Chapter XXXI: Section VI: Consequences Of Sin To Adam’s Posterity (1)

As the result of Adam’s transgression, all his posterity are born in the same state into which he fell. But since law is the all-comprehending demand of harmony with God, all moral consequences flowing from transgression are to be regarded as sanctions of law, or expressions of the divine displeasure through the constitution of things which he has established. Certain of these consequences, however, are earlier recognized than others and are of minor scope; it will therefore be useful to consider them under the three aspects of depravity, guilt, and penalty.

I. Depravity.

By this we mean, on the one hand, the lack of original righteousness or of holy affection toward God, and, on the other hand, the corruption of the moral nature, or bias toward evil. That such depravity exists has been abundantly shown, both from Scripture and from reason, in our consideration of the universality of sin.

Salvation is twofold: deliverance from the evil—the penalty and
the power of sin; and accomplishment of the good—likeness to God
and realization of the true idea of humanity. It includes all
these for the race as well as for the individual: removal of the
barriers that keep men from each other; and the perfecting of
society in communion with God; or, in other words, the kingdom of
God on earth. It was the nature of man, when he first came from
the hand of God, to fear, love, and trust God above all things.
This tendency toward God has been lost; sin has altered and
corrupted man’s innermost nature. In place of this bent toward God
there is a fearful bent toward evil. Depravity is both
negative—absence of love and of moral likeness to God—and
positive—presence of manifold tendencies to evil. Two questions
only need detain us:

1. Depravity partial or total?

The Scriptures represent human nature as totally depraved. The phrase “total depravity,” however, is liable to misinterpretation, and should not be used without explanation. By the total depravity of universal humanity we mean:

A. Negatively,—not that every sinner is: (_a_) Destitute of conscience,—for the existence of strong impulses to right, and of remorse for wrong-doing, show that conscience is often keen; (_b_) devoid of all qualities pleasing to men, and useful when judged by a human standard,—for the existence of such qualities is recognized by Christ; (_c_) prone to every form of sin,—for certain forms of sin exclude certain others; (_d_) intense as he can be in his selfishness and opposition to God,—for he becomes worse every day.

(_a_) _John 8:9_—“_And they, when they heard it, went out one by
one, beginning from the eldest, even unto the last_” (_John
7:53-8:11_, though not written by John, is a perfectly true
narrative, descended from the apostolic age). The muscles of a
dead frog’s leg will contract when a current of electricity is
sent into them. So the dead soul will thrill at touch of the
divine law. Natural conscience, combined with the principle of
self-love, may even prompt choice of the good, though no love for
God is in the choice. Bengel: “We have lost our likeness to God;
but there remains notwithstanding an indelible nobility which we
ought to revere both in ourselves and in others. We still have
remained men, to be conformed to that likeness, through the divine
blessing to which man’s will should subscribe. This they forget
who speak evil of human nature. Absalom fell out of his father’s
favor; but the people, for all that, recognized in him the son of
the king.”

(_b_) _Mark 10:21_—“_And Jesus looking upon him loved him._” These
very qualities, however, may show that their possessors are
sinning against great light and are the more guilty; _cf._ _Mal.
1:6_—“_A son honoreth his father, and a servant his master: if
then I am a father, where is mine honor? and if I am a master,
where is my fear?_” John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity,
2:75—“The assertor of the total depravity of human nature, of its
absolute blindness and incapacity, presupposes in himself and in
others the presence of a criterion or principle of good, in virtue
of which he discerns himself to be wholly evil; yet the very
proposition that human nature is wholly evil would be
unintelligible unless it were false.... Consciousness of sin is a
negative sign of the possibility of restoration. But it is not in
itself proof that the possibility will become actuality.” A ruined
temple may have beautiful fragments of fluted columns, but it is
no proper habitation for the god for whose worship it was built.

(_c_) _Mat. 23:23_—“_ye tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have
left undone the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy,
and faith: but these ye ought to have done, and not to have left
the other undone_”; _Rom. 2:14_—“_when Gentiles that have not the
law do by nature the things of the law, these, not having the law,
are the law unto themselves; in that they show the work of the law
written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness
therewith._” The sin of miserliness may exclude the sin of luxury;
the sin of pride may exclude the sin of sensuality. Shakespeare,
Othello, 2:3—“It hath pleased the devil Drunkenness to give place
to the devil Wrath.” Franklin Carter, Life of Mark Hopkins,
321-323—Dr. Hopkins did not think that the sons of God should
describe themselves as once worms or swine or vipers. Yet he held
that man could sink to a degradation below the brute: “No brute is
any more capable of rebelling against God than of serving him; is
any more capable of sinking below the level of its own nature than
of rising to the level of man. No brute can be either a fool or a
fiend.... In the way that sin and corruption came into the
spiritual realm we find one of those analogies to what takes place
in the lower forms of being that show the unity of the system
throughout. All disintegration and corruption of matter is from
the domination of a lower over a higher law. The body begins to
return to its original elements as the lower chemical and physical
forces begin to gain ascendancy over the higher force of life. In
the same way all sin and corruption in man is from his yielding to
a lower law or principle of action in opposition to the demands of
one that is higher.”

(_d_) _Gen. 15:16_—“_the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet
full_”; _2 Tim. 3:13_—“_evil men and impostors shall wax worse and
worse._” Depravity is not simply being deprived of good.
Depravation (_de_, and _pravus_, crooked, perverse) is more than
deprivation. Left to himself man tends downward, and his sin
increases day by day. But there is a divine influence within which
quickens conscience and kindles aspiration for better things. The
immanent Christ is “_the light which lighteth every man_” (_John
1:9_). Prof. Wm. Adams Brown: “In so far as God’s Spirit is at
work among men and they receive ‘_the Light which lighteth every
man_,’ we must qualify our statement of total depravity. Depravity
is not so much a state as a tendency. With growing complexity of
life, sin becomes more complex. Adam’s sin was not the worst. ‘_It
shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of
judgment, than for thee_’ (_Mat. 11:24_).”

