"Wherefore, as by one man, sin entered into the world, and death by
sin;
and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." —
Romans 5:12.
The discussion of this theme, as you readily
perceive, leads me directly upon controverted ground; i. e., human
depravity; commonly styled "total depravity."
As no truth of our holy religion is so
debasing and humiliating to the carnal heart, as that it is totally or
wholly corrupt and depraved, so no doctrine of the Bible has been so
bitterly assailed and violently opposed by the founders and supporters of
human-invented systems of religious faith, from the period of the first schism
until now. Nor is this strange. Human systems of religion are constructed to
please the world and to gain popularity. And what is so pleasing and
complimentary to a wicked and depraved heart as the flattering insinuation
that it is not naturally sinful or depraved but, on the contrary, naturally
perfect and holy? What religious doctrine is so well calculated to win the ear and gain the assent of man as that which praises him? Hence the first
sentence that Arian, or Pelagius, wrote in their creed was: "There is no
original sin," i. e., that mankind naturally are as pure and holy
as the angels.*
As it was of the ancient, so it still is the
first article in the creed of the modern, Pelagians among us. "No
original sin" is still the watchword and ready reply they receive from
the world. Save the divinity of Christ, no doctrine of the Bible receives so
much of their ridicule and abuse. They direct the attention of the world to
the preachers and believers of the doctrine of original depravity as the
defamers of their character and natures, and thereby gain favor to their
cause. We can easily see why they can so conveniently dispense with the
divinity of Christ. For if the disease is superficial, the remedy may be
trivial. If the garment be perfectly sound and well finished, only a little
dusty from wear, there is no need of having it renovated and renewed; a little
brushing, "an external application of water will do." So if the
heart of man is naturally holy, but only the inclinations of it a little
warped, then he needs but recall his aberration, regain his natural bias,
and have a perfect example to assist him (which they believe was the object of
Christ's mission), and all will be well!
But if the Bible teaches the doctrine of
original depravity, shall we cower, be ashamed, or afraid to assert it,
regardless of the displeasure of the world,
or the sneers and attacks of our opposers? God forbid. Did we find one
doctrine in our creed that was not repulsive and displeasing to the carnal
heart, we would strike it out. Christ never preached such a doctrine, or the
apostles, nor the martyrs; and he who does is "Maranatha," saith our
God. Be this our touchstone. In discussing our subject we wish to notice the extent,
source, and depth of this depravity.
Proposition I
All men are sinners and consequently
depraved.
1. "The wages of sin is death," saith
the apostle. If then death is the penalty of depravity and sin wherever it is
found, is it the wages of anything else? Of being first instituted as the
penalty of depravity and sin, has it now dominion over the innocent? Not so.
Every nature that is sinful and depraved must endure death, and none other.
"Death hath passed upon all, for all have sinned " — all are
regarded as sinners. "The soul that sinneth [or is sinful] shall
die," is the sentence passed upon a sinful race. Then none but sinners or
depraved persons die. But all die — the young and the old, childhood and
age. Therefore, all are regarded as sinners and of depraved natures.
Cast your eyes over our sad, fallen world,
and behold the millions of the human race, the entire population of the globe,
paling and vanishing before the sickle of the great reaper, Death, and
say, Have not all sinned? Without sin, man might ever live. The vigor of
manhood, and hope of youth, ever swell his breast, and the warm bounding
blood of childhood dashes through all his veins. Never would we behold the
plague spot upon the cheek of the young and lovely — nor the forms of our
fathers, and the noble of the land withering from the blighting touch of
consumption, the upas of diseases. No longer would our atmosphere be pregnant
with death, nor every breeze that fans our brows bear on its wings a
pestilence. But what a different scene does earth present — a vast graveyard,
a mighty Golgothal In every brother we see a dying man. Have not all sinned?
2. It is declared by the apostle (Romans
3:20) that "by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified."
Now, if there was a child of Adam that was sinless or ever should be, he could
be justified by the law. So all have sinned.
3. "Except a man be born again,"
says Christ (John 3:3), "he cannot see the kingdom of God." This
implies that all are depraved — morally unfit for holy associations. If
there was a person on earth not depraved, he could enter heaven without
regeneration.
