Is it the Work of God, or of the Man himself? Orthodox Difficulty.

But now comes a difficulty in the Orthodox statement. Orthodoxy declares that this regenerate state is the result of faith, not of works; and that faith is the gift of God; and herein Orthodoxy follows the Scripture. Yet Orthodoxy calls upon us to repent and be converted, that our sins may be blotted out; and herein likewise Orthodoxy follows the Scripture. Is, then, conversion an experience, or is it an action? Is it something God gives, or something which he commands? Is it a duty to be done, or a gift to be received? Is it submission to his will, or joy in his love? a new life of obedience, or a new heart of faith? If it is submission, then we can all change our hearts at once, and make ourselves love God and love man. But who can love by an effort of the will? Yet, if the new life is a gift, then we have no power to procure it, and can only wait till God sees fit to send it; and how, then, can we be called upon to be converted?

Here is a difficulty which it seems to us Orthodoxy does not solve; and yet we think that a solution is to be found in a very simple distinction, which, like all other true and real distinctions, throws light on many other difficulties.



6. Solved by the Distinction between Conversion and Regeneration.

The distinction of which we speak is between repentance or conversion on the one side, and regeneration or a new life on the other side. Repentance or conversion consists in renouncing all sin, and resolving to forsake it; in turning to God, with the purpose of submitting to his will and obeying his law. This conversion or repentance is an act proceeding from the will, and in obedience to the conscience. This is what God commands, and what we can and ought to do. Every conscientious person, every person who is endeavoring to do right and is ready to act up to his light, is a converted person. Every one who hates his sins, resists temptation, watches and prays against it, is a penitent person. This is the great, broad distinction between man and man. This divides all men into two classes—those who, in their will and purpose, are for God, truth, and right; and those who, because they are not for God, are really against him.

But, besides this broad distinction, there is another secondary distinction—a distinction among those who are conscientiously endeavoring to do God's will. Among the converted there are two classes—the regenerate and the unregenerate. A man may be converted, and not be regenerate; for a man may repent of his sin and turn towards God, and yet not have the life of love and joy which we have described.

He is under law, not under grace. He is struggling to do right, but is not borne forward on a joyful tide-wave of love.



7. Men may be divided, religiously, into three Classes, not two.

If this be so, we may divide men into three classes, and not into two. The first class is of those who are neither converted nor regenerate; the second, who are converted, but not regenerate; the third, who are converted, and also regenerate. The first are like the prodigal in the parable,—living without God; the second, like the hired servants in the same story,—serving God for wages; the third are sons, serving from love, ever with their Father, and all that he has is theirs. The motive of the first class is selfish will, selfish pleasure; the motive of the second is duty; that of the third, love. The first are without law, the second under law, the third under grace. And so we might multiply distinctions. But is it not clear to common observation, that this threefold classification meets the facts of life better than the other? There are three degrees of character. There is the worldly man, who is just as good or bad as society around him leads him to be; whose virtues result merely from a happy organization, or fortunate influences, but who has no principle of goodness, no purpose of righteousness, no serious aim in life. Then there is the conscientious man, who means to live, and does live, by a standard of morality; who has a serious aim, but who is not yet deeply and joyfully religious; whose religion, at any rate, is hard work, not confiding, child-like faith. And then there is the Christian believer, who has begun to live from faith; who begins to feel a higher life pouring into his heart from on high; who has help and strength from above. From his heart the burden has been lifted, and he has become again as a little child. He knows how to pray the prayer of faith. He may not be so very much better than the other in outward character; but he has the principle within him which will make all things new, sooner or later.

The New Testament confirms this view of a threefold division. We saw, in our last chapter, that the apostle Paul, who considers human nature to consist of three elements,—spirit, soul, and body,—divides mankind into the carnal man, the natural (psychical or soulish) man, and the spiritual man. The carnal man is he in whom the bodily instincts and appetites are supreme. "He is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." The natural man is he in whom the soul is supreme: he is neither carnal on one side, nor spiritual on the other. "He cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God;" yet he is not in opposition and hostility to them, like the carnal man, whose mind is enmity against God.

Still more plainly does the apostle indicate the distinction when speaking of those who are without law, those who are under law, and those who are free from law and above it. The first state he describes in such words as these: "I was alive without the law once"—the glad, natural life and freedom before conscience is developed. But conscience does awake in all: "The commandment came, sin revived, and I died." When man sees that he ought to serve God, yet continues to serve the flesh and the world, he is spoken of as dead in sin; for all the principle of progress ceases. But if he does endeavor to do right, then Paul speaks of him as under law, and on his way to a higher state. That higher state he speaks of as being "delivered from the law, to serve in newness of spirit, and not in oldness of letter."