Men are not yet in the condition of demons. Only here and there
have they attained to “a disinterested love of evil.” Such men are
few, and they were not born so. There are degrees in depravity. E.
G. Robinson: “There is a good streak left in the devil yet.” Even
Satan will become worse than he now is. The phrase “total
depravity” has respect only to relations to God, and it means
incapability of doing anything which in the sight of God is a good
act. No act is perfectly good that does not proceed from a true
heart and constitute an expression of that heart. Yet we have no
right to say that every act of an unregenerate man is displeasing
to God. Right acts from right motives are good, whether performed
by a Christian or by one who is unrenewed in heart. Such acts,
however, are always prompted by God, and thanks for them are due
to God and not to him who performed them.

B. Positively,—that every sinner is: (_a_) totally destitute of that love to God which constitutes the fundamental and all-inclusive demand of the law; (_b_) chargeable with elevating some lower affection or desire above regard for God and his law; (_c_) supremely determined, in his whole inward and outward life, by a preference of self to God; (_d_) possessed of an aversion to God which, though sometimes latent, becomes active enmity, so soon as God’s will comes into manifest conflict with his own; (_e_) disordered and corrupted in every faculty, through this substitution of selfishness for supreme affection toward God; (_f_) credited with no thought, emotion, or act of which divine holiness can fully approve; (_g_) subject to a law of constant progress in depravity, which he has no recuperative energy to enable him successfully to resist.

(_a_) _John 5:42_—“_But I know you, that ye have not the love of
God in yourselves._” (_b_) _2 Tim. 3:4_—“_lovers of pleasure
rather than lovers of God_”; _cf._ _Mal 1:6_—“_A son honoreth his
father, and a servant his master: if then I am a father, where is
mine honor? and if I am a master, where is my fear?_” (_c_) _2
Tim. 3:2_—“_lovers of self_”; (_d_) _Rom. 8:7_—“_the mind of the
flesh is enmity against God._” (_e_) _Eph. 4:18_—“_darkened in
their understanding.... hardening of their heart_”; _Tit.
1:15_—“_both their mind and their conscience are defiled_”; _2
Cor. 7:1_—“_defilement of flesh and spirit_”; _Heb. 3:12_—“_an
evil heart of unbelief_”; (_f_) _Rom. 3:9_—“_they are all under
sin_”; _7:18_—“_in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good
thing._” (_g_) _Rom. 7:18_—“_to will is present with me, but to do
that which is good is not_”; _23_—“_law in my members, warring
against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under
the law of sin which is in my members._”

Every sinner would prefer a milder law and a different
administration. But whoever does not love God’s law does not truly
love God. The sinner seeks to secure his own interests rather than
God’s. Even so-called religious acts he performs with preference
of his own good to God’s glory. He disobeys, and always has
disobeyed, the fundamental law of love. He is like a railway train
on a down grade, and the brakes must be applied by God or
destruction is sure. There are latent passions in every heart
which if let loose would curse the world. Many a man who escaped
from the burning Iroquois Theatre in Chicago, proved himself a
brute and a demon, by trampling down fugitives who cried for
mercy. Denney, Studies in Theology, 83—“The depravity which sin
has produced in human nature extends to the whole of it. There is
no part of man’s nature which is unaffected by it. Man’s nature is
all of a piece, and what affects it at all affects it altogether.
When the conscience is violated by disobedience to the will of
God, the moral understanding is darkened, and the will is
enfeebled. We are not constructed in water-tight compartments, one
of which might be ruined while the others remained intact.” Yet
over against total depravity, we must set total redemption; over
against original sin, original grace. Christ is in every human
heart mitigating the affects of sin, urging to repentance, and
“_able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God
through him_” (_Heb. 7:25_). Even the unregenerate heathen may
“_put away ... the old man_” and “_put on the new man_” (_Eph.
4:23, 24_), being delivered “_out of the body of this death ...
through Jesus Christ our Lord_” (_Rom. 7:24, 25_).

H. B. Smith, System, 277—“By total depravity is never meant that
men are as bad as they can be; nor that they have not, in their
natural condition, certain amiable qualities; nor that they may
not have virtues in a limited sense (_justitia civilis_). But it
is meant (1) that depravity, or the sinful condition of man,
infects the whole man: intellect, feeling, heart and will; (2)
that in each unrenewed person some lower affection is supreme; and
(3) that each such is destitute of love to God. On these
positions: as to (1) the power of depravity over the _whole_ man,
we have given proof from Scripture; as to (2) the fact that in
every unrenewed man some lower affection is supreme, experience
may be always appealed to; men know that their supreme affection
is fixed on some lower good—intellect, heart, and will going
together in it; or that some form of selfishness is
predominant—using selfish in a general sense—self seeks its
happiness in some inferior object, giving to that its supreme
affection; as to (3) that every unrenewed person is without
supreme love to God, it is the point which is of greatest force,
and is to be urged with the strongest effect, in setting forth the
depth and ‘totality’ of man’s sinfulness: unrenewed men have not
that supreme love of God which is the substance of the first and
great command.” See also Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 248; Baird,
Elohim Revealed, 510-522; Chalmers, Institutes, 1:519-542;
Cunningham, Hist. Theology, 1:516-531; Princeton Review, 1877:470.