4. Christ came to save the lost. Therefore
all saved by Him were in a lost state — those not saved by Him will be
damned, and of course lost. The former, saved from sin; the latter perish for
sin.
5. The laws of all nations are proofs of
man's awful depravity. Bolts, bars, jails, and dungeons, bonds, deeds, and
contracts, are so many sad proofs of the depravity of man. Law is executed
upon the fact that man is woefully depraved, and it casts a suspicion upon
all. Have you selected the most upright and honest man of your state for your
governor? The law will not trust him to execute the duties of his office
without the most solemn oath. The law suspects the judge himself, who sits on
the bench and administers it. The President of the republic and the monarch of
a kingdom are alike under its restraints.
6. The religion of all nations substantiates
the truth of our proposition. No nation was ever yet found without its altar
of sacrifice and priests. The religion of all nations is propitiatory.
7. The conversation of all nations. No man
but what will say his neighbor is a depraved man — a sinner. So every man
will correct his neighbor. If he tells the truth, our proposition stands. If
he does not, of course it stands. Conceiving this point fully established, we
will, in considering the source of this depravity, advance.
Proposition II This
universal depravity is the result of education, imitation, or a naturally
vitiated nature.
1. It cannot result from education or
imitation; otherwise, it would not be universal. Nothing which is the result
of either is so general and widespread.
It would be more or less in one country than another, as the knowledge of the
sciences and arts are; or painting, mathematics, etc. But depravity is
universal in extent and degree, in every discovered land and island.
2. If it results from either, who taught the
first persons or community, in each and every land, in all the unnumbered
species of wickedness and crime? It must of course have been natural to their
first teachers, and their number must have been many millions, to have
rendered instruction to the whole world and made it popular, if mankind were
as hard to be instructed in sin as in holiness — which would have been if
not biased. Then, the impossibility of original depravity and sin being
removed, is it more rational to believe that a few were thus, and the rest
initiated into it, or that all are naturally inclined to do wrong?
3. But, granting that it is the result of
education or imitation, or both, then there must be a natural love for sin,
and a natural adaptedness of the human faculties to commit it; otherwise,
every person on earth, young and old, in all climes, would not love it
equally, or have learned it alike readily, and become alike perfected in it.
Is it so with the arts and sciences, or anything that is learned?
4. It cannot be either; for children that
have been placed out of the reach of vicious persons, to corrupt or teach
them, and, moreover, have been most carefully taught the principles of
religion and
ever breathed the atmosphere of piety and prayer, have invariably evinced an
aversion to holiness; and having once broken away from restraints, have
plunged deepest into vice and become leaders in iniquity.
5. Finally, and conclusively, it cannot
result from either education or imitation, for the most atrocious crimes and
acts of wickedness on record have been perpetrated by those who had no example.
Where lived the fratricide before the days of Cain? Had he heard of one who
had stained his hands in fraternal gore? Who taught him, but his own wicked
disposition, to raise the murderous club, and strike the innocent to the
earth? Therefore, if it cannot be from either education or imitation, it
must be from a naturally vitiated and depraved nature. We adduce, in proof
of this latter:
(1) The opinions of the most eminent and distinguished
philosophers of antiquity. They saw this universal malady — this leprosy of
the heart which rendered the whole human family unclean — and studied
diligently for its origin, and have left us their reasoning's and conclusions.
No human opinions are superior to them. Allow me to quote briefly:
Plato, the godlike, asserts that no one is
born without sin. He names this proneness to sin Kakophuia, i. e.,
natural sin or depravity — defining it, kakia en phusei — an evil
nature. We hear Horace, the prince of Roman poets, acknowledging
and lamenting it, breaking forth in language like this:
"Eheu!
Quam temere in nosmet lagem sanctimus iniquam
Nam vitiis nemo sine nascitur?"
— (Satyr Li, Sec. 3, v. 63.)
"Alas!
Man with vile and corrupted nature born
Is soon expert in every shade of crime."
Plutarch says: "There is a fatal portion
of evil in all when born, from whence results the depravity of the soul,
diseases, death, etc. Unicuique dedit vitium natura creata."
Cicero "laments that man should be brought into life by nature as a
stepmother, with a naked, frail and infirm body, and with a mind naturally
depraved and prone to vice."