Thus we see that all religious experiences coincide. The experience of the apostle Paul is exactly the same, in its essentials, with that of every soul, however humble, that begins and goes forward in the Christian life.

If this distinction between conversion and regeneration be correct, it removes the difficulty in the Orthodox statement.



8. Difference between Conversion and Regeneration.

Conversion is an act, regeneration an experience. "Turn ye, turn ye; for why will ye die?" is the command of the Old Testament. "Repent, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out;" "Repent, and be baptized, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost," is the command of the New Testament. It is a duty to repent; but to become regenerate is not a duty: that is a gift, to be received afterwards. God commands conversion: he bestows regeneration. Submission is an act of our own: faith is the gift of God. A change of outward life and conduct we can accomplish ourselves; at least, we can endeavor to accomplish it; but the change of heart God himself will bestow.

Conversion, a turning round, is necessarily instantaneous: it is a change. But regeneration, or reception of divine Love, is a state, not sudden, but passing by gradations into a deeper and deeper life of faith and joy.

So, too, conversion may be repeated: we may often find that we have again turned round, and are going the wrong way. But the inflow of life, when begun, cannot be begun again. When God has touched the heart with his love, it is forever lifted by that divine experience beyond the region of mere law. We can never forget it. These are the:

"Truths which wake To perish never; Which neither listlessness nor mad endeavor, Nor man nor boy, Nor aught that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy."

And herein lies the basis of the truth in the doctrine of the "perseverance of saints."



9. Unsatisfactory Attitude of the Orthodox Church.

We cannot but think the attitude of Orthodoxy towards this part of Christianity to be singularly unsatisfactory and inefficient. The work of the Church, all admit, is to convert the world to God, and so save it from the power and evil of sin. But if this is a work which the Church has to do, it ought surely to have some fixed method or rule by which to act. It should not be a matter of accident whether it can do its work or not. It should not be in doubt, every day, as to the success to come from its efforts. If its work is to make men Christians, it ought to know how to do it, be able to do it, and know when it is done. Such is the case with all other work. If a man is to build a house, he does not bring together his materials, hire his carpenters and masons, and, when all are on the ground, sit down with them, and wait for some emotion or interior change by which they will be enabled to go on and do their work. If we are mechanics, merchants, lawyers, physicians, teachers, we do not wait for a revival before we can properly fulfil our engagements. It is only in the work of converting the world to God—the greatest and most important of all—that such a strange system is adopted. We are told to put ourselves in the proper place, namely, the Church; collect our materials, that is, the means of grace; and then we are to wait until, somehow or other, we may be able to get religion. Religion is made a spasm, a struggle, an agony—not a regular work, not a steady growth. Everything about it is uncertain and tentative. No one knows when he will become a Christian, but hopes, some time or other, that he shall be made one. The common thought, produced by the common Orthodox system of preaching, was expressed once in a public meeting by Henry Clay. "I am not," he said, "a Christian. I am sorry I am not. I wish I were. I hope that, some day, I shall be." He did not mean by this to say that he was an unbeliever; but he had adopted the helpless, passive system by which he was taught that he had nothing to do but wait till some great change should take place in his soul.

Out of this way of thought comes the revival system, which is a curious blending of machinery and expectation, of adroit and careful management with reliance on some great inspiration. Crisis and development are to be expected, no doubt; but we do not set a trap to catch the Spring. It is ours to plant and to water, but it is God's to give the increase. That, therefore, should be left to him.

The revival system is Arminianism grafted on Calvinism. It is an attempt to unite the belief that man is wholly passive in conversion, and is not able to prepare himself thereunto, with the opposite doctrine that by a use of means he can become a Christian. It is an attempt to unite the Calvinistic article that God, when he chooses, calls those he has predestined to eternal life, with the attempt to make him choose our time and way. Such a system, disjointed at its centre, must necessarily work badly, and result in an alternation of feverish heats and aguish chills. To carry on the work of the Church by revivals is as unreasonable as it would be to carry on a school, or a cotton factory, by a revival system—alternations of violent study and work, followed by relapses into indolence and sloth.

The Church of Rome has a great advantage over Protestant Orthodoxy in this respect. It, too, admits revivals, and has its periods of extraordinary attention to religion. But there is this great difference. It does not depend on them for creating Christianity in the soul; it uses them only for increasing its warmth and power. In the Roman Church every baptized person is a Christian so long as he does not continue in mortal sin, but by the regular use of the sacraments preserves his Christian life. The essential work of the Church is done by its regular methods—by baptism, confession, and its ritual service. In the Church of Rome, all connected with it are Christians, and in the way of salvation. In Protestant Orthodox churches, if any of those born and brought up in it are Christians, it is, so far as they are concerned, a happy accident.

