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Could the Apostle Paul recommend to the Corinthians (1 Cor. xiv. 20,) "Be not children in understand. ing, but in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men ;" that is, in understanding, in the power of distinguishing right and wrong, and perceiving the truth, show yourselves to be men; but in your dispositions, in your moral characters, manifest the gentleness, and mildness, and purity of children? I know not how those passages are to be explained, so as to consist with the doctrine of innate depravity, rendering those who are the subjects of it enemies to God &c. until renewed by the special influence of the spirit of God. I have never seen them satisfactorily explained upon that supposition, nor do I believe that they admit of such explanation. They most clearly imply, until turned from their obvious meaning, that young children are objects of the Saviour's complacency and affection; that their innocency, gentleness, and good disposition, are the proper objects of imitation; that they are, what men are to become by conversion or regeneration.

But there are, as I have said, a few texts, from which the doctrine I am considering is inferred, and these have been brought forward, and placed in all the strength of which they are capable, by those who believe and defend the doctrine, and particularly by the able advocate it has found in the author of the pamphlet before me.

It is not pretended, I believe, by any of the defenders of the native, hereditary depravity of the hu

man race, that the doctrine is, any where in scripture, expressly asserted. It is not a matter of direct assertion, but of inference. It is considered as implied in several passages. Now I admit that a doctrine, no where expressly taught, may yet be so clearly, and constantly implied, may so enter into the whole texture of the sacred writings, and appear in every part, as to be as reasonable an object of our faith, as those doctrines, which are the most distinctly and formally enunciated. But examples of this kind are usually (I will not affirm always, but usually) such as are presented, not a few times only, and then in a doubtful form, but such as appear constantly, and enter as it were into the very substance of the whole. Such, for instance, is the being of God, no where asserted, but every where implied. Such is the moral freedom of man, upon which rests his accountability as a moral being; and such, in my apprehension, is the doctrine, that men become sinners, guilty before God, and objects of his displeasure only by their personal acts, and not by the nature with which they came into being.

The first text adduced, as implying innate total depravity, is Gen. vi. 5. A few remarks will show how little it is to the purpose, and how far from supporting what is made to rest upon it. For, in the first place, it relates not to mankind universally, but to the degenerate race of men of that age, so remarkably and universally corrupt, beyond all that had gone before, or have followed since, as to call for the most signal tokens of the vengeance of heaven. In the second place,

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were it said of all men in every age, instead of being confined, as it is, to the inhabitants of the earth at that particular time, it would still be nothing to the purpose, for which it is brought. There is no assertion of native derived depravity, none of a corrupt nature, no intimation of hereditary guilt, no reference to innate aversion to good and inclination to evil. is the mere assertion of a state of great corruption and wickedness, which no one denies; and not only of external actions, such as "the world being full of violence," but of purposes and dispositions of the heart, implying deep-rooted and radical wickedness, expressed by "the imaginations of the heart." But this is all perfectly consistent with their coming into being, innocent and pure. It is not what they are by nature, but by habit; not what they were as they came from the hands of the Creator, but what they have become in the use or rather abuse of his gifts, and of the condition in which he placed them.

It is said that the language here is universal, as also when it is used again in the viii. chapter; and that its application to man universally in all ages and nations, is confirmed by the passages quoted by Paul, in the iii. chapter of Romans from Psalms xiv. liii. v. cxl. x. xxxvi. and Isaiah lix. where he describes Jews and Gentiles of that age, in passages borrowed from the Old Testament, and applies them as descriptive of the character of mankind without exception. But in each case the argument wholly fails of proving what it is brought to prove; because it depends for its

force on an interpretation of language, which cannot be adopted without leading to consequences, which the advocates of universal original depravity would be as slow to admit, as its opposers.

It goes on the supposition that the sacred writers used words, as no other writers ever did use them, with perfect philosophical exactness, instead of the popular sense; and that their writings were to be interpreted by rules, to which no other writings will bear to be subjected.

Universal expressions, like those in the texts in question, are so far from being always used in their strict literal sense, that they are usually relative, to be understood and interpreted in relation to the subject and occasion. Thus when it is said, (1 Tim. ii. 4,) "God will have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth," it relates to the question, whether any class or nation of men are excluded from the favour and good will of God, and therefore ought to be excluded from a share in the benevolent regards and prayers of Christians; so that all men means, not every individual, but all ranks, descriptions, and conditions of men. In the unlimited sense of the words it is not true. It is not true that God wills every individual to come to the knowledge of the truth, i. e. of the Gospel; for thousands are precluded from the possibility of it by the circumstances of their being. Nor is it true, that he wills all men to be finally saved; but only all of every rank, and every nation, who are penitent, obedient, and faithful. He wills none to be

excluded from having the truth proposed, and salvation offered to them. And that all who receive and obey it, shall actually obtain the salvation offered. So also (Tit. ii. 11) when it is said, "the grace of God bringing salvation hath appeared to all men," the meaning cannot be, every individual, for it never has been published to all in that sense. But, as in the other case, to men of every nation, age, rank, condition, and in the same sense in which Paul (Col. i. 23) spoke of the Gospel as "preached to every creature under heaven."

It is in a similar, popular, qualified sense, a sense never leading men into mistakes upon other subjects and common occasions, that Moses, speaking of the general wickedness and corruption of manners, which were the occasion of the flood, uses language, which in its strictly literal import might be understood to mean, that there was no virtue remaining on the earth; though he immediately tells us, that Noah was an exception to the prevailing wickedness, that "he found favour in the eyes of the Lord, (ch. vi. 8, 9) being a just man, perfect in his generations, and one who walked with God."

The same remark occurs with equal force in respect to the passage so much relied on in the xiv. Psalm. Not only is there no intimation as to the origin and source of the evil, no intimation of an inbred, innate, hereditary depravity, but only of great and general corruption of manners; but though a verbal universality is expressed, the very Psalm itself takes care to

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