duced by our voluntary agency, and which are subject to the power of the will. This objection rests on a principle which has already been considered. It reaches very far. If it be sound, then there can be no such thing as concreated holiness, or habitual grace, or innate, inherent, or indwelling sin. But we have already seen, when treating of the nature of sin, that according to the Scriptures, the testimony of consciousness, and the universal judgment of men, the moral character of dispositions depends on their nature and not on their origin. Adam was holy, although so created. Saints are holy, although regenerated and sanctified by the almighty power of God. And therefore the soul is truly sinful if the subject of sinful dispositions, although those dispositions should be innate and entirely beyond the control of the will. Here it will be seen that the objection is not against the Scriptural evidence of the doctrine that men are born in sin, nor against the testimony of facts to the truth of that doctrine; but it is founded on the difficulty of reconciling the doctrine of innate sin with certain assumed principles as to the nature and grounds of moral obligation. Whether we can refute those principles or not, does not affect the truth of the doctrine. We might as well deny all prophecy and all providence, because we cannot reconcile the absolute control of free agents with their liberty. If the assumed moral axiom that a man can be responsible only for his own acts, conflicts with the facts of experience and the teachings of Scriptures, the rational course is to deny the pretended axiom, and not to reject the facts with which it is in conflict. The Bible, the Church, the mass of mankind, and the conscience, hold a man responsible for his character, no matter how that character was formed or whence it was derived; and, therefore, the doctrine of original sin is not in conflict with intuitive moral truths.

Objection Founded on the Justice of God.

2. It is objected that it is inconsistent with the justice of God that men should come into the world in a state of sin. In answer to this objection it may be remarked, (1.) That whatever God does must be right. If He permits men to be born in sin, that fact must be consistent with his divine perfection. (2.) It is a fact of experience no less than a doctrine of Scripture that men are either, as the Church teaches, born in a state of sin and condemnation, or, as all men must admit, in a state which inevitably leads to their becoming sinful and miserable. The objection, therefore, bears against a providential fact as much as against a Scriptural doctrine. We must either deny God or admit that the existence and univer

sality of sin among men is compatible with his nature and with his government of the world. (3.) The Bible, as often before remarked, accounts for and vindicates the corruption of our race on the ground that mankind had a full and fair probation in Adam, and that the spiritual death in which they are born is part of the judicial penalty of his transgression. If we reject this solution of the fact, we cannot deny the fact itself, and, being a fact, it must be consistent with the character of God.

The Doctrine represents God as the Author of Sin.

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

ical, mental, and moral, which make up his individuality.

There

is nothing therefore in the doctrine of hereditary depravity out of analogy with providential facts.

It is said to destroy the Free Agency of Men.

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

§ 14. The Seat of Original Sin.

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

trines Augustinianism, as held by the Lutheran and Reformed Churches, teaches that the whole man, soul and body, the higher as well as the lower, the intellectual as well as the emotional faculties of the soul, is affected by the corruption of our nature derived from our first parents.

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

The Whole Soul the Seat of Original Sin.

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

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

2. The opposite doctrine assumes that there is nothing moral in our cognitions or judgments; that all knowledge is purely speculative. Whereas, according to the Scripture the chief sins of men consist in their wrong judgments, in thinking and believing evil to be good, and good to be evil. This in its highest form, as our Lord teaches us, is the unpardonable sin, or blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. It was because the Pharisees thought that Christ was evil, that his works were the works of Satan, that He declared that they could never be forgiven. It was because Paul could see no beauty in Christ that he should desire Him, and because he verily thought

he was doing God service in persecuting believers, that he was, and declared himself to be, the chief of sinners. It is, as the Bible clearly reveals, because men are ignorant of God, and blind to the manifestation of his glory in the person of his Son, that they are lost. On the other hand the highest form of moral excellence consists in knowledge. To know God is eternal life. To know Christ is to be like Christ. The world, He says, hath not known me, but these (believers) have known me. True religion consists in the knowledge of the Lord, and its universal prevalence among men is predicted by saying, "All shall know Him from the least unto the greatest." Throughout the Scriptures wisdom is piety, the wise are the good; folly is sin, and the foolish are the wicked. Nothing can be more repugnant to the philosophy of the Bible than the dissociation of moral character from knowledge; and nothing can be more at variance with our own consciousness. We know that every affection in a rational creature includes an exercise of the cognitive faculties; and every exercise of our cognitive faculties, in relation to moral and religious subjects, includes the exercise of our moral nature.

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

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

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