Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors

Look at the actual sins of men. The majority of men, in a civilized community like ours, do not commit great crimes, or fall into flagrant vices, because they have little to attract them to such a course, and much to deter them from it. They are aiming at those objects which they need the countenance, aid, and good opinion of their fellow-men to obtain, to be glaringly vicious would make it impossible. Also, there is a certain amount of conscience which restrains them—the influence of good education and good habits which preserves a certain uprightness and purity of character. But is it a deep principle? If so, why do the vast majority of men allow themselves in many small violations of the same laws which they would not break on a large scale? They would not steal; yet they commit every day some slight acts not perfectly honest; they take advantage of others in little things. They would not lie; yet they exaggerate, and conceal part of the truth, and color their statements to produce an effect. They would not kill; but they are willing to injure one who has interfered with their interests. With these tendencies and feelings, why would they not, under different influences, commit greater crimes? How often do we feel, in talking with the criminal and abandoned, that, in their circumstances and with their temptations, we might have been as bad as they!

Still, if this were all, no radical change might be necessary. It might be enough that by effort, and self-discipline, and direction of the thoughts, we gradually overcome our evil habits and tendencies; but when we resolve to do so, and make the effort, we meet with an unexpected resistance. “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” “I find a law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin in my members.” The Church has long asserted the doctrine of an hereditary depravity; and we have seen that there is more truth in it than we have sometimes supposed. It is not total, but it is real. Besides the sins of our own committing, there are the sins which our ancestors have committed, which have made themselves part of our bone and flesh. We are not exactly balanced in our natural state; there is a preponderating tendency towards evil in one or another direction.

This forms too fearful an alliance with circumstances, the moment they become powerful to draw us away from good. A friend of ours, some years since, was making a trip up the Lakes, late in the season. As they entered Lake Huron from the River St. Clair in the noble steamer, the skies were serene, and she ploughed her way on towards the north, so that by night the land had sunk almost out of sight. But then the wind began to freshen, the sea rose, and as the night advanced, and the wind blew harder and harder, the boat strained and staggered along, occasionally struck hard by a heavier sea, till at last one of her wheels was carried away, and the fires were put out by the water. How long and anxious was that night! How many prayed then who never prayed before! When morning came, the boat was found to be drifting before the wind and waves, directly upon a rocky shore on the south-east side of the lake. There was no help in man; but a gracious Providence all at once caused the storm to lull, so that a fire could be built, and with one wheel the boat got into a harbor. Man seems a powerful being when he is surrounded by favorable circumstances, and is going with a fair wind and fair weather; but let the wind change, and his weakness becomes apparent. He who just now breasted the tide, is now drifting helplessly before it.

The question is sometimes asked, “whether sin is a positive or merely a negative evil.” Now, whatever may be the case with other kinds of sin, this alienation of the heart seems to us a very positive evil; for it is an antagonism, and resistance of goodness. If the supreme goodness of God does not attract us, does not excite our affection, does not irresistibly draw us to him, then it repels us; it makes the thought of his presence a restraint and burden; it makes us wish to go away from God. The goodness of God is so very positive a thing, that we cannot be indifferent to it; we cannot be neutral in regard to it. If we do not love it, it is disagreeable, and we are uncomfortable in the thought of it. Swedenborg relates that certain wicked persons were allowed to enter heaven on a certain occasion; but they immediately became almost lifeless, and, from the torment and pain in their head and body, prostrated themselves on the ground, and writhed like worms; but, being taken and carried into hell, became comparatively comfortable. What can be more terrible than the idea thus conveyed of our aversion to goodness, which makes heaven intolerable, and the presence of God insufferable torture! Can anything express, more than this, the need of a change of heart?

Jesus, we think, asserts a similar view when he says, “He that is not with me is against me.” “No man can serve two masters; for he will either love the first and hate the last, or love the last and hate the first.” He will not be indifferent to either, if their characters and commands are of an opposite kind.

Now, if there be such a thing as a change of heart, which will make it a pleasure to pray, a joy to think of God; which will make it natural to us to approach him, and dwell on the thought of his goodness; which will enable us to see him in the majesty and sweetness of nature, in the rise of empires or the death of an infant, in the coming of Christ, and in every good thought which swells in our souls,—then it is evident that this is what we need. Let us dig deep, and build our house upon a rock.

We shall see in another section that there is such a change of heart as we have described. Jesus saves sinners by taking away the heart of stone, and giving a heart of flesh. He saw the whole depth and extent of the disease which he came to cure. There are some preachers who do not know how great an evil sin is, and would not know what to do for a penitent and anxious soul which really saw the greatness of its needs. Thus, when George Fox went to the rector of his church to ask advice for the distress of his soul, he was told to amuse himself and divert his mind. But Jesus saw all the extent of sin, and yet was ready to encourage and help the sinner. He knew that his remedy was equal to the emergency. The gospel of Christ can give to us love to God and love to man; can soften our hearts in humility, can enable us to fight with and conquer even the hereditary evil of our organization; can ultimately redeem us from all evil. This is the depravity we are to conquer; not of nature, but of will, and aim, and purpose.

