We know all that is urged in opposition to this reasoning, and we will examine its merits. These doctrines, it is said, are overcharged. The corruption of human nature, for instance, instead of being described as partial, is represented to be total. Society, we are assured, could not exist on such a supposition.
Let us listen to what Newton remarks on this subject.
"His natural powers, though doubtless impaired, were not destroyed. Man by nature is still capable of great things. His understanding, reason, memory, imagination, &c. sufficiently proclaim that the 'hand which made him is divine.' He is, as Milton says of Beelzebub, 'majestic though in ruins.' He can reason, invent, and, by application, attain a considerable knowledge in natural things. The exertions of human genius, as specified in the characters of some philosophers, poets, orators, &c. are wonderful. But man cannot know, love, trust or serve his Maker, unless he be renewed in the spirit of his mind."[863]
"Sin did not deprive him of rationality but of spirituality."[864]
Again: "God has not left man destitute of such dispositions as are necessary to the peace of society; but I deny that there is any moral goodness in them, unless they are founded in a supreme love to God, have his glory for their aim, and are produced by faith in Jesus Christ."[864]
What does Newton here assert that is not maintained in the 13th Article of our own church?[865]
Thus man's natural and moral powers survive the fall; but those which are spiritual are effaced and lost. Nature cannot confer what it is the province of grace alone to bestow. It requires a divine power to restore and quicken the soul. But what is the doctrine of the church of England as regards man's partial or total corruption? We extract the following passage from the Homily on the Nativity:—
"Whereby it came to pass that, as before (the fall) he was blessed, so now he was accursed; as before he was loved, so now he was abhorred; as before he was most beautiful and precious, so now he was most vile and wretched in the sight of his Lord and Maker. Instead of the image of God, he was now become the image of the devil, instead of the citizen of heaven, he was become the bond slave of hell, having in himself no one part of his former purity and cleanness, but being altogether spotted and defiled, insomuch that now he seemed to be nothing else but a lump of sin."[866] Whoever used language stronger and more explicit than these words?
Thus we see that men, in attacking these views and sentiments, are, in fact, impugning the doctrines of their own church.
We merely add one more remark on the much-controverted subject of conversion. To those who deny this doctrine, and describe it as "spiritual revelry," pretended illuminations, &c., we recommend the consideration of the following passage in the Homily on Whitsunday. It refers to our Lord's conversation with Nicodemus, and to the inability of the latter to comprehend this great spiritual change of heart.