(2) The Scriptures leave us not to the conclusions
of human philosophy; but shed the clearest light upon it. With what
confidence does it ask us, "Who can bring a clean thing out of an
unclean? Not one" (Job 14:4). Can a pure, sinless, and holy nature
proceed from an unholy and depraved one? John 3:6: "That which is born of
the flesh, is flesh" — carnal — corrupt. And the prophet testifies
(Jeremiah 17:9) that the heart is the bitter fountain of all pollution and of
all things the most deceitful, and desperately wicked. The
Saviour tells us that "out of the heart of man proceed evil thoughts,
murders, adulteries, fornications, blasphemies"; i. e., that the
natural heart is to commit these things, and delights in them.
Again, "If the root be holy, so are the
branches." Conversely, if the root be unholy, so are the branches. If the
root of mankind was of corrupt and diseased nature, will not all the branches,
the descendants of that stock be of like nature? Unholy? Corrupt?
(3) Finally, upon this point: That the
natures of mankind are vitiated and depraved, we prove from the fact that
infants and children, who never committed actual transgression, die. This
could never be unless they were sinners or of sinful and depraved natures.
When sin entered into the dominions of God, he summoned the most malignant
of the lost spirits from the world of darkness, and gave him permission to
dwell upon earth until the end of time, and become the executioner of the
penalty of sin: "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die" — hence he was called Death. His commission was: Upon whatever
being he found the mark of depravity, or the sign of sin, he might seize it
for his prey.
Death went forth upon his mission of destruction;
thousands on thousands fell daily before him, from the ranks of manhood and
age. One day, as he drew near to touch with his ice pointed finger the heart
of a mother on whom he discovered his
sign, he saw, sleeping upon her breast, a picture of beauty and innocence.
There was a look of such purity and angel loveliness about it that he started
back; he dared not blight one beauty, nor cause one petal of that fair
floweret to fall to earth. He watched it with a strange interest, but ere long
it awoke from its slumber with cries and writhing with pain. Death gazed some
moments in astonishment. He remembered his instruction. Where there is no
sin, there is no pain or distress. Then drawing from his quiver his finest and
most polished shaft he sped it to the infant's heart, and bore it in triumph
into his dark dominion; by this deed setting his seal to the truth, — As the
father, so the child.
The young viper, though harmless and
innocent, possesses naturally the venomous disposition and poisonous nature of
its species, and requires only time to mature and develop it. Will our modern
theologians who defend infant holiness assert that the young basilisk is not
naturally a basilisk?1 We leave this proposition, so fully
substantiated, to notice the depth of human depravity, which will constitute:
Proposition III That
mankind are wholly depraved.
The hatred and opposition of our enemies to
this1 "I would not be understood to advocate infant punishment
By an act of God's free grace, they are saved. 'The gifts and calling of God
are without repentance.'"
doctrine is so great that, not satisfied with abusing us for believing and
teaching it, they continually and wilfully misrepresent us; imputing to us
sentiments we never countenanced or upheld. For instance, that by human or
"total" depravity (the name under which it is most commonly treated)
we mean that every man is by nature as sinful as he possibly can be; so that
neither association with the vicious, or the practice of iniquity, can add one
shade to the hue of his depravity. Therefore, for the thousand and one times,
we again declare to them and to the world, that we do not, nor ever did, as
a denomination, secretly believe or openly publish any such dogma. We
abhor and repel it. We then state, negatively:
(1) That we don't understand by
"total" depravity, that man is a sinner to the extent of his
abilities, i. e., as great a sinner as he can be. Because reason,
experience, and revelation teach that men do become more and more hardened in
sin, and adept in iniquity. Nero, when he was first required to sign the death
warrant of a murderer, was so affected with the idea that his signature
authorized death, that he wept like a child, and wished that he had never
learned to write. Yet, after a few short years, he could without remorse, fire
the eternal city, enact the mountebank with the violin amidst its sweeping
conflagration; crowd thousands into a temple and fire it, to enjoy the hideous
yells and shrieks of the consuming victims;
cover Christians with tar, mixed with light combustible, and set them on fire
for his amusement and pastime; and every other deed of depravity that
could delight a demon incarnate.
