LECTURE XI.

ON NATIVE DEPRAVITY.

IN a former Lecture we endeavored to establish the following principles:

First. That man, as a physical being, derives his existence and his qualities from his birth; in other words, that he is what he is in consequence of the law of propagation or natural descent. We confined the remark to what man is naturally, in distinction from what he is artificially, or by means of education, and what he may be by accident. We limited the remark also to what is common to the class or species to which he belongs, and to those peculiar properties and qualities which any one generation may inherit from their immediate progenitors.

Second. That man, as a moral being, derives his existence no less from his birth, including what is essential to his moral agency, together with those objects and circumstances which naturally attend him, and which call his powers into action. For what constitutes him a moral being but a moral constitution? and what is this constitution but a capacity for moral acts, taken in connection with the appropriate circumstances of his existence? All these belong as much to the pura naturalia as his bones and muscles, or any other physical qualities

of his body or mind. They come without his agency, and according to the settled law of propagation, and this no less certainly, whether God work mediately or immediately in bringing them into being.

Third. That man's physical acts are derived from his birth, inasmuch as their immediate causes are thus derived; and hence they are said to be natural and hereditary. They are not anterior to his agency, because they involve his agency; but they are provided for, and made certain, by his physical constitution, and by the circumstances in which he is placed. They are surely not without cause, and what cause can there be but that which is found in his natural powers and susceptibilities, and in the objects which meet him, and act upon him, in the state to which he is introduced by his birth?

Fourth. Acts of moral discrimination, which every man performs as soon as he possesses a moral sense, may justly be termed natural, because they flow necessarily from the powers of his being-powers common to the race, and derived through the medium of birth, or according to the established laws of procreation. These acts are not in themselves moral, as having a character morally good or morally bad, but are called moral, as many moral causes are, simply because they pertain to moral things. They are the exercise of a power derived from nature, and are therefore themselves thus derived, the effect falling into the same predicament with its cause. Hence, men in all ages have agreed to call that natural which was traceable to birth, whether it were a power or the exercise of a power, whether it were coeval with birth or existed afterwards.

Fifth. We asserted, and endeavored to, prove, so far as the testimony of facts is concerned, that the moral acts of men, antecedent to regeneration, are traceable to their birth, on the same principles, and with equal certainty, as we trace their physical acts and acts of moral discrimi

nation to that source. consequence of a moral constitution, is not doubted by any one; and that in present circumstances they will act morally wrong, and that uniformly, till they are renovated by the power of God, is admitted by Calvinists of every school. But the question is, how does it appear that this uniformly wrong action is traceable to birth, or connected with the law of propagation? Our answer is, just as it appears that the voluntary acts of animals, and the voluntary but physical actions of men, are traceable to this source. We admit the law of propagation to exert a decisive and controlling influence in the last two cases; why not in the former? A cause there must be for this state of things, and a uniform cause; why not resort to that which is at hand, and which, in all analogous cases, is deemed satisfactory? But we promised to turn our attention to the Bible, and to make our last appeal there. And as introductory to its specific testimony, we made a general statement of what we conceived the Bible account to be. We resume the subject here, and ask, what does the sacred page teach us, on the subject of native or hereditary depravity? We are told, in the book of Genesis, that when Adam begat Seth, "he begat a son in his own likeness, after his image." Does this relate to his moral likeness, his moral image especially, though not to the exclusion of intellectual or physical resemblance? This has been a common opinion, and certainly of some who were no mean proficients in sacred literature. Nor is it to be doubted, that the son was, in fact, in the moral likeness of the father, if that likeness be taken to mean the depraved dispositions and character into which Adam fell by his apostacy; for in this likeness has every son and daughter of Adam been found since. But the question is, did the inspired penman intend to teach this fact, when he said Adam begat a son in his own likeness? If he did, the passage

That men will act morally, in

has a point and force which would be wholly wanting without it. But some may say that the text simply asserts that Adam begat a son, with all the lineaments of human nature, irrespective of moral character, and thus like himself; that is to say, he begat a son who was a man and not a horse. Such a fact would seem to impart but little information, and none, as I conceive, which could be turned to any moral account. But suppose the likeness to be moral, who knows, it may be said, whether it was sinful or holy? Perhaps Adam had repented, and become a good man, and begat his son in his own likeness in this respect; that is, he begat him with moral dispositions similar to his own, or with principles which would certainly lead to these.

Such an interpretation carries its own refutation along with it, since we know that men are brought to the exercise of right moral feelings in this way. Doubtless, Seth was born into the world as every other man has been born since, without any moral likeness to God or good men, and without any preparation of mind or of circumstance which would naturally issue in such likeness. Of course, the piety which he is supposed afterwards to display, came not from nature, but from grace. Have we not a right then, to say that this text bears strongly on the fact of man's native sinfulness, and teaches not only a proneness to sin in the earliest stages of his existence, but that this proneness comes from the law of his birth, the father transmitting a depraved nature to his son?

Several passages in the book of Job furnish ground for a like inference. Though we cannot appeal to this book as of decisive authority, except where God himself speaks, yet the sentiments of holy men in the patriarchal age are, on this subject, entitled to peculiar respect. In the fifteenth chapter one of Job's friends exclaims: "What is man, that he should be clean?

or he that is born of a woman, that he should be righteous ?" As if moral impurity attached to man's earliest existence, and flowed to him as a consequence of his birth. The same thought is conveyed in the twentyfifth chapter: "How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of woman?" Why cannot he be clean who is born of woman? only because it would be incompatible with that law of generation which insures to the offspring the same general qualities which are natural to the parent, and common to the species. And again (Job eleventh): "For vain man would be wise, though man be born like a wild ass's colt." Here the comparison is strong, and indicates not so much the ignorance and stupidity of man, as his native and inherent perverseness; a perverseness as instinctive and original as the wildness and intractability of the ass's colt. To the same effect Job himself speaks (chapter fourteenth), when he says to God: "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one." He had before pleaded the frail and transient nature of his existence, together with his multiplied sufferings, as a reason for the Divine compassion; and now he confesses, and pleads his native corruption, not as a bar to the Divine justice, but as a consideration suitable to move the Divine mercy. He deeply felt that he could not stand in judgment with God. Such is the view which Pool takes of this passage, and so far as I know, it is in accordance with commentators generally. But why so difficult or impossible to bring a clean thing out of an unclean? The same reason must be returned as before, because the law of propagation insures the same moral character to the offspring which was naturally possessed by the parent, and which was a permanent characteristic of the race. The language of David in the fifty-eighth Psalm, may reasonably be regarded as supporting the same truth, though perhaps not so clear