All this shows something wrong in the common theory of conversion. Every one in a Christian community who desires to be a Christian ought to be able to become one. Christianity is a gospel, because it opens the kingdom of heaven to all. The call of the Church at the beginning was to follow Christ. Any one who was willing to follow Christ was baptized at once, and became a Christian. No one waited till he should experience some remarkable interior change, or some influence of the Holy Ghost. The promise at first was, that whosoever became a Christian should receive the Holy Ghost afterwards. Spiritual influences were not the condition of Christianity, but the result of Christianity.

One bad consequence of the Orthodox idea is discouragement on the one side, and spiritual pride on the other. Those who are not converted are discouraged, and deprived of the comforts of Christian faith. Those who think they have been converted are satisfied with this past experience, and believe themselves Christians on the strength of it. Because some spiritual commotion took place in their souls at a certain time and place, they consider themselves children of God and heirs of his favor, though in their daily lives they may show little proof of practical Christianity. And the result of this, again, is a professed distrust, by the majority of sensible men, of such conversions. Men of the world do not find that professed Christians are better than themselves. Often, indeed, church members are not so just, honest, manly, or truthful as those who make no claim to religion. And the reason is simply this—that they have been taught to believe that the essence of Christianity does not consist in righteousness, but in certain religious experiences.



10. The Essential Thing for Man is to repent and be converted; that is, to make it his Purpose to obey God in all Things.

As far as man is concerned, repentance is the one thing needful. But by repentance we do not mean sorrow or contrition, but simply turning round whenever we are going wrong, and beginning at once to go right. This is something in every man's power, and this makes him a Christian; this gives him a claim to all the promises and hopes of the gospel here and hereafter. It would seem that there need be no doubt as to the nature of repentance while the parable of the prodigal son stands in the Bible. That divine story gives us the whole theory of repentance and regeneration—repentance being that which comes from man, regeneration that which is given by God. When the prodigal son was aware of his sin and sorrow, and said, "I will arise, and go to my father;" and when he arose, and went to his father, and confessed his sin and need, then he had repented. It was simply going to his father with the purpose of obedience. And when the father received him, not with reproach, but with pardon and joy, then he was born again, introduced into a new life, into the peace, and love, and freedom of his own home.

"One thing is needful," said Jesus; that is, to sit at the feet of the Master, to follow him, to become his disciple. That is all we have to do; then we are safe. We can trust God to do his part if we do ours. He will give us his Holy Spirit; he will give us a new heart; he will put his peace and strength into our souls. It is not necessary to be anxious, or to be inspecting our feelings to see if we are feeling right. All such introspection is unnecessary if we have faith in God and his promises. We are Christians just as long as we are obeying God and following Christ. When we find ourselves disobedient, selfish, going wrong, then the one thing needful is to repent and be converted. We are to come back to our duty.

The general impression in Orthodox churches, resulting from the preaching, is, that not much is gained by doing one's duty unless one is regenerate. Doing our duty does not make us Christians, does not save the soul; so, why be particular in doing more than others, or being better than others? Orthodox congregations believe in the new life, but not in obedience as its necessary antecedent.

Unitarians, on the other hand, believe in obedience, but have little faith in a higher life as attainable here. Hence a Unitarian congregation usually consists of intelligent, virtuous, well-meaning people, but destitute of enthusiasm, and with little confidence in the new birth or religious life.

Unitarians believe in obedience as the one thing needful; and in this they are right. But they are wrong in not expecting the influences which God is always ready to give, which change the heart, and fill it with a peace passing understanding, which make duties easy, which fill life with joy, and take the sting from death. The Orthodox believe in all these higher emotions and states of the soul, but unfortunately do not believe in obedience as the one thing needful. They think that some emotional transaction in the soul is the one thing needful.



11. Regeneration is God's Work in the Soul. Examination of the Classical Passage, or conversation of Jesus with Nicodemus.

In the third chapter of John we have the conversation which has been made the basis of the doctrine of the new birth.

In this conversation of Jesus with Nicodemus we have the old argument, which is always being renewed, between the letter and the spirit, between knowledge and insight, between routine and genius, ceremony and inspiration, the past and the future, the goodness of habit and the holiness born out of the living vision of good. In fact this little dialogue may be considered as a renewal, on a higher plane, of the picture given us by Luke of the boy Jesus in the temple talking with the doctors.