It is, therefore, in order to produce a conviction of absolute dependence that Orthodoxy urges so strongly the doctrines of total depravity and total inability. A man will not pray, says the Orthodox system, till he feels himself helpless. He will not seek a Saviour so long as he hopes to save himself. He must see that he can do nothing more for himself; and then, for the first time, he exercises a real faith in God, and casts himself on the divine mercy.

Scripture teaches that man is able to choose the right, but not always able to perform it. He is free in his spirit, but bound by circumstances of position, and by bodily organization. He is free to choose, but not free to do. His freedom is in effort, not necessarily in accomplishment. He can always try; he cannot always effect what he tries.

Thus Jesus says (Matt. 26:41), “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” And so Paul says, in the passage on this subject before referred to (Rom. 7:18), “To will is present with me, but how to perform that which I will, I find not.”

These are the truths which lie at the basis of the Orthodox doctrine of inability. But Orthodoxy, in its desire to awaken a sense of dependence, has pushed them to an unreasonable extreme. It asserts that man, in his natural state, before he is regenerated, has no power to will or to do right. It is evident, however, that all men have power to will and to do many right things. Even in the lowest condition, a man wills and does much that is right. Though the governing principle be the lowest one, he can yet perform many good actions. In the second condition also, the psychical man, though not able always to do right, often succeeds in doing so. And in this state the apostle declares that he does not do the evil, but “sin that dwells in him.” So long as his purpose is right, he is right.

These charges, it must be noticed, are brought against Calvinism, not by us, but by Presbyterian divines, themselves holding to this same Westminster Confession.

But let us look at some of the expositions given to this doctrine of inability by modern Orthodox authorities.

(a.) The Old School Presbyterians.—As stated by one of their own number (Professor Atwater, of Princeton College, Bibliotheca Sacra, January, 1864), they hold an inability “moral, sinful, and real,” “irremovable by the sinner's own power.” He sets aside the objection that we are not bound to do what we are unable to do, by saying that this applies to actions only, not to sinful dispositions. He illustrates this by saying that an irrepressible disposition to slander would be only so much more culpable. But in this he is evidently wrong. Such a habit has become a disease, and the unfortunate victim is no longer accountable for what he does.

(b.) The New School Presbyterians.—(Rev. George Duffield, in Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1863.) Although Dr. Duffield objects to the language of the Old School Presbyterians in denying “free agency,” and regarding man “as destitute of ability as a block of marble,” he yet declares that the New School, as well as the Old, believe that in the unconverted state “man can do nothing morally good.” Still, he adds, men can accept the offers of salvation made by Jesus Christ. But he positively denies that “man, in his natural state, independent of the gospel and Spirit of Christ, has ability perfectly to obey all the commandments of God.” We suppose that most persons would agree with him in this statement.

(d.) Hopkinsianism.—(Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1862.) The Hopkinsians profess to contend for free agency, in order to save responsibility. They adopt the ideas of Edwards on free agency. But freedom, with them, consists only in choice. Whatever we choose, we choose freely. The carnal man is as free in choosing evil as the spiritual man in choosing good. All real freedom in this system disappears in a juggle of words.

The result of this examination will show that the great body of the Orthodox, of all schools, continues to deny any real ability in the unregenerate man to do the will of God. They do not say that “man has no power to do his duty,” but that is the impression left by their teaching. The distinction between natural and moral inability is insufficient; for it is as absurd to say that a man is unable not to sin, when you only mean that he chooses to sin, as it would he to say, when invited to eat your dinner, “I am unable to eat,” meaning only that you were unwilling. Besides, if inability is moral, it is in the will, and not in the nature, and so is not natural depravity at all. It is also making God unjust to teach that he considers us guilty for a misfortune. If we derive a corrupted nature from Adam, that is our misfortune, and not our fault, and God owes us not anger, but pity. Instead of punishing us, he should compensate us for this disaster.

This is the inconsistency in almost all Orthodox systems. By dwelling so much on human weakness, they destroy at last the sense of responsibility.

This, again, is explained by defining guilt as liability to punishment on account of the acts of another, “as when the members of a corporation suffer from the ill management of its agent.” This he calls corporate guilt.

The Old School doctrine, according to this writer, concerning sin, makes it a state rather than an act. It is not merely the act of disobedience, but the wrong bias of the will, out of which the act proceeds. He thinks it wrong to call “sin a nature,” for neither the substance of the soul, nor its faculties, are sinful. The depravity of nature is not choice, so much as tendency which leads to choice. It is hereditary, being transmitted from father to son.