2. Ability or inability?

In opposition to the plenary ability taught by the Pelagians, the gracious ability of the Arminians, and the natural ability of the New School theologians, the Scriptures declare the total inability of the sinner to turn himself to God or to do that which is truly good in God’s sight (see Scripture proof below). A proper conception also of the law, as reflecting the holiness of God and as expressing the ideal of human nature, leads us to the conclusion that no man whose powers are weakened by either original or actual sin can of himself come up to that perfect standard. Yet there is a certain remnant of freedom left to man. The sinner _can_ (_a_) avoid the sin against the Holy Ghost; (_b_) choose the less sin rather than the greater; (_c_) refuse altogether to yield to certain temptations; (_d_) do outwardly good acts, though with imperfect motives; (_e_) seek God from motives of self-interest.

But on the other hand the sinner _cannot_ (_a_) by a single volition bring his character and life into complete conformity to God’s law; (_b_) change his fundamental preference for self and sin to supreme love for God; nor (_c_) do any act, however insignificant, which shall meet with God’s approval or answer fully to the demands of law.

So long, then, as there are states of intellect, affection and
will which man cannot, by any power of volition or of contrary
choice remaining to him, bring into subjection to God, it cannot
be said that he possesses any sufficient ability of himself to do
God’s will; and if a basis for man’s responsibility and guilt be
sought, it must be found, if at all, not in his plenary ability,
his gracious ability, or his natural ability, but in his
_original_ ability, when he came, in Adam, from the hands of his
Maker.

Man’s present inability is natural, in the sense of being
inborn,—it is not acquired by our personal act, but is congenital.
It is not natural, however, as resulting from the original
limitations of human nature, or from the subsequent loss of any
essential faculty of that nature. Human nature, at its first
creation, was endowed with ability perfectly to keep the law of
God. Man has not, even by his sin, lost his essential faculties of
intellect, affection, or will. He has weakened those faculties,
however, so that they are now unable to work up to the normal
measure of their powers. But more especially has man given to
every faculty a bent away from God which renders him morally
unable to render spiritual obedience. The inability to good which
now characterizes human nature is an inability that results from
sin, and is itself sin.

We hold, therefore, to an inability which is both natural and
moral,—moral, as having its source in the self-corruption of man’s
moral nature and the fundamental aversion of his will to
God;—natural, as being inborn, and as affecting with partial
paralysis all his natural powers of intellect, affection,
conscience, and will. For his inability, in both these aspects of
it, man is responsible.

The sinner can do one very important thing, _viz._: give attention
to divine truth. _Ps. 119:59_—“_I thought on my ways, And turned
my feet unto thy testimonies._” G. W. Northrup: “The sinner can
seek God from: (_a_) self-love, regard for his own interest; (_b_)
feeling of duty, sense of obligation, awakened conscience; (_c_)
gratitude for blessings already received; (_d_) aspiration after
the infinite and satisfying.” Denney, Studies in Theology, 85—“A
witty French moralist has said that God does not need to grudge to
his enemies even what they call their virtues; and neither do
God’s ministers.... But there is _one_ thing which man cannot do
_alone_,—he cannot bring his state into harmony with his nature.
When a man has been discovered who has been able, without Christ,
to reconcile himself to God and to obtain dominion over the world
and over sin, _then_ the doctrine of inability, or of the bondage
due to sin, may be denied; _then_, but _not till then_.” The Free
Church of Scotland, in the Declaratory Act of 1892, says “that, in
holding and teaching, according to the Confession of Faith, the
corruption of man’s whole nature as fallen, this church also
maintains that there remain tokens of his greatness as created in
the image of God; that he possesses a knowledge of God and of
duty; that he is responsible for compliance with the moral law and
with the gospel; and that, although unable without the aid of the
Holy Spirit to return to God, he is yet capable of affections and
actions which in themselves are virtuous and praiseworthy.”

To the use of the term “natural ability” to designate merely the sinner’s possession of all the constituent faculties of human nature, we object upon the following grounds:

A. Quantitative lack.—The phrase “natural ability” is misleading, since it seems to imply that the existence of the mere powers of intellect, affection, and will is a sufficient quantitative qualification for obedience to God’s law, whereas these powers have been weakened by sin, and are naturally unable, instead of naturally able, to render back to God with interest the talent first bestowed. Even if the moral direction of man’s faculties were a normal one, the effect of hereditary and of personal sin would render naturally impossible that large likeness to God which the law of absolute perfection demands. Man has not therefore the natural ability perfectly to obey God. He had it once, but he lost it with the first sin.

When Jean Paul Richter says of himself: “I have made of myself all
that could be made out of the stuff,” he evinces a
self-complacency which is due to self-ignorance and lack of moral
insight. When a man realizes the extent of the law’s demands, he
sees that without divine help obedience is impossible. John B.
Gough represented the confirmed drunkard’s efforts at reformation
as a man’s walking up Mount Etna knee-deep in burning lava, or as
one’s rowing against the rapids of Niagara.

B. Qualitative lack.—Since the law of God requires of men not so much right single volitions as conformity to God in the whole inward state of the affections and will, the power of contrary choice in single volitions does not constitute a natural ability to obey God, unless man can by those single volitions change the underlying state of the affections and will. But this power man does not possess. Since God judges all moral action in connection with the general state of the heart and life, natural ability to good involves not only a full complement of faculties but also a bias of the affections and will toward God. Without this bias there is no possibility of right moral action, and where there is no such possibility, there can be no ability either natural or moral.

