66

Accordingly he represents the depravity of man as natural," "innate," and "resulting from the original constitution," in the same sense as are "original strength of mind, and liveliness of imagination," a "disposition to society," and "a propensity to sympathy or compassion;" and as "hereditary," in the same sense as is the "resemblance between children and parents with respect to any properties of body or mind.”

It is on the same principle that the reasonings in innumerable other volumes on the subject rest; and is in short, it is believed, that on which all the arguments are founded that have ever been employed to prove that the created nature of man is depraved.

But--it can scarcely now be necessary to ask-is the depravity here described a physical depravity? Can it be any thing else? It being a quality of nature, in distinction from actions; that is of the substance of the soul, in distinction from its operations, it is of necessity a substantial quality. It being the cause of all the depraved actions which men exercise, it of course exists antecedently to the exercise of any of those actions; that is, at a period when nothing belonging to the soul has existence, except its mere substance; and must therefore be one of its physical attributes.

IV. It is represented as being conveyed from Adam to his posterity, and from one generation of his posterity to another, by propagation, in the same manner as other constitutional properties.

"We believe that original sinne descends unto us from Adam, by birth and inheritance."-Aritcles agreed upon at Marpurge, in 1529, by Luther, Melancthon, Zwinglius and

others.

"Man was at his first creation far different from what all his posterity are, who deriving their origin from him after he

had become corrupt, have contracted from him an hereditary blemish."

"We thus learn that the impurity of parents is so transmitted to children, that all without exception are polluted by their origin. Nor can the beginning of this pollution be found, unless we ascend to the first parent of all as to the fountain. It is therefore to be regarded as certain that Adam was not the progenitor only of human nature, but the root as it were, and that therefore for a good reason the human species was vitiated by his corruption."

It is not absurd at all, if on his becoming despoiled, [of the gifts which he received from God at his creation,] nature was reduced to nakedness and poverty,-if on his becoming corrupted by sin, the contagion crept into nature; just as from a decayed root rotten branches grow which transmit their putrescence to the other smaller shoots that spring from them. For children are vitiated in the parent in such a manner that they cause the corruption of their descendants.”—Inst. Lib. I. Cap. XV. 8—II. Cap. I. 6, 7.

"Such as man was after the fall, such children did he beget-corruption by the righteous judgment of God being derived from Adam to his posterity, not by imitation, but by the propagation of a vicious nature."-Resolutions of the Synod of Dort in Buck's Theol. Dict. Article, Calvinism.

"That the corruption of nature is conveyed by generation seems certain; for since nature is conveyed in that way, the sin of nature must also come in like manner."-Gill's Body of Practical Divinity.

"In Adam, as being in his loins when he thus apostatized we all sinned and fell under condemnation: his blood was attainted for rebellion, and thence that evil nature originated,

from which all our personal transgressions proceed.”—Scott's

Notes on Rom. V.

"Now here is a wonder to be accounted for-sin tainting every individual of Adam's race in every age, country and condition, and surviving in every heart all exertions to destroy it. One would think this might prove, if any thing could, that sin belongs to the nature of man, as much as reason or speech, (though in a sense altogether compatible with blame,) and must be derived like other universal attributes of our nature from the original parent; propagated like reason or speech, (neither of which is exercised at first,) propagated like many other propensities, mental as well as bodily, which certainly are inherited from parents-propagated like the noxious nature of other animals."

"If the phenomenon is not accounted for in this easy and natural way, so analagous to that great law by which all animals propagate their kinds and their dispositions, it must remain to the end of time an unsolvable mystery."

"Now if all men are born depraved, there is the same evidence that depravity is propagated from father to son through all generations, as that speech or reason, or any of the natural affections are, (though in a sense entirely compatible with blame,) and so it is to be traced back equally with them to the original parent. But if, on the other hand, infants receive their whole nature from their parents pure; if when they leave the duct through which all properties are conveyed from ancestors, they are infected with no depravity, it is plain that they never derive a taint of moral pollution from Adam. There can be no conveyance after they are born, and his sin was in no sense the occasion of the universal depravity of the world, otherwise than merely as the first example."-Park Street Lectures, p. 12. 17, 18.

Such is the manner in which they have expressed themselves on this subject. Let us now inquire whether a depravity thus propagated must be a physical property or not; and that it must, few facts it is believed, within the compass of our knowledge, are capable of easier demonstra

tion.

A depravity thus conveyed-it will be admitted-cannot lie at all in the actions of the being propagated. The doctrine is, that it is an attribute of nature, not of the operations of nature; and that it exists antecedently to the exercise of moral actions, and is the cause that those actions are sinful. Besides, who ever heard that actions are a subject of propagation? The perceptions, feelings, volitions, of offspring derived from their parents through that medium! What fancy more ridiculous ever entered the imagination?.

Nor-it will also be admitted-can it lie at all in the moral influence under which the being propagated exerts his actions; nor in any thing else external to himself. The doctrine is, that it is an attribute of himself, not of any thing existing without him. And whoever heard that the external circumstances of children, or the moral influence under which their voluntary actions take place, are a subject of propagation? Is it indeed a fact that the ignorance or knowledge, the obscurity or distinction, the poverty or affluence, the temptations or restraints, which mark our career through life, are conveyed to us through that channel? As, then, it neither lies at all in any thing external to the being propagated, nor in any of its actions, it must of course exist entirely within the being itself—must constitute a portion of its physical nature.

Nothing manifestly beyond the mere physical nature can be a subject of propagation. The term indeed cannot be employed with any propriety to mean, at most, any thing more than the mere fact, that it is in connection with parental instrumentality that the being propagated comes into existence, and assumes that particular modification, or re

ceives that structure which forms what is denominated its constitution, and by which it becomes a member of the species to which it belongs. And if the influence it denotes extends no farther than to determine the time when its subject comes into being, and the species of physical constitution with which it is endowed, it is of course expended wholly on that constitution, and gives birth to nothing but its physical properties. The depravity in question, therefore, if thus propagated, must be one of those properties.

V. The formal statements made relative to the nature of this depravity, exhibit the same views respecting it.

It is exhibited by Calvin, as consisting in such a deterioration of the mind, as renders it absolutely incapable both of that knowledge of God which is necessary to holiness, and of that class of volitions which are morally excellent. He regarded the mind as made up of the two faculties of understanding and will, and says of them :

"I am pleased with the opinion commonly held and derived from Augustine, that by sin the natural gifts in man were corrupted, and the supernatural extinguished.”

After showing that by the latter he meant holy affections, and by the former the understanding and will, he proceeds:

"The corruption of the natural gifts consists in the loss of the soundness of the understanding, and the right state of the will; for although some residue of understanding and judgment survives together with will, yet we cannot call that understanding whole and sound, which is both weak and immersed in thick darkness; and the corruption of the will is too well known. As indeed reason, by which man perceives, judges, and discerns between good and evil, is an endowment belonging to his nature, it cannot be wholly extinguished, but it is partly debilitated, and partly corrupted, so that it appears a shapeless ruin. With this meaning John