In the above extract, it is as clear as language can make it, that Dr. Taylor taught, in 1828, that in men sin by nature is owing to propensities to inferior good, which are “different from Adam's,” who was created perfect, and that this is “the occasion or reason” of their sinning, and that “such is their nature, that in all appropriate circumstances of their being, they will sin, and only sin.” This must mean the construction of [pg 227] mind. He does not claim to describe, certainly, what this difference is between the nature of Adam and that of his descendants; but he maintains that while Adam's nature was not so created by God at first, the nature of all his descendants is so depraved, that, as the result, they “sin, and only sin,” till regenerated.
But, in contradiction to this, is presented the extract below, sent by Dr. Taylor to the author, in a letter in which he was attempting to show that he did not teach the depravity of man in his constitutional faculties. And he claims that what he thus writes is what he has “always taught:”
“I have always taught that man, after the fall of Adam, was as truly created in God's image as was Adam; that Christ was tempted in all points like as we are; that the stronger are our inferior propensities, if we govern them, as we can, by the morally right act of the will, the greater is the moral excellence of the act. I do not maintain that man has full power to change his depraved nature without divine aid—for I have never supposed that he has a depraved nature in any sense, or a corrupt nature, much less a sinful nature, to be changed; but rather, that in nature he is like God. In discussions I have always opposed the use of language by your father and Mr. Barnes, of a corrupt nature not sinful.”
Now it is not possible to make these two extracts any thing other than exact contradictions. For in one he teaches that men are so totally depraved in nature, that “in all the appropriate circumstances of their being they will sin, and only sin.”
In the other, he says of man, “I have never supposed that he has a depraved nature, in any sense, or a corrupt nature, much less a sinful nature, to be changed; but rather that in nature he is like God.”
If it is asked, “How is it possible that a man, at [pg 228] once so honest and so acute, can thus contradict himself and not perceive it?” it may be replied, that he has done it no more than does every other theologian and every creed that teaches at once, that the nature of man is so depraved at birth that every moral act is sin, and only sin, till regeneration—and yet, that God, the Creator of all minds, is not the author of the sin resulting from such a depraved nature.
And theologians are not peculiar in self-contradictions. Every error is a contradiction to some principle of common sense. Thus it is a fact, that, as all men believe and maintain, by a necessity of nature, the principles of common sense, every false principle or error which they defend, is a flat contradiction to some of their other declarations on other occasions. Meantime, it is the great mission of all free and fair discussion to bring men to see their own inconsistencies, and to forsake all which are shown to be contrary to reason and common sense.
Chapter XXXIII. The Augustinian Theory Not In The Bible.
In the preceding chapters it is shown that theological creeds and teachings maintain the common-sense system, and at the same time the contradictory Augustinian system. In other words, it is shown that the Augustinian theologians contradict at once our common sense, our moral sense, and themselves.