Wilkinson, Epic of Paul, 21—“Hatred is like love Herein, that it,
by only being, grows. Until at last usurping quite the man, It
overgrows him like a polypus.” John Caird, Fund. Ideas, 1:53—“The
ideal is the revelation in me of a power that is mightier than my
own. The supreme command ‘Thou oughtest’ is the utterance, only
different in form, of the same voice in my spirit which says ‘Thou
canst’; and my highest spiritual attainments are achieved, not by
self-assertion, but by self-renunciation and self-surrender to the
infinite life of truth and righteousness that is living and
reigning within me.” This conscious inability in one’s self,
together with reception of “_the strength which God supplieth_”
(_1 Pet. 4:11_), is the secret of Paul’s courage; _2 Cor.
12:10_—“_when I am weak, then am I strong_”; _Phil. 2:12,
13_—“_work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it
is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good
pleasure._”

C. No such ability known.—In addition to the psychological argument just mentioned, we may urge another from experience and observation. These testify that man is cognizant of no such ability. Since no man has ever yet, by the exercise of his natural powers, turned himself to God or done an act truly good in God’s sight, the existence of a natural ability to do good is a pure assumption. There is no scientific warrant for inferring the existence of an ability which has never manifested itself in a single instance since history began.

“Solomon could not keep the Proverbs,—so he wrote them.” The book
of Proverbs needs for its complement the New Testament explanation
of helplessness and offer of help: _John 15:5_—“_apart from me ye
can do nothing_”; _6:37_—“_him that cometh to me I will in no wise
cast out._” The palsied man’s inability to walk is very different
from his indisposition to accept a remedy. The paralytic cannot
climb the cliff, but by a rope let down to him he may be lifted
up, provided he will permit himself to be tied to it. Darling, in
Presb. and Ref. Rev., July, 1901:505—“If bidden, we can stretch
out a withered arm; but God does not require this of one born
armless. We may ‘_hear the voice of the Son of God_’ and ‘_live_’
(_John 5:25_), but we shall not bring out of the tomb faculties
not possessed before death.”

D. Practical evil of the belief.—The practical evil attending the preaching of natural ability furnishes a strong argument against it. The Scriptures, in their declarations of the sinner’s inability and helplessness, aim to shut him up to sole dependence upon God for salvation. The doctrine of natural ability, assuring him that he is able at once to repent and turn to God, encourages delay by putting salvation at all times within his reach. If a single volition will secure it, he may be saved as easily to-morrow as to-day. The doctrine of inability presses men to immediate acceptance of God’s offers, lest the day of grace for them pass by.

Those who care most for self are those in whom self becomes
thoroughly subjected and enslaved to external influences. _Mat.
16:25_—“_whosoever would save his life shall lose it._” The
selfish man is a straw on the surface of a rushing stream. He
becomes more and more a victim of circumstance, until at last he
has no more freedom than the brute. _Ps. 49:20_—“_Man that is in
honor, and understandeth not, Is like the beasts that perish_;”
see R. T. Smith, Man’s Knowledge of Man and of God, 121. Robert
Browning, unpublished poem: “ ‘Would a man ’scape the rod?’ Rabbi
Ben Karshook saith, ‘See that he turn to God The day before his
death.’ ‘Aye, could a man inquire When it shall come?’ I say. The
Rabbi’s eye shoots fire—‘Then let him turn to-day.’ ”

Let us repeat, however, that the denial to man of all ability, whether natural or moral, to turn himself to God or to do that which is truly good in God’s sight, does not imply a denial of man’s power to order his external life in many particulars conformably to moral rules, or even to attain the praise of men for virtue. Man has still a range of freedom in acting out his nature, and he may to a certain limited extent act down upon that nature, and modify it, by isolated volitions externally conformed to God’s law. He may choose higher or lower forms of selfish action, and may pursue these chosen courses with various degrees of selfish energy. Freedom of choice, within this limit, is by no means incompatible with complete bondage of the will in spiritual things.

_John 1:13_—“_born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man, but of God_”; _3:5_—“_Except one be born
of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of
God_”; _6:44_—“_No man can come to me, except the Father that sent
me draw him_”; _8:34_—“_Every one that committeth sin is the
bondservant of sin_”; _15:4, 5_—“_the branch cannot bear fruit of
itself ... apart from me ye can do nothing_”; _Rom. 7:18_—“_in me,
that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing; for to will is
present with me, but to do that which it good is not_”;
_24_—“_Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the
body of this death?_” _8:7, 8_—“_the mind of the flesh is enmity
against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither
indeed can it be: and they that are is the flesh cannot please
God_”; _1 Cor. 2:14_—“_the natural man receiveth not the things of
the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; __ and he
cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged_”; _2 Cor.
3:5_—“_not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account
anything as from ourselves_”; _Eph. 2:1_—“_dead through your
trespasses and sins_”; _8-10_—“_by grace have ye been saved
through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
not of works, that no man should glory. For we are his
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works_”; _Heb.
11:6_—“_without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing unto
him._”

Kant’s “I ought, therefore I can” is the relic of man’s original
consciousness of freedom—the freedom with which man was endowed at
his creation—a freedom, now, alas! destroyed by sin. Or it may be
the courage of the soul in which God is working anew by his
Spirit. For Kant’s “Ich soll, also Ich kann,” Julius Müller would
substitute: “Ich sollte freilich können, aber Ich kann nicht”—“I
ought indeed to be able, but I am not able.” Man truly repents
only when he learns that his sin has made him unable to repent
without the renewing grace of God. Emerson, in his poem entitled
“Voluntariness,” says: “So near is grandeur to our dust, So near
is God to man, When duty whispers low, _Thou must_, The youth
replies, _I can_.” But, apart from special grace, all the ability
which man at present possesses comes far short of fulfilling the
spiritual demands of God’s law. Parental and civil law implies a
certain kind of power. Puritan theology called man “_free among
the dead_” (_Ps. 88:5_, A. V.). There was a range of freedom
inside of slavery,—the will was “a drop of water imprisoned in a
solid crystal” (Oliver Wendell Holmes). The man who kills himself
is as dead as if he had been killed by another (Shedd, Dogm.
Theol., 2:106).