The common doctrine of the Orthodox churches about this chapter is, that Jesus teaches here that no man can be a Christian or a good man unless he passes through some mysterious experience, usually sudden, of which he must be conscious, which gives him a certain definite series of very deep feelings. First, he must feel very deeply that he is a sinner; then that he cannot by any effort of his own become different; thirdly, that, unless God makes him different, he never can be saved; and, lastly, he must feel that God will change his heart, and save him. Having passed through this kind of experience, it is assumed that he is "born again;" that he is a Christian; that he is a new creature; that he has a new heart; that if he dies now he will go to heaven; whereas, if he had died before, he would have gone to hell. It is also Orthodox to believe that a man can do nothing himself to produce this change of heart, or facilitate it.

A very interesting book was published not long ago, written by Miss Catherine Beecher, in which she describes the sufferings caused in her own experience by this theory of regeneration. Her father fully believed in it, and thought it necessary to carry all his children through it somehow or other. Their conversions, to be sure, were not all quite in rule; especially that of Henry seems to have been a little abnormal, if we may trust an account given by himself in an article on the dissolution of the Bowdoin Street Church and congregation, Boston, of which his father was the first minister. The description is so suggestive that we will quote the passage:—

"If somebody will look in the old records of Hanover Street Church about 1829, they will find a name there of a boy about fifteen years old, who was brought into the Church on a sympathetic wave, and who well remembers how cold and almost paralyzed he felt while the committee questioned him about his 'hope' and 'evidences,' which upon review amounted to this—that the son of such a father ought to be a good and pious boy. Being tender-hearted and quick to respond to moral sympathy, he had been caught and inflamed in a school excitement, but was just getting over it when summoned to Boston to join the church! On the morning of the day, he went to church without seeing anything he looked at. He heard his name called from the pulpit among many others, and trembled; rose up with every emotion petrified; counted the spots on the carpet; looked piteously up at the cornice; heard the fans creak in the pews near him; felt thankful to a fly that lit on his face, as if something familiar at last had come to break an awful trance; heard faintly a reading of the articles of faith; wondered whether he should be struck dead for not feeling more—whether he should go to hell for touching the bread and wine that he did not dare to take nor to refuse; spent the morning service uncertain whether dreaming, or out of the body, or in a trance; and at last walked home crying, and wishing he knew what, now that he was a Christian, he should do, and how he was to do it. Ah, well; there is a world of things in children's minds that grown-up people do not imagine, though they, too, once were young!"

Now, if his state of mind, thus described, had been at that time exposed and told, it would not have been thought a very sound Orthodox experience. But in reality the boy was at that very time as good a Christian for a boy as he is now for a man. But Miss Beecher, in the book referred to, tells us that when one of her other brothers was striving in prayer for this change of heart, with groans and struggles, the house was like a tomb. The poor young man was in his chamber alone, and his groans and cries were heard through the whole house. All the other members of the family staid in their own rooms in silence, until at last, by some natural reaction of feeling, there came a sense of rest and peace to his mind, which they believed to be the new birth. She also describes the way in which Dr. Payson, of Portland, tortured his little daughter, three years old, by a torture as well meant, as conscientious, and more terrible than that of the Holy Inquisition. He told his little daughter that she hated God; that she must have a change of heart, but that she could not get it for herself; and that even her prayers, until she was converted, were only making her worse. The poor little girl denied that she hated God; she said she was sure she loved him. Then the misguided father brought up all her little childish faults as a proof that she hated God; for if she loved him she would never do wrong. And so, from three years of age till she was thirteen, this poor, infatuated parent tormented this little child by keeping her on this spiritual rack—all because of a false view of the passages concerning regeneration in the Bible. And when we think of the twenty thousand pulpits which to-day are teaching in this country this same sort of belief, it is evident that it is our duty to see what the Master really meant to teach us by this passage.

Nicodemus is the type of a class of men common in all times. We have seen Nicodemus very often. He is a good man whose goodness has no life in it. His goodness is a sort of an automaton—all machinery and no soul. He is so thoroughly right in all he does; everything about him is so proper; he is so perfectly en regle in his own eyes,—that we sometimes wish that he might be betrayed into some impropriety, commit some not too great folly, have some escapade of rash enthusiasm. You respect him so much, you wonder why you do not love him more. It is because he is not open to influence. His goodness is so rigid, his opinions so declared, his character so pronounced, that there is no crack anywhere by which God or man can reach him. He has a whole armor of opinions all round him, and you cannot get through it. He has narrowed himself, and shut himself in, so that he feels no influence of sympathy coming from the wide ocean of humanity around, no influence of love from the deep heaven of God above. He is a sort of good rhinoceros, with a skin so thick that nothing can pierce it.