Having in the Appendix of my former lecture stated from sources of authority the doctrines of Calvinism on the nature of man, I here enumerate some of the principal texts on which those doctrines are said to be founded. The question, it is to be kept in mind, is not whether man is or is not capable of great depravity, whether sin of various degrees and extent has not existed in all ages, and does not exist at present in all places. That sin has entered into the world is a fact undisputed, no matter when or how; that sin is universal is a point also, upon which we are on both sides agreed. The true subject of dispute between us is, simply, this. Is human nature a nature of radical and inherent depravity? or is not goodness more properly its characteristic than evil? Now we maintain that all its essential tendencies establish the latter question in the affirmative, and no Scriptures prove the former. I shall take those quoted in the most approved Calvinistic formularies.
Gen. iii. is alleged as giving an account of the origin of sin: “And the Lord said to the woman, what is this thou hast done? And the woman said, the serpent beguiled me and I did eat.” There we have the account of Adam’s temptation and transgression, with the penalties pronounced upon the beguiler and his dupes. Now in whatever light we regard this passage, whether as a mythos, an allegory, or a literal narrative, it implies nothing of the doctrine asserted, or the consequences attributed to it; namely, the loss of all original righteousness, and entire defilement in all the faculties and parts of the soul and body: the imputation of their sin to mankind, burdened with the penalty of eternal death. When we find these ideas extracted out of one obscure passage, we may well ask is it Unitarianism or orthodoxy which adds to the Scriptures? These ideas are not in the passage itself, nor in any other supposed to be co-relative, nor in any number of passages fairly conjoined and fairly interpreted.
Gen. vi. 5. “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth.” This states merely a general fact, that of an evil condition of society, for which judgment of God is represented as poured out from heaven. But it is alleged, that in the same connection we read “that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually.” This clause only expresses the original idea with more impressive force. No one in the worst state of an individual or a nation will attempt to maintain that such words can have a rigid and literal application. Besides, in that very time, Noah is made an express exception; for we read that “the Lord said unto Noah, come thou and all thy house into the ark, for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.”[[522]] But though the literal meaning were insisted on, it could but literally extend to men of that time; and the rule of interpretation by which our opponents define the character of man, we are entitled in the next verse to apply to the character of God. “It repented him,” we are told, “that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.”[[523]] If on the literal principle we are to conclude man wicked in every thought and imagination, on the same principle we are to conclude that God can repent, and that he can be grieved at the heart.
Jer. xvii. 9. “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked,” is an exaggeration of the same kind with that we are considering. It was uttered when the Jewish nation was in a state of sad corruption, and the prophet’s feelings were passionate against his countrymen in grief and indignation. If we are to take all the prophet’s words as coolly and deliberately uttered, then what shall we say to the tremendous language in which he curses his existence and his birth.
Eccl. vii. 29. “God hath made man upright, but they have sought many inventions.” This expression contains no matter of controversy; the first part states our view, and the latter clause of the verse, by no torture of criticism can be made to imply inherent and entire depravity.
Psalm li. 5. “Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” The import of this expression is to be judged of from the general tone of the Psalm, which is most passionate and penetential, inspired by the deepest spirit of remorse. David uttered these complainings in profoundest self-accusation; but there would be little for repentance to deplore, if he could remove the blame from himself to his nature, and bury individual guilt in a corruption to which he was subjected in common with all men. The force and meaning—the piercing and eloquent deprecation of the whole composition, combine to show it is one of individual experience, the idea of original sin leaves it vapid and pointless, makes it, not the anguish of a convicted sinner, but the sophistry of a deluded hypocrite; not a lamentation for vice, but an excuse for it. These passages are the few which can be found in the Old Testament that have any direct reference to a tenet said to be inculcated throughout the whole of Scripture. If we turn to the New Testament we find the evidence quite as scanty, and quite as inconclusive. The texts advanced are commonly taken from the epistles, principally from those of Paul, and of Paul’s, mostly from the Romans. Few or none can be advanced from the gospel histories, and the discourses of Christ have no reference to such a doctrine.
Rom. iii. 10. “There is none righteous, no not one: there is none that understandeth,” &c., &c. Correspondent to this passage is the 14th Psalm. Both David and Paul refer to the peculiar depravity of their times. But, in the sense of absolute and guiltless perfection, unquestionably, the general assertion may be made of all men.
Rom. v. 12-19, and 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22, 45, 49. The apostle, I apprehend, institutes a comparison between the imperfect man, symbolized in Adam, and the perfect man revealed in Christ; between the earthly and the heavenly, the mortal and the immortal; death shown forth in the one—life manifested in the other.
Rom. vii. 18. “For I know that in me, (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not.” Ver. 25. “So then with my mind, I serve the law of God, but with my flesh the law of sin.” And the apostle had said in the preceding verses, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man; but I find a law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” This is an eloquent and fervent out-pouring of individual experience, no more intended as a universal description than any passage in the journal of John Wesley or Thomas Scott. Involving as human nature does, a twofold constitution, a struggle between desire and conscience is a necessary condition of its moral existence. This is inevitable, unless a being is above or beneath temptation; but the very struggle implies the power of the moral sense; the possession of the moral sense is an element of human dignity even in defeat, how much more in triumph. Without the power of transgression or the danger of falling, there is of course no trial, and in the human sense no virtue. But there are some expressions of Paul’s more general and comprehensive, and to these I shall devote one or two remarks.
Rom. viii. 7. “The carnal mind (τὸ φρονημα τῆς σαρκος—the mind of the flesh) is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.”