Westminster Confession, 9:3—“Man by his fall into a state of sin
hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good
accompanying salvation; so, as a natural man, being altogether
averse from that good and dead in sin, he is not able by his own
strength to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.”
Hopkins, Works, 1:233-235—“So long as the sinner’s opposition of
heart and will continues, he cannot come to Christ. It is
impossible, and will continue so, until his unwillingness and
opposition be removed by a change and renovation of his heart by
divine grace, and he be made willing in the day of God’s power.”
Hopkins speaks of “utter inability to obey the law of God, yea,
utter impossibility.”

Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:257-277—“Inability consists, not in the
loss of any faculty of the soul, nor in the loss of free agency,
for the sinner determines his own acts, nor in mere disinclination
to what is good. It arises from want of spiritual discernment, and
hence want of proper affections. Inability belongs only to the
things of the Spirit. What man cannot do is to repent, believe,
regenerate himself. He cannot put forth any act which merits the
approbation of God. Sin cleaves to all he does, and from its
dominion he cannot free himself. The distinction between natural
and moral ability is of no value. Shall we say that the uneducated
man can understand and appreciate the Iliad, because he has all
the faculties that the scholar has? Shall we say that man can love
God, if he will? This is false, if will means volition. It is a
truism, if will means affection. The Scriptures never thus address
men and tell them that they have power to do all that God
requires. It is dangerous to teach a man this, for until a man
feels that he can do nothing, God never saves him. Inability is
involved in the doctrine of original sin; in the necessity of the
Spirit’s influence in regeneration. Inability is consistent with
obligation, when inability arises from sin and is removed by the
removal of sin.”

Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:213-257, and in South Church Sermons,
33-59—“The origin of this helplessness lies, not in creation, but
in sin. God can command the ten talents or the five which he
originally committed to us, together with a diligent and faithful
improvement of them. Because the servant has lost the talents, is
he discharged from obligation to return them with interest? Sin
contains in itself the element of servitude. In the very act of
transgressing the law of God, there is a reflex action of the
human will upon itself, whereby it becomes less able than before
to keep that law. Sin is the suicidal action of the human will. To
do wrong destroys the power to do right. Total depravity carries
with it total impotence. The voluntary faculty may be ruined from
within; may be made impotent to holiness, by its own action; may
surrender itself to appetite and selfishness with such an
intensity and earnestness, that it becomes unable to convert
itself and overcome its wrong inclination.” See Stevenson, Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,—noticed in Andover Rev., June, 1886:664. We
can merge ourselves in the life of another—either bad or good; can
almost transform ourselves into Satan or into Christ, so as to say
with Paul, in _Gal 2:20_—“_it is no longer I that live, but Christ
liveth in me_”; or be minions of “_the spirit that now worketh in
the sons of disobedience_” (_Eph. 2:2_). But if we yield ourselves
to the influence of Satan, the recovery of our true personality
becomes increasingly difficult, and at last impossible.

There is nothing in literature sadder or more significant than the
self-bewailing of Charles Lamb, the gentle Elia, who writes in his
Last Essays, 214—“Could the youth to whom the flavor of the first
wine is delicious as the opening scenes of life or the entering of
some newly discovered paradise, look into my desolation, and be
made to understand what a dreary thing it is when he shall feel
himself going down a precipice with open eyes and a passive will;
to see his destruction, and have no power to stop it; to see all
goodness emptied out of him, and yet not be able to forget a time
when it was otherwise; to bear about the piteous spectacle of his
own ruin,—could he see my fevered eye, fevered with the last
night’s drinking, and feverishly looking for to-night’s repetition
of the folly; could he but feel the body of this death out of
which I cry hourly, with feebler outcry, to be delivered, it were
enough to make him dash the sparkling beverage to the earth, in
all the pride of its mantling temptation.”

For the Arminian “gracious ability,” see Raymond, Syst. Theol.,
2:130; McClintock & Strong, Cyclopædia, 10:990. _Per contra_, see
Calvin, Institutes, bk. 2, chap. 2 (1:282); Edwards, Works, 2:464
(Orig. Sin, 3:1); Bennet Tyler, Works, 73; Baird, Elohim Revealed,
523-528; Cunningham, Hist. Theology, 1:567-639; Turretin, 10:4:19;
A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology, 260-269; Thornwell, Theology,
1:394-399; Alexander, Moral Science, 89-208; Princeton Essays,
1:224-239; Richards, Lectures on Theology. On real as
distinguished from formal freedom, see Julius Müller, Doct. Sin,
2:1-225. On Augustine’s _lineamenta extrema_ (of the divine image
in man), see Wiggers, Augustinism and Pelagianism, 119, note. See
also art. by A. H. Strong, on Modified Calvinism, or Remainders of
Freedom in Man, in Bap. Rev., 1883:219-242; and reprinted in the
author’s Philosophy and Religion, 114-128.

II. Guilt.

1. Nature of guilt.

By guilt we mean desert of punishment, or obligation to render satisfaction to God’s justice for self-determined violation of law. There is a reaction of holiness against sin, which the Scripture denominates “the wrath of God” (Rom. 1:18). Sin is in us, either as act or state; God’s punitive righteousness is over against the sinner, as something to be feared; guilt is a relation of the sinner to that righteousness, namely, the sinner’s desert of punishment.

Guilt is related to sin as the burnt spot to the blaze. Schiller,
Die Braut von Messina: “Das Leben ist der Güter höchstes nicht;
Der Uebel grösstes aber ist die Schuld”—“Life is not the highest
of possessions; the greatest of ills, however, is guilt.”
Delitzsch: “Die Schamröthe ist die Abendröthe der untergegangenen
Sonne der ursprünglichen Gerechtigkeit”—“The blush of shame is the
evening red after the sun of original righteousness has gone
down.” E. G. Robinson: “Pangs of conscience do not arise from the
fear of penalty,—they are the penalty itself.” See chapter on
Fig-leaves, in McIlvaine, Wisdom of Holy Scripture,
142-154—“Spiritual shame for sin sought an outward symbol, and
found it in the nakedness of the lower parts of the body.”

