“The will of man, with respect to the true good, is not only wounded, bruised, inferior, crooked and attenuated, but is likewise captivated, destroyed and lost; and has no powers whatever, except such as are excited by grace.”
Thus the presence of God's Spirit in Adam's mind, according to Dr. Hodge, insured a “disposition” to delight in God, which was lost by its withdrawal. According to Arminius, this withdrawal so affected the whole race, that “in respect to the true good” the will of man has no powers whatever, except such as are excited by grace—that is, by a measured return of God's Spirit, withdrawn for Adam's sin, which return was purchased by Christ's death.
It is clear, that it is the powers and faculties of mind that are meant here, in this explanation of the depravity of man's nature.
Thus it is shown that every attempt to explain what depravity consists in, by theologians, results in their teaching a constitutional malformation, which proves the author of the construction to be depraved.
We will now present the evidence, that theologians contradict themselves, and deny that they use the word nature in the sense of constitutional organization or construction, and maintain that they use it in some other sense.
In all creeds and all theological teachings, the authors expressly disclaim that they maintain any thing which makes God “the author of sin.” And they allow, that making God the creator of a depraved nature, would make him the author of sin. Therefore, to escape the difficulty, they claim that God is the author of one nature, which is perfect and in his own image, and that there is another nature which man himself made, either by, or in, or before Adam, which is depraved. Then when they are driven to identify the nature that God made and the nature that man made, they are again at fault. Man really has but one nature, and that is the nature which is discovered by his qualities and actions, as learned by experience. There is no other nature conceivable, and no other idea that men ever attach to the word when applied to the mind or soul of man. Therefore, theologians really do use it in the sense which they deny, for there is no other.
Again, theologians deny that they teach “physical depravity” and “physical regeneration,” and the only intelligible sense of this disclaimer is, that they do not teach depravity of construction and the reformation of this depravity of construction. But, as before shown, when they describe the depravity and regeneration, [pg 224] they make out what actually is physical depravity and physical regeneration, and nothing else.
Again, when they attempt to describe what they mean, one class of theologians—i.e., new school Calvinists—teach that the whole depravity consists in a want of “right willing.” And this is exactly what the common-sense system teaches—i.e., that the depravity of man is in the wrong action and not in the wrong construction of mind. And yet when they are charged with holding the Pelagian doctrine of perfect mental construction, they deny it, and say they teach depravity of nature.
As an example of this, is presented the following extract from the writings of Dr. Bennet Tyler, the president of a theological seminary established to sustain the New England theology of the President Edwards' type, in opposition to the supposed Pelagian innovations of the New Haven theologians:
“God has endowed you with understanding to perceive the rule of duty, with conscience to feel obligation, and with will to choose between good and evil. Possessing these powers, you are complete moral agents, and have all the ability to obey the commands of God that you ever will have, or ever can have—we do not mean that all the powers and faculties of his (man's) soul are so impaired that he could not do his duty if he would, but that he will not do his duty when he can.”