The old theology, therefore, predicates sinfulness of human nature; affirms sin to be a wrong state or bias of will; considers it to be hereditary; regards new-born infants as depraved, but thinks that those of them who die in infancy, before actual transgression, are renewed and saved by the blood of Christ; and considers temporal death as a part of the penalty of sin.

Upon this statement of the Old School doctrine, the following criticisms naturally occur:—

First. If original righteousness was holiness of nature, and not mere innocence; if it was a positive tendency to good, and not merely a state of indifference between good and evil; then, we ask, What produced the fall? What motive led to the commission of the first sin? If the nature of the first man was holy, there was nothing in it which could lead him to sin, and any external temptation addressed to such a nature must fall powerless before it. It would be like trying to tempt a fish to fly in the air, or like tempting a bird to go into the water. Even if the first man could have been induced by any deception or external influence to commit a wrong act, this would not be sinful, because there would be no sinful motive behind it. A wrong act proceeding from a holy nature is either an impossibility or a mere innocent mistake. Our first criticism, therefore, on the Old School doctrine of sin, is, that it makes Adam's fall an impossibility.

The natural objection to this illustration of a corporation is, that those who enter into a corporation do it by a free act, and make themselves voluntarily responsible. But we did not consent that Adam should be our agent. We did not agree that if Adam should commit a single act of disobedience we should be born totally depraved, and liable to everlasting torments in consequence. Professor Lawrence replies, that it would have been impossible for God to ask our consent, and therefore, apparently he supposes that God took for granted that we would consent. This seems to be no answer to the objection. If it was impossible for God to obtain our consent, before we were born, to incur this awful danger, he was not compelled to expose us to it. It is an insult to the justice of the Almighty to assume that he could have done so.

Third. Professor Lawrence does not think it correct to say that “sin is a nature.” But why not, if it be a universal and constant element, an original and permanent state of the soul? To say that human nature is sinful, but deny that sin is a nature, seems to be making a distinction without a difference. It is a disposition to sin born with the child. Now, say what we will, such a disposition to sin thus born with us is not guilt but misfortune. A just God will not hold us responsible for it, but will hold himself responsible to help us out of it. As a faithful Creator, he is bound to do so, and will do so.

The book of Job seems to have been written partly to refute this sort of Calvinism. The friends of Job were Calvinists in this sense. The sum of their argument was that, since God was all-powerful, therefore whatever he did must be right; and, since he punished Job, Job must be a sinner, and ought to confess his sin whether he saw it or not. This has been, in all ages, the substance of Calvinism—Jewish Calvinism, Mohammedan Calvinism, Christian Calvinism. It declares that we are bound to submit to God, not because he is good, but because he is powerful. But the answer of Job to his friends is a rebuke to the same spirit wherever shown. He asks them “if they will speak with unfairness for God,” and “speak deceitfully for him,” and “accept his person.” He declares that if he could find God he would go before his throne and defend his own cause. “Would he contend with me with his mighty power? No! he would have regard unto me.”

This is the sin of Calvinism, that it “accepts the person of the Almighty,” assuming that he has a right to do as he pleases with his creatures, and that they have no rights which he is bound to respect, except that of being punished. Thus it destroys the moral character of the Almighty.

Fourth. Professor Lawrence says, “It is the general belief of the Old School that those who die in infancy before actual transgression, are renewed and saved by the blood of Christ.”

The power of infancy is wonderful. It can even break down the logic of Calvinism. Wordsworth was right in calling the infant—

But why is it any worse for children to be damned in consequence of Adam's sin than for adults to be damned? Orthodoxy assures us that in consequence of Adam's sin we are born depraved. Dr. Duffield, stating and defending the doctrines of the New School Presbyterian Church (Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1863), says that Adam subjected his posterity to such a loss that they are born without any righteousness, are exposed to the consequences of his transgression, and all become sinners as soon as they are capable of it. He quotes with approbation from a protest of the New School minority, in the General Assembly of 1837 (which he calls a document of great historic value), an assertion that “by reason of the sin of Adam, the race are treated as if they had sinned;” and from another document of the same school which says, that “we are all born with a tendency to sin, which makes it morally certain that we shall do so.” Now, we do not see why it is any worse to send infants to hell because of this depraved nature, than to send grown persons there who have sinned in consequence of possessing such a depraved nature. If it be said that adults have had an opportunity to repent, and have not accepted it, we reply, that to the mass of mankind no such opportunity is offered; that, where it is offered, no one has the power to accept it, except he be one of the elect; and that at all events, since infants are sure to be saved, and a very large proportion of adults are very likely to be lost, death in infancy is the most desirable thing possible. According to this doctrine, child-murder becomes almost a virtue.