The following remarks may serve both for proof and for explanation:

A. Guilt is incurred only through self-determined transgression either on the part of man’s nature or person. We are guilty only of that sin which we have originated or have had part in originating. Guilt is not, therefore, mere liability to punishment, without participation in the transgression for which the punishment is inflicted,—in other words, there is no such thing as constructive guilt under the divine government. We are accounted guilty only for what we have done, either personally or in our first parents, and for what we are, in consequence of such doing.

_Ez. 18:20_—“_the son shall not bear the iniquity of the
father_”—, as Calvin says (Com. _in loco_): “The son shall not
bear the father’s iniquity, since he shall receive the reward due
to himself, and shall bear his own burden.... All are guilty
through their own fault.... Every one perishes through his own
iniquity.” In other words, the whole race fell in Adam, and is
punished for its own sin in him, not for the sins of immediate
ancestors, nor for the sin of Adam as a person foreign to us.
_John 9:3_—“_Neither did this man sin, nor his parents_” (that he
should be born blind)—Do not attribute to any special later sin
what is a consequence of the sin of the race—the first sin which
“brought death into the world, and all our woe.” Shedd, Dogm.
Theol., 2:195-213.

B. Guilt is an objective result of sin, and is not to be confounded with subjective pollution, or depravity. Every sin, whether of nature or person, is an offense against God (Ps. 51:4-6), an act or state of opposition to his will, which has for its effect God’s personal wrath (Ps. 7:11; John 3:18, 36), and which must be expiated either by punishment or by atonement (Heb. 9:22). Not only does sin, as unlikeness to the divine purity, involve _pollution_,—it also, as antagonism to God’s holy will, involves _guilt_. This guilt, or obligation to satisfy the outraged holiness of God, is explained in the New Testament by the terms “debtor” and “debt” (Mat. 6:12; Luke 13:4; Mat. 5:21; Rom. 3:19; 6:23; Eph. 2:3). Since guilt, the objective result of sin, is entirely distinct from depravity, the subjective result, human nature may, as in Christ, have the guilt without the depravity (2 Cor. 5:21), or may, as in the Christian, have the depravity without the guilt (1 John 1:7, 8).

_Ps. 51:4-6_—“_Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, And done
that which is evil in thy sight; That thou mayest be justified
when thou speakest, And be clear when thou judgest_”; _7:11_—“_God
is a righteous judge, Yea, a God that hath indignation every
day_”; _John 3:18_—“_he that believeth not hath been judged
already_”; _36_—“_he that obeyeth not the Son shall not see life,
but the wrath of God abideth on him_”; _Heb. 9:22_—“_apart from
shedding of blood there is no remission_”; _Mat. 6:12_—“_debts_”;
_Luke 13:4_—“_offenders_” (marg. “_debtors_”); _Mat. 5:21_—“_shall
be in danger of_ [exposed to] _the judgment_”; _Rom. 3:19_—“_that
... all the world may be brought under the judgment of God_”;
_6:23_—“_the wages of sin is death_”—death is sin’s desert; _Eph.
2:3_—“_by nature children of wrath_”; _2 Cor. 5:21_—“_Him who knew
no sin he made to be sin on our behalf_”; _1 John 1:7, 8_—“_the
blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin._ [Yet] _If we
say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is
not in us._”

Sin brings in its train not only depravity but guilt, not only
_macula_ but _reatus_. Scripture sets forth the _pollution_ of sin
by its similies of “a cage of unclean birds” and of “wounds,
bruises, and putrefying sores”; by leprosy and Levitical
uncleanness, under the old dispensation; by death and the
corruption of the grave, under both the old and the new. But
Scripture sets forth the _guilt_ of sin, with equal vividness, in
the fear of Cain and in the remorse of Judas. The revulsion of
God’s holiness from sin, and its demand for satisfaction, are
reflected in the shame and remorse of every awakened conscience.
There is an instinctive feeling in the sinner’s heart that sin
will be punished, and ought to be punished. But the Holy Spirit
makes this need of reparation so deeply felt that the soul has no
rest until its debt is paid. The offending church member who is
truly penitent loves the law and the church which excludes him,
and would not think it faithful if it did not. So Jesus, when
laden with the guilt of the race, pressed forward to the cross,
saying: “_I have a baptism to be baptised with; and how am I
straitened till it be accomplished!_” (_Luke 12:50; Mark 10:32_).

All sin involves guilt, and the sinful soul itself demands
penalty, so that all will ultimately go where they most desire to
be. All the great masters in literature have recognized this. The
inextinguishable thirst for reparation constitutes the very
essence of tragedy. The Greek tragedians are full of it, and
Shakespeare is its most impressive teacher: Measure for Measure,
5:1—“I am sorry that such sorrow I procure, And so deep sticks it
in my penitent heart That I crave death more willingly than mercy;
’Tis my deserving, and I do entreat it”; Cymbeline, 5:4—“and so,
great Powers, If you will take this audit, take this life, And
cancel these cold bonds!... Desired, more than constrained, to
satisfy, ... take No stricter render of me than my all”; that is,
settle the account with me by taking my life, for nothing less
than that will pay my debt. And later writers follow Shakespeare.
Marguerite, in Goethe’s Faust, fainting in the great cathedral
under the solemn reverberations of the Dies Iræ; Dimmesdale, in
Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, putting himself side by side with
Hester Prynne, his victim, in her place of obloquy; Bulwer’s
Eugene Aram, coming forward, though unsuspected, to confess the
murder he had committed, all these are illustrations of the inner
impulse that moves even a sinful soul to satisfy the claims of
justice upon it. See A. H. Strong, Philosophy and Religion, 215,
216. On Hawthorne, see Hutton, Essays, 2:370-416—“In the Scarlet
Letter, the minister gains fresh reverence and popularity as the
very fruit of the passionate anguish with which his heart is
consumed. Frantic with the stings of unacknowledged guilt, he is
yet taught by these very stings to understand the hearts and stir
the consciences of others.” See also Dinsmore, Atonement in
Literature and Life.