(2) Nor are men wicked to the extent of their
wishes. They are restrained from doing very many things which are sinful and
wrong, because they would thereby draw upon themselves the odium of public
opinion. If they commit this or that act, they would forever ruin their
characters, and become outcasts from society. Those whom neither public
opinion, or the rules of society, serve to restrain from vice and crime, the
civil law steps in, with its arm clothed with a thousand terrors, to terrify
the daring trespasser.
(3) But how deep shall we fix the dye of this
depravity? Will the history of man give the faintest idea? If so, think of
the deep corruption and licentiousness of the antediluvian world, swept from
earth with the besom of waters. Go ask the Dead Sea's flood what ruins slumber
'neath its waveless depths. 'Twould answer, the fragments of those cities
whose deep pollution heaven's fire and brimstone alone could cleanse. Go ask
the god of war the almost countless millions of frater victims man
has immolated at the shrine of battle, and hear his answer: "Forty times
more human victims have they sacrificed to me in war, than in habit the
globe to-day!" Their bodies piled one upon another would wall this mighty
continent to
the heavens. Collect but their blood, and it would form a sea in which the
navies of the earth might ride at anchor; or let the blood and bodies be
conglomerated into one globe and swung in our heavens, it would form a planet
that a few hundred miles from our earth would vie with the earth in magnitude.
Add but to this the fratricide, individual and secret murders, parricides,
suicides, infanticides, and what a picture has earth to present! A vast
slaughter yard — a mighty Golgotha — a place of skulls. This has all been
caused by human depravity! What, then, is its due? Of the blackest
conceivable shade!
(4) Therefore, we do most unhesitatingly declare
that man by nature is wholly and totally depraved and tainted with sin. We
use the term totally or wholly, because we are acquainted with no better one
to express our idea. We have been scouted and ridiculed for using the word
"total," when we did not mean that man was as depraved as he could
be. But no term could be more appropriately used. What is "total,"
but the sum of all the parts? Is not the mind, considered as a unit, composed
of many parts, i. e., powers, faculties? What other idea can total
depravity convey, to any intelligent mind, than that the sum total — all
the powers and faculties of the mind — are vitiated?
Let us illustrate. Into a glass of water
throw one spoonful of arsenic, and dissolve it; now is not
this water wholly or "totally" poisonous? I. e., is not each
particle and atom (for water is composed of atoms and particles) impregnated
with poison? Most assuredly. But does that imply that the water cannot be made
more poisonous? By no means. Cast in another spoonful, and it is twice as
poisonous as before. This briefly illustrates what we mean by
"total" depravity; that there is not a faculty of the soul that is
untainted — naturally prone to purity and holiness. We do not pretend to say
to what extent; but this much we can truly say, that it is to man's utter ruin
under God and to his entire disqualification for heaven.
We do not teach that the judgment and reasoning
faculties of man are destroyed, or his will, so that he can neither reason, or
wish for what is good; but that all the affections of the sinner's heart are
under the control and keeping of the evil one, as completely as the goods were
under the power of the "strong man armed " — that the whole man is
in the slavery of sin. "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves
servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto
death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" says Paul to the Romans
(6:16). Have not sinners yielded themselves servants to sin to do the works of
the devil? And now are ground down in vilest bondage? But cannot the slave
wish for freedom and release? The slave may wish in vain, but the sinner has a
deliverer to rescue him when he wishes.
So to him the freedom of thought and of choice is still left.
Reflections 1.
Of what a heinous nature is sin! It has caused all the pain, misery, and death
that has ever cursed our race. It has swept the countless millions of earth
into untimely graves. It has murdered all our relations, even our fathers
and mothers. We are all orphans — the children of the slain. Sinner, would
you not take the life of your father's murderer? Assuredly. Sin has been the
murderer of all the friends and relations you have lost, and now lurks, an
assassin, to plunge the dagger of the second death into your own heart; and
you love it, caress it, roll it as a sweet morsel under your tongue, make it
your bosom companion. Oh, what delusion! What fatuity! Spirit of the living
God, break the spell with which sin holds the sinner's soul.
2. We learn our lost and undone state by nature.
3. The force of those words of our Saviour to
Nicodemus: "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, ye must be born
again."