Nor are such scenes confined to the pages of romance. In a recent
trial at Syracuse, Earl, the wife-murderer, thanked the jury that
had convicted him; declared the verdict just; begged that no one
would interfere to stay the course of justice; said that the
greatest blessing that could be conferred on him would be to let
him suffer the penalty of his crime. In Plattsburg, at the close
of another trial in which the accused was a life-convict who had
struck down a fellow-convict with an axe, the jury, after being
out two hours, came in to ask the Judge to explain the difference
between murder in the first and second degree. Suddenly the
prisoner rose and said: “This was not a murder in the second
degree. It was a deliberate and premeditated murder. I know that I
have done wrong, that I ought to confess the truth, and that I
ought to be hanged.” This left the jury nothing to do but render
their verdict, and the Judge sentenced the murderer to be hanged,
as he confessed he deserved to be. In 1891, Lars Ostendahl, the
most famous preacher of Norway, startled his hearers by publicly
confessing that he had been guilty of immorality, and that he
could no longer retain his pastorate. He begged his people for the
sake of Christ to forgive him and not to desert the poor in his
asylums. He was not only preacher, but also head of a great
philanthropic work.

Such is the movement and demand of the enlightened conscience. The
lack of conviction that crime ought to be punished is one of the
most certain signs of moral decay in either the individual or the
nation (_Ps. 97:10_—“_Ye that love the Lord, hate evil_”;
_149:6_—“_Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, And a
two-edged sword in their hand_”—to execute God’s judgment upon
iniquity).

This relation of sin to God shows us how Christ is “_made sin on
our behalf_” (_2 Cor. 5:21_). Since Christ is the immanent God, he
is also essential humanity, the universal man, the life of the
race. All the nerves and sensibilities of humanity meet in him. He
is the central brain to which and through which all ideas must
pass. He is the central heart to which and through which all pains
must be communicated. You cannot telephone to your friend across
the town without first ringing up the central office. You cannot
injure your neighbor without first injuring Christ. Each one of us
can say of him: “_Against thee, thee only, have I sinned_” (_Ps.
51:4_). Because of his central and all-inclusive humanity, Christ
can feel all the pangs of shame and suffering which rightfully
belong to sinners, but which they cannot feel, because their sin
has stupefied and deadened them. The Messiah, if he be truly man,
must be a suffering Messiah. For the very reason of his humanity
he must bear in his own person all the guilt of humanity and must
be “_the Lamb of God who_” takes, and so “_takes away the sin of
the world_” (_John 1:29_).

Guilt and depravity are not only distinguishable in thought,—they
are also separable in fact. The convicted murderer might repent
and become pure, yet he might still be under obligation to suffer
the punishment of his crime. The Christian is freed from guilt
(_Rom. 8:1_), but he is not yet freed from depravity (_Rom.
7:23_). Christ, on the other hand, was under obligation to suffer
(_Luke 24:26_; _Acts 3:18_; _26:23_), while yet he was without sin
(_Heb. 7:26_). In the book entitled Modern Religious Thought,
3-29, R. J. Campbell has an essay on The Atonement, with which,
apart from its view as to the origin of moral evil in God, we are
in substantial agreement. He holds that “to relieve men from their
sense of guilt, objective atonement is necessary,”—we would say:
to relieve men from guilt itself—the obligation to suffer. “If
Christ be the eternal Son of God, that side of the divine nature
which has gone forth in creation, if he contains humanity and is
present in every article and act of human experience, then he is
associated with the existence of the primordial evil.... He and
only he can sever the entail between man and his responsibility
for personal sin. Christ has not _sinned_ in man, but he takes
responsibility for that experience of evil into which humanity is
born, and the yielding to which constitutes sin. He goes forth to
suffer, and actually does suffer, in man. The eternal Son in whom
humanity is contained is therefore a sufferer since creation
began. This mysterious passion of Deity must continue until
redemption is consummated and humanity restored to God. Thus every
consequence of human ill is felt in the experience of Christ. Thus
Christ not only assumes the guilt but bears the punishment of
every human soul.” We claim however that the necessity of this
suffering lies, not in the needs of man, but in the holiness of
God.

C. Guilt, moreover, as an objective result of sin, is not to be confounded with the subjective consciousness of guilt (Lev. 5:17). In the condemnation of conscience, God’s condemnation partially and prophetically manifests itself (1 John 3:20). But guilt is primarily a relation to God, and only secondarily a relation to conscience. Progress in sin is marked by diminished sensitiveness of moral insight and feeling. As “the greatest of sins is to be conscious of none,” so guilt may be great, just in proportion to the absence of consciousness of it (Ps. 19:12; 51:6; Eph. 4:18, 19—ἀπηλγηκότες). There is no evidence, however, that the voice of conscience can be completely or finally silenced. The time for repentance may pass, but not the time for remorse. Progress in holiness, on the other hand, is marked by increasing apprehension of the depth and extent of our sinfulness, while with this apprehension is combined, in a normal Christian experience, the assurance that the guilt of our sin has been taken, and taken away, by Christ (John 1:29).

_Lev. 5:17_—“_And if any one sin, and do any of the things which
Jehovah hath commanded not to be done; though he knew it not, yet
is he guilty, and shall bear his iniquity_”; _1 John
3:20_—“_because if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our
heart, and knoweth all things_”; _Ps. 19:12_—“_Who can discern his
errors? Clear thou me from hidden faults_”; _51:6_—“_Behold, thou
desirest truth in the inward parts; And in the hidden part thou
wilt make me to know wisdom_”; _Eph. 4:18, 19_—“_darkened in their
understanding ... being past feeling_”; _John 1:29_—“_Behold, the
Lamb of God, that taketh away_ [marg. “_beareth_”] _the sin of the
world._”

Plato, Republic, 1:330—“When death approaches, cares and alarms
awake, especially the fear of hell and its punishments.” Cicero,
De Divin., 1:30—“Then comes remorse for evil deeds.” Persius,
Satire 3—“His vice benumbs him; his fibre has become fat; he is
conscious of no fault; he knows not the loss he suffers; he is so
far sunk, that there is not even a bubble on the surface of the
deep.” Shakespeare, Hamlet, 3:1—“Thus conscience doth make cowards
of us all”; 4:5—“To my sick soul, as sin’s true nature is, Each
toy seems prologue to some great amiss; So full of artless
jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt”;
Richard III, 5:3—“O coward conscience, how thou dost afflict
me!... My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, and every
tongue brings in a several tale, And every tale condemns me for a
villain”; Tempest, 3:3—“All three of them are desperate; their
great guilt, Like poison given to work a great time after, Now
’gins to bite the spirits”; Ant. and Cleop., 3:9—“When we in our
viciousness grow hard (O misery on’t!) the wise gods seel our
eyes; In our own filth drop our clear judgments; make us Adore our
errors; laugh at us, while we strut To our confusion.”

Dr. Shedd said once to a graduating class of young theologians:
“Would that upon the naked, palpitating heart of each one of you
might be laid one redhot coal of God Almighty’s wrath!” Yes, we
add, if only that redhot coal might be quenched by one red drop of
Christ’s atoning blood. Dr. H. E. Robins: “To the convicted sinner
a merely external hell would be a cooling flame, compared with the
agony of his remorse.” John Milton represents Satan as saying:
“Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell.” James Martineau, Life
by Jackson, 190—“It is of the essence of guilty declension to
administer its own anæsthetics.” But this deadening of conscience
cannot last always. Conscience is a mirror of God’s holiness. We
may cover the mirror with the veil of this world’s diversions and
deceits. When the veil is removed, and conscience again reflects
the sunlike purity of God’s demands, we are visited with
self-loathing and self-contempt. John Caird, Fund. Ideas,
2:25—“Though it may cast off every other vestige of its divine
origin, our nature retains at least this one terrible prerogative
of it, the capacity of preying on itself.” Lyttelton in Lux Mundi,
277—“The common fallacy that a self-indulgent sinner is no one’s
enemy but his own would, were it true, involve the further
inference that such a sinner would not feel himself guilty.” If
any dislike the doctrine of guilt, let them remember that without
wrath there is no pardon, without guilt no forgiveness. See, on
the nature of guilt, Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 1:193-267;
Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, 208-209; Thomasius, Christi Person
und Werk, 1:346; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 461-473; Delitzsch, Bib.
Psychologie, 121-148; Thornwell, Theology, 1:400-424.

2. Degrees of guilt.

The Scriptures recognize different degrees of guilt as attaching to different kinds of sin. The variety of sacrifices under the Mosaic law, and the variety of awards in the judgment, are to be explained upon this principle.

_Luke 12:47, 48_—“_shall be beaten with many stripes ... shall be
beaten with few stripes_”; _Rom. 2:6_—“_who will render to every
man according to his works._” See also _John 19:11_—“_he that
delivered me unto thee hath greater sin_”; _Heb. 2:2, 3_—if
“_every transgression ... received a just recompense of reward;
how shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation?_” _10:28,
29_—“_A man that hath set at nought Moses’ law dieth without
compassion on the word of two or three witnesses: of how much
sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy, who hath
trodden under foot the Son of God?_”

Casuistry, however, has drawn many distinctions which lack Scriptural foundation. Such is the distinction between venial sins and mortal sins in the Roman Catholic Church,—every sin unpardoned being mortal, and all sins being venial, since Christ has died for all. Nor is the common distinction between sins of omission and sins of commission more valid, since the very omission is an act of commission.

_Mat. 25:45_—“_Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of these
least_”; _James 4:17_—“_To him therefore that knoweth to do good,
and doeth it not, to him it is sin._” John Ruskin: “The
condemnation given from the Judgment Throne—most solemnly
described—is for all the ‘undones’ and not the ‘dones.’ People are
perpetually afraid of doing wrong; but unless they are doing its
reverse energetically, they _do it all day long_, and the degree
does not matter.” The Roman Catholic Church proceeds upon the
supposition that she can determine the precise malignity of every
offence, and assign its proper penance at the confessional.
Thornwell, Theology, 1:424-441, says that “all sins are venial but
one—for there is a sin against the Holy Ghost,” yet “not one is
venial in itself—for the least proceeds from an apostate state and
nature.” We shall see, however, that the hindrance to pardon, in
the case of the sin against the Holy Spirit, is subjective rather
than objective.

J. Spencer Kennard: “Roman Catholicism in Italy presents the
spectacle of the authoritative representatives and teachers of
morals and religion themselves living in all forms of deceit,
corruption, and tyranny; and, on the other hand, discriminating
between venial and mortal sin, classing as venial sins lying,
fraud, fornication, marital infidelity, and even murder, all of
which may be atoned for and forgiven or even permitted by the mere
payment of money; and at the same time classing as mortal sins
disrespect and disobedience to the church.”

The following distinctions are indicated in Scripture as involving different degrees of guilt: