HUMAN GOVERNMENT



Human governments a part of the moral government of God.



LECTURE 20



In the discussion of this subject I will:



Inquire into the ultimate end of God in creation.



We have seen in former lectures, that God is a moral agent, the

self-existent and supreme; and is therefore Himself, as ruler of all,

subject to, and observant of, moral law in all His conduct. That is, His

own infinite intelligence must affirm that a certain course of willing is

suitable, fit, and right in Him. This idea, or affirmation, is law to Him;

and to this His will must be conformed, or He is not good. This is

moral law, a law founded in the eternal and self-existent nature of

God. This law does, and must, demand benevolence in God. 

Benevolence is good willing. God's intelligence must affirm that He

ought to will good for its own intrinsic value. It must affirm His

obligation to choose the highest possible good as the great end of His

being. If God is good, the highest good of Himself, and of the

universe, must have been the end which He had in view in the work of

creation. This is of infinite value, and ought to be willed by God. If

God is good, this must have been His end. We have also seen:



That providential and moral governments are indispensable means

of securing the highest good of the universe.



The highest good of moral agents is conditionated upon their

holiness. Holiness consists in conformity to moral law. Moral law

implies moral government. Moral government is a government of

moral law and of motives. Motives are presented by providential

government; and providential government is, therefore, a means of

moral government. Providential and moral government must be

indispensable to securing the highest good of the universe.



Civil and family governments are indispensable to the securing of

this end, and are, therefore, really a part of the providential and moral

government of God.



In the discussion of this question I remark, 



1. Human beings will not agree in opinion on any subject without

similar degrees of knowledge. No human community exists, or ever

will exist, the members of which will agree in opinion on all subjects. 

This creates a necessity for human legislation and adjudication, to

apply the great principles of moral law to all human affairs. There are

multitudes of human wants and necessities that cannot properly be

met, except through the instrumentality of human governments.



2. This necessity will continue as long as human beings exist in this

world. This is as certain as that the human body will always need

sustenance and clothing; and that the human soul will always need

instruction; and that the means of instruction will not come

spontaneously, without expense and labor. It is as certain as that men

of all ages and circumstances will never possess equal talents and

degrees of information on all subjects. If all men were perfectly holy

and disposed to do right, the necessity for human governments would

not be set aside, because this necessity is founded in the ignorance of

mankind, though greatly aggravated by their wickedness. The

decisions of legislators and judges must be authoritative, so as to

settle questions of disagreement in opinion, and at once to bind and

protect all parties.



The Bible presents human governments not only as existing, but as

deriving their authority and right to punish evildoers, and to protect the

righteous, from God. But:



3. Human governments are plainly recognized in the Bible as a part

of the moral government of God.



"He changeth the times and the seasons; He removeth kings, and

setteth up kings: He giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to

them that know understanding" (Daniel 2:21). "This matter is by the

decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones;

to the intent that the living may know that the Most High ruleth in the

kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will, and setteth up

over it the basest of men." "They shall drive thee from men, and thy

dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall make thee

to eat grass as oxen, and they shall wet thee with the dew of heaven,

and seven times shall pass over thee, till thou know that the Most High

ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will"

(Daniel 4:17, 25). "He was driven from the sons of men; and his heart

was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild asses:

they fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew

of heaven till he knew that the Most High God ruleth in the kingdom of

men, and that he appointeth over it whomsoever he will" (Daniel 5:21). 

"Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no

power but of God, the powers that be are ordained of God. 

Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of

God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For

rulers are not a terror to good works but to the evil. Wilt thou then not

be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have

praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But

if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in

vain; for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon

him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for

wrath but also for conscience's sake. For, for this cause pay ye tribute

also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very

thing. Render, therefore, to all their dues; tribute to whom tribute is

due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor"

(Romans 13:1-7). "Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and

powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work" (Titus

3:1). "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's

sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme, or unto governors, as unto

them that are sent by Him for the punishment of evil doers, and for the

praise of them that do well" (1 Peter 2:13, 14). These passages prove

conclusively, that God establishes human government, as parts of

moral government.



4. It is the duty of all men to aid in the establishment and support of

human government.



As the great law of benevolence, or universal good willing, demands

the existence of human governments, all men are under a perpetual

and unalterable moral obligation to aid in their establishment and

support. In popular or elective governments, every man having a right

to vote, every human being who has moral influence, is bound to exert

that influence in the promotion of virtue and happiness. And as human

governments are plainly indispensable to the highest good of man,

they are bound to exert their influence to secure a legislation that is in

accordance with the law of God. The obligation of human beings to

support and obey human governments, while they legislate upon the

principles of the moral law, is as unalterable as the moral law itself.



5. I will answer objections.



Objection: 1. The kingdom of God is represented in the Bible as

subverting all other kingdoms.



Answer: This is true, but all that can be meant by it is, that the time

shall come when God shall be regarded as the supreme and universal

sovereign of the universe, when His law shall be regarded as

universally obligatory; when all kings, legislators, and judges shall act

as His servants, declaring, applying, and administering the great

principles of His law to all the affairs of human beings. Thus God will

be the supreme sovereign, and earthly rulers will be governors, kings,

and judges under Him, and acting by His authority as revealed in the

Bible.



Objection: 2. It is alleged that God only providentially establishes

human governments, and that He does not approve of their selfish and

wicked administration; that He only uses them providentially, as He

does Satan, for the promotion of His own designs.



Answer: God nowhere commands mankind to obey Satan, but He

does command them to obey magistrates and rulers. "Let every soul

be subject unto the higher powers; for there is no power but of God:

the powers that be are ordained of God" (Romans 13:1). "Submit

yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it

be to the king as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are

sent by Him for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of

them that do well" (1 Peter 2:13, 14).



He nowhere recognizes Satan as His servant, sent and set by Him to

administer justice and execute wrath upon the wicked; but He does

this in respect to human governments. "Whosoever therefore resisteth

the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist shall

receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good

works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do

that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same. For he is

the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil,

be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of

God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore

ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience's

sake. For, for this cause pay ye tribute also; for they are God's

ministers, attending continually upon this very thing" (Romans 13:2-6).



It is true indeed that God approves of nothing that is ungodly and

selfish in human governments. Neither did He approve of what was

ungodly and selfish in the scribes and Pharisees; and yet Christ said to

His disciples, "The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. 

Therefore, whatsoever things they command you, that observe and

do; but do ye not after their works, for they say, and do not" (Matt.

23:2-3). Here the plain common-sense principle is recognized, that we

are to obey when the requirement is not inconsistent with the moral

law, whatever may be the character or the motive of the ruler. We are

always to obey heartily as unto the Lord, and not unto men, and

render obedience to magistrates for the honor and glory of God, and

as doing service to Him.



Objection: 3. It is said that Christians should leave human

governments to the management of the ungodly, and not be diverted

from the work of saving souls, to intermeddle with human

governments.



Answer: To uphold and assist good government is not being diverted

from the work of saving souls. The promotion of public and private

order and happiness is one of the indispensable means of doing good

and saving souls. It is nonsense to admit that Christians are under an

obligation to obey human government, and still have nothing to do with

the choice of those who shall govern.



Objection: 4. It is affirmed that we are commanded not to avenge

ourselves, that "Vengeance is Mine, and I will repay, saith the Lord"

(Romans 12:19). It is said, that if I may not avenge or redress my own

wrongs in my own person, I may not do it through the instrumentality

of human government.



Answer: It does not follow, that because you may not take it upon

yourself to redress your own wrongs by a summary and personal

infliction of punishment upon the transgressor, that therefore human

governments may not punish them. All private wrongs are a public

injury; and irrespective of any particular regard to your personal

interest, magistrates are bound to punish crime for the public good. 

While God has expressly forbidden you to redress your own wrongs,

by administering personal and private chastisement, He has expressly

recognized the right, and made it the duty of public magistrates to

punish crimes.



Objection: 5. It is alleged, that love is so much better than law, that

where love reigns in the heart, law can be universally dispensed with.



Answer: This supposes that, if there is only love, there need be no

rule of duty; no revelation, directing love in its efforts to secure the end

upon which it terminates. But this is as untrue as possible. The

objection overlooks the fact, that law is in all worlds the rule of duty,

and that legal sanctions make up an indispensable part of that circle of

motives that are suited to the nature, relations, and government of

moral beings.



Objection: 6. It is asserted, that Christians have something else to do

besides meddling with politics.



Answer: In a popular government, politics are an important part of

religion. No man can possibly be benevolent or religious, to the full

extent of his obligations, without concerning himself, to a greater or

less extent, with the affairs of human government. It is true, that

Christians have something else to do than to go with a party to do evil,

or to meddle with politics in a selfish or ungodly manner. But they are

bound to meddle with politics in popular governments, because they

are bound to seek the universal good of all men; and this is one

department of human interests, materially affecting all their higher

interests.



Objection: 7. It is said that human governments are nowhere

expressly authorized in the Bible.



Answer: This is a mistake. Both their existence and lawfulness are

as expressly recognized in the above quoted scriptures as they can

be. But if God did not expressly authorize them, it would still be both

the right and the duty of mankind to institute human governments,

because they are plainly demanded by the necessities of human

nature. It is a first truth, that whatever is essential to the highest good

of moral beings in any world, they have a right to pursue, and are

bound to pursue according to the best dictates of reason and

experience. So far, therefore, are men from needing any express

authority to establish human governments, that no inference from the

silence of scripture could avail to render their establishment unlawful. 

It has been shown, in these lectures on moral government, that moral

law is a unit that it is that rule of action which is in accordance with

the nature, relations, and circumstances of moral beings that

whatever is in accordance with, and demanded by the nature,

relations, and circumstances of moral beings, is obligatory on them. It

is moral law, and no power in the universe can set it aside. Therefore,

were the scriptures entirely silent (which they are not) on the subject of

human governments, and on the subject of family government, as they

actually are on a great many important subjects, this would be no

objection to the lawfulness and expediency, necessity and duty of

establishing human governments.



Objection: 8. It is said that human governments are founded in and

sustained by force, and that this is inconsistent with the spirit of the

gospel.



Answer: There cannot be a difference between the spirit of the Old

and the New Testament, or between the spirit of the law and the

gospel, unless God has changed, and unless Christ has undertaken to

make void the law through faith, which cannot be. "Do we then make

void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law"

(Romans 3:32). Just human governments, and such governments

only are contended for, will not exercise force, unless it is demanded

to promote the highest public good. If it be necessary to this end, it

can never be wrong. Nay, it must be the duty of human governments

to inflict penalties, when their infliction is demanded by the public

interest.



Objection: 9. It has been said by some persons, that church

government is sufficient to meet the necessities of the world, without

secular or state governments.



Answer: What! Church governments regulate commerce, make

internal arrangements, such as roads, bridges, and taxation, and

undertake to manage all the business affairs of the world! 

Preposterous and impossible! Church government was never

established for any such end; but simply to regulate the spiritual, in

distinction from the secular concerns of men to try offenders and

inflict spiritual chastisement, and never to perplex and embarrass itself

with managing the business and commercial interests of the world.



Objection: 10. It is said, that were all the world holy, legal penalties

would not be needed.



Answer: Were all men perfectly holy, the execution of penalties

would not be needed; but still, if there were law, there must be

penalties; and it would be both the right and the duty of magistrates to

inflict them, whenever the needful occasion should call for their

execution. But the state of the world supposed is not at hand, and

while the world is what it is, laws must remain, and be enforced.



Objection: 11. It is asserted, that family government is the only form

of government approved of God.



Answer: This is a ridiculous assertion, because God as expressly

commands obedience to magistrates as to parents. He makes it as

absolutely the duty of magistrates to punish crime, as of parents to

punish their own disobedient children. The right of family government,

though commanded by God, is not founded in the arbitrary will of God,

but in the highest good of human beings; so that family government

would be both necessary and obligatory, had God not commanded it. 

So the right of human government has not its foundation in the

arbitrary will of God, but in the necessities of human beings. The

larger the community the more absolute the necessity of government. 

If in the small circle of the family, laws and penalties are needed, how

much more in the larger communities of states and nations. Now,

neither the ruler of a family, nor any other human ruler, has a right to

legislate arbitrarily, or enact, or enforce any other laws, than those that

are demanded by the nature, relations, and circumstances of human

beings. Nothing can be obligatory on moral beings, but that which is

consistent with their nature, relations, and circumstances. But human

beings are bound to establish family governments, state governments,

national governments, and in short, whatever government may be

requisite for the universal instruction, government, virtue, and

happiness of the world, or any portion of it.



Christians therefore have something else to do than to confound the

right of government with the abuse of this right by the ungodly. 

Instead of destroying human governments, Christians are bound to

reform and uphold them. To attempt to destroy, rather than reform

human governments, is the same in principle as is often aimed at, by

those who are attempting to destroy, rather than to reform, the church. 

There are those who, disgusted with the abuses of Christianity

practiced in the church, seem bent on destroying the church

altogether, as the means of saving the world. But what mad policy is

this! It is admitted that selfish men need, and must feel the restraints

of law; but yet it is contended that Christians should have no part in

restraining them by law. But suppose the wicked should agree among

themselves to have no law, and therefore should not attempt to

restrain themselves, nor each other by law; would it be neither the

right nor the duty of Christians to attempt their restraint, through the

influence of wholesome government? It would be strange, that selfish

men should need the restraints of law, and yet that Christians should

have no right to meet this necessity, by supporting governments that

will restrain them. It is right and best that there should be law. It is

even absolutely necessary that there should be law. Universal

benevolence demands it; can it then be wrong in Christians to have

anything to do with it?



Point out the limits or boundaries of the right of government.



Observe, the end of government is the highest good of human

beings, as a part of universal good. All valid human legislation must

propose this as its end, and no legislation can have any authority that

has not the highest good of the whole for its end. No being can

arbitrarily create law. All law for the government of moral agents must

be moral law: that is, it must be that rule of action best suited to their

natures and relations. All valid human legislation must be only

declaratory of this one only law. Nothing else than this can by any

possibility be law. God puts forth no enactments, but such as are

declaratory of the common law of the universe; and should He do

otherwise, they would not be obligatory. Arbitrary legislation can never

be really obligatory.



The right of human government is founded in the intrinsic value of

the good of being, and is conditionated upon its necessity, as a means

to that end. So far as legislation and control are indispensable to this

end, so far and no farther does the right to govern extend. All

legislation and all constitutions not founded upon this basis, and not

recognizing the moral law as the only law of the universe, are null and

void, and all attempts to establish and enforce them are odious

tyranny and usurpation. Human beings may form constitutions,

establish governments, and enact statutes for the purpose of

promoting the highest virtue and happiness of the world, and for the

declaration and enforcement of moral law; and just so far human

governments are essential to this end, but absolutely no farther.



It follows, that no government is lawful or innocent that does not

recognize the moral law as the only universal law, and God as the

Supreme Lawgiver and Judge, to whom nations in their national

capacity, as well as all individuals, are amenable. The moral law of

God is the only law of individuals and of nations, and nothing can be

rightful government but such as is established and administered with a

view to its support.

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LECTURE 21



HUMAN GOVERNMENT



I propose now to make several remarks respecting forms of

government, the right and duty of revolution, etc.



1. The particular forms of state government must, and will, depend

upon the virtue and intelligence of the people.



When virtue and intelligence are nearly universal, democratic forms

of government are well suited to promote the public good. In such a

state of society, democracy is greatly conducive to the general

diffusion of knowledge on governmental subjects; and although, in

some respects less convenient, yet in a suitable state of society, a

democracy is in many respects the most desirable form of

government.



God has always providentially given to mankind those forms of

government that were suited to the degrees of virtue and intelligence

among them. If they have been extremely ignorant and vicious, He

has restrained them by the iron rod of human despotism. If more

intelligent and virtuous, He has given them the milder form of limited

monarchies. If still more intelligent and virtuous, He has given them

still more liberty, and providentially established republics for their

government. Whenever the general state of intelligence has permitted

it, He has put them to the test of self-government and self-restraint, by

establishing democracies.



If the world ever becomes perfectly virtuous, governments will be

proportionally modified, and employed in expounding and applying the

great principles of moral law.



2. That form of government is obligatory, that is best suited to meet

the necessities of the people.



This follows as a self-evident truth, from the consideration, that

necessity is the condition of the right of human government. To meet

this necessity is the object of government; and that government is

obligatory and best which is demanded by the circumstances,

intelligence, and morals of the people.



Consequently, in certain states of society, it would be a Christian's

duty to pray for and sustain even a military despotism; in a certain

other state of society, to pray for and sustain a monarchy; and in other

states, to pray for and sustain a republic; and in a still more advanced

stage of virtue and intelligence, to pray for and sustain a democracy; if

indeed a democracy is the most wholesome form of self government,

which may admit of doubt. It is ridiculous to set up the claim of a

Divine right for any given form of government. That form of

government which is demanded by the state of society, and the virtue

and intelligence of the people, has of necessity the Divine right and

sanction, and none other has or can have.



3. Revolutions become necessary and obligatory, when the virtue

and intelligence, or the vice and ignorance, of the people, demand

them.



This is a thing of course. When one form of government fails to

meet any longer the necessities of the people, it is the duty of the

people to revolutionize. In such cases, it is vain to oppose revolution;

for in some way the benevolence of God will bring it about. Upon this

principle alone, can what is generally termed the American Revolution

be justified. The intelligence and virtue of our Puritan forefathers

rendered a monarchy an unnecessary burden, and a republican form

of government both appropriate and necessary; and God always

allows His children as much liberty as they are prepared to enjoy.



The stability of our republican institutions must depend upon the

progress of general intelligence and virtue. If in these respects the

nation falls, if general intelligence, public and private virtue, sink to that

point below which self-control becomes practicably impossible, we

must fall back into monarchy, limited or absolute; or into civil or military

despotism; just according to the national standard of intelligence and

virtue. This is just as certain as that God governs the world, or that

causes produce their effects.



Therefore, it is the maddest conceivable policy, for Christians to

attempt to uproot human governments, while they ought to be

engaged in sustaining them upon the great principles of the moral law. 

It is certainly the grossest folly, if not abominable wickedness, to

overlook either in theory or practice, these plain, common sense and

universal truths.



4. In what cases are we bound to disobey human governments?



(1.) We may yield obedience, when the thing required does not

involve a violation of moral obligation.



(2.) We are bound to obey when the thing required has no moral

character in itself; upon the principle, that obedience in this case is a

less evil than resistance and revolution. But:



(3.) We are bound in all cases to disobey, when human legislation

contravenes moral law, or invades the rights of conscience.



Apply the foregoing principles to the rights and duties of

governments and subjects in relation to the execution of the necessary

penalties of law: the suppression of mobs, insurrections, rebellion; and

also in relation to war, slavery, Sabbath desecration, etc.



1. It is plain that the right and duty to govern for the security and

promotion of the public interests, implies the right and duty to use any

means necessary to this result. It is absurd to say that the ruler has

the right to govern, and yet that he has not a right to use the

necessary means. Some have taken the ground of the inviolability of

human life, and have insisted that to take life is wrong per se, and of

course that governments are to be sustained without taking life. 

Others have gone so far as to assert, that governments have no right

to resort to physical force to sustain the authority of law. But this is a

most absurd philosophy, and amounts just to this: The ruler has a right

to govern while the subject is pleased to obey; but if the subject

refuses obedience, why then the right to govern ceases: for it is

impossible that the right to govern should exist when the right to

enforce obedience does not exist. This philosophy is, in fact, a denial

of the right to use the necessary means for the promotion of the great

end for which all moral agents ought to live. And yet, strange to tell,

this philosophy professes to deny the right to use force, and to take life

in support of government, on the ground of benevolence, that is, that

benevolence forbids it. What is this but maintaining that the law of

benevolence demands that we should love others too much to use the

indispensable means to secure their good? Or that we should love the

whole too much to execute the law upon those who would destroy all

good? Shame on such philosophy! It overlooks the foundation of

moral obligation, and of all morality and religion. Just as if an

enlightened benevolence could forbid the due, wholesome, and

necessary execution of law. This philosophy impertinently urges the

commandment, "Thou shalt not kill" (Deut. 5:17), as prohibiting all

taking of human life. But it may be asked, why say human life? The

commandment, so far as the letter is concerned, as fully prohibits the

killing of animals or vegetables as it does of men. The question is,

what kind of killing does this commandment prohibit? Certainly not all

killing of human beings, for in the next chapter the Jews were

commanded to kill human beings for certain crimes. The ten

commandments are precepts, and the Lawgiver, after laying down the

precepts, goes on to specify the penalties that are to be inflicted by

men for a violation of these precepts. Some of these penalties are

death, and the penalty for the violation of the precept under

consideration is death. It is certain that this precept was not intended

to prohibit the taking of life for murder. A consideration of the law in its

tenor and spirit renders it most evident that the precept in question

prohibits murder, and the penalty of death is added by the lawgiver to

the violation of this precept. Now how absurd and impertinent it is, to

quote this precept in prohibition of taking life under the circumstances

included in the precept!



Men have an undoubted right to do whatever is plainly indispensable

to the highest good of man; and, therefore, nothing can, by any

possibility be law, that should prohibit the taking of human life, when it

becomes indispensable to the great end of government. This right is

every where recognized in the Bible, and if it were not, still the right

would exist. This philosophy that I am opposing, assumes that the will

of God creates law, and that we have no right to take life, without an

express warrant from Him. But the facts are, that God did give to the

Jews, at least, an express warrant and injunction to take life for certain

crimes; and, if He had not, it would have been duty to do so whenever

the public good required it. Let it be remembered, that the moral law is

the law of nature, and that everything is lawful and right that is plainly

demanded for the promotion of the highest good of being.



The philosophy of which I am speaking lays much stress upon what

it calls inalienable rights. It assumes that man has a title or right to life,

in such a sense, that he cannot forfeit it by crime. But the fact is, there

are no rights inalienable in this sense. There can be no such rights. 

Whenever any individual by the commission of crime comes into such

a relation to the public interest, that his death is a necessary means of

securing the highest public good, his life is forfeited, and to take the

forfeiture at his hands is the duty of the government.



2. It will be seen, that the same principles are equally applicable to

insurrections, rebellions, etc. While government is right, it is duty, and

while it is right and duty, because necessary as a means to the great

end upon which benevolence terminates, it must be both the right and

the duty of government, and of all the subjects, to use any

indispensable means for the suppression of insurrections, rebellion,

etc., as also for the due administration of justice in the execution of

law.



3. These principles will guide us in ascertaining the right, and of

course the duty of governments in relation to war.



Observe, war to be in any case a virtue, or to be less than a crime of

infinite magnitude, must not only be honestly believed, by those who

engage in it, to be demanded by the law of benevolence, but it must

also be engaged in by them with an eye single to the glory of God, and

the highest good of being. That war has been in some instances

demanded by the spirit of the moral law, there can be no reasonable

doubt, since God has sometimes commanded it, which He could not

have done had it not been demanded by the highest good of the
universe. In such cases, if those who were commanded to engage in

war, had benevolent intentions in prosecuting it as God had in

commanding it, it is absurd to say that they sinned. Rulers are

represented as God's ministers to execute wrath upon the guilty. If, in

the providence of God, He should find it duty to destroy or to rebuke a

nation for His own glory, and the highest good of being, He may

beyond question command that they should be chastised by the hand

of man. But in no case is war anything else than a most horrible

crime, unless it is plainly the will of God that it should exist, and unless

it be actually undertaken in obedience to His will. This is true of all,

both of rulers and of subjects, who engage in war. Selfish war is

wholesale murder. For a nation to declare war, or for persons to

enlist, or in any way designedly to aid or abet, in the declaration or

prosecution of war, upon any other conditions than those just

specified, involves the guilt of murder.



There can scarcely be conceived a more abominable and fiendish

maxim than "our country right or wrong." Recently this maxim seems

to have been adopted and avowed in relation to the war of the United

States with Mexico. It seems to be supposed by some, that it is the

duty of good subjects to sympathize with, and support government in

the prosecution of a war in which they have unjustly engaged, and to

which they have committed themselves, upon the ground that since it

is commenced it must be prosecuted as the less of two evils. The

same class of men seem to have adopted the same philosophy in

respect to slavery. Slavery, as it exists in this country, they

acknowledge to be indefensible on the ground of right. It is a great evil

and a great sin, but it must be let alone as the less of two evils. It

exists, say they, and it cannot be abolished without disturbing the

friendly relations and federal union of the States, therefore the

institution must be sustained. The philosophy is this: war and slavery

as they exist in this nation are unjust, but they exist, and to sustain

them is duty, because their existence, under the circumstances, is the

less of two evils.



Nothing can sanctify any crime but that which renders it no crime, but

a virtue. But the philosophers, whose views I am examining, must, if

consistent, take the ground, that since war and slavery exist, although

their commencement was unjust and sinful, yet since they exist, it is no

crime but a virtue to sustain them, as the least of two natural evils. But

I would ask, to whom are they the least of two evils? To ourselves or

to being in general? The least of two present, or of two ultimate evils? 

Our duty is not to calculate the evils in respect merely to ourselves, or

to this nation and those immediately oppressed and injured, but to look

abroad upon the world and the universe, and inquire what are the evils

resulting, and likely to result, to the world, to the church, and to the

universe, from the declaration and prosecution of such a war, and from

the support of slavery by a nation professing what we profess a

nation boasting of liberty; who have drawn the sword and bathed it in

blood in defense of the principle, that all men have an inalienable right

to liberty; that they are born free and equal. Such a nation proclaiming

such a principle, and fighting in the defense of it, standing with its

proud foot on the neck of three millions of crushed and prostrate

slaves! O horrible! This a less evil to the world than emancipation, or

even than the dismemberment of our hypocritical union! "O shame,

where is thy blush!" The prosecution of a war, unjustly engaged in, a

less evil than repentance and restitution! It is impossible. Honesty is

always and necessarily the best policy. Nations are bound by the

same law as individuals. If they have done wrong, it is always duty,

and honorable for them to repent, confess and make restitution. To

adopt the maxim, "Our country right or wrong," and to sympathize with

the government, in the prosecution of a war unrighteously waged,

must involve the guilt of murder. To adopt the maxim, "Our union,

even with perpetual slavery," is an abomination so execrable, as not to

be named by a just mind without indignation.



4. The same principles apply to governmental Sabbath desecration. 

The Sabbath is plainly a divine institution, founded in the necessities of

human beings. The letter of the law of the Sabbath forbids all labor of

every kind, and under all circumstances on that day. But, as has been

said in a former lecture, the spirit of the law of the Sabbath, being

identical with the law of benevolence, sometimes requires the violation

of the letter of the law. Both governments and individuals may do, and

it is their duty to do, on the Sabbath whatever is plainly required by the

great law of benevolence. But nothing more, absolutely. No human

legislature can nullify the moral law. No human legislation can make it

right or lawful to violate any command of God. All human enactments

requiring or sanctioning the violation of any command of God, are not

only null and void, but they are a blasphemous usurpation and

invasion of the prerogative of God.



5. The same principles apply to slavery. No human constitution or

enactment can, by any possibility, be law, that recognizes the right of

one human being to enslave another, in a sense that implies

selfishness on the part of the slave holder. Selfishness is wrong per

se. It is, therefore, always and unalterably wrong. No enactment,

human or divine, can legalize selfishness and make it right, under any

conceivable circumstances. Slavery or any other evil, to be a crime,

must imply selfishness. It must imply a violation of the command,

"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" (Matt. 19:19). If it implies a

breach of this, it is wrong invariably and necessarily, and no

legislation, or any thing else, can make it right. God cannot authorize

it. The Bible cannot sanction it, and if both God and the Bible were to

sanction it, it could not be lawful. God's arbitrary will is not law. The

moral law, as we have seen, is as independent of His will, as His own

necessary existence is. He cannot alter or repeal it. He could not

sanctify selfishness and make it right. Nor can any book be received

as of divine authority that sanctions selfishness. God and the Bible

quoted to sustain and sanctify slave holding in a sense implying

selfishness! 'This blasphemous! That slave holding, as exists in this

country, implies selfishness, at least in almost all instances, is too plain

to need proof. The sinfulness of slave holding and war, in almost all

cases, and in every case where the terms slave holding and war are

used in their popular signification, will appear irresistibly, if we consider

that sin is selfishness, and that all selfishness is necessarily sinful. 

Deprive a human being of liberty who has been guilty of no crime; rob

him of himself his body his soul his time, and his earnings, to

promote the interest of his master, and attempt to justify this on the

principles of moral law! It is the greatest absurdity, and the most

revolting wickedness.

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LECTURE 22



MORAL DEPRAVITY



In discussing the subject of human depravity, I shall:



Define the term depravity.



The word is derived from the Latin de and pravus. Pravus means

"crooked." De is intensive. Depravatus literally and primarily means

"very crooked," not in the sense of original or constitutional

crookedness, but in the sense of having become crooked. The term

does not imply original mal-conformation, but lapsed, fallen, departed

from right or straight. It always implies deterioration, or fall from a

former state of moral or physical perfection.



Depravity always implies a departure from a state of original integrity,

or from conformity to the laws of the being who is the subject of

depravity. Thus we should not consider that being depraved, who

remained in a state of conformity to the original laws of his being,

physical and moral. But we justly call a being depraved, who has

departed from conformity to those laws, whether those laws be

physical or moral.



Point out the distinction between physical and moral depravity.



Physical depravity, as the word denotes, is the depravity of

constitution, or substance, as distinguished from depravity of free

moral action. It may be predicated of body or of mind. Physical

depravity, when predicated of the body, is commonly and rightly called

disease. It consists in a physical departure from the laws of health; a

lapsed, or fallen state, in which healthy organic action is not sustained. 

When physical depravity is predicated of mind, it is intended that the

powers of the mind, either in substance, or in consequence of their

connection with, and dependence upon, the body, are in a diseased,

lapsed, fallen, degenerate state, so that the healthy action of those

powers is not sustained.



Physical depravity, being depravity of substance as opposed to

depravity of the actions of free will, can have no moral character. It

may as we shall see, be caused by moral depravity; and a moral agent

may be blameworthy for having rendered himself physically depraved,

either in body or mind. But physical depravity, whether of body or of

mind, can have no moral character in itself, for the plain reason that it

is involuntary, and in its nature is disease, and not sin. Let this be

remembered.



Moral depravity is the depravity of free will, not of the faculty itself,

but of its free action. It consists in a violation of moral law. Depravity

of the will, as a faculty, is, or would be, physical, and not moral

depravity. It would be depravity of substance, and not of free,

responsible choice. Moral depravity is depravity of choice. It is a

choice at variance with moral law, moral right. It is synonymous with

sin or sinfulness. It is moral depravity, because it consists in a

violation of moral law, and because it has moral character.



Of what physical depravity can be predicated.



1. It can be predicated of any organized substance. That is, every

organized substance is liable to become depraved. Depravity is a

possible state of every organized body or substance in existence.



2. Physical depravity may be predicated of mind, as has already

been said, especially in its connection with an organized body. As

mind, in connection with body, manifests itself through it, acts by

means of it, and is dependent upon it, it is plain that if the body

become diseased, or physically depraved, the mind cannot but be

affected by this state of the body, through and by means of which it

acts. The normal manifestations of mind cannot, in such case, be

reasonably expected. Physical depravity may be predicated of all the

involuntary states of the intellect, and of the sensibility. That is, the

actings and states of the intellect may become disordered, depraved,

deranged, or fallen from the state of integrity and healthiness. This

every one knows, as it is matter of daily experience and observation. 

Whether this in all cases is, and must be, caused by the state of the

bodily organization, that is, whether it is always and necessarily to be

ascribed to the depraved state of the brain and nervous system, it is

impossible for us to know. It may, for aught we know, in some

instances at least, be a depravity or derangement of the substance of

the mind itself.



The sensibility, or feeling department of the mind, may be sadly and

physically depraved. This is a matter of common experience. The

appetites and passions, the desires and cravings, the antipathies and

repellencies of the feelings fall into great disorder and anarchy. 

Numerous artificial appetites are generated, and the whole sensibility

becomes a wilderness, a chaos of conflicting and clamorous desires,

emotions and passions. That this state of the sensibility is often, and

perhaps in some measure always, owing to the state of the nervous

system with which it is connected, through and by which it manifests

itself, there can be but little room to doubt. But whether this is always

and necessarily so, no one can tell. We know that the sensibility

manifests great physical depravity. Whether this depravity belong

exclusively to the body, or to the mind, or to both in conjunction, I will

not venture to affirm. In the present state of our knowledge, or of my

knowledge, I dare not hazard an affirmation upon the subject. The

human body is certainly in a state of physical depravity. The human

mind also certainly manifests physical depravity. But observe,

physical depravity has in no case any moral character, because it is

involuntary.



Of what moral depravity can be predicated.



1. Not of substance; for over involuntary substance the moral law

does not directly legislate.



2. Moral depravity cannot be predicated of any involuntary acts or

states of mind. These surely cannot be violations of moral law apart

from the ultimate intention; for moral law legislates directly only over

free, intelligent choices.



3. Moral depravity cannot be predicated of any unintelligent act of

will, that is, of acts of will that are put forth in a state of idiocy, of

intellectual derangement, or of sleep. Moral depravity implies moral

obligation; moral obligation implies moral agency; and moral agency

implies intelligence, or knowledge of moral relations. Moral agency

implies moral law, or the development of the idea of duty, and a

knowledge of what duty is.



4. Moral depravity can only be predicated of violations of moral law,

and of the free volitions by which those violations are perpetrated. 

Moral law, as we have seen, requires love, and only love, to God and

man, or to God and the universe. This love, as we have seen, is

goodwill, choice, the choice of an end, the choice of the highest

well-being of God, and of the universe of sentient existences.



Moral depravity is sin. Sin is a violation of moral law. We have seen

that sin must consist in choice, in the choice of self-indulgence or

self-gratification as an end.



5. Moral depravity cannot consist in any attribute of nature or

constitution, nor in any lapsed and fallen state of nature; for this is

physical and not moral depravity.



6. It cannot consist in anything that is an original and essential part of

mind, or of body; nor in any involuntary action or state of either mind or

body.



7. It cannot consist in anything back of choice, and that sustains to

choice the relation of a cause. Whatever is back of choice, is without

the pale of legislation. The law of God, as has been said, requires

good willing only; and sure it is, that nothing but acts of will can

constitute a violation of moral law. Outward actions, and involuntary

thoughts and feelings, may be said in a certain sense to possess

moral character because they are produced by the will. But, strictly

speaking, moral character belongs only to choice, or intention.



It was shown in a former lecture, that sin does not, and cannot

consist in malevolence, properly speaking, or in the choice of sin or

misery as an end, or for its own sake. It was also shown, that all sin

consists, and must consist in selfishness, or in the choice of

self-gratification as a final end. Moral depravity then, strictly speaking,

can only be predicated of selfish ultimate intention.



Moral depravity, as I use the term, does not consist in, nor imply a

sinful nature, in the sense that the substance of the human soul is

sinful in itself. It is not a constitutional sinfulness. It is not an

involuntary sinfulness. Moral depravity, as I use the term, consists in

selfishness; in a state of voluntary committal of the will to

self-gratification. It is a spirit of self-seeking, a voluntary and entire

consecration to the gratification of self. It is selfish ultimate intention; it

is the choice of a wrong end of life; it is moral depravity, because it is a

violation of moral law. It is a refusal to consecrate the whole being to

the highest well-being of God and of the universe, and obedience to

the moral law, and consecrating it to the gratification of self. Moral

depravity sustains to the outward life, the relation of a cause. This

selfish intention, or the will in this committed state, of course, makes

efforts to secure its end, and these efforts make up the outward life of

the selfish man. Moral depravity is sinfulness, not of nature but of

voluntary state. It is a sinfully committed state of the will to

self-indulgence. It is not a sinful nature but a sinful heart. It is a sinful

ultimate aim, or intention. The Greek term amartia, rendered sin in our

English Bible, signifies to miss the mark, to aim at the wrong end. Sin

is a wrong aim, or intention. It is aiming at, or intending

self-gratification as the ultimate and supreme end of life, instead of

aiming, as the moral law requires, at the highest good of universal

being, as the end of life.



Mankind are both physically and morally depraved.



1. There is, in all probability, no perfect health of body among all the

ranks and classes of human beings that inhabit this world. The

physical organization of the whole race has become impaired, and

beyond all doubt has been becoming more and more so since

intemperance of any kind was first introduced into our world. This is

illustrated and confirmed by the comparative shortness of human life. 

This is a physiological fact.



2. As the human mind in this state of existence is dependent upon

the body for all its manifestations, and as the human body is

universally in a state of greater or less physical depravity or disease, it

follows that the manifestations of mind thus dependent on a physically

depraved organization, will be physically depraved manifestations. 

Especially is this true of the human sensibility. The appetites,

passions, and propensities are in a state of most unhealthy

development. This is too evident, and too much a matter of universal

notoriety, to need proof or illustration. Every person of reflection has

observed, that the human mind is greatly out of balance, in

consequence of the monstrous development of the sensibility. The

appetites, passions, and propensities have been indulged, and the

intelligence and conscience stultified by selfishness. Selfishness, be it

remembered, consists in a disposition or choice to gratify the

propensities, desires, and feelings. This of course, and of necessity,

produces just the unhealthy and monstrous developments which we

daily see: sometimes one ruling passion or appetite lording it, not only

over the intelligence and over the will, but over all the other appetites

and passions, crushing and sacrificing them all upon the altar of its

own gratification. See that bloated wretch, the inebriate! His appetite

for strong drink has played the despot. His whole mind and body,

reputation, family, friends, health, time, eternity, all, all are laid by him

upon its filthy altar. There is the debauchee, the glutton, the gambler,

the miser, and a host of others, each in his turn giving striking and

melancholy proof of the monstrous development and physical

depravity of the human sensibility.



3. That men are morally depraved is one of the most notorious facts

of human experience, observation and history. Indeed, I am not aware

that it has ever been doubted, when moral depravity has been

understood to consist in selfishness. The moral depravity of the

human race is everywhere assumed and declared in the Bible, and so

universal and notorious is the fact of human selfishness, that should

any man practically call it in question should he, in his business

transactions, and in his intercourse with men, assume the contrary, he

would justly subject himself to the charge of insanity. There is not a

fact in the world more notorious and undeniable than this. Human

moral depravity is as palpably evident as human existence. It is a fact

everywhere assumed in all governments, in all the arrangements of

society, and it has impressed its image, and written its name, upon

every thing human.



Subsequent to the commencement of moral agency, and previous to

regeneration, the moral depravity of mankind is universal.



By this it is not intended to deny that, in some instances, the Spirit of

God may, from the first moment of moral agency, have so enlightened

the mind as to have secured conformity to moral law, as the first moral

act. This may or may not be true. It is not my present purpose to

affirm or to deny this, as a possibility, or as a fact.



But by this is intended, that every moral agent of our race is, from

the dawn of moral agency to the moment of regeneration by the Holy

Spirit, morally depraved, unless we except those possible cases just

alluded to. The Bible exhibits proof of it:



1. In those passages that represent all the unregenerate as

possessing one common wicked heart or character. "And God saw

that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every

imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Gen.

6:5). "This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun,

that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men

is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after

that they go to the dead" (Eccl. 9:3). "The heart is deceitful above all

things and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jere. 17:9). 

"Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to

the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Romans 8:7).



2. In those passages that declare the universal necessity of

regeneration. "Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say

unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of

God" (John 3:3).



3. Passages that expressly assert the universal moral depravity of all

unregenerate moral agents of our race. "What then? Are we better

than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and

Gentiles, that they are all under sin; as it is written, There is none

righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth, there is

none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they

are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no

not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they

have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: whose mouth

is full of cursing and bitterness: their feet are swift to shed blood:

destruction and misery are in their ways: and the way of peace have

they not known: there is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we

know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are

under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world

may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law

there shall no flesh be justified in His sight; for by the law is the

knowledge of sin" (Romans 3:9-20).



4. Universal history proves it. What is this world's history but the

shameless chronicle of human wickedness?



5. Universal observation attests it. Who ever saw one unregenerate

human being that was not selfish, that did not obey his feelings rather

than the law of his intelligence, that was not under some form, or in

some way, living to please self? Such an unregenerate human being,

I may safely affirm, was never seen since the fall of Adam.



6. I may also appeal to the universal consciousness of the

unregenerate. They know themselves to be selfish, to be aiming to

please themselves, and they cannot honestly deny it.



The moral depravity of the unregenerate moral agents of our race is

total.



By this is intended, that the moral depravity of the unregenerate is

without any mixture of moral goodness or virtue, that while they remain

unregenerate, they never in any instance, nor in any degree, exercise

true love to God and to man. It is not intended, that they may not

perform many outward actions, and have many inward feelings, that

are such as the regenerate perform and experience: and such too as

are accounted virtue by those who place virtue in the outward action. 

But it is intended, that virtue does not consist either in involuntary

feelings or in outward actions, and that it consists alone in entire

consecration of heart and life to God and the good of being, and that

no unregenerate sinner previous to regeneration, is or can be, for one

moment, in this state.



When virtue is clearly seen to consist in the heart's entire

consecration to God and the good of being, it must be seen, that the

unregenerate are not for one moment in this state. It is amazing, that

some philosophers and theologians have admitted and maintained,

that the unregenerate do sometimes do that which is truly virtuous. 

But in these admissions they necessarily assume a false philosophy,

and overlook that in which all virtue does and must consist, namely,

supreme ultimate intention. They speak of virtuous actions and of

virtuous feelings, as if virtue consisted in them, and not in the

intention.



Henry P. Tappan, for example, for the most part an able, truthful,

and beautiful writer, assumes, or rather affirms, that volitions may be

put forth inconsistent with, and contrary to the present choice of an

end, and that consequently, unregenerate sinners, whom he admits to

be in the exercise of a selfish choice of an end, may and do

sometimes put forth right volitions, and perform right actions, that is,

right in the sense of virtuous actions. But let us examine this subject. 

We have seen that all choice and all volition must respect either an

end or means, that is, that everything willed or chosen, is willed or

chosen for some reason. To deny this, is the same as to deny that

anything is willed or chosen, because the ultimate reason for a choice

and the thing chosen are identical. Therefore, it is plain, as was

shown in a former lecture, that the will cannot embrace at the same

time, two opposite ends; and that while but one end is chosen, the will

cannot put forth volitions to secure some other end, which end is not

yet chosen. In other words, it certainly is absurd to say, that the will,

while maintaining the choice of one end, can use means for the

accomplishment of another and opposite end.



When an end is chosen, that choice confines all volition to securing

its accomplishment, and for the time being, and until another end is

chosen, and this one relinquished, it is impossible for the will to put

forth any volition inconsistent with the present choice. It therefore

follows, that while sinners are selfish, or unregenerate, it is impossible

for them to put forth a holy volition. They are under the necessity of

first changing their hearts, or their choice of an end, before they can

put forth any volitions to secure any other than a selfish end. And this

is plainly the everywhere assumed philosophy of the Bible. That

uniformly represents the unregenerate as totally depraved, and calls

upon them to, repent, to make to themselves a new heart; and never

admits directly, or by way of implication, that they can do anything

good or acceptable to God, while in the exercise of a wicked or selfish

heart.

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LECTURE 23



MORAL DEPRAVITY



Let us consider the proper method of accounting for the universal

and total moral depravity of the unregenerate moral agents of our

race.



In the discussion of this subject, I will:



1. Endeavor to show how it is not to be accounted for.



In examining this part of the subject, it is necessary to have distinctly

in view that which constitutes moral depravity. All the error that has

existed upon this subject, has been founded in false assumptions in

regard to the nature or essence of moral depravity. It has been almost

universally true, that no distinction has been made between moral and

physical depravity; and consequently, physical depravity has been

confounded with and treated of, as moral depravity. This of course

has led to vast confusion and nonsense upon this subject. Let the

following fact, which has been shown in former lectures, be distinctly

borne in mind.



That moral depravity consists in selfishness, or in the choice of

self-interest, self-gratification, or self-indulgence, as an end.



Consequently it cannot consist, 



(1.) In a sinful constitution, or in a constitutional appetency or craving

for sin. This has been shown in a former lecture, on what is not

implied in disobedience to the moral law.



(2.) Moral depravity is sin itself and not the cause of sin. It is not

something prior to sin, that sustains to it the relation of a cause, but it

is the essence and the whole of sin.



(3.) It cannot be an attribute of human nature, considered simply as

such, for this would be physical, and not moral depravity.



(4.) Moral depravity is not then to be accounted for by ascribing it to

a nature or constitution sinful in itself. To talk of a sinful nature, or

sinful constitution, in the sense of physical sinfulness, is to ascribe

sinfulness to the Creator, who is the author of nature. It is to overlook

the essential nature of sin, and to make sin a physical virus, instead of

a voluntary and responsible choice. Both sound philosophy and the

Bible, make sin to consist in obeying the flesh, or in the spirit of

self-pleasing, or self-indulgence, or, which is the same thing, in

selfishness in a carnal mind, or in minding the flesh. But writers on

moral depravity have assumed, that moral depravity was distinct from,

and the cause of sin, that is, of actual transgression. They call it

original sin, indwelling sin, a sinful nature, an appetite for sin, an

attribute of human nature, and the like. We shall presently see what

has led to this view of the subject.



I will, in the next place, notice a modern, and perhaps the most

popular view of this subject, which has been taken by any late writer,

who has fallen into the error of confounding physical and moral

depravity. I refer to the prize essay of Dr. Woods, of Andover, Mass. 

He defines moral depravity to be the same as "sinfulness." He also, in

one part of his essay, holds and maintains, that it is always and

necessarily, voluntary. Still, his great effort is to prove that sinfulness

or moral depravity, is an attribute of human nature. It is no part of my

design to expose the inconsistency of holding moral depravity to be a

voluntary state of mind, and yet a natural attribute, but only to examine

the philosophy, the logic, and theory of his main argument. The

following quotation will show the sense in which he holds moral

depravity to belong to the nature of man. At page 54 he says:



"The word depravity, relating as it here does to man's moral

character, means the same as sinfulness, being the opposite of moral

purity, or holiness." In this use of the word there is a general

agreement. But what is the meaning of native, or natural? Among the

variety of meanings specified by Johnson, Webster, and others, I refer

to the following, as relating particularly to the subject before us.



Native. Produced by nature. Natural, or such as is according to

nature; belonging by birth; original. Natural has substantially the same

meaning: `produced by nature; not acquired.' So Crabbe: `Of a

person we say, his worth is native, to designate it as some valuable

property born with him, not foreign to him, or ingrafted upon him; but

we say of his disposition, that it is natural, as opposed to that which is

acquired by habit.' And Johnson defines nature to be `the native state

or properties of any thing, by which it is discriminated from others.' He

quotes the definition of Boyle: `Nature sometimes means what belongs

to a living creature at its nativity, or accrues to it by its birth, as when

we say a man is noble by nature, or a child is naturally froward.' `This,'

he says, `may be expressed by saying, the man was born so.'



"After these brief definitions, which come to nearly the same thing, I

proceed to inquire, what are the marks or evidence which show

anything in man to be natural, or native; and how far these marks are

found in relation to depravity."



Again, page 66, he says:



"The evil, then, cannot be supposed to originate in any unfavorable

external circumstances, such as corrupting examples, or insinuating

and strong temptations; for if we suppose these entirely removed, all

human beings would still be sinners. With such a moral nature as they

now have, they would not wait for strong temptations to sin. Nay, they

would be sinners in opposition to the strongest motives to the contrary. 

Indeed, we know that human beings will turn those very motives which

most powerfully urge to holiness, into occasions of sin. Now, does not

the confidence and certainty with which we foretell the commission of

sin, and of sin unmixed with moral purity, presuppose a full conviction

in us, and a conviction resting upon what we regard as satisfactory

evidence, that sin, in all its visible actings, arises from that which is

within the mind itself, and which belongs to our very nature as moral

beings? Have we not as much evidence that this is the case with

moral evil as with any of our natural affections or bodily appetites?"



This quotation, together with the whole argument, shows that he

considers moral depravity to be an attribute of human nature, in the

same sense that the appetites and passions are. Before I proceed

directly to the examination of his argument, that sinfulness, or moral

depravity, is an "attribute of human nature," I would premise, that an

argument, or fact, that may equally well consist with either of two

opposing theories, can prove neither. The author in question presents

the following facts and considerations in support of his great position,

that moral depravity, or sinfulness, is an attribute of human nature; and

three presidents of colleges indorse the soundness and

conclusiveness of the argument.



He proves his position first from the "universality of moral

depravity." To this I answer, that this argument proves nothing to the

purpose, unless it be true, and assumed as a major premise, that

whatever is universal among mankind, must be a natural attribute of

man as such; that whatever is common to all men, must be an

attribute of human nature. But this assumption is a begging of the

question. Sin may be the result of temptation; temptation may be

universal, and of such a nature as uniformly, not necessarily, to result

in sin, unless a contrary result be secured by a Divine moral suasion. 

This I shall endeavor to show is the fact. This argument assumes, that

there is but one method of accounting for the universality of human

sinfulness. But this is the question in debate, and is not to be thus

assumed as true.



Again: Selfishness is common to all unregenerate men. Is

selfishness a natural attribute? We have seen, in a former lecture,

that it consists in choice. Can choice be an attribute of human nature?



Again: This argument is just as consistent with the opposite theory,

to wit, that moral depravity is selfishness. The universality of

selfishness is just what might be expected, if selfishness consists in

the committal of the will to the gratification of self. This will be a thing

of course, unless the Holy Spirit interpose, greatly to enlighten the

intellect, and break up the force of habit, and change the attitude of the

will, already, at the first dawn of reason, committed to the impulses of

the sensibility. If moral depravity is to be accounted for, as I shall

hereafter more fully show, by ascribing it to the influence of temptation,

or to a physically depraved constitution, surrounded by the

circumstances in which mankind first form their moral character, or put

forth their first moral choices, universality might of course be expected

to be one of its characteristics. This argument, then, agreeing equally

well with either theory, proves neither.



His second argument is, that "Moral depravity develops itself in early

life." Answer:



This is just what might be expected upon the opposite theory. If

moral depravity consist in the choice of self-gratification, it would of

course appear in early life. So this argument agrees quite as well with

the opposing theory, and therefore proves nothing. But this

argument is good for nothing, unless the following be assumed as a

major premise, and unless the fact assumed be indeed a truth,

namely, "Whatever is developed in early life, must be an attribute of

human nature." But this again is assuming the truth of the point in

debate. This argument is based upon the assumption that a course of

action common to all men, and commencing at the earliest moment of

their moral agency, can be accounted for only by ascribing it to an

attribute of nature, having the same moral character as that which

belongs to the actions themselves. But this is not true. There may be

more than one way of accounting for the universal sinfulness of human

actions from the dawn of moral agency. It may be ascribed to the

universality and peculiar nature of temptation, as has been said.



His third argument is, that "Moral depravity is not owing to any

change that occurs subsequent to birth." Answer:



No, the circumstances of temptation are sufficient to account for it

without supposing the nature to be changed. This argument proves

nothing, unless it be true, that the peculiar circumstances of temptation

under which moral agents act, from the dawn of moral agency, cannot

sufficiently account for their conduct, without supposing a change of

nature subsequent to birth. What then, does this arguing prove?



Again, this argument is just as consistent with the opposing theory,

and therefore proves neither.



His fourth argument is, "That moral depravity acts freely and

spontaneously." Answer:



"The moral agent acts freely, and acts selfishly, that is, wickedly. 

This argument assumes, that if a moral agent acts freely and wickedly

moral depravity, or sin, must be an attribute of his nature. Or more

fairly, if mankind universally, in the exercise of their liberty, act sinfully,

sinfulness must be an attribute of human nature." But what is sin? 

Why sin is a voluntary transgression of law, Dr. Woods being judge. 

Can a voluntary transgression of law be denominated an attribute of

human nature?



But again, this argument alleges nothing but what is equally

consistent with the opposite theory. If moral depravity consist in the

choice of self-gratification as an end, it would of course freely and

spontaneously manifest itself. This argument then, is good for

nothing.



His fifth argument is, "That moral depravity is hard to overcome, and

therefore it must be an attribute of human nature." Answer:



If it were an attribute of human nature, it could not be overcome at

all, without a change of the human constitution. It is hard to overcome,

just as selfishness naturally would be, in beings of a physically

depraved constitution, and in the presence of so many temptations to

self-indulgence. If it were an attribute of human nature, it could not be

overcome without a change of personal identity. But the fact that it

can be overcome without destroying the consciousness of personal

identity, proves that it is not an attribute of human nature.



His sixth argument is, that "We can predict with certainty, that in due

time it will act itself out." Answer:



Just as might be expected. If moral depravity consists in selfishness,

we can predict with certainty, that the spirit of self-pleasing will, in due

time, and at all times, act itself out. We can also predict, without the

gift of prophecy, that with a constitution physically depraved, and

surrounded with objects to awaken appetite, and with all the

circumstances in which human beings first form their moral character,

they will seek universally to gratify themselves, unless prevented by

the illuminations of the Holy Spirit. This argument is just as consistent

with the opposite theory, and therefore proves neither.



It is unnecessary to occupy any more time with the treatise of Dr.

Woods. I will now quote the standards of the Presbyterian church,

which will put you in possession of their views upon this subject. At

pp. 30, 31, of the Presbyterian Confession of Faith, we have the

following: "By this sin, they (Adam and Eve) fell from their original

righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin,

and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body. They

being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and the

same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their posterity,

descending from them by ordinary generation. From this original

corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made

opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all

actual transgressions."



Again, pp. 152-154, Shorter Catechism. "Question 22. Did all

mankind fall in that first transgression? Answer: The covenant being

made with Adam as a public person, not for himself only, but for his

posterity; all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation,

sinned in him, and fell with him in that first transgression.



"Question 23. Into what estate did the fall bring mankind? Answer:

The fall brought mankind into an estate of sin and misery.



"Question 24. What is sin? Answer: Sin is any want of conformity

unto, or transgression of, any law of God, given as a rule to the

reasonable creature.



"Question 25. Wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate where

into man fell? Answer: The sinfulness of that estate whereinto man

fell, consisteth in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of that

righteousness wherein he was created, and the corruption of his

nature, whereby he is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite

unto all that is spiritually good, and wholly inclined to all evil, and that

continually, which is commonly called original sin, and from which do

proceed all actual transgressions.



"Question 26. How is original sin conveyed from our first parents

unto their posterity? Answer: Original sin is conveyed from our first

parents unto their posterity by natural generation, so as all that

proceed from them in that way, are conceived and born in sin."



These extracts show, that the framers and defenders of this

confession of faith, account for the moral depravity of mankind by

making it to consist in a sinful nature, inherited by natural generation

from Adam. They regard the constitution inherited from Adam, as in

itself sinful, and the cause of all actual transgression. They make no

distinction between physical and moral depravity. They also

distinguish between original and actual sin. Original sin is the

sinfulness of the constitution, in which Adam's posterity have no other

hand than to inherit it by natural generation, or by birth. This original

sin, or sinful nature, renders mankind utterly disabled from all that is

spiritually good, and wholly inclined to all that is evil. This is their

account of moral depravity. This, it will be seen, is substantially the

ground of Dr. Woods:



It has been common with those who confound physical with moral

depravity, and who maintain that human nature is itself sinful, to quote

certain passages of Scripture to sustain their position. An examination

of these proof texts, must, in the next place, occupy our attention. But

before I enter upon this examination, I must first call your attention to

certain well-settled rules of biblical interpretation.



(1.) Different passages must be so interpreted, if they can be, as not

to contradict each other.



(2.) Language is to be interpreted according to the subject matter of

discourse.



(3.) Respect is always to be had to the general scope and design of

the speaker or writer.



(4.) Texts that are consistent with either theory, prove neither.



(5.) Language is to be so interpreted, if it can be, as not to conflict

with sound philosophy, matters of fact, the nature of things, or

immutable justice.



Let us now, remembering and applying these plain rules of sound

interpretation, proceed to the examination of those passages that are

supposed to establish the theory of depravity I am examining.



"Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own

likeness and after his own image, and called his name Seth" (Gen.

5:3). It is not very easy to see, why this text should be pressed into

the service of those who hold that human nature is in itself sinful. Why

should it be assumed that the likeness and image here spoken of was

a moral likeness or image? But unless this be assumed, the text has

nothing to do with the subject.



Again: it is generally admitted, that in all probability Adam was a

regenerate man at the time and before the birth of Seth. Is it intended

that Adam begat a saint or a sinner? If, as is supposed, Adam was a

saint of God, if this text is anything to the purpose, it affirms that Adam

begat a saint. But this is the opposite of that in proof of which the text

is quoted.



Another text is: "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not

one" (Job 14:4). This text is quoted in support of the position of the

Presbyterian Confession of Faith, that children inherit from their

parents, by natural generation, a sinful nature. Upon this text, I

remark, that all that can be made of it, even if we read it without regard

to the translation or the context, is, that a physically depraved parent

will produce a physically depraved offspring. That this is its real

meaning, is quite evident, when we look into the context. Job is

treating of the frail and dying state of man, and manifestly has in the

text and context his eye wholly on the physical state, and not on the

moral character of man. What he intends is; who can bring other than

a frail, dying offspring from a frail dying parent? Not one. This is

substantially the view that Professor Stuart takes of this text. The

utmost that can be made of it is, that as he belonged to a race of

sinners, nothing else could be expected than that he should be a

sinner, without meaning to affirm anything in regard to the quo modo

of this result.



Again: "What is man that he should be clean, and he that is born of a

woman that he should be righteous" (Job 15:14).



These are the words of Eliphaz, and it is improper to quote them as

inspired truth. For God Himself testifies that Job's friends did not hold

the truth. But, suppose we receive the text as true, what is its import? 

Why, it simply asserts, or rather implies, the righteousness or

sinfulness of the whole human race. It expresses the universality of

human depravity, in the very common way of including all that are born

of woman. This certainly says nothing, and implies nothing, respecting

a sinful constitution. It is just as plain, and just as warrantable, to

understand this passage as implying that mankind have become so

physically depraved, that this fact, together with the circumstances

under which they come into being, and begin their moral career, will

certainly, (not necessarily), result in moral depravity. I might use just

such language as that found in this text, and, naturally enough,

express by it my own views of moral depravity, to wit, that it results

from a physically depraved constitution; and the circumstances of

temptation under which children come into this world, and begin and

prosecute their moral career; certainly this is the most that can be

made of this text.



Again: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother

conceive me" (Psalms 51:5).



Upon this I remark, that it would seem, if this text is to be understood

literally, that the Psalmist intended to affirm the sinful state of his

mother, at the time of his conception, and during gestation. But, to

interpret these passages as teaching the constitutional sinfulness of

man, is to contradict God's own definition of sin, and the only definition

that human reason or common sense can receive, to wit, that "sin is a

transgression of the law." This is, no doubt, the only correct definition

of sin. But we have seen that the law does not legislate over

substance, requiring men to have a certain nature, but over voluntary

action only. If the Psalmist really intended to affirm, that the substance

of his body was sinful from its conception, then he not only arrays

himself against God's own definition of sin, but he also affirms sheer

nonsense. The substance of an unborn child sinful! It is impossible! 

But what did the Psalmist mean? I answer: This verse is found in

David's penitential psalm. He was deeply convinced of sin, and was,

as he had good reason to be, much excited, and expressed himself,

as we all do in similar circumstances, in strong language. His eye, as

was natural and is common in such cases, had been directed back

along the pathway of life up to the days of his earliest recollection. He

remembered sins among the earliest acts of his recollected life. He

broke out in the language of this text to express, not the anti-scriptural

and nonsensical dogma of a sinful constitution, but to affirm in his

strong, poetic language, that he had been a sinner from the

commencement of his moral existence, or from the earliest moment of

his capability of being a sinner. This is the strong language of poetry.



Some suppose that, in the passage in question, the Psalmist referred

to, and meant to acknowledge and assert, his low and despicable

origin, and to say, I was always a sinner, and my mother that

conceived me was a sinner, and I am but the degenerate plant of a

strange vine, without intending to affirm anything in respect to the

absolute sinfulness of his nature.



Again, "The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as

soon as they be born, speaking lies" (Psalms 58:3). Upon this text I

remark that it has been quoted at one time to establish the doctrine of

a sinful nature, and at another to prove that infants commit actual sin

from the very day and hour of their birth. But certainly no such use

can be legitimately made of this text. It does not affirm anything of a

sinful nature, but this has been inferred from what it does affirm, that

the wicked are estranged from their birth. But does this mean, that

they are really and literally estranged from the day and hour of their

birth, and that they really go astray the very day they are born,

speaking lies? This every one knows to be contrary to fact. The text

cannot then be pressed to the letter. What then does it mean? It must

mean, like the text last examined, that the wicked are estranged and

go astray from the commencement of their moral agency. If it means

more than this, it would contradict other plain passages of scripture. It

affirms, in strong, graphic, and poetic language, the fact, that the first

moral conduct and character of children is sinful. This is all that in

truth it can assert; and it doubtless dates the beginning of their moral

depravity at a very early period, and expresses it in very strong

language, as if it were literally from the hour of birth. But when it adds,

that they go astray, speaking lies, we know that this is not, and cannot

be, literally taken, for, as every one knows, children do not speak at all

from their birth. Should we understand the Psalmist as affirming, that

children go astray as soon as they go at all, and speak lies as soon as

they speak at all, this would not prove that their nature was in itself

sinful, but might well consist with the theory that their physical

depravity, together with their circumstances of temptation, led them

into selfishness, from the very first moment of their moral existence.



Again, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born

of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:6).



Upon this I remark that it may, if literally taken, mean nothing more

than this, that the body which is born of flesh is flesh, and that

which is born of the spirit is spirit; that is, that this birth of which he was

speaking was of the soul, and not of the body. But it may be

understood to mean, that which results from the influence of the

flesh is flesh, in the sense of sin; for this is a common sense of the

term flesh in the New Testament, and that which results from the

Spirit, is spirit or spiritual, in the sense of holy. This I understand to be

the true sense. The text when thus understood, does not at all support

the dogma of a sinful nature or constitution, but only this, that the flesh

tends to sin, that the appetites and passions are temptations to sin, so

that when the will obeys them it sins. Whatever is born of the

propensities, in the sense that the will yields to their control, is sinful. 

And, on the other hand, whatever is born of the Spirit, that is, whatever

results from the agency of the Holy Spirit, in the sense that the will

yields to Him, is holy.



Again, "By nature the children of wrath, even as others" (Eph. 2:3). 

Upon this text I remark that it cannot, consistently with natural justice,

be understood to mean, that we are exposed to the wrath of God on

account of our nature. It is a monstrous and blasphemous dogma,

that a holy God is angry with any creature for possessing a nature with

which he was sent into being without his knowledge or consent. The

Bible represents God as angry with men for their wicked deeds, and

not for their nature.



It is common and proper to speak of the first state in which men

universally are, as a natural state. Thus we speak of sinners before

regeneration, as in a state of nature, as opposed to a changed state, a

regenerate state, and a state of grace. By this we do not necessarily

mean, that they have a nature sinful in itself, but merely that before

regeneration they are universally and morally depraved, that this is

their natural, as opposed to their regenerate state. Total moral

depravity is the state that follows, and results from their first birth, and

is in this sense natural, and in this sense alone, can it truly be said,

that they are "by nature children of wrath." Against the use that is

made of this text, and all this class of texts, may be arrayed the whole

scope of scripture, that represents man as to blame, and to be judged

and punished only for his deeds. The subject matter of discourse in

these texts is such as to demand that we should understand them as

not implying, or asserting, that sin is an essential part of our nature.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

LECTURE 24



MORAL DEPRAVITY



FURTHER EXAMINATION OF THE ARGUMENTS ADDUCED IN

SUPPORT OF THE POSITION THAT HUMAN NATURE IS IN ITSELF

SINFUL.



The defenders of the doctrine of constitutional sinfulness, or moral

depravity, urge as an additional argument:



That sin is a universal effect of human nature, and therefore human

nature must be itself sinful.



Answer: This is a non sequitur. Sin may be, and must be, an abuse

of free agency; and this may be accounted for, as we shall see, by

ascribing it to the universality of temptation, and does not at all imply a

sinful constitution. But if sin necessarily implies a sinful nature, how

did Adam and Eve sin? Had they a sinful nature to account for, and to

cause their first sin? How did angels sin? Had they also a sinful

nature? Either sin does not imply a sinful nature, or a nature in itself

sinful, or Adam and angels must have had sinful natures before their

fall.



Again: Suppose we regard sin as an event or effect. An effect only

implies an adequate cause. Free, responsible will is an adequate

cause in the presence of temptation, without the supposition of a sinful

constitution, as has been demonstrated in the case of Adam and of

angels. When we have found an adequate cause, it is unphilosophical

to look for and assign another.



Again: it is said that no motive to sin could be a motive or a

temptation, if there were not a sinful taste, relish, or appetite, inherent

in the constitution, to which the temptation or motive is addressed. For

example, the presence of food, it is said, would be no temptation to

eat, were there not a constitutional appetency terminating on food. So

the presence of any object could be no inducement to sin, were there

not a constitutional appetency or craving for sin. So that, in fact, sin in

action were impossible, unless there were sin in the nature. To this I

reply:



Suppose this objection be applied to the sin of Adam and of angels. 

Can we not account for Eve's eating the forbidden fruit without

supposing that she had a craving for sin? The Bible informs us that

her craving was for the fruit, for knowledge, and not for sin. The words

are, "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and

that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one

wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her

husband with her, and he did eat" (Gen. 3:6). Here is nothing of a

craving for sin. Eating this fruit was indeed sinful; but the sin consisted

in consenting to gratify, in a prohibited manner, the appetites, not for

sin, but for food and knowledge. But the advocates of this theory say

that there must be an adaptedness in the constitution, a something

within answering to the outward motive or temptation, otherwise sin

were impossible. This is true. But the question is, What is that

something within, which responds to the outward motive? Is it a

craving for sin? We have just seen what it was in the case of Adam

and Eve. It was simply the correlation that existed between the fruit

and their constitution, its presence exciting the desires for food and

knowledge. This led to prohibited indulgence. But all men sin in

precisely the same way. They consent to gratify, not a craving for sin,

but a craving for other things, and the consent to make

self-gratification an end, is the whole of sin.



The theologians whose views we are canvassing, maintain that the

appetites, passions, desires, and propensities, which are constitutional

and entirely involuntary, are in themselves sinful. To this I reply, that

Adam and Eve possessed them before they fell. Christ possessed

them, or He was not a man, nor, in any proper sense, a human being. 

No, these appetites, passions, and propensities, are not sinful, though

they are the occasions of sin. They are a temptation to the will to seek

their unlawful indulgence. When these lusts or appetites are spoken

of as the "passions of sin," or as "sinful lusts or passions," it is not

because they are sinful in themselves, but because they are the

occasions of sin. It has been asked, Why are not the appetites and

propensities to be regarded as sinful, since they are the prevalent

temptations to sin? I reply:



They are involuntary, and moral character can no more be

predicated of them, on account of their being temptations, than it could

of the fruit that was a temptation to Eve. They have no design to

tempt. They are constitutional, unintelligent, involuntary; and it is

impossible that moral character should be predicable of them. A moral

agent is responsible for his emotions, desires, etc., so far as they are

under the direct or indirect control of his will, and no further. He is

always responsible for the manner in which he gratifies them. If he

indulges them in accordance with the law of God, he does right. If he

makes their gratification his end, he sins.



Again: the death and suffering of infants previous to actual

transgression, is adduced as an argument to prove, that infants have a

sinful nature. To this I reply:



That this argument must assume, that there must be sin wherever

there is suffering and death. But this assumption proves too much, as

it would prove that mere animals have a sinful nature, or have

committed actual sin. An argument that proves too much proves

nothing.



Physical sufferings prove only physical, and not moral, depravity. 

Previous to moral agency, infants are no more subjects of moral

government than brutes are; therefore, their sufferings and death are

to be accounted for as are those of brutes, namely, by ascribing them

to physical interference with the laws of life and health.



Another argument for a sinful constitution is, that unless infants have

a sinful nature, they do not need sanctification to fit them for heaven. 

Answer:



This argument assumes, that, if they are not sinful, they must be

holy; whereas they are neither sinful or holy, until they are moral

agents, and render themselves so by obedience or disobedience to

the moral law. If they are to go to heaven, they must be made holy or

must be sanctified. This objection assumes, that previous sinfulness is

a condition of the necessity of being holy. This is contrary to fact. 

Were Adam and angels first sinful before they were sanctified? But it

is assumed that unless moral agents are at first sinners, they do not

need the Holy Spirit to induce them to be holy. That is, unless their

nature is sinful, they would become holy without the Holy Spirit. But

where do we ascertain this? Suppose that they have no moral

character, and that their nature is neither holy nor sinful. Will they

become holy without being enlightened by the Holy Spirit? Who will

assert that they will?



That infants have a sinful nature has been inferred from the

institution of circumcision so early as the eighth day after birth. 

Circumcision, it is truly urged, was designed to teach the necessity of

regeneration, and by way of implication, the doctrine of moral

depravity. It is claimed, that its being enjoined as obligatory upon the

eighth day after birth, was requiring it at the earliest period at which it

could be safely performed. From this it is inferred, that infants are to

be regarded as morally depraved from their birth.



In answer to this I would say, that infant circumcision was doubtless

designed to teach the necessity of their being saved by the Holy Spirit

from the dominion of the flesh; that the influence of the flesh must be

restrained, and the flesh circumcised, or the soul would be lost. This

truth needed to be impressed on the parents, from the birth of their

children. This very significant, and bloody, and painful rite, was well

calculated to impress this truth upon parents, and to lead them from

their birth to watch over the development and indulgence of their

propensities, and to pray for their sanctification. Requiring it at so

early a day was no doubt designed to indicate, that they are from the

first under the dominion of their flesh, without however affording any

inference in favor of the idea, that their flesh was in itself sinful, or that

the action of their will at that early age was sinful. If reason was not

developed, the subjection of the will to appetite could not be sinful. 

But whether this subjection of the will to the gratification of the appetite

was sinful or not, the child must be delivered from it, or it could never

be fitted for heaven, any more than a mere brute can be fitted for

heaven. The fact, that circumcision was required on the eighth day,

and not before, seems to indicate, not that they are sinners absolutely

from birth, but that they very early become so, even from the

commencement of moral agency.



Again: the rite must be performed at some time. Unless a particular

day were appointed, it would be very apt to be deferred, and finally not

performed at all. It is probable, that God commanded that it should be

done at the earliest period at which it could be safely done, not only for

the reasons already assigned, but to prevent its being neglected too

long, and perhaps altogether: and perhaps, also, because it would be

less painful and dangerous at that early age, when the infant slept

most of the time. The longer it was neglected the greater would be the

temptation to neglect it altogether. So painful a rite needed to be

enjoined by positive statute, at some particular time; and it was

desirable on accounts that it should be done as early as it safely could

be. This argument, then, for native constitutional moral depravity

amounts really to nothing.



Again: it is urged, that unless infants have a sinful nature, should

they die in infancy, they could not be saved by the grace of Christ.



To this I answer, that, in this case they would not, and could not, as a

matter of course, be sent to the place of punishment for sinners;

because that were to confound the innocent with the guilty, a thing

morally impossible with God.



But what grace could there be in saving them from a sinful

constitution, that is not exercised in saving them from circumstances

that would certainly result in their becoming sinners, if not snatched

from them? In neither case do they need pardon for sin. Grace is

unearned favor a gratuity. If the child has a sinful nature, it is his

misfortune, and not his crime. To save him from this nature is to save

him from those circumstances that will certainly result in actual

transgression, unless he is rescued by death and by the Holy Spirit. 

So if his nature is not sinful, yet it is certain that his nature and

circumstances are such, that he will surely sin unless rescued by

death or by the Holy Spirit, before he is capable of sinning. It certainly

must be an infinite favor to be rescued from such circumstances, and

especially to have eternal life conferred as a mere gratuity. This surely

is grace. And as infants belong to a race of sinners who are all, as it

were, turned over into the hands of Christ, they doubtless will ascribe

their salvation to the infinite grace of Christ.



Again: is it not grace that saves us from sinning? What then is it but

grace that saves infants from sinning, by snatching them away from

circumstances of temptation? In what way does grace save adults

from sinning, but by keeping them from temptation, or by giving them

grace to overcome it? And is there no grace in rescuing infants from

circumstances that are certain, if they are left in them, to lead them

into sin?



All that can be justly said in either case is, that if infants are saved at

all, which I suppose they are, they are rescued by the benevolence of

God from circumstances that would result in certain and eternal death,

and are by grace made heirs of eternal life. But after all, it is useless

to speculate about the character and destiny of those who are

confessedly not moral agents. The benevolence of God will take care

of them. It is nonsensical to insist upon their moral depravity before

they are moral agents, and it is frivolous to assert, that they must be

morally depraved, as a condition of their being saved by grace.



We deny that the human constitution is morally depraved, because it

is impossible that sin should be a quality of the substance of soul or

body. It is, and must be, a quality of choice or intention, and not of

substance. To make sin an attribute or quality of substance is contrary

to God's definition of sin. "Sin," says the apostle, "is anomia," a

"transgression of, or a want of conformity to, the moral law." That is, it

consists in a refusal to love God and our neighbor, or, which is the

same thing, in loving ourselves supremely.



To represent the constitution as sinful, is to represent God, who is

the author of the constitution, as the author of sin. To say that God is

not the direct former of the constitution, but that sin is conveyed by

natural generation from Adam, who made himself sinful, is only to

remove the objection one step farther back, but not to obviate it; for

God established the physical laws that of necessity bring about this

result.



But how came Adam by a sinful nature? Did his first sin change his

nature? or did God change it as a penalty for sin? What ground is

there for the assertion that Adam's nature became in itself sinful by the

fall? This is a groundless, not to say ridiculous, assumption, and an

absurdity. Sin an attribute of nature! A sinful substance! Sin a

substance! Is it a solid, a fluid, a material, or a spiritual substance?



I have received from a brother the following note on this subject:

"The orthodox creeds are in some cases careful to say that original sin

consists in the substance of neither soul nor body. Thus

Bretschneider, who is reckoned among the rationalists in Germany,

says: `The symbolical books very rightly maintain that original sin is not

in any sense the substance of man, his body or soul, as Flacius

taught, but that it has been infused into human nature by Satan, and

mixed with it, as poison and wine are mixed.'



"They rather expressly guard against the idea that they mean by the

phrase `man's nature,' his substance, but somewhat which is fixed in

the substance. They explain original sin, therefore, not as an essential

attribute of man, that is, a necessary and essential part of his being,

but as an accident, that is, somewhat which does not subsist in itself,

but as something accidental, which has come into human nature. He

quotes the Formula Concordantiae as saying: `Nature does not denote

the substance itself of man, but something which inheres fixed in the

nature or substance.' Accident is defined, `what does not subsist by

itself, but is in some substance and can be distinguished from it.'"



Here, it seems, is sin by itself, and yet not a substance or

subsistence not a part or attribute of soul or body. What can it be? 

Does it consist in wrong action? No, not in action, but is an accident

which inheres fixed in the nature of substance. But what can it be? 

Not substance, nor yet action. But if it be anything, it must be either

substance or action. If it be a state of substance, what is this but

substance in a particular state? Do these writers think by this subtlety

and refinement to relieve their doctrine of constitutional moral

depravity of its intrinsic absurdity?



I object to the doctrine of constitutional sinfulness, that it makes all

sin original and actual, a mere calamity, and not a crime. For those

who hold that sin is an essential and inseparable part of our nature, to

call it a crime, is to talk nonsense. What! A sinful nature the crime of

him upon whom it is entailed, without his knowledge or consent? If the

nature is sinful, in such a sense that action must necessarily be sinful,

which is the doctrine of the Confession of Faith, then sin in action must

be a calamity, and can be no crime. It is the necessary effect of a

sinful nature. This cannot be a crime, since the will has nothing to do

with it.



Of course it must render repentance, either with or without the grace

of God, impossible, unless grace sets aside our reason. If repentance

implies self-condemnation, we can never repent in the exercise of our

reason. Constituted as we are, it is impossible that we should

condemn ourselves for a sinful nature, or for actions that are

unavoidable. The doctrine of original sin, or of a sinful constitution,

and of necessary sinful actions, represents the whole moral

government of God, the plan of salvation by Christ, and indeed every

doctrine of the gospel, as a mere farce. Upon this supposition the law

is tyranny, and the gospel an insult to the unfortunate.



It is difficult, and, indeed, impossible for those who really believe this

doctrine to urge immediate repentance and submission on the sinner,

feeling that he is infinitely to blame unless he instantly comply. It is a

contradiction to affirm, that a man can heartily believe in the doctrine in

question, and yet truly and heartily blame sinners for not doing what is

naturally impossible to them. The secret conviction must be in the

mind of such an one, that the sinner is not really to blame for being a

sinner. For in fact, if this doctrine is true, he is not to blame for being a

sinner, any more than he is to blame for being a human being. This

the advocate of this doctrine must know. It is vain for him to set up the

pretence that he truly blames sinners for their nature, or for their

conduct that was unavoidable. He can no more do it, than he can

honestly deny the necessary affirmations of his own reason. 

Therefore the advocates of this theory must merely hold it as a theory,

without believing it, or otherwise they must in their secret conviction

excuse the sinner.



This doctrine naturally and necessarily leads its advocates, secretly

at least, to ascribe the atonement of Christ rather to justice than to

grace to regard it rather as an expedient to relieve the unfortunate,

than to render the forgiveness of the inexcusable sinner possible. The

advocates of the theory cannot but regard the case of the sinner as

rather a hard one, and God as under an obligation to provide a way for

him to escape a sinful nature, entailed upon him in spite of himself,

and from actual transgressions which result from his nature by a law of

necessity. If all this is true, the sinner's case is infinitely hard, and God

would appear the most unreasonable and cruel of beings, if He did not

provide for their escape. These convictions will, and must, lodge in

the mind of him who really believes the dogma of a sinful nature. This,

in substance, is sometimes affirmed by the defenders of the doctrine

of original sin.



The fact that Christ died in the stead and behalf of sinners, proves

that God regarded them not as unfortunate, but as criminal and

altogether without excuse. Surely Christ need not have died to atone

for the misfortunes of men. His death was to atone for their guilt, and

not for their misfortunes. But if they are without excuse for sin, they

must be without a sinful nature that renders sin unavoidable. If men

are without excuse for sin, as the whole law and gospel assume and

teach, it cannot possibly be that their nature is sinful, for a sinful nature

would be the best of all excuses for sin.



This doctrine is a stumbling-block both to the church and the world,

infinitely dishonorable to God, and an abomination alike to God and

the human intellect, and should be banished from every pulpit, and

from every formula of doctrine, and from the world. It is a relic of

heathen philosophy, and was foisted in among the doctrines of

Christianity by Augustine, as every one may know who will take the

trouble to examine for himself. This view of moral depravity that I am

opposing, has long been the stronghold of Universalism. From it, the

Universalists inveigh with resistless force against the idea that sinners

should be sent to an eternal hell. Assuming the long-defended

doctrine of original or constitutional sinfulness, they proceeded to

show, that it would be infinitely unreasonable and unjust in God to

send them to hell. What! Create them with a sinful nature, from which

proceed, by a law of necessity, actual transgressions, and then send

them to an eternal hell for having this nature, and for transgressions

that are unavoidable! Impossible! They say; and the human intellect

responds, Amen.



From the dogma of a sinful nature or constitution also, has naturally

and irresistibly flowed the doctrine of inability to repent, and the

necessity of a physical regeneration. These too have been a sad

stumbling-block to Universalists, as every one knows who is at all

acquainted with the history of Universalism. They infer the salvation of

all men, from the fact of God's benevolence and physical

omnipotence! God is almighty, and He is love. Men are

constitutionally depraved, and are unable to repent. God will not,

cannot send them to hell. They do not deserve it. Sin is a calamity,

and God can save them, and He ought to do so. This is the substance

of their argument. And assuming the truth of their premises, there is

no evading their conclusion. But the whole argument is built on "such

stuff as dreams are made of." Strike out the erroneous dogma of a

sinful nature, and the whole edifice of Universalism comes to the

ground in a moment. We come now to consider:



2. The proper method of accounting for moral depravity.



We have more than once seen that the Bible has given us the history

of the introduction of sin into our world; and that from the narrative, it is

plain, that the first sin consisted in selfishness or in consenting to

indulge the excited constitutional propensities in a prohibited manner. 

In other words, it consisted in yielding the will to the impulses of the

sensibility, instead of abiding by the law of God, as revealed in the

intelligence. Thus, the Bible ascribes the first sin of our race to the

influence of temptation.



The Bible once, and only once, incidentally intimates that Adam's

first sin has in some way been the occasion, not the necessary

physical cause of all the sins of men (Rom. 5:12-19). It neither says

nor intimates anything in relation to the manner in which Adam's sin

has occasioned this result. It only incidentally recognizes the fact, and

then leaves it, just as if the quo modo was too obvious to need

explanation. In other parts of the Bible we are informed how we are to

account for the existence of sin among men. James says, that a man

is tempted when he is drawn aside of his own lusts,

(epithumia-"desires") and enticed (James 1:14). That is, his lusts, or

the impulses of his sensibility, are his tempters. When he or his will is

overcome of these, he sins. Paul and other inspired writers represent

sin as consisting in a carnal or fleshly mind, in the mind of the flesh, or

in minding the flesh. It is plain that by the term flesh they mean what

we understand by the sensibility, as distinguished from intellect, and

that they represent sin as consisting in obeying, minding, the impulses

of the sensibility. They represent the world, and the flesh, and Satan,

as the three great sources of temptation. It is plain that the world and

Satan tempt by appeals to the flesh, or to the sensibility. Hence, the

apostles have much to say of the necessity of the destruction of the

flesh, of the members, of putting off the old man with his deeds, etc. 

Now, it is worthy of remark, that all this painstaking, on the part of

Inspiration, to intimate the source from whence our sin proceeds, and

to apprise us of the proper method of accounting for it, and also of

avoiding it, has probably been the occasion of leading certain

philosophers and theologians who have not carefully examined the

whole subject, to take a view of it which is directly opposed to the truth

intended by the inspired writers. Because so much is said of the

influence of the flesh over the mind, they have inferred that the nature

and physical constitution of man is itself sinful. But the representations

of Scripture are, that the body is the occasion of sin. The law in his

members, that warred against the law of his mind, of which Paul

speaks, is manifestly the impulse of the sensibility opposed to the law

of the reason. This law, that is, the impulse of his sensibility, brings

him into captivity, that is, influences his will, in spite of all his

convictions to the contrary.



Moral depravity consists, remember, in the committal of the will to

the gratification or indulgence of self in the will's following, or

submitting itself to be governed by, the impulses and desires of the

sensibility, instead of submitting itself to the law of God revealed in the

reason.



This definition of the thing shows how it is to be accounted for,

namely: the sensibility acts as a powerful impulse to the will, from the

moment of birth, and secures the consent and activity of the will to

procure its gratification, before the reason is at all developed. The will

is thus committed to the gratification of feeling and appetite, when first

the idea of moral obligation is developed. This committed state of the

will is not moral depravity, and has no moral character, until the idea of

moral obligation is developed. The moment this idea is developed,

this committal of the will to self-indulgence must be abandoned, or it

becomes selfishness, or moral depravity. But, as the will is already in

a state of committal, and has to some extent already formed the habit

of seeking to gratify feeling, and as the idea of moral obligation is at

first but feebly developed, unless the Holy Spirit interferes to shed light

on the soul, the will, as might be expected, retains its hold on

self-gratification. Here alone moral character commences, and must

commence. No one can conceive of its commencing earlier.



This selfish choice is the wicked heart the propensity to sin that

causes what is generally termed actual transgression. This sinful

choice is properly enough called indwelling sin. It is the latent,

standing, controlling preference of the mind and the cause of all the

outward and active life. It is not the choice of sin itself, distinctly

conceived of, or chosen as sin, but the choice of self-gratification,

which choice is sin.



Again: It should be remembered, that the physical depravity of our

race has much to do with our moral depravity. A diseased physical

system renders the appetites, passions, tempers, and propensities

more clamorous and despotic in their demands, and of course

constantly urging to selfishness, confirms and strengthens it. It should

be distinctly remembered that physical depravity has no moral

character in itself. But yet it is a source of fierce temptation to

selfishness. The human sensibility is, manifestly, deeply physically

depraved; and as sin, or moral depravity, consists in committing the

will to the gratification of the sensibility, its physical depravity will

mightily strengthen moral depravity. Moral depravity is then

universally owing to temptation. That is, the soul is tempted to

self-indulgence, and yields to the temptation, and this yielding, and not

the temptation, is sin or moral depravity. This is manifestly the way in

which Adam and Eve became morally depraved. They were tempted,

even by undepraved appetite, to prohibited indulgence, and were

overcome. The sin did not lie in the constitutional desire of food, or of

knowledge, nor in the excited state of these appetites or desires, but in

the consent of the will to prohibited indulgence. Just in the same way

all sinners become such, that is, they become morally depraved, by

yielding to temptation to self-gratification under some form. Indeed, it

is impossible that they should become morally depraved in any other

way. To deny this were to overlook the very nature of moral depravity.



To sum up the truth upon this subject in few words, I would say:



1. Moral depravity in our first parents was induced by temptation

addressed to the unperverted susceptibilities of their nature. When

these susceptibilities became strongly excited, they overcame the will;

that is, the human pair were over-persuaded, and fell under the

temptation. This has been repeatedly said, but needs repetition in a

summing up.



2. All moral depravity commences in substantially the same way. 

Proof:



(1.) The impulses of the sensibility are developed, gradually,

commencing from the birth, and depending on physical development

and growth.



(2.) The first acts of will are in obedience to these.



(3.) Self-gratification is the rule of action previous to the development

of reason.



(4.) No resistance is offered to the will's indulgence of appetite, until

a habit of self-indulgence is formed.



(5.) When reason affirms moral obligation, it finds the will in a state of

habitual and constant committal to the impulses of the sensibility.



(6.) The demands of the sensibility have become more and more

despotic every hour of indulgence.



(7.) In this state of things, unless the Holy Spirit interpose, the idea of

moral obligation will be but dimly developed.



(8.) The will of course rejects the bidding of reason, and cleaves to

self-indulgence.



(9.) This is the settling of a fundamental question. It is deciding in

favor of appetite, against the claims of conscience and of God.



(10.) Light once rejected, can be afterwards more easily resisted,

until it is nearly excluded altogether.



(11.) Selfishness confirms, and strengthens, and perpetuates itself

by a natural process. It grows with the sinner's growth, and

strengthens with his strength; and will do so for ever, unless overcome

by the Holy Spirit through the truth.



Remarks 



1. Adam, being the natural head of the race, would naturally, by the

wisest constitution of things, greatly affect for good or evil his whole

posterity.



2. His sin in many ways exposed his posterity to aggravated

temptation. Not only the physical constitution of all men, but all the

influences under which they first form their moral character, are widely

different from what they would have been, if sin had never been

introduced.



3. When selfishness is understood to be the whole of moral

depravity, its quo modo, or in what way it comes to exist, is manifest. 

Clear conceptions of the thing will instantly reveal the occasion and

manner.



4. The only difficulty in accounting for it, has been the false

assumption, that there must be, and is, something lying back of the

free actions of the will, which sustains to those actions the relation of a

cause, that is itself sinful.



5. If holy Adam, and holy angels could fall under temptations

addressed to their undepraved sensibility, how absurd it is to

conclude, that sin in those who are born with a physically depraved

constitution, cannot be accounted for, without ascribing it to original

sin, or to a nature that is in itself sinful.



6. Without divine illumination, the moral character will of course be

formed under the influence of the flesh. That is, the lower propensities

will of course influence the will, unless the reason be developed by the

Holy Spirit.



7. The dogma of constitutional moral depravity, is a part and parcel

of the doctrine of a necessitated will. It is a branch of a grossly false

and heathenish philosophy. How infinitely absurd, dangerous, and

unjust, then, to embody it in a standard of Christian doctrine, to give it

the place of an indispensable article of faith, and denounce all who will

not swallow its absurdities, as heretics!



8. We are unable to say precisely at what age infants become moral

agents, and of course how early they become sinners. Doubtless

there is much difference among children in this respect. Reason is

developed in one earlier than in another, according to the constitution

and circumstances.



A thorough consideration of the subject, will doubtless lead to the

conviction, that children become moral agents much earlier than is

generally supposed. The conditions of moral agency are, as has been

repeatedly said in former lectures, the possession of the powers of

moral agency, together with the development of the ideas of the good

or valuable, of moral obligation or oughtness of right and wrong of

praise and blameworthiness. I have endeavored to show, in former

lectures, that mental satisfaction, blessedness or happiness, is the

ultimate good. Satisfaction arising from the gratification of the

appetites, is one of the earliest experiences of human beings. This no

doubt suggests or develops, at a very early period, the idea of the

good or the valuable. The idea is doubtless developed, long before

the word that expresses it is understood. The child knows that

happiness is good, and seeks it in the form of self-gratification, long

before the terms that designate this state of mind are at all

understood. It knows that its own enjoyment is worth seeking, and

doubtless very early has the idea, that the enjoyment of others is worth

seeking, and affirms to itself, not in words, but in idea, that it ought to

please its parents and those around it. It knows, in fact, though

language is as yet unknown, that it loves to be gratified, and to be

happy, that it loves and seeks enjoyment for itself, and doubtless has

the idea that it ought not to displease and distress those around it, but

that it ought to endeavor to please and gratify them. This is probably

among the first ideas, if not the very first idea, of the pure reason that

is developed, that is, the idea of the good, the valuable, the desirable;

and the next must be that of oughtness, or of moral obligation, or of

right and wrong, etc. I say again, these ideas are, and must be

developed, before the signs or words that express them are at all

understood, and the words would never be understood except the idea

were first developed. We always find, at the earliest period at which

children can understand words, that they have the idea of obligation,

of right and wrong. As soon as these words are understood by them,

they recognize them as expressing ideas already in their own minds,

and which ideas they have had further back than they can remember. 

Some, and indeed most persons, seem to have the idea, that children

affirm themselves to be under moral obligation, before they have the

idea of the good; that they affirm their obligation to obey their parents

before they know, or have the idea of the good or of the valuable. But

this is, and must be a mistake. They may and do affirm obligation to

obey their parents, before they can express in language, and before

they would understand, a statement of the ground of their obligation. 

The idea, however, they have, and must have, or they could not affirm

obligation.



9. Why is sin so natural to mankind? Not because their nature is

itself sinful, but because the appetites and passions tend so strongly to

self-indulgence. These are temptations to sin, but sin itself consists

not in these appetites and propensities, but in the voluntary committal

of the will to their indulgence. This committal of the will is selfishness,

and when the will is once given up to sin, it is very natural to sin. The

will once committed to self-indulgence as its end, selfish actions are in

a sense spontaneous.



10. The constitution of a moral being as a whole, when all the

powers are developed, does not tend to sin, but strongly in an

opposite direction; as is manifest from the fact that when reason is

thoroughly developed by the Holy Spirit, it is more than a match for the

sensibility, and turns the heart to God. The difficulty is, that the

sensibility gets the start of reason, and engages the attention in

devising means of self-gratification, and thus retards, and in a great

measure prevents, the development of the ideas of the reason which

were designed to control the will. It is this morbid development that

the Holy Spirit is given to rectify, by so forcing truth upon the attention,

as to secure the development of the reason. By doing this, He brings

the will under the influence of truth. Our senses reveal to us the

objects correlated to our animal nature and propensities. The Holy

Spirit reveals God and the spiritual world, and all that class of objects

that are correlated to our higher nature, so as to give reason the

control of the will. This is regeneration and sanctification, as we shall

see in its proper place.

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LECTURE 25



ATONEMENT



We come now to the consideration of a very important feature of the

moral government of God; namely, the atonement. In discussing this

subject, I will:



Call attention to several well-established principles of government.



1. We have already seen that moral law is not founded in the mere

arbitrary will of God or of any other being, but that it has its foundation

in the nature and relations of moral agents, that it is that rule of action

or of willing which is imposed on them by the law of their own intellect.



2. As the will of no being can create moral law, so the will of no being

can repeal or alter moral law. It being just that rule of action that is

agreeable to the nature and relations of moral agents, it is as

immutable as those natures and relations.



3. There is a distinction between the letter and the spirit of moral law. 

The letter relates to the outward life or action; the spirit respects the

motive or intention from which the act should proceed. For example:

the spirit of the moral law requires disinterested benevolence, and is

all expressed in one word love. The letter of the law is found in the

commandments of the decalogue, and in divers other precepts relating

to outward acts.



4. To the letter of the law there may be many exceptions, but to the

spirit of moral law there can be no exception. That is, the spirit of the

moral law may sometimes admit and require, that the letter of the law

shall be disregarded or violated; but the spirit of the law ought never to

be disregarded or violated. For example: the letter of the law prohibits

all labor on the Sabbath day. But the spirit of the law often requires

labor on the Sabbath. The spirit of the law requires the exercise of

universal and perfect love or benevolence to God and man, and the

law of benevolence often requires that labor shall be done on the

Sabbath; as administering to the sick, relieving the poor, feeding

animals; and in short, whatever is plainly the work of necessity or

mercy, in such a sense that enlightened benevolence demands it, is

required by the spirit of moral law upon the Sabbath, as well as all

other days. This is expressly taught by Christ, both by precept and

example. So again, the letter of the law says, "The soul that sinneth, it

shall die" (Ezek. 18:20), but the spirit of the law admits and requires

that upon certain conditions, to be examined in their proper place, the

soul that sinneth shall live. The letter of the law is inexorable; it

condemns and sentences to death all violators of its precepts, without

regard to atonement or repentance. The spirit of moral law allows and

requires that upon condition of satisfaction being made to public

justice, and the return of the sinner to obedience, he shall live and not

die.



5. In establishing a government and promulgating law, the lawgiver is

always understood as pledging himself duly to administer the laws in

support of public order, and for the promotion of public morals, toward

the innocent with his favor and protection, and to punish the

disobedient with the loss of his protection and favor.



6. Laws are public property in which every subject of the government

has an interest. Every obedient subject of government is interested to

have law supported and obeyed, and wherever the law is violated,

every subject of the government is injured, and his rights are invaded;

and each and all have a right to expect the government duly to

execute the penalties of law when it is violated.



7. There is an important distinction between retributive and public

justice. Retributive justice consists in treating every subject of

government according to his character. It respects the intrinsic merit

or demerit of each individual, and deals with him accordingly. Public

justice, in its exercise, consists in the promotion and protection of the

public interests, by such legislation and such an administration of law,

as is demanded by the highest good of the public. It implies the

execution of the penalties of law where the precept is violated, unless

something else is done that will as effectually secure the public

interests. When this is done, public justice demands, that the

execution of the penalty shall be dispensed with by extending pardon

to the criminal. Retributive justice makes no exceptions, but punishes

without mercy in every instance of crime. Public justice makes

exceptions, as often as this is permitted or required by the public good. 

Public justice is identical with the spirit of the moral law, and in its

exercise, regards only the law. Retributive justice cleaves to the letter,

and makes no exceptions to the rule, "The soul that sinneth, it shall

die" (Ezek. 18:20).



8. The design of legal penalties is to secure obedience to the

precept. The same is also the reason for executing them when the

precept is violated. The sanctions are to be regarded as an

expression of the views of the lawgiver, in respect to the importance of

his law; and the execution of penalties is designed and calculated to

evince his sincerity in enacting, and his continued adherence to, and

determination to abide by, the principles of his government as

revealed in the law; his abhorrence of all crime; his regard to the public

interests; and his unalterable determination to carry out, support and

establish, the authority of his law.



9. It is a fact well established by the experience of all ages and

nations, that the exercise of mercy, in setting aside the execution of

penalties, is a matter of extreme delicacy and danger. The influence

of law, as might be expected, is found very much to depend upon the

certainty felt by the subjects that it will be duly executed. It is found in

experience, to be true, that the exercise of mercy in every government

where no atonement is made, weakens government, by begetting and

fostering a hope of impunity in the minds of those who are tempted to

violate the law. It has been asserted, that the same is true when an

atonement has been made, and that therefore, the doctrines of

atonement and consequent forgiveness tend to encourage the hope of

impunity in the commission of sin, and for this reason, are dangerous

doctrines, subversive of high and sound morality. This assertion I

shall notice in its appropriate place.



10. Since the head of the government is pledged to protect and

promote the public interests, by a due administration of law, if in any

instance where the precept is violated, he would dispense with the

execution of penalties, public justice requires that he shall see, that a

substitute for the execution of law is provided, or that something is

done that shall as effectually secure the influence of law, as the

execution of the penalty would do. He cannot make exceptions to the

spirit of the law. Either the soul that sinneth must die, according to the

letter of the law, or a substitute must be provided in accordance with

the spirit of the law.



11. Whatever will as fully evince the lawgiver's regard for his law, his

determination to support it, his abhorrence of all violations of its

precepts, and withal guard as effectually against the inference, that

violators of the precept might expect to escape with impunity, as the

execution of the penalty would do, is a full satisfaction of public justice. 

When these conditions are fulfilled, and the sinner has returned to

obedience, public justice not only admits, but absolutely demands, that

the penalty shall be set aside by extending pardon to the offender. 

The offender still deserves to be punished, and, upon the principles of

retributive justice, might be punished according to his deserts. But the

public good admits and requires, that upon the above condition he

should live; hence, public justice, in compliance with the public

interests and the spirit of the law of love, spares and pardons him.



12. If mercy or pardon is to be extended to any who have violated

law, it ought to be done in a manner and upon some conditions that

will settle the question, and establish the truth, that the execution of

penalties is not to be dispensed with merely upon condition of the

repentance of the offender. In other words, if pardon is to be

extended, it should be known to be upon a condition not within the

power of the offender. Else he may know, that he can violate the law,

and yet be sure to escape with impunity, by fulfilling the conditions of

forgiveness, which are upon the supposition, all within his own power.



13. So, if mercy is to be exercised, it should be upon a condition that

is not to be repeated. The thing required by public justice is, that

nothing shall be done to undermine or disturb the influence of law. 

Hence it cannot consent to have the execution of penalties dispensed

with, upon any condition that shall encourage the hope of impunity. 

Therefore, public justice cannot consent to the pardon of sin but upon

condition of an atonement, and also upon the assumption that

atonement is not to be repeated, nor to extend its benefits beyond the

limits of the race for whom it was made, and that only for a limited

time. If an atonement were to extend its benefits to all worlds, and to

all eternity, it would nullify its own influence, and encourage the

universal hope of impunity, in case the precepts of the law were

violated. This would be indefinitely worse than no atonement; and

public justice might as well consent to have mercy exercised, without

any regard to securing the authority and influence of law.



The term Atonement.



The English word atonement is synonymous with the Hebrew word

cofer. This is a noun from the verb caufar, to cover. The cofer or cover

was the name of the lid or cover of the ark of the covenant, and

constituted what was called the mercy-seat. The Greek word

rendered atonement is katallage. This means reconciliation to favor,

or more strictly, the means or conditions of reconciliation to favor; from

katallasso, to "change, or exchange." The term properly means

substitution. An examination of these original words, in the connection

in which they stand, will show that the atonement is the governmental

substitution of the sufferings of Christ for the punishment of sinners. It

is a covering of their sins by His sufferings.



The teachings of natural theology, or the a priori affirmations of

reason upon this subject.



The doctrine of atonement has been regarded as so purely a

doctrine of revelation as to preclude the supposition, that reason

could, a priori, make any affirmations about it. It has been generally

regarded as lying absolutely without the pale of natural theology, in so

high a sense, that, aside from revelation, no assumption could be

made, nor even a reasonable conjecture indulged. But there are

certain facts in this world's history, that render this assumption

exceedingly doubtful. It is true, indeed, that natural theology could not

ascertain and establish the fact, that an atonement had been made, or

that it certainly would be made; but if I am not mistaken, it might have

been reasonably inferred, the true character of God being known and

assumed, that an atonement of some kind would be made to render it

consistent with His relations to the universe, to extend mercy to the

guilty inhabitants of this world. The manifest necessity of a divine

revelation has been supposed to afford a strong presumptive

argument, that such a revelation has been or will be made. From the

benevolence of God, as affirmed by reason, and manifested in His

works and providence, it has been, as I suppose, justly inferred, that

He would make arrangements to secure the holiness and salvation of

men, and as a condition of this result, that He would grant them a

further revelation of His will than had been given in creation and

providence. The argument stands thus:



1. From reason and observation we know that this is not a state of

retribution; and from all the facts in the case that lie open to

observation, this is evidently a state of trial or probation.



2. The providence of God in this world is manifestly disciplinary, and

designed to reform mankind.



3. These facts, taken in connection with the great ignorance and

darkness of the human mind on moral and religious subjects, afford a

strong presumption that the benevolent Creator will make to the

inhabitants of this world who are so evidently yet in a state of trial, a

further revelation of His will. Now, if this argument is good, so far as it

goes, I see not why we may not reasonably go still further.



Since the above are facts, and since it is also a fact that when the

subject is duly considered, and the more thoroughly the better, there is

manifestly a great difficulty in the exercise of mercy without satisfaction

being made to public justice; and since the benevolence of God would

not allow Him on the one hand to pardon sin at the expense of public

justice, nor on the other to punish or execute the penalty of law, if it

could be wisely and consistently avoided, these facts being

understood and admitted, it might naturally have been inferred, that

the wisdom and benevolence of God would devise and execute some

method of meeting the demands of public justice, that should render

the forgiveness of sin possible. That the philosophy of government

would render this possible, is to us very manifest. I know, indeed, that

with the light the gospel has afforded us, we much more clearly

discern this, than they could who had no other light than that of nature. 

Whatever might have been known to the ancients, and those who

have not the Bible, I think that when the facts are announced by

revelation, we can see that such a governmental expedient was not

only possible, but just what might have been expected of the

benevolence of God. It would of course have been impossible for us,

a priori, to have devised, or reasonably conjectured, the plan that has

been adopted. So little was known or knowable on the subject of the

trinity of God, without revelation, that natural theology could, perhaps,

in its best estate, have taught nothing further than that, if it was

possible, some governmental expedient would be resorted to, and was

in contemplation, for the ultimate restoration of the sinning race, who

were evidently spared hitherto from the execution of law, and placed

under a system of discipline.



But since the gospel has announced the fact of the atonement, it

appears that natural theology or governmental philosophy can

satisfactorily explain it; that reason can discern a divine philosophy in

it.



Natural theology can teach:



1. That the human race is in a fallen state, and that the law of

selfishness, and not the law of benevolence, is that to which

unconverted men conform their lives.



2. It can teach that God is benevolent, and hence that mercy must

be an attribute of God; and that this attribute will be manifested in the

actual pardon of sin, when this can be done with safety to the divine

government.



3. Consequently that no atonement could be needed to satisfy any

implacable spirit in the divine mind; that He was sufficiently and

infinitely disposed to extend pardon to the penitent, if this could be

wisely, benevolently, and safely done.



4. It can also abundantly teach, that there is a real and a great

danger in the exercise of mercy under a moral government, and

supremely great under a government so vast and so enduring as the

government of God; that, under such a government, the danger is very

great, that the exercise of mercy will be understood as encouraging

the hope of impunity in the commission of sin.



5. It can also show the indispensable necessity of such an

administration of the divine government as to secure the fullest

confidence throughout the universe, in the sincerity of God in

promulgating His law with its tremendous penalty, and of His

unalterable adherence to its spirit, and determination not to falter in

carrying out and securing its authority at all events. That this is

indispensable to the well-being of the universe, is entirely manifest.



6. Hence it is very obvious to natural theology, that sin cannot be

pardoned unless something is done to forbid the otherwise natural

inference that sin will be forgiven under the government of God upon

condition of repentance alone, and of course upon a condition within

the power of the sinner himself. It must be manifest, that to proclaim

throughout the universe that sin would be pardoned universally upon

condition of repentance alone, would be a virtual repeal of the divine

law. All creatures would instantly perceive, that no one need to fear

punishment, in any case, as his forgiveness was secure, however

much he might trample on the divine authority, upon a single condition

which he could at will perform.



7. Natural theology is abundantly competent to show, that God could

not be just to His own intelligence, just to His character, and hence just

to the universe, in dispensing with the execution of divine law, except

upon the condition of providing a substitute of such a nature as to

reveal as fully, and impress as deeply, the lessons that would be

taught by the execution, as the execution itself would do. The great

design of penalties is prevention, and this is of course the design of

executing penalties. The head of every government is pledged to

sustain the authority of law, by a due administration of rewards and

punishments, and has no right in any instance to extend pardon,

except upon conditions that will as effectually support the authority of

law as the execution of its penalties would do. It was never found to

be safe, or even possible under any government, to make the

universal offer of pardon to violators of law, upon the bare condition of

repentance, for the very obvious reason already suggested, that it

would be a virtual repeal of all law. Public justice, by which every

executive magistrate in the universe is bound, sternly and peremptorily

forbids that mercy shall be extended to any culprit, without some

equivalent being rendered to the government; that is, without

something being done that will fully answer as a substitute for the

execution of penalties. This principle God fully admits to be binding

upon Him; and hence He affirms that He gave His Son to render it just

in Him to forgive sin. "Being justified freely by His grace, through the

redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a

propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for

the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to

declare, I say, at this time, His righteousness; that He might be just,

and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus" (Romans 3:24-26).



8. All nations have felt the necessity of expiatory sacrifices. This is

evident from the fact that all nations have offered them.



9. The wisest heathen philosophers, who saw the intrinsic inefficacy

of animal sacrifices, held that God could not forgive sin. This proves

to a demonstration, that they felt the necessity of an atonement, or

expiatory sacrifice. And having too just views of God and His

government, to suppose that either animal, or merely human,

sacrifices, could be efficacious under the government of God, they

were unable to understand upon what principles sin could be forgiven.



10. Public justice required, either that an atonement should be made,

or that the law should be executed upon every offender. By public

justice is intended, that due administration of law, that shall secure in

the highest manner which the nature of the case admits, private and

public interests, and establish the order and well-being of the universe. 

In establishing the government of the universe, God had given the

pledge, both impliedly and expressly, that He would regard the public

interests, and by a due administration of the law, secure and promote,

as far as possible, public and individual happiness.



11. Public justice could strictly require only the execution of law; for

God had neither expressly nor impliedly given a pledge to do anything

more for the promotion of virtue and happiness, than to administer due

rewards to the righteous, and due punishment to the wicked. Yet an

atonement, as we shall see, would more fully meet the necessities of

government, and act as a more efficient preventive of sin, and a more

powerful persuasive to holiness, than the infliction of the legal penalty

would do.



12. An atonement was needed for the removal of obstacles to the

free exercise of benevolence toward our race. Without an atonement,

the race of man after the fall sustained to the government of God the

relation of rebels and outlaws. And before God, as the great executive

magistrate of the universe, could manifest His benevolence toward

them, an atonement must be decided upon and made known, as the

reason upon which His favorable treatment of them was conditioned.



13. An atonement was needed to promote the glory and influence of

God in the universe. But more of this hereafter.



14. An atonement was needed to present overpowering motives to

repentance.



15. An atonement was needed, that the offer of pardon might not

seem like connivance at sin.



16. An atonement was needed to manifest the sincerity of God in His

legal enactments.



17. An atonement was needed to make it safe to present the offer

and promise of pardon.



18. Natural theology can inform us, that, if the lawgiver would or

could condescend so much to deny himself, as to attest his regard to

his law, and his determination to support it by suffering its curse, in

such a sense as was possible and consistent with his character and

relations, and so far forth as emphatically to inculcate the great lesson,

that sin was not to be forgiven upon the bare condition of repentance

in any case, and also to establish the universal conviction, that the

execution of law was not to be dispensed with, but that it is an

unalterable rule under his divine government, that where there is sin

there must be inflicted suffering this would be so complete a

satisfaction of public justice, that sin might safely be forgiven.



The fact of atonement.



This is purely a doctrine of revelation, and in the establishment of

this truth appeal must be made to the scriptures alone.



1. The whole Jewish scriptures, and especially the whole ceremonial

dispensation of the Jews, attest, most unequivocally, the necessity of

an atonement.



2. The New Testament is just as unequivocal in its testimony to the

same point.



I shall here take it as established, that Christ was properly "God

manifest in the flesh" (1 Tim. 3:16), and proceed to cite a few out of

the great multitude of passages, that attest the fact of His death, and

also its vicarious nature; that is, that it was for us, and as a satisfaction

to public justice for our sins, that His blood was shed. I will first quote

a few passages to show that the atonement and redemption through it,

was a matter of understanding and covenant between the Father and

Son. "I have made a covenant with My chosen, I have sworn unto

David My servant. Thy seed will I establish forever, and build up thy

throne to all generations. Selah" (Psalms 89:3, 4). "Yet it pleased the

Lord to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief: when Thou shalt make

His soul an offering for sin He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His

days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall

see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied; by His knowledge

shall My righteous servant justify many; for He shall bear their

iniquities. Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He

shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He hath poured out His

soul unto death: and He was numbered with the transgressors" (Isaiah

53:10, 11, 12). "All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me: and

he that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from

heaven, not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me. And

this is the Father's will which hath sent Me, that of all which He hath

given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last

day" (John 6:37-39) "I have manifested Thy name unto the men which

Thou gavest Me out of the world: Thine they were, and Thou gavest

them Me; and they have kept Thy word. I pray for them: I pray not for

the world, but for them which Thou hast given Me; for they are Thine. 

And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I

come to Thee. Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those

whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as we are" (John

17:6, 9, 11).



I will next quote some passages to show, that, if sinners were to be

saved at all, it must be through an atonement. "Neither is there

salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven

given among men whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). "Be it

known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is

preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: And by Him all that believe

are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the

law of Moses" (Acts 13:38, 39). "Now we know, that what things

soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law; that every

mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before

God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be

justified in His sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin" (Romans

3:19, 20). "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law,

but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ,

that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of

the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. I do not

frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then

Christ is dead in vain" (Gal. 2:16, 21). "For as many as are of the

works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every

one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the

law to do them. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of

God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. And the law is not of

faith: but the man that doeth them shall live in them. For if the

inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise: but God gave it to

Abraham by promise. Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added

because of transgressions, until the seed should come to whom the

promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a

mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. Is

the law, then, against the promises of God? God forbid, for if there

had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness

should have been by the law. Wherefore the law was our

schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by

faith" (Gal. 3:10-12, 18-21, 24). "And almost all things are by the law

purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. It

was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens

should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with

better sacrifices than these" (Heb. 9:22, 23).



I will now cite some passages that establish the fact of the vicarious

death of Christ, and redemption through His blood. "But He was

wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the

chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are

healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one

to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all"

(Isaiah 53:5, 6). "Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered

unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many" (Matt.

20:28). "For this is My blood of the new testament which is shed for

many for the remission of sins" (Matt. 26:28). "And as Moses lifted up

the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted

up; that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal

life" (John 3:14, 15). "I am the living bread which came down from

heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the

bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the

world" (John 6:51). "Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all

the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to

feed the church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood"

(Acts 20:28). "Being justified freely by His grace, through the

redemption that is in Christ Jesus. To declare, I say, at this time, His

righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifier of him which

believeth in Jesus. For when we were yet without strength, in due

time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will

one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to

die. But God commandeth His love toward us, in that while we were

yet sinners Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by

His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. And not only

so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we

have now received the atonement. Therefore, as by the offence of

one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the

righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification

of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners,

so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous" (Romans

3:24-26, 5:9-11, 18, 19). "Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye

may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our

Passover is sacrificed for us: for I delivered unto you first of all that

which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the

scriptures" (1 Cor. 5:7, 15:3). "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless

I live: yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in

the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave

Himself for me. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law,

being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that

hangeth on a tree. That the blessing of Abraham might come on the

Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of

the Spirit through faith" (Gal. 2:20, 3:13, 14). "But now in Christ Jesus

ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. 

And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself

for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour"

(Eph. 2:13, 5:2). "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His

own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained

eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and

the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the

purifying of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who

through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge

your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And almost

all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of

blood is no remission. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of

things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly

things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not

entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of

the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God

for us. Nor yet that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest

entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; for then

must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now

once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the

sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but

after this the judgment: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of

many: and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second

time without sin unto salvation" (Heb. 9:12-14, 22-28). "By the which

will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ

once for all. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering

oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: but

this man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down

on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till His enemies be

made His footstool. For by one offering He hath perfected forever

them that are sanctified" (Heb. 10:10-14). "Having therefore, brethren,

boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and

living way which He hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to

say, His flesh" (Heb. 10:19, 20), "For as much as ye know that ye were

not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your

vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the

precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without

spot" (1 Peter 1:18, 19). "Who His own self bare our sins in His own

body on the tree, that we being dead to sins should live unto

righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed" (1 Peter 2:24). "For

Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He

might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened

by the Spirit" (1 Peter 3:8). "But if we walk in the light as He I in the

light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus

Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). "And ye know

that He was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin" (1

John 3:5). "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because

that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live

through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved

us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:9,

10).



These, as every reader of the Bible must know, are only some of the

passages that teach the doctrine of atonement and redemption by the

death of Christ. It is truly wonderful in how many ways this doctrine is

taught, assumed, and implied in the Bible. Indeed, it is emphatically

the great theme of the Bible. It is expressed or implied upon nearly

every page of divine inspiration.



The next inquiry is what constitutes the atonement.



The answer to this inquiry has been already, in part, unavoidably

anticipated. Under this head I will show:



1. That Christ's obedience to the moral law as a covenant of works,

did not constitute the atonement.



(1.) Christ owed obedience to the moral law, both as God and man. 

He was under as much obligation to be perfectly benevolent as any

moral agent is. It was, therefore, impossible for Him to perform any

works of supererogation; that is, so far as obedience to law was

concerned, He could, neither as God nor as man, do anything more

than fulfil its obligations.



(2.) Had He obeyed for us, He would not have suffered for us. Were

His obedience to be substituted for our obedience, He need not

certainly have both fulfilled the law for us, as our substitute, under a

covenant of works, and at the same time have suffered as a substitute,

in submitting to the penalty of the law.



(3.) If He obeyed the law as our substitute, then why should our own

return to personal obedience be insisted upon as a sine qua non of our

salvation?



(4.) The idea that any part of the atonement consisted in Christ's

obeying the law for us, and in our stead and behalf, represents God as

requiring:



(a.) The obedience of our substitute.



(b.) The same suffering, as if no obedience had been rendered.



(c.) Our repentance.



(d.) Our return to personal obedience.



(e.) And then represents him as, after all, ascribing our salvation to

grace. Strange grace this, that requires a debt to be paid several

times over, before the obligation is discharged!



2. I must show that the atonement was not a commercial transaction. 

Some have regarded the atonement simply in the light of the payment

of a debt; and have represented Christ as purchasing the elect of the

Father, and paying down the same amount of suffering in His own

person that justice would have exacted of them. To this I answer:



(1.) It is naturally impossible, as it would require that satisfaction

should be made to retributive justice. Strictly speaking, retributive

justice can never be satisfied, in the sense that the guilty can be

punished as much and as long as he deserves; for this would imply

that he was punished until he ceased to be guilty, or became innocent. 

When law is once violated, the sinner can make no satisfaction. He

can never cease to be guilty, or to deserve punishment, and no

possible amount of suffering renders him the less guilty or the less

deserving of punishment: therefore, to satisfy retributive justice is

impossible.



(2.) But, as we have seen in a former lecture, retributive justice must

have inflicted on Him eternal death. To suppose, therefore, that Christ

suffered in amount, all that was due to the elect, is to suppose that He

suffered an eternal punishment multiplied by the whole number of the

elect.



3. The atonement of Christ was intended as a satisfaction of public

justice.



The moral law did not originate in the divine will, but is founded in His

self-existence and immutable nature. He cannot therefore repeal or

alter it. To the letter of the moral law there may be exceptions. God

cannot repeal the precept, and just for this reason, He cannot set

aside the spirit of the sanctions. For to dispense with the sanctions

were a virtual repeal of the precept. He cannot, therefore, set aside

the execution of the penalty when the precept has been violated,

without something being done that shall meet the demands of the true

spirit of the law. "Being justified freely by His grace through the

redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a

propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for

the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to

declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just,

and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus" (Romans 3:24-26). 

This passage assigns the reason, or declares the design, of the

atonement, to have been to justify God in the pardon of sin, or in

dispensing with the execution of law. "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise

Him; He hath put Him to grief: when Thou shalt make His soul an

offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and

the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see of the

travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall My

righteous servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities. 

Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide

the spoil with the strong; because He hath poured out His soul unto

death: and He was numbered with the transgressors: and He bare the

sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors" (Isaiah

53:10-12).



I present several further reasons why an atonement in the case of

the inhabitants of this world was preferable to punishment, or to the

execution of the divine law. Several reasons have already been

assigned, to which I will add the following, some of which are plainly

revealed in the Bible; others are plainly inferrible from what the Bible

does reveal; and others still are plainly inferrible from the very nature

of the case.



(1.) God's great and disinterested love to sinners themselves was a

prime reason for the atonement.



"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,

that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have

everlasting life" (John 3:16).



(2.) His great love to the universe at large must have been another

reason, inasmuch as it is impossible that the atonement should not

exert an amazing influence over moral beings, in whatever world they

might exist, and where the fact of atonement should be known.



(3.) Another reason for substituting the sufferings of Christ in the

place of the eternal damnation of sinners, is, that an infinite amount of

suffering might be prevented. The relation of Christ to the universe

rendered His sufferings so infinitely valuable and influential, as an

expression of God's abhorrence of sin on the one hand, and His great

love to His subjects on the other, that an infinitely less amount of

suffering in Him than must have been inflicted on sinners, would be

equally, and no doubt vastly more, influential in supporting the

government of God, than the execution of the law upon them would

have been. Be it borne in mind, that Christ was the lawgiver, and His

suffering in behalf of sinners is to be regarded as the lawgiver and

executive magistrate suffering in the behalf and stead of a rebellious

province of his empire. As a governmental expedient it is easy to see

the great value of such a substitute; that on the one hand it fully

evinced the determination of the ruler not to yield the authority of His

law, and on the other, to evince His great and disinterested love for

His rebellious subjects.



(4.) By this substitution, an immense good might be gained, the

eternal happiness of all that can be reclaimed from sin, together with

all the augmented happiness of those who have never sinned, that

must result from this glorious revelation of God.



(5.) Another reason for preferring the atonement to the punishment

of sinners must have been, that sin had afforded an opportunity for the

highest manifestation of virtue in God: the manifestation of

forbearance, mercy, self-denial, and suffering for enemies that were

within His own power, and for those from whom He could expect no

equivalent in return.



It is impossible to conceive of a higher order of virtues than are

exhibited in the atonement of Christ. It was vastly desirable that God

should take advantage of such an opportunity to exhibit His true

character, and show to the universe what was in His heart. The

strength and stability of any government must depend upon the

estimation in which the sovereign is held by his subjects. It was

therefore indispensable, that God should improve the opportunity,

which sin had afforded, to manifest and make known His true

character, and thus secure the highest confidence of His subjects.



(6.) In the atonement God consulted His own happiness and His own

glory. To deny Himself for the salvation of sinners, was a part of His

own infinite happiness, always intended by Him, and therefore always

enjoyed. This was not selfishness in Him, as His own well-being is of

infinitely greater value than that of all the universe besides; He ought

so to regard and treat it, because of its supreme and intrinsic value.



(7.) The atonement would present to creatures the highest possible

motives to virtue. Example is the highest moral influence that can be

exerted. If God, or any other being, would make others benevolent,

He must manifest benevolence Himself. If the benevolence

manifested in the atonement does not subdue the selfishness of

sinners, their case is hopeless.



(8.) The circumstances of His government rendered an atonement

necessary; as the execution of law was not, as a matter of fact, a

sufficient preventive of sin. The annihilation of the wicked would not

answer the purposes of government. A full revelation of mercy,

blended with such an exhibition of justice, was called for by the

circumstances of the universe.



(9.) To confirm holy beings. Nothing could be more highly calculated

to establish and confirm the confidence, love, and obedience of holy

beings, than this disinterested manifestation of love to sinners and

rebels.



(10.) To confound His enemies. How could anything be more

directly calculated to silence all cavils, and to shut every mouth, and

forever close up all opposing lips, than such an exhibition of love and

willingness to make sacrifices for sinners?



(11.) The fact, that the execution of the law of God on rebel angels

had not arrested, and could not arrest, the progress of rebellion in the

universe, proves that something more needed to be done, in support

of the authority of law, than would be done in the execution of its

penalty upon rebels. While the execution of law may have a strong

tendency to prevent the beginning of rebellion among loyal subjects,

and to restrain rebels themselves; yet penal inflictions do not, in fact,

subdue the heart, under any government, whether human or divine.



As a matter of fact, the law was only exasperating rebels, without

confirming holy beings. Paul affirmed, that the action of the law upon

his own mind, while in impenitence, was to beget in him all manner of

concupiscence. One grand reason for giving the law was, to develop

the nature of sin, and to show that the carnal mind is not subject to the

law of God, neither indeed can be. The law was therefore given that

the offence might abound, that thereby it might be demonstrated, that

without an atonement there could be no salvation for rebels under the

government of God.



(12.) The nature, degree, and execution of the penalty of the law,

made the holiness and the justice of God so prominent, as to absorb

too much of public attention to be safe. Those features of His

character were so fully revealed, by the execution of His law upon the

rebel angels, that to have pursued the same course with the

inhabitants of this world, without the offer of mercy, might have had,

and doubtless would have had, an injurious influence upon the

universe, by creating more of fear than of love to God and His

government. Hence, a fuller revelation of the love and compassion of

God was necessary, to guard against the influence of slavish fear.



His taking human nature, and obeying unto death, under such

circumstances, constituted a good reason for our being treated as

righteous. It is a common practice in human governments, and one

that is founded in the nature and laws of mind, to reward distinguished

public service by conferring favors on the children of those who have

rendered this service, and treating them as if they had rendered it

themselves. This is both benevolent and wise. Its governmental

importance, its wisdom and excellent influence, have been most

abundantly attested in the experience of nations. As a governmental

transaction, this same principle prevails, and for the same reason,

under the government of God. All that are Christ's children and belong

to Him, are received for His sake, treated with favor, and the rewards

of the righteous are bestowed upon them for His sake. And the public

service which He has rendered to the universe, by laying down His life

for the support of the divine government, has rendered it eminently

wise, that all who are united to Him by faith should be treated as

righteous for His sake.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

LECTURE 26



EXTENT OF ATONEMENT



For whose benefit the atonement was intended.



1. God does all things for Himself; that is, He consults His own glory

and happiness, as the supreme and most influential reason for all His

conduct. This is wise and right in Him, because His own glory and

happiness are infinitely the greatest good in and to the universe. He

made the atonement to satisfy Himself. "God so loved the world, that

He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him

should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). God Himself,

then, was greatly benefited by the atonement: in other words, His

happiness has in a great measure resulted from its contemplation,

execution, and results.



2. He made the atonement for the benefit of the universe. All holy

beings are, and must be, benefited by it, from its very nature, as it

gives them a higher knowledge of God than ever they had before, or

ever could have gained in any other way. The atonement is the

greatest work that He could have wrought for them, the most blessed

and excellent, and benevolent thing He could have done for them. For

this reason, angels are described as desiring to look into the

atonement. The inhabitants of heaven are represented as being

deeply interested in the work of atonement, and those displays of the

character of God that are made in it. The atonement is then no doubt

one of the greatest blessings that ever God conferred upon the

universe of holy beings.



3. The atonement was made for the benefit particularly of the

inhabitants of this world, from its very nature, as it is calculated to

benefit all the inhabitants of this world; as it is a most stupendous

revelation of God to man. Its nature is adapted to benefit all mankind. 

All mankind can be pardoned, if they are rightly affected and brought

to repentance by it, as well as any part of mankind.



4. All do certainly receive many blessings on account of it. It is

probable that, but for the atonement, none of our race, except the first

human pair, would ever have had an existence.



5. All the blessings which mankind enjoy, are conferred on them on

account of the atonement of Christ; that is, God could not consistently

wait on sinners, and bless, and do all that the nature of the case

admits, to save them, were it not for the fact of atonement.



6. That it was made for all mankind, is evident from the fact that it is

offered to all indiscriminately.



7. Sinners are universally condemned for not receiving it.



8. If the atonement is not intended for all mankind, it is impossible for

us not to regard God as insincere, in making them the offer of

salvation through the atonement.



9. If the atonement was made only for a part, no man can know

whether he has a right to embrace it, until by a direct revelation God

has made known to him that he is one of that part.



10. If ministers do not believe that it was made for all men, they

cannot heartily and honestly press its acceptance upon any individual,

or congregation in the world; for they cannot assure any individual, or

congregation, that there is any atonement for him or them, any more

than there is for Satan.



If to this it should be replied, that for fallen angels no atonement has

been made, but for some men an atonement has been made, so that it

may be true of any individual that it was made for him, and if he will

truly believe, he will thereby have the fact revealed, that it was, in fact,

made for him; I reply, What is a sinner to believe, as a condition of

salvation? Is it merely that an atonement was made for somebody? Is

this saving faith? Must he not embrace it, and personally and

individually commit himself to it, and to Christ? Trust in it as made for

him? But how is he authorized to do this upon the supposition that the

atonement was made for some men only, and perhaps for him? Is it

saving faith to believe that it was possibly made for him, and by

believing this possibility, will he thereby gain the evidence that it was,

in fact, made for him? No, he must have the word of God for it, that it

was made for him. Nothing else can warrant the casting of his soul

upon it. How then is "he truly to believe," or trust in the atonement,

until he has the evidence, not merely that it possibly may have been,

but that it actually was made for him? The mere possibility that an

atonement has been made for an individual, is no ground of saving

faith. What is he to believe? Why, that of which he has proof. But the

supposition is, that he has proof only that it is possible that the

atonement was made for him. He has a right, then, to believe it

possible that Christ died for him. And is this saving faith? No, it is not. 

What advantage, then, has he over Satan in this respect? Satan

knows that the atonement was not made for him; the sinner upon the

supposition knows that, possibly, it may have been made for him; but

the latter has really no more ground for trust and reliance than the

former. He might hope, but he could not rationally believe.



But upon this subject of the extent of the atonement, let the Bible

speak for itself: "The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and

saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the

world." "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten

Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have

everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world, to condemn

the world: but that the world through Him might be saved." "And said

unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying; for we

have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the

Savior of the world" (John 1:29, 3:16, 17, 9:42). "Therefore, as by the

offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even

so, by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto

justification of life" (Romans 5:18). "For the love of Christ constraineth

us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:

and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live

unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again" (2

Cor. 5:14, 15), "Who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in

due time." "For therefore we both labor and suffer reproach, because

we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of

those that believe" (1 Tim. 2:6, 4:10). "And He is the propitiation for

our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world"

(1 John 2:2).



That the atonement is sufficient for all men, and, in that sense,

general, as opposed to particular, is also evident from the fact, that the

invitations and promises of the gospel are addressed to all men, and

all are freely offered salvation through Christ. "Look unto Me, and be

ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God and there is none

else." "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that

hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk

without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for

that which is not bread, and your labor for that which satisfieth not? 

Hearken diligently unto Me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your

soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto Me: hear,

and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with

you, even the sure mercies of David" (Isaiah 14:22, 4:1-3). "Come

unto Me all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 

Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in

heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and

My burden is light." "Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell

them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen

and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready; come unto the

marriage" (Matt. 11:28-30, 22:4). "And sent his servant at supper time

to say to them that were bidden, Come, for all things are now ready"

(Luke 14:17). "In the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood

and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink"

(John 7:37), "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hear

My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with

him, and he with Me." "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And

let him that heareth say, Come, and let him that is athirst come. And

whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely" (Rev. 3:20, 22:17).



Again: I infer that the atonement was made, and is sufficient, for all

men, from the fact that God not only invites all, but expostulates with

them for not accepting His invitations. "Wisdom crieth without; she

uttereth her voice in the streets: she crieth in the chief place of

concourse, in the openings of the gates; in the city she uttereth her

words, saying, How long ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and

the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn

you at My reproof: behold I will pour out My Spirit unto you, I will make

known My words unto you" (Prov. 1:20-23). "Come now, and let us

reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they

shall be white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall be

as wool" (Isaiah 1:18). "Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, the Holy

One of Israel, I am the Lord thy God which teacheth thee to profit,

which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go. Oh that thou

hadst hearkened to My commandments! Then had thy peace been as

a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea" (Isaiah 48:17,

18). "Say unto them, as I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure

in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and

live; turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house

of Israel?" (Ezek. 33:11). "Hear ye now what the Lord saith: Arise,

contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. 

Hear ye, O mountains, the Lord's controversy, and ye strong

foundations of the earth; for the Lord hath a controversy with His

people, and He will plead with Israel. O My people, what have I done

unto thee? And wherein have I wearied thee? Testify against Me"

(Micah 6:1-3). "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets,

and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have

gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens

under her wings, and ye would not!" (Matt. 23:37).



Again: the same inference is forced upon us by the fact that God

complains of sinners for rejecting His overtures of mercy: "Because I

have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out My hand, and no

man regarded" (Prov. 1:24). "But they refused to hearken, and pulled

away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear. 

Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should

hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in His

Spirit by the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the

Lord of hosts. Therefore, it is come to pass; that as he cried and they

would not hear: so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the Lord of

hosts" (Zech. 7:11-13). "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain

king which made a marriage for his son. And sent forth his servant to

call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come. 

Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are

bidden, Behold I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fatlings

are killed, and all things are ready; come unto the marriage. But they

made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his

merchandise: and the remnant took his servants, and treated them

spitefully, and slew them" (Matt. 22:2-6). "And sent his servant at

supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are

now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse. 

The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must

needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused. And another said,

I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee

have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife; and

therefore I cannot come" (Luke 14:17-20). "And ye will not come to

Me, that ye might have life" (John 5:40). "Ye stiff-necked and

uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost:

as your fathers did, so do ye" (Acts 7:51). "And as he reasoned of

righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, ad

answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season I

will call for thee" (Acts 24:25).



I now proceed to answer objections.



1. Objection to the fact of atonement. It is said, that the doctrine of

atonement represents God as unmerciful. To this I answer, 



(1.) This objection supposes that the atonement was demanded to

satisfy retributive instead of public justice.



(2.) The atonement was the exhibition of a merciful disposition. It

was because God was disposed to pardon that He consented to give

His own Son to die as the substitute of sinners.



(3.) The atonement is infinitely the most illustrious exhibition of mercy

ever made in the universe. The mere pardon of sin, as an act of

sovereign mercy, could not have been compared, had it been

possible, with the merciful disposition displayed in the atonement itself.



2. It is objected that the atonement is unnecessary.



The testimony of the world and of the consciences of all men are

against this objection. This is universally attested by their expiatory

sacrifices. These, as has been said, have been offered by nearly

every nation of whose religious history we have any reliable account. 

This shows that human beings are universally conscious of being

sinners, and under the government of a sin-hating God; that their

intelligence demands either the punishment of sinners, or that a

substitute should be offered to public justice; that they all have the

idea that substitution is conceivable, and hence they offer their

sacrifices as expiatory. A heathen philosopher can answer this

objection, and rebuke the folly of him who makes it.



3. It is objected, that it is unjust to punish an innocent being instead

of the guilty.



(1.) Yes, it would not only be unjust, but it is impossible with God to

punish an innocent moral agent at all. Punishment implies guilt. An

innocent being may suffer, but he cannot be punished. Christ

voluntarily "suffered, the just for the unjust" (1 Peter 3:18). He had a

right to exercise this self-denial; and as it was by His own voluntary

consent, no injustice was done to any one.



(2.) If He had no right to make an atonement, He had no right to

consult and promote His own happiness and the happiness of others;

for it is said that "for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the

cross, despising the shame" (Heb. 12:2).



4. It is objected that the doctrine of atonement is utterly incredible. 

To this I have replied in a former lecture; but will here again state, that

it would be utterly incredible upon any other supposition, than that God

is love. But if God is love, as the Bible expressly affirms that He is, the

work of atonement is just what might be expected of Him, under the

circumstances; and the doctrine of atonement is then the most

reasonable doctrine in the universe.



5. It is objected to the doctrine of atonement, that it is of a

demoralizing tendency.



There is a broad distinction between the natural tendency of a thing,

and such an abuse of a good thing as to make it the instrument of evil. 

The best things and doctrines may be, and often are, abused, and

their natural tendency perverted. Although the doctrine of the

atonement may be abused, yet its natural tendency is the direct

opposite of demoralizing. Is the manifestation of infinitely disinterested

love naturally calculated to beget enmity? Who does not know that the

natural tendency of manifested love is to excite love in return? Those

who have the most cordially believed in the atonement, have exhibited

the purest morality that has ever been in this world; while the rejecters

of the atonement, almost without exception, exhibit a loose morality. 

This is, as might be expected, from the very nature and moral

influence of atonement.



6. To a general atonement, it is objected that the Bible represents

Christ as laying down His life for His sheep, or for the elect only, and

not for all mankind.



(1.) It does indeed represent Christ as laying down His life for His

sheep, and also for all mankind. "And He is the propitiation for our

sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world" (1

John 2:2). "For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the

world; but that the world through Him might be saved" (John 3:17). 

"But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the

suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that He, by the grace

of God, should taste death for every man" (Heb. 2:9). 



(2.) Those who object to the general atonement, take substantially

the same course to evade this doctrine, that Unitarians do to set aside

the doctrine of the Trinity and the Divinity of Christ. They quote those

passages that prove the unity of God and the humanity of Christ, and

then take it for granted that they have disproved the doctrine of the

Trinity and Christ's Divinity. The asserters of limited atonement, in like

manner, quote those passages that prove that Christ died for the elect

and for His saints, and then take it for granted that He died for none

else. To the Unitarian, we reply, we admit the unity of God and the

humanity of Christ, and the full meaning of those passages of scripture

which you quote in proof of these doctrines; but we insist that this is

not the whole truth, but that there are still other passages which prove

the doctrine of the Trinity, and the Divinity of Christ. Just so to the

asserters of limited atonement, we reply, we believe that Christ laid

down His life for His sheep, as well as you; but we also believe that

"he tasted death for every man" (Heb. 2:9). "For God so loved the

world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in

Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).



7. To the doctrine of general atonement it is objected, that it would

be folly in God to provide what He knew would be rejected; and that to

suffer Christ to die for those who, He foresaw, would not repent, would

be a useless expenditure of the blood and suffering of Christ.



(1.) This objection assumes that the atonement was a literal payment

of a debt, which we have seen does not consist with the nature of the

atonement.



(2.) If sinners do not accept it, in no view can the atonement be

useless, as the great compassion of God, in providing an atonement

and offering them mercy, will forever exalt His character, in the

estimation of holy beings, greatly strengthen His government, and

therefore benefit the whole universe.



(3.) If all men rejected the atonement, it would, nevertheless, be of

infinite value to the universe, as the most glorious revelation of God

that was ever made.



8. To the general atonement it is objected, that it implies universal

salvation.



It would indeed imply this, upon the supposition that the atonement is

the literal payment of a debt. It was upon this view of the atonement,

that Universalism first took its stand. Universalists taking it for granted,

that Christ had paid the debt of those for whom He died, and finding it

fully revealed in the Bible that He died for all mankind, naturally, and if

this were correct, properly, inferred the doctrine of universal salvation. 

But we have seen, that this is not the nature of atonement. Therefore,

this inference falls to the ground.



9. It is objected that, if the atonement was not a payment of the debt

of sinners, but general in its nature, as we have maintained, it secures

the salvation of no one. It is true, that the atonement, of itself, does

not secure the salvation of any one; but the promise and oath of God,

that Christ shall have a seed to serve Him, provide that security.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LECTURE 27



REGENERATION



In the examination of this subject I will:



Point out the common distinction between regeneration and conversion.



1. Regeneration is the term used by some theologians to express the

divine agency in changing the heart. With them regeneration does not

include and imply the activity of the subject, but rather excludes it. 

These theologians, as will be seen in its place, hold that a change of

heart is first effected by the Holy Spirit while the subject is passive,

which change lays a foundation for the exercise, by the subject, of

repentance, faith, and love.



2. The term conversion with them expresses the activity and turning

of the subject, after regeneration is effected by the Holy Spirit. 

Conversion with them does not include or imply the agency of the Holy

Spirit, but expresses only the activity of the subject. With them the

Holy Spirit first regenerates or changes the heart, after which the

sinner turns or converts himself. So that God and the subject work

each in turn. God first changes the heart, and as a consequence, the

subject afterwards converts himself or turns to God. Thus the subject

is passive in regeneration, but active in conversion.



When we come to the examination of the philosophical theories of

regeneration, we shall see that the views of these theologians

respecting regeneration result naturally and necessarily from their

holding the dogma of constitutional moral depravity, which we have

recently examined. Until their views on that subject are corrected, no

change can be expected in their views of this subject.



The assigned reasons for this distinction.



1. The original term plainly expresses and implies other than the

agency of the subject.



2. We need and must adopt a term that will express the Divine

agency.



3. Regeneration is expressly ascribed to the Holy Spirit.



4. Conversion, as it implies and expresses the activity and turning of

the subject, does not include and imply any Divine agency, and

therefore does not imply or express what is intended by regeneration.



5. As two agencies are actually employed in the regeneration and

conversion of a sinner, it is necessary to adopt terms that will clearly

teach this fact, and clearly distinguish between the agency of God and

of the creature.



6. The terms regeneration and conversion aptly express this

distinction, and therefore should be theologically employed.



The objections to this distinction.



1. The original term gennao, with its derivatives, may be rendered,

(1.) To beget. (2.) To bear or bring forth. (3.) To be begotten. (4.) To

be born, or brought forth.



2. Regeneration is, in the Bible, the same as the new birth.



3. To be born again is the same thing, in the Bible use of the term,

as to have a new heart, to be a new creature, to pass from death unto

life. In other words, to be born again is to have a new moral character,

to become holy. To regenerate is to make holy. To be born of God,

no doubt expresses and includes the Divine agency, but it also

includes and expresses that which the Divine agency is employed in

effecting, namely, making the sinner holy. Certainly, a sinner is not

regenerated whose moral character is unchanged. If he were, how

could it be truly said, that whosoever is born of God overcometh the

world, doth not commit sin, cannot sin, etc? If regeneration does not

imply and include a change of moral character in the subject, how can

regeneration be made the condition of salvation? The fact is, the term

regeneration, or the being born of God, is designed to express

primarily and principally the thing done, that is, the making of a sinner

holy, and expresses also the fact, that God's agency induces the

change. Throw out the idea of what is done, that is, the change of

moral character in the subject, and he would not be born again, he

would not be regenerated, and it could not be truly said, in such a

case, that God had regenerated him.



It has been objected, that the term really means and expresses only

the Divine agency; and, only by way of implication, embraces the idea

of a change of moral character and of course of activity in the subject. 

To this I reply:



(1.) That if it really expresses only the Divine agency, it leaves out of

view the thing effected by Divine agency.



(2.) That it really and fully expresses not only the Divine agency, but

also that which this agency accomplishes.



(3.) The thing which the agency of God brings about, is a new or

spiritual birth, a resurrection from spiritual death, the inducing of a new

and holy life. The thing done is the prominent idea expressed or

intended by the term.



(4.) The thing done implies the turning or activity of the subject. It is

nonsense to affirm that his moral character is changed without any

activity or agency of his own. Passive holiness is impossible. 

Holiness is obedience to the law of God, the law of love, and of course

consists in the activity of the creature.



(5.) We have said that regeneration is synonymous, in the Bible, with

a new heart. But sinners are required to make to themselves a new

heart, which they could not do, if they were not active in this change. 

If the work is a work of God, in such a sense, that He must first

regenerate the heart or soul before the agency of the sinner begins, it

were absurd and unjust to require him to make to himself a new heart,

until he is first regenerated.



Regeneration is ascribed to man in the gospel, which it could not be,

if the term were designed to express only the agency of the Holy Spirit. 

"For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not

many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the

gospel" (1 Cor. 4:15).



(6.) Conversion is spoken of in the Bible as the work of another than

the subject of it, and cannot therefore have been designed to express

only the activity of the subject of it.



(a.) It is ascribed to the word of God. "The law of the Lord is perfect,

converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the

simple" (Psalms 19:7).



(b.) To man. "Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one

convert him; let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the

error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a

multitude of sins" (James 5:19, 20).



Both conversion and regeneration are sometimes in the Bible

ascribed to God, sometimes to man, and sometimes to the subject;

which shows clearly that the distinction under examination is arbitrary

and theological, rather than biblical. The fact is, that both terms imply

the simultaneous exercise of both human and Divine agency. The fact

that a new heart is the thing done, demonstrates the activity of the

subject; and the word regeneration, or the expression "born of the

Holy Spirit" (John 3:5), asserts the Divine agency. The same is true of

conversion, or the turning of the sinner to God. God is said to turn him

and he is said to turn himself. God draws him, and he follows. In both

alike God and man are both active, and their activity is simultaneous. 

God works or draws, and the sinner yields or turns, or which is the

same thing, changes his heart, or, in other words, is born again. The

sinner is dead in trespasses and sins. God calls on him, "Awake thou

that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light"

(Eph. 5:14). God calls; the sinner hears and answers, Here am I, God

says, Arise from the dead. The sinner puts forth his activity, and God

draws him into life; or rather, God draws, and the sinner comes forth to

life.



(7.) The distinction set up is not only not recognized in the Bible, but

is plainly of most injurious tendency, for two reasons:



(a.) It assumes and inculcates a false philosophy of depravity and

regeneration.



(b.) It leads the sinner to wait to be regenerated, before he repents

or turns to God. It is of most fatal tendency to represent the sinner as

under a necessity of waiting to be passively regenerated, before he

gives himself to God.



As the distinction is not only arbitrary, but anti-scriptural and

injurious, and inasmuch as it is founded in, and is designed to teach a

philosophy false and pernicious on the subject of depravity and

regeneration, I shall drop and discard the distinction; and in our

investigations henceforth, let it be understood, that I use regeneration

and conversion as synonymous terms.



What regeneration is not.



It is not a change in the substance of soul or body. If it were, sinners

could not be required to effect it. Such a change would not constitute

a change of moral character. No such change is needed, as the

sinner has all the faculties and natural attributes requisite to render

perfect obedience to God. All he needs is to be induced to use these

powers and attributes as he ought. The words conversion and

regeneration do not imply any change of substance, but only a change

of moral state or of moral character. The terms are not used to

express a physical, but a moral change. Regeneration does not

express or imply the creation of any new faculties or attributes of

nature, nor any change whatever in the constitution of body or mind. I

shall remark further upon this point when we come to the examination

of the philosophical theories of regeneration before alluded to.



What regeneration is.



It has been said that regeneration and a change of heart are

identical. It is important to inquire into the scriptural use of the term

heart. The term, like most others, is used in the Bible in various

senses. The heart is often spoken of in the Bible, not only as

possessing moral character, but as being the source of moral action,

or as the fountain, from which good and evil actions flow, and of

course as constituting the fountain of holiness or of sin, or, in other

words still, as comprehending, strictly speaking, the whole of moral

character. "But those things which proceed out of the mouth come

forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart

proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false

witness, blasphemies" (Matt. 15:18, 19). "O generation of vipers, how

can ye, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of

the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of

the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil

treasure bringeth forth evil things" (Matt. 12:34, 35). When the heart is

thus represented as possessing moral character, and as the fountain

of good and evil, it cannot mean, 



1. The bodily organ that propels the blood.



2. It cannot mean the substance of the soul or mind itself: substance

cannot in itself possess moral character.



3. It is not any faculty or natural attribute.



4. It cannot consist in any constitutional taste, relish, or appetite, for

these cannot in themselves have moral character.



5. It is not the sensibility or feeling faculty of the mind: for we have

seen, that moral character cannot be predicated of it. It is true, and let

it be understood, that the term heart is used in the Bible in these

senses, but not when the heart is spoken of as the fountain of moral

action. When the heart is represented as possessing moral character,

the word cannot be meant to designate any involuntary state of mind. 

For neither the substance of soul or body, nor any involuntary state of

mind can, by any possibility, possess moral character in itself. The

very idea of moral character implies, and suggests the idea of, a free

action or intention. To deny this, were to deny a first truth.



6. The term heart, when applied to mind, is figurative, and means

something in the mind that has some point of resemblance to the

bodily organ of that name, and a consideration of the function of the

bodily organ will suggest the true idea of the heart of the mind. The

heart of the body propels the vital current, and sustains organic life. It

is the fountain from which the vital fluid flows, from which either life or

death may flow, according to the state of the blood. The mind as well

as the body has a heart which, as we have seen, is represented as a

fountain, or as an efficient propelling influence, out of which flows good

or evil, according as the heart is good or evil. This heart is

represented, not only as the source or fountain of good and evil, but as

being either good or evil in itself, as constituting the character of man,

and not merely as being capable of moral character.



It is also represented as something over which we have control, for

which we are responsible, and which, in case it is wicked, we are

bound to change on pain of death. Again: the heart, in the sense in

which we are considering it, is that, the radical change of which

constitutes a radical change of moral character. This is plain from

Matt 12:34, 35, 15:18, 19 already considered.



7. Our own consciousness, then, must inform us that the heart of the

mind that possesses these characteristics, can be nothing else than

the supreme ultimate intention of the soul Regeneration is

represented in the Bible as constituting a radical change of character,

as the resurrection from a death in sin, as the beginning of a new and

spiritual life, as constituting a new creature, as a new creation, not a

physical, but a moral or spiritual creation, as conversion, or turning to

God, as giving God the heart, as loving God with all our heart, and our

neighbor as ourselves. Now we have seen abundantly, that moral

character belongs to, or is an attribute of, the ultimate choice or

intention of the soul.



Regeneration then is a radical change of the ultimate intention, and,

of course, of the end or object of life. We have seen, that the choice of

an end is efficient in producing executive volitions, or the use of means

to obtain its end. A selfish ultimate choice is, therefore, a wicked

heart, out of which flows every evil; and a benevolent ultimate choice

is a good heart, out of which flows every good and commendable

deed.



Regeneration, to have the characteristics ascribed to it in the Bible,

must consist in a change in the attitude of the will, or a change in its

ultimate choice, intention, or preference; a change from selfishness to

benevolence; from choosing self-gratification as the supreme and

ultimate end of life, to the supreme and ultimate choice of the highest

well-being of God and of the universe; from a state of entire

consecration to self-interest, self-indulgence, self-gratification for its

own sake or as an end, and as the supreme end of life, to a state of

entire consecration to God, and to the interests of His kingdom as the

supreme and ultimate end of life.



The universal necessity of regeneration.



1. The necessity of regeneration as a condition of salvation must be

coextensive with moral depravity. This has been shown to be

universal among the unregenerate moral agents of our race. It surely

is impossible, that a world or a universe of unholy or selfish beings

should be happy. It is impossible that heaven should be made up of

selfish beings. It is intuitively certain that without benevolence or

holiness no moral being can be ultimately happy. Without

regeneration, a selfish soul can by no possibility be fitted either for the

employments, or for the enjoyments, of heaven.



2. The scriptures expressly teach the universal necessity of

regeneration. "Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say

unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of

God" (John 3:3). "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any

thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature" (Gal. 6:15).



Agencies employed in regeneration.



1. The scriptures often ascribe regeneration to the Spirit of God. 

"Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born

of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 

That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the

Spirit is spirit" (John 3:5, 6). "Which were born, not of blood, nor of the

will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:15).



2. We have seen that the subject is active in regeneration, that

regeneration consists in the sinner changing his ultimate choice,

intention, preference; or in changing from selfishness to love or

benevolence; or, in other words, in turning from the supreme choice of

self-gratification, to the supreme love of God and the equal love of his

neighbor. Of course the subject of regeneration must be an agent in

the work.



3. There are generally other agents, one or more human beings

concerned in persuading the sinner to turn. The Bible recognizes both

the subject and the preacher as agents in the work. Thus, Paul says:

"I have begotten you through the gospel" (1 Cor. 4:15). Here the

same word is used which is used in another case, where regeneration

is ascribed to God.



Again: an apostle says, "Ye have purified your souls by obeying the

truth" (1 Peter 1:22). Here the work is ascribed to the subject. There

are then always two, and generally more than two agents employed in

effecting the work. Several theologians have held that regeneration is

the work of the Holy Spirit alone. In proof of this they cite those

passages that ascribe it to God. But I might just as lawfully insist that

it is the work of man alone, and quote those passages that ascribe it to

man, to substantiate my position. Or I might assert that it is alone the

work of the subject, and in proof of this position quote those passages

that ascribe it to the subject. Or again, I might assert that it is effected

by the truth alone, and quote such passages as the following to

substantiate my position: "Of His own will begat He us with the word of

truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures" (James

1:18). "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible

by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever" (1 Peter 1:23).



It has been common to regard the third person as a mere instrument

in the work. But the fact is, he is a willing, designing, responsible

agent, as really so as God or the subject is.



If it be inquired how the Bible can consistently ascribe regeneration

at one time to God, at another to the subject, at another to the truth, at

another to a third person; the answer is to be sought in the nature of

the work. The work accomplished is a change of choice, in respect to

an end or the end of life. The sinner whose choice is changed, must

of course act. The end to be chosen must be clearly and forcibly

presented; this is the work of the third person, and of the Holy Spirit. 

The Spirit takes of the things of Christ and shows them to the soul. 

The truth is employed, or it is truth which must necessarily be

employed, as an instrument to induce a change of choice.



Instrumentalities employed in the work.



1. Truth. This must, from the nature of regeneration, be employed in

effecting it, for regeneration is nothing else than the will being duly

influenced by truth.



2. There may be, and often are, many providences concerned in

enlightening the mind, and in inducing regeneration. These are

instrumentalities. They are means or instruments of presenting the

truth. Mercies, judgments, men, measures, and in short all those

things that conduce to enlightening the mind, are instrumentalities

employed in effecting it.



Those who hold to physical or constitutional moral depravity must

hold, of course, to constitutional regeneration; and, of course,

consistency compels them to maintain that there is but one agent

employed in regeneration, and that is the Holy Spirit, and that no

instrument whatever is employed, because the work is, according to

them, an act of creative power; that the very nature is changed, and of

course no instrument can be employed, any more than in the creation

of the world. These theologians have affirmed, over and over again,

that regeneration is a miracle; that there is no tendency whatever in

the gospel, however presented, and whether presented by God or

man, to regenerate the heart. Dr. Griffin, in his Park Street Lectures,

maintains that the gospel, in its natural and necessary tendency,

creates and perpetuates only opposition to, and hatred of God, until

the heart is changed by the Holy Spirit. He understands the carnal

mind to be not a voluntary state, not a minding of the flesh, but the

very nature and constitution of the mind; and that enmity against God

is a part, attribute, or appetite of the nature itself. Consequently, he

must deny the adaptability of the gospel to regenerate the soul. It has

been proclaimed by this class of theologians, times without number,

that there is no philosophical connection between the preaching of the

gospel and the regeneration of sinners, no adaptedness in the gospel

to produce that result; but, on the contrary, that it is adapted to

produce an opposite result. The favorite illustrations of their views

have been Ezekiel's prophesying over the dry bones, and Christ's

restoring sight to the blind man by putting clay on his eyes. Ezekiel's

prophesying over the dry bones had no tendency to quicken them,

they say. And the clay used by the Saviour was calculated rather to

destroy than to restore sight. This shows how easy it is for men to

adopt a pernicious and absurd philosophy, and then to find, or think

they find, it supported by the Bible. What must be the effect of

inculcating the dogma, that the gospel has nothing to do with

regenerating the sinner? Instead of telling him that regeneration is

nothing else than his embracing the gospel, to tell him that he must

wait, and first have his constitution recreated before he can possibly

do anything but oppose God! This is to tell him the greatest and most

abominable and ruinous of falsehoods. It is to mock his intelligence. 

What! Call on him, on pain of eternal death, to believe; to embrace the

gospel; to love God with all his heart, and at the same time represent

him as entirely helpless, and constitutionally the enemy of God and of

the gospel, and as being under the necessity of waiting for God to

regenerate his nature, before it is possible for him to do otherwise than

to hate God with all his heart!



In regeneration the subject is both passive and active.



1. That he is active is plain from what has been said, and from the

very nature of the change.



2. That he is, at the same time, passive, is plain from the fact that he

acts only when and as he is acted upon. That is he is passive in the

perception of the truth presented by the Holy Spirit. I know that this

perception is no part of regeneration. But it is simultaneous with

regeneration. It induces regeneration. It is the condition and the

occasion of regeneration. Therefore the subject of regeneration must

be a passive recipient or percipient of the truth presented by the Holy

Spirit, at the moment, and during the act of regeneration. The Spirit

acts upon him through or by the truth: thus far he is passive. He

closes with the truth: thus far he is active. What a mistake those

theologians have fallen into who represent the subject as altogether

passive in regeneration! This rids the sinner at once of the conviction

of any duty or responsibility about it. It is wonderful that such an

absurdity should have been so long maintained in the church. But

while it is maintained, it is no wonder that sinners are not converted to

God. While the sinner believes this, it is impossible, if he has it in

mind, that he should be regenerated. He stands and waits for God to

do what God requires him to do, and which no one can do for him. 

Neither God, nor any other being, can regenerate him, if he will not

turn. If he will not change his choice, it is impossible that it should be

changed. Sinners who have been taught thus and have believed what

they have been taught, would never have been regenerated had not

the Holy Spirit drawn off their attention from this error, and ere they

were aware, induced them to close in with the offer of life.



What is implied in regeneration.



1. The nature of the change shows that it must be instantaneous. It

is a change of choice, or of intention. This must be instantaneous. 

The preparatory work of conviction and enlightening the mind may

have been gradual and progressive. But when regeneration occurs, it

must be instantaneous.



2. It implies an entire present change of moral character, that is, a

change from entire sinfulness to entire holiness. We have seen that it

consists in a change from selfishness to benevolence. We have also

seen that selfishness and benevolence cannot coexist in the same

mind; that selfishness is a state of supreme and entire consecration to

self; that benevolence is a state of entire and supreme consecration to

God and the good of the universe. Regeneration, then, surely implies

an entire change of moral character.



Again: the Bible represents regeneration as a dying to sin and

becoming alive to God. Death in sin is total depravity. This is

generally admitted. Death to sin and becoming alive to God, must

imply entire present holiness.



3. The scriptures represent regeneration as the condition of salvation

in such a sense, that if the subject should die immediately after

regeneration, and without any further change, he would go

immediately to heaven.



Again: the scriptures require only perseverance in the first love, as

the condition of salvation, in case the regenerate soul should live long

in the world subsequently to regeneration.



4. When the scriptures require us to grow in grace, and in the

knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, this does not imply that there is

yet sin remaining in the regenerate heart which we are required to put

away by degrees. But the spirit of the requirement must be, that we

should acquire as much knowledge as we can of our moral relations,

and continue to conform to all truth as fast as we know it. This, and

nothing else, is implied in abiding in our first love, or abiding in Christ,

living and walking in the Spirit.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LECTURE 28



PHILOSOPHICAL THEORIES OF REGENERATION



The principal theories that have been advocated, so far as my

knowledge extends, are the following:



1. The taste scheme.



2. The divine efficiency scheme.



3. The susceptibility scheme.



4. The divine moral suasion scheme.



1. The taste scheme.



This theory is based upon that view of mental philosophy which

regards the mental heart as identical with the sensibility. Moral

depravity, according to this school, consists in a constitutional relish,

taste, or craving for sin. They hold the doctrine of original sin of a

sinful nature or constitution, as was shown in my lectures on moral

depravity. The heart of the mind, in the estimation of this school, is not

identical with choice or intention. They hold that it does not consist in

any voluntary state of mind, but that it lies back of, and controls

voluntary action, or the actions of the will. The wicked heart,

according to them, consists in an appetency or constitutional taste for

sin, and with them, the appetites, passions, and propensities of human

nature in its fallen state, are in themselves sinful. They often illustrate

their ideas of the sinful taste, craving, or appetite for sin, by reference

to the craving of carnivorous animals for flesh.



A change of heart, in the view of this philosophy, must consist in a

change of constitution. It must be a physical change, and wrought by

a physical, as distinguished from a moral agency. It is a change

wrought by the direct and physical power of the Holy Spirit in the

constitution of the soul, changing its susceptibilities, implanting or

creating a new taste, relish, appetite, craving for, or love of, holiness. 

It is, as they express it, the implantation of a new principle of holiness. 

It is described as a creation of a new taste or principle, as an infusion

of a holy principle, etc. This scheme, of course, holds and teaches

that, in regeneration, the subject is entirely passive. With this school,

regeneration is exclusively the work of the Holy Spirit, the subject

having no agency in it. It is an operation performed upon him, may be,

while he is asleep, or in a fit of derangement, while he is entirely

passive, or perhaps when at the moment he is engaged in flagrant

rebellion against God. The agency by which this work is wrought,

according to them, is sovereign, irresistible, and creative. They hold

that there are of course no means of regeneration, as it is a direct act

of creation. They hold the distinction already referred to and

examined, between regeneration and conversion; that when the Holy

Spirit has performed the sovereign operation and implanted the new

principle, then the subject is active in conversion, or in turning to God.



They hold that the soul, in its very nature, is enmity against God; that

therefore the gospel has no tendency to regenerate or convert the soul

to God; but, on the contrary, that previous to regeneration by the

sovereign and physical agency of the Holy Spirit, every exhibition of

God made in the gospel, tends only to inflame and provoke this

constitutional enmity.



They hold, that when the sinful taste, relish, or craving for sin is

weakened, for they deny that it is ever wholly destroyed in this life, or

while the soul continues connected with the body, and a holy taste,

relish, or craving is implanted or infused by the Holy Spirit into the

constitution of the soul, then, and not till then, the gospel has a

tendency to turn or convert the sinner from the error of his ways.



As I have said, their philosophy of moral depravity is the basis of

their philosophy of regeneration. It assumes the dogma of original sin,

as taught in the Presbyterian Confession of Faith, and attempts to

harmonize the philosophy of regeneration with that philosophy of sin,

or moral depravity.



Upon this scheme or theory of regeneration, I remark:



(1.) That it has been sufficiently refuted in the lectures on moral

depravity. If, as was then shown, moral depravity is altogether

voluntary, and consists in selfishness, or in a voluntary state of mind,

this philosophy of regeneration is of course without foundation.



(2.) It was shown in the lectures on moral depravity, that sin is not

chosen for its own sake, that there is no constitutional relish, taste, or

craving for sin, that in sinful choice, sin is not the end or object

chosen, but that self-gratification is chosen, and that this choice is

sinful. If this is so, then the whole philosophy of the taste scheme

turns out to be utterly baseless.



The taste, relish, or craving, of which this philosophy speaks, is not a

taste, relish or craving for sin, but for certain things and objects, the

enjoyment of which is, to a certain extent, and upon certain conditions,

lawful. But when the will prefers the gratification of taste or appetite to

higher interests, this choice or act of will is sin. The sin never lies in

the appetite, but in the will's consent to unlawful indulgence.



(3.) This philosophy confounds appetite or temptation to unlawful

indulgence, with sin. Nay, it represents sin as consisting mostly, if not

altogether, in that which is only temptation.



(4.) It throws the blame of unregeneracy upon God. If the sinner is

passive, and has no agency in it; if it consists in what this philosophy

teaches, and is accomplished in the manner which this theory

represents, it is self-evident that God alone is responsible for the fact,

that any sinner is unregenerate.



(5.) It renders holiness after regeneration physically necessary, just

as sin was before, and perseverance also as physically necessary,

and falling from grace as a natural impossibility. In this case holy

exercises and living are only the gratification of a constitutional

appetite, implanted in regeneration. Let us consider next:



2. The divine efficiency scheme or theory.



This scheme is based upon, or rather is only a carrying out of, an

ancient heathen philosophy, bearing the same name. This ancient

philosophy denies second causes, and teaches that what we call laws

of nature are nothing else than the mode of divine operation. It denies

that the universe would even exist for a moment, if the divine

upholding were withdrawn. It maintains that the universe exists only

by an act of present and perpetual creation. It denies that matter, or

mind, has in itself any inherent properties that can originate laws or

motions; that all action, whether of matter or mind, is the necessary

result of direct divine irresistible efficiency or power; that this is not

only true of the natural universe, but also of all the exercises and

actions of moral agents in all worlds.



The abettors of the divine efficiency scheme of regeneration apply

this philosophy especially to moral agents. They hold, that all the

exercises and actions of moral agents in all worlds, and whether those

exercises be holy or sinful, are produced by a divine efficiency, or by a

direct act of Omnipotence; that holy and sinful acts are alike effects of

an irresistible cause, and that this cause is the power and agency, or

efficiency, of God.



This philosophy denies constitutional moral depravity, or original sin,

and maintains that moral character belongs alone to the exercises or

choices of the will; that regeneration does not consist in the creation of

any new taste, relish, or craving, nor in the implantation or infusion of

any new principles in the soul: but that it consists in a choice

conformed to the law of God, or in a change from selfishness to

disinterested benevolence; that this change is effected by a direct act

of divine power or efficiency, as irresistible as any creative act

whatever. This philosophy teaches, that the moral character of every

moral agent, whether holy or sinful, is formed by an agency as direct,

as sovereign, and as irresistible, as that which first gave existence to

the universe; that true submission to God implies the hearty consent of

the will to have the character thus formed, and then to be treated

accordingly, for the glory of God.



To this theory I make the following objections:



(1.) It tends to produce and perpetuate a sense of divine injustice. 

To create a character by an agency as direct and irresistible as that of

the creation of the world itself, and then treat moral beings according

to that character so formed, is wholly inconsistent with all our ideas of

justice.



(2.) It contradicts human consciousness. I know it is said, that

consciousness only gives our mental actions and states, but not the

cause of them. This I deny, and affirm that consciousness not only

gives us our mental actions and states, but it also gives us the cause

of them; especially it gives the fact, that we ourselves are the

sovereign and efficient causes of the choices and actions of our will I

am as conscious of originating in a sovereign manner my choices, as I

am of the choices themselves. We cannot but affirm to ourselves, that

we are the efficient causes of our own choices and volitions.



(3.) The philosophy in question, really represents God as the only

agent, in any proper sense of that term, in the universe. If God

produces the exercises of moral beings in the manner represented by

this philosophy, then they are in fact no more agents than the planets

are agents. If their exercises are all directly produced by the power of

God, it is ridiculous to call them agents. What we generally call moral

beings and moral agents, are no more so than the winds and the

waves, or any other substance or thing in the universe.



(4.) If this theory be true, no being but God has, or can have, moral

character. No other being is the author of his own actions.



(5.) This theory obliges its advocates, together with all other

necessitarians, to give a false and nonsensical definition of free

agency. Free agency, according to them, consists in doing as we will,

while their theory denies the power to will, except as our willings are

necessitated by God. But as we have seen in former lectures, this is

no true account of freedom, or liberty. Liberty to execute my choices

is no liberty at all. Choice is connected with its sequents by a law of

necessity; and if an effect follow my volitions, that effect follows by

necessity, and not freely. All freedom of will must, as was formerly

shown, consist in the sovereign power to originate our own choices. If

I am unable to will, I am unable to do any thing; and it is absurd to

affirm, that a being is a moral or a free agent, who has not power to

originate his own choices.



(6.) If this theory is true, the whole moral government of God is no

government at all, distinct from, and superior to, physical government. 

It overlooks and virtually denies the fundamentally important distinction

between moral and physical power, and moral and physical

government. All power and all government, upon this theory, are

physical.



(7.) This theory involves the delusion of all moral beings. God not

only creates our volitions, but also creates the persuasion and

affirmation that we are responsible for them.



3. The susceptibility scheme.



This theory represents, that the Holy Spirit's influences are both

physical and moral; that He, by a direct and physical influence, excites

the susceptibilities of the soul and prepares them to be affected by the

truth; that He, thereupon, exerts a moral or persuasive influence by

presenting the truth, which moral influence induces regeneration.



This philosophy maintains the necessity and the fact of a physical

influence superadded to the moral or persuasive influence of the Holy

Spirit as a sine qua non of regeneration. It admits and maintains, that

regeneration is effected solely by a moral influence, but also that a

work preparatory to the efficiency of the moral influence, and

indispensable to its efficiency, in producing regeneration, is performed

by a direct and physical agency of the Holy Spirit upon the

constitutional susceptibilities of the soul, to quicken and wake it up,

and predispose it to be deeply and duly affected by the truth.



It is maintained by the defenders of this scheme, that the

representations of the Bible upon the subject of the Holy Spirit's

agency in regeneration, are such as to forbid the supposition, that His

influence is altogether moral or persuasive, and such as plainly to

indicate that He also exerts a physical agency, in preparing the mind

to be duly affected by the truth.



In reply to this argument, I observe: that I fear greatly to disparage

the agency of the Holy Spirit in the work of man's redemption from sin,

and would, by no means, resist or deny, or so much as call in

question, any thing time is plainly taught or implied in the Bible upon

this subject. I admit and maintain that regeneration is always induced

and effected by the personal agency of the Holy Spirit. The question

now before us relates wholly to the mode, and not at all to the fact, of

divine agency in regeneration. Let this be distinctly understood, for it

has been common for theologians of the old school, as soon as the

dogma of a physical regeneration, and of a physical influence in

regeneration, has been called in question, to cry out and insist that this

is Pelagianism, and that it is a denial of divine influence altogether,

and that it is teaching a self-regeneration, independent of any divine

influence. I have been ashamed of such representations as these on

the part of Christian divines, and have been distressed by their want of

candor. It should, however, be distinctly stated that, so far as I know,

the defenders of the theory now under consideration have never

manifested this want of candor toward those who have called in

question that part of their theory that relates to a physical influence.



Since the advocates of this theory admit that the Bible teaches that

regeneration is induced by a divine moral suasion, the point of debate

is simply, whether the Bible teaches that there is also a physical

influence exerted by the Holy Spirit, in exciting the constitutional

susceptibilities. We will now attend to their proof texts. "Then opened

He their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures"

(Luke 24:45). It is affirmed, that this text seems to teach or imply a

physical influence in opening their understandings. But what do we

mean by such language as this in common life? Language is to be

understood according to the subject matter of discourse. Here the

subject of discourse is the understanding. But what can be intended

by opening it? Can this be a physical prying, pulling, or forcing open

any department of the constitution? Such language in common life

would be understood only to mean, that such instruction was imparted

as to secure a right understanding of the scriptures. Every one knows

this, and why should we suppose and assume that anything more is

intended here? The context plainly indicates that this was the thing,

and the only thing done in this case. "Then He said unto them, O

fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 

Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His

glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded

unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself. And said

unto them, thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and

to rise from the dead the third day" (Luke 24:25-27, 46). From these

verses it appears that He expounded the scriptures to them, when in

the light of what had passed, and in the light of that measure of divine

illumination which was then imparted to them, they understood the

things which He explained to them. It does not seem to me, that this

passage warrants the inference that there was a physical influence

exerted. It certainly affirms no such thing. "And a certain woman

named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which

worshiped God, heard us; whose heart the Lord opened, that she

attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul"(Acts 16:14). 

Here is an expression similar to that just examined. Here it is said,

"that the Lord opened the heart of Lydia, so that she attended," etc. ;

that is, the Lord inclined her to attend. But how? Why, say the

advocates of this scheme, by a physical influence. But how does this

appear? What is her heart that it should be pulled, or forced open? 

And what can be intended by the assertion, "that the Lord opened her

heart?" All that can be meant is, that the Lord secured her attention,

or disposed her to attend, and so enlightened her when she did attend,

that she believed. Surely here is no assertion of a physical influence,

nor, so far as I can see, any just ground for the inference, that such an

influence was exerted. A moral influence can sufficiently explain all

the phenomena; and any text that can equally well consist with either

of two opposing theories, can prove neither.



Again: there are many passages that represent God as opening the

spiritual eyes, and passages in which petitions are offered to God to

do this. It is by this theory assumed that such passages strongly imply

a physical influence. But this assumption appears to me

unwarrantable. We are in the habit of using just such language, and

speak of opening each other's eyes, when no such thing is intended or

implied, as a physical influence, and when nothing more than a moral

or persuasive influence is so much as thought of. Why then resort to

such an assumption here? Does the nature of the case demand it? 

This I know is contended for by those who maintain a constitutional

moral depravity. But this dogma has been shown to be false, and it is

admitted to be so by those who maintain the theory now under

consideration. Admitting, then, that the constitution is not morally

depraved, should it be inferred that any constitutional change, or

physical influence is needed to produce regeneration? I can see no

sufficient reason for believing, or affirming, that a physical influence is

demanded or exerted. This much I freely admit, that we cannot affirm

the impossibility of such an influence, nor the impossibility of the

necessity of such an influence. The only question with me is, does the

Bible plainly teach or imply such an influence? Hitherto I have been

unable to see that it does. The passages already quoted are of a

piece with all that are relied upon in support of this theory, and as the

same answer is a sufficient reply to them all, I will not spend time in

citing and remarking upon them.



Again: A physical influence has been inferred from the fact, that

sinners are represented as dead in trespasses and sins, as asleep,

etc. But all such representations are only declaratory of a moral state,

a state of voluntary alienation from God. If the death is moral, and the

sleep moral, why suppose that a physical influence is needed to

correct a moral evil? Cannot truth, when urged and pressed by the

Holy Spirit, effect the requisite change?



But a physical influence is also inferred from the fact, that truth

makes so different an impression at one time from what it does at

another. Answer: this can well enough be accounted for by the fact,

that sometimes the Holy Spirit so presents the truth, that the mind

apprehends it and feels its power, whereas at another time He does

not.



But it is said, that there sometimes appears to have been a

preparatory work performed by a physical influence predisposing the

mind to attend to, and be affected by, the truth. Answer: There often is

no doubt a preparatory work predisposing the mind to attend to, and

be affected by, truth. But why assume that this is a physical influence? 

Providential occurrences may have had much to do with it. The Holy

Spirit may have been directing the thoughts and communicating

instructions in various ways, and preparing the mind to attend and

obey. Who then is warranted in the affirmation that this preparatory

influence is physical? I admit that it may be, but I cannot see either

that it must be, or that there is any good ground for the assumption

that it is.



4. The last theory to be examined is that of a Divine Moral Suasion. 

This theory teaches:



(1.) That regeneration consists in a change in the ultimate intention

or preference of the mind, or in a change from selfishness to

disinterested benevolence; and:



(2.) That this change is induced and effected by a divine moral

influence; that is, that the Holy Spirit effects it with, through, or by the

truth. The advocates of this theory assign the following as the

principal reasons in support of it.



(1.) The Bible expressly affirms it. "Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I

say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he

cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh

is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:5, 6). 

"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the

word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever" (1 Peter 1:23). "Of His

own will begat He us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of

first-fruits of His creatures" (James 1:18). "For though ye have ten

thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers: for in

Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel" (1 Cor. 4:15).



(2.) Men are represented as being sanctified by and through the

truth. "Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth" (John

17:17) "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto

you" (John 15:3).



(3.) The nature of regeneration decides the philosophy of it so far as

this, that it must be effected by truth, addressed to the heart through

the intelligence. The regenerate are conscious of having been

influenced by the truth in turning to God. They are conscious of no

other influence than light poured upon the intelligence, or truth

presented to the mind.



When God affirms that He regenerates the soul with or by the truth,

we have no right to infer that He does it in some other way. This He

does affirm; therefore the Bible has settled the philosophy of

regeneration. That He exerts any other than a moral influence, or the

influence of divine teaching and illumination, is sheer assumption.



Remarks



1. This scheme honors the Holy Spirit without disparaging the truth of

God.



2. Regeneration by the Holy Spirit through the truth illustrates the

wisdom of God. There is a deep and divine philosophy in

regeneration.



3. This theory is of great practical importance. For if sinners are to

be regenerated by the influence of truth, argument, and persuasion,

then ministers can see what they have to do, and how it is that they

are to be "workers together with God" (2 Cor. 6:1).



4. So also sinners may see, that they are not to wait for a physical

regeneration or influence, but must submit to, and embrace, the truth,

if they ever expect to be saved.



5. If this theory is true, sinners are most likely to be regenerated

while sitting under the sound of the gospel, while listening to the clear

exhibition of truth.



6. Ministers should lay themselves out, and press every

consideration upon the attention of sinners, just as heartily and as

freely, as if they expected to convert them themselves. They should

aim at, and expect the regeneration of sinners, upon the spot and

before they leave the house of God.



7. Sinners must not wait for and expect physical omnipotence to

regenerate them. The physical omnipotence of God affords no

presumption that all men will be converted; for regeneration is not

effected by physical power. God cannot do the sinner's duty, and

regenerate him without the right exercise of the sinner's own agency.



8. This view of regeneration shows that the sinner's dependence

upon the Holy Spirit arises entirely out of his own voluntary

stubbornness, and that his guilt is all the greater, by how much the

more perfect this kind of dependence is.



9. Physical regeneration, under every modification of it, is a

stumbling-block. Original or constitutional sinfulness, physical

regeneration, and all their kindred and resulting dogmas, are alike

subversive of the gospel, and repulsive to the human intelligence; and

should be laid aside as relics of a most unreasonable and confused

philosophy.

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LECTURE 29



EVIDENCES OF REGENERATION



Introductory remarks.



1. In ascertaining what are, and what are not, evidences of

regeneration, we must constantly keep in mind what is not, and what is

regeneration; what is not, and what is implied in it.



2. We must constantly recognize the fact, that saints and sinners

have precisely similar constitutions and constitutional susceptibilities,

and therefore that many things are common to both. What is common

to both cannot, of course, be an evidence of regeneration.



3. That no state of the sensibility has any moral character in itself. 

That regeneration does not consist in, or imply, any physical change

whatever, either of the intellect, sensibility, or the faculty of will.



4. That the sensibility of the sinner is susceptible of every kind and

degree of feeling that is possible to saints.



5. The same is true of the consciences of both saints and sinners,

and of the intelligence generally.



6. The inquiry is, What are evidences of a change in the ultimate

intention? What is evidence that benevolence is the ruling choice,

preference, intention of the soul? It is a plain question, and demands,

and may have, a plain answer. But so much error prevails as to the

nature of regeneration, and, consequently, as to what are evidences of

regeneration, that we need patience, discrimination, and

perseverance, and withal candor, to get at the truth upon this subject.



Wherein the experience and outward life of saints and sinners may

agree.



It is plain that they may be alike, in whatever does not consist in, or

necessarily proceed from, the attitude of their will; that is, in whatever

is constitutional or involuntary. For example:



1. They may both desire their own happiness. This desire is

constitutional, and, of course, common to both saints and sinners.



2. They may both desire the happiness of others. This also is

constitutional, and of course common to both saints and sinners. 

There is no moral character in these desires, any more than there is in

the desire for food and drink. That men have a natural desire for the

happiness of others, is evident from the fact that they manifest

pleasure when others are happy, unless they have some selfish

reason for envy, or unless the happiness of others is in some way

inconsistent with their own. They also manifest uneasiness and pain

when they see others in misery, unless they have some selfish reason

for desiring their misery.



3. Saints and sinners may alike dread their own misery, and the

misery of others. This is strictly constitutional, and has therefore no

moral character. I have known that very wicked men, and men who

had been infidels, when they were convinced of the truths of

Christianity, manifested great concern about their families and about

their neighbors; and, in one instance, I heard of an aged man of this

description who, when convinced of the truth, went and warned his

neighbors to flee from the wrath to come, avowing at the same time

his conviction, that there was no mercy for him, though he felt deeply

concerned for others. Such like cases have repeatedly been

witnessed. The case of the rich man in hell seems to have been one

of this description, or to have illustrated the same truth. Although he

knew his own case to be hopeless, yet he desired that Lazarus should

be sent to warn his five brethren, lest they also should come to that

place of torment. In this case and in the case of the aged man just

named, it appears that they not only desired that others should avoid

misery, but they actually tried to prevent it, and used the means that

were within their reach to save them. Now it is plain that this desire

took control of their will, and, of course, the state of the will was selfish. 

It sought to gratify desire. It was the pain and dread of seeing their

misery, and of having them miserable, that led them to use means to

prevent it. This was not benevolence, but selfishness.



Let it be understood, then, that as both saints and sinners

constitutionally desire, not only their own happiness, but also the

happiness of others, they may alike rejoice in the happiness and

safety of others, and in converts to Christianity, and may alike grieve

at the danger and misery of those who are unconverted. I well

recollect, when far from home, and while an impenitent sinner, I

received a letter from my youngest brother, informing me that he was

converted to God. He, if he was converted, was, as I supposed, the

first and the only member of the family who then had a hope of

salvation. I was at the time, and both before and after, one of the most

careless sinners, and yet on receiving this intelligence, I actually wept

for joy and gratitude, that one of so prayer less a family was likely to be

saved. Indeed, I have repeatedly known sinners to manifest much

interest in the conversion of their friends, and express gratitude for

their conversion, although they had no religion themselves. These

desires have no moral character in themselves. In as far as they

control the will, the will yielding to impulse instead of the law of the

intelligence, this is selfishness.



4. They may agree in desiring the triumph of truth and

righteousness, and the suppression of vice and error, for the sake of

the bearings of these things on self and friends. These desires are

constitutional and natural to both, under certain circumstances. When

they do not influence the will, they have in themselves no moral

character; but when they influence the will, their selfishness takes on a

religious type. It then manifests zeal in promoting religion. But if

desire, and not the intelligence, controls the will, it is selfishness

notwithstanding.



5. Moral agents constitutionally approve of what is right and

disapprove of what is wrong. Of course, both saints and sinners may

both approve of and delight in goodness. I can recollect weeping at an

instance of what, at the time, I supposed to be goodness, while at the

same time, I was not religious myself. I have no doubt that wicked

men, not only often are conscious of strongly approving the goodness

of God, but that they also often take delight in contemplating it. This is

constitutional, both as it respects the intellectual approbation, and also

as it respects the feeling of delight. It is a great mistake to suppose

that sinners are never conscious of feelings of complacency and

delight in the goodness of God. The Bible represents sinners as

taking delight in drawing near to Him. "Yet they seek Me daily, and

delight to know My ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and

forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of Me the ordinances

of justice; they take delight in approaching to God" (Isaiah 58:2). "And

lo, Thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a

pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear Thy

words, but they do them not" (Ezek. 33:32). "For I delight in the law of

God after the inward man" (Romans 7:22).



6. Saints and sinners may alike not only intellectually approve, but

have feelings of deep complacency in, the characters of good men,

sometimes good men of their own time and of their acquaintance, but

more frequently good men either of a former age, or, if of their own

age, of a distant country. The reason is this: good men of their own

day and neighborhood are very apt to render them uneasy in their

sins; to annoy them by their faithful reproofs and rebukes. This

offends them, and overcomes their natural respect for goodness. But

who has not observed the fact, that good and bad men unite in

praising, admiring, and loving, so far as feeling is concerned good

men of by-gone days, or good men at a distance, whose life and

rebukes have annoyed the wicked in their own neighborhood? The

fact is, that moral agents, from the laws of their being necessarily

approve of goodness wherever they witness it. Multitudes of sinners

are conscious of this, and suppose that this is a virtuous feeling. It is

of no use to deny, that they sometimes have feelings of love and

gratitude to God, and of respect for, and complacency in good men. 

They often have these feelings, and to represent them as always

having feelings of hatred and of opposition to God and to good men, is

sure either to offend them, or to lead them to deny the truths of

religion, if they are told that the Bible teaches this. Or, again, it may

lead them to think themselves Christians, because they are conscious

of such feelings as they are taught to believe are peculiar to

Christians. Or again, they may think that, although they are not

Christians, yet they are far from being totally depraved, inasmuch as

they have so many good desires and feelings. It should never be

forgotten, that saints and sinners may agree in their opinions and

intellectual views and judgments. Many professors of religion, it is to

be feared, have supposed religion to consist in desires and feelings,

and have entirely mistaken their own character. Indeed, nothing is

more common than to hear religion spoken of as consisting altogether

in mere feelings, desires, and emotions. Professors relate their

feelings, and suppose themselves to be giving an account of their

religion. It is infinitely important, that both professors of religion and

non-professors, should understand more than most of them do of their

mental constitution, and of the true nature of religion. Multitudes of

professors of religion have, it is to be feared, a hope founded

altogether upon desires and feelings that are purely constitutional, and

therefore common to both saints and sinners.



7. Saints and sinners agree in this, that they both disapprove of, and

are often disgusted with, and deeply abhor, sin. They cannot but

disapprove of sin. Necessity is laid upon every moral agent, whatever

his character may be, by the law of his being, to condemn and

disapprove of sin. And often the sensibility of sinners, as well as of

saints, is filled with deep disgust and loathing in view of sin. I know

that representations the direct opposite of these are often made. 

Sinners are represented as universally having complacency in sin, as

having a constitutional craving for sin, as they have for food and drink. 

But such representations are false and most injurious. They contradict

the sinner's consciousness, and lead him either to deny his total

depravity, or to deny the Bible, or to think himself regenerate. As was

shown when upon the subject of moral depravity, sinners do not love

sin for its own sake; yet they crave other things, and this leads to

prohibited indulgence, which indulgence is sin. But it is not the

sinfulness of the indulgence that was desired. That might have

produced disgust and loathing in the sensibility, if it had been

considered even at the moment of the indulgence. For example:

suppose a licentious man, a drunkard, a gambler, or any other wicked

man, engaged in his favorite indulgence, and suppose that the

sinfulness of this indulgence should be strongly set before his mind by

the Holy Spirit. He might be deeply ashamed and disgusted with

himself, and so much so as to feel a great contempt for himself, and

feel almost ready, were it possible, to spit in his own face. And yet,

unless this feeling becomes more powerful than the desire and feeling

which the will is seeking to indulge, the indulgence will be persevered

in, notwithstanding this disgust. If the feeling of disgust should for the

time overmatch the opposing desire, the indulgence will be, for the

time being, abandoned for the sake of gratifying or appeasing the

feeling of disgust. But this is not virtue. It is only a change in the form

of selfishness. Feeling still governs, and not the law of the

intelligence. The indulgence is only abandoned for the time being, to

gratify a stronger impulse of the sensibility. The will, will of course

return to the indulgence again, when the feelings of fear, disgust, or

loathing subside. This, no doubt, accounts for the multitudes of

spurious conversions sometimes witnessed. Sinners are convicted,

fears awakened, and disgust and loathing excited. These feelings for

the time become stronger than their desires for their former

indulgences, and consequently they abandon them for a time, in

obedience, not to the law of God or of their intelligence, but in

obedience to their fear, disgust, and shame. But when conviction

subsides, and the consequent feelings are no more, these spurious

converts "return like a dog to his vomit, and like a sow that was

washed to her wallowing in the mire" (2 Peter 2:22). It should be

distinctly understood, that all these feelings of which I have spoken,

and indeed any class or degree of mere feelings, may exist in the

sensibility; and further, that these or any other feelings may, in their

turn, control the will, and produce of course a corresponding outward

life, and yet the heart be and remain all the while in a selfish state, or

in a state of total depravity. Indeed, it is perfectly common to see the

impenitent sinner manifest much disgust and opposition to sin in

himself and in others, yet this is not principle in him; it is only the effect

of present feeling. The next day, or perhaps hour, he will repeat his

sin, or do that which, when beheld in others, enkindled his indignation.



8. Both saints and sinners approve of, and often delight in, justice. It

is common to see in courts of justice, and on various other occasions,

impenitent sinners manifest great complacency in the administration of

justice, and the greatest indignation at, and abhorrence of, injustice. 

So strong is this feeling sometimes that it cannot be restrained, but will

burst forth like a smothered volcano, and carry desolation before it. It

is this natural love of justice, and abhorrence of injustice, common

alike to saints and sinners, to which popular tumults and bloodshed

are often to be ascribed. This is not virtue, but selfishness. It is the

will giving itself up to the gratification of a constitutional impulse. But

such feelings and such conduct are often supposed to be virtuous. It

should always be borne in mind that the love of justice, and the sense

of delight in it, and the feeling of opposition to injustice, are not only

not peculiar to good men, but that such feelings are no evidence

whatever of a regenerate heart. Thousands of instances might be

adduced as proofs and illustrations of this position. But such

manifestations are too common to need to be cited, to remind any one

of their existence.



9. The same remarks may be made in regard to truth. Both saints

and sinners have a constitutional respect for, approbation of, and

delight in truth. Who ever knew a sinner to approve of the character of

a liar? What sinner will not resent it, to be accused or even suspected

of lying? All men spontaneously manifest their respect for,

complacency in, and approbation of truth. This is constitutional; so

that even the greatest liars do not, and cannot, love lying for its own

sake. They lie to gratify, not a love for falsehood on its own account,

but to obtain some object which they desire more strongly than they

hate falsehood. Sinners, in spite of themselves, venerate, respect,

and fear a man of truth. They just as necessarily despise a liar. If

they are liars, they despise themselves for it, just as drunkards and

debauchees despise themselves for indulging their filthy lusts, and yet

continue in them.



10. Both saints and sinners not only approve of, and delight in good

men, when, as I have said, wicked men are not annoyed by them, but

they agree in reprobating, disapproving, and abhorring wicked men

and devils. Who ever heard of any other sentiment and feeling being

expressed either by good or bad men, than of abhorrence and

indignation toward the devil? Nobody ever approved, or can approve,

of his character; sinners can no more approve of it than holy angels

can. If he could approve of and delight in his own character, hell

would cease to be hell, and evil would become his good. But no moral

agent can, by any possibility, know wickedness and approve it. No

man, saint or sinner, can entertain any other sentiments and feelings

toward the devil, or wicked men, but those of disapprobation, distrust,

disrespect, and often of loathing and abhorrence. The intellectual

sentiment will be uniform. Disapprobation, distrust, condemnation, will

always necessarily possess the minds of all who know wicked men

and devils. And often, as occasions arise, wherein their characters

are clearly revealed, and under circumstances favorable to such a

result, the deepest feelings of disgust, of loathing, of indignation, and

abhorrence of their wickedness, will manifest themselves alike among

saints and sinners.



11. Saints and sinners may be equally honorable and fair in business

transactions, so far as the outward act is concerned. They have

different reasons for their conduct, but outwardly it may be the same. 

This leads to the remark:



12. That selfishness in the sinner, and benevolence in the saint,

may, and often do, produce, in many respects, the same results or

manifestations. For example: benevolence in the saint, and

selfishness in the sinner, may beget the same class of desires, to wit,

as we have seen, desire for their own sanctification, and for that of

others, to be useful, and to have others so; desires for the conversion

of sinners, and many such like desires.



13. This leads to the remark, that, when the desires of an impenitent

person for these objects become strong enough to influence the will,

he may take the same outward course, substantially, that the saint

takes in obedience to his intelligence. That is, the sinner is

constrained by his feelings to do what the saint does from principle, or

from obedience to the law of his intelligence. In this, however,

although the outward manifestations be the same for the time being,

yet the sinner is entirely selfish, and the saint benevolent. The saint is

controlled by principle, and the sinner by impulse. In this case, time is

needed to distinguish between them. The sinner not having the root of

the matter in him, will return to his former course of life, in proportion

as his convictions of the truth and importance of religion subside, and

his former feelings return; while the saint will evince his heavenly birth,

by manifesting his sympathy with God, and the strength of principle

that has taken possession of his heart. That is, he will manifest that

his intelligence, and not his feelings, controls his will.



For want of these and such like discriminations, many have

stumbled. Hypocrites have held on to a false hope, and lived upon

mere constitutional desires and spasmodic turns of giving up the will,

during seasons of special excitement, to the control of these desires

and feelings. These spasms they call their waking up. But no sooner

does their excitement subside, than selfishness again assumes its

wonted forms. It is truly wonderful and appalling to see to what an

extent this is true. Because, in seasons of special excitement they feel

deeply, and are conscious of feeling, as they say, and acting, and of

being entirely sincere in following their impulses, they have the fullest

confidence in their good estate. They say they cannot doubt their

conversion. They felt so and so, and gave themselves up to their

feelings, and gave much time and money to promote the cause of

Christ. Now this is a deep delusion, and one of the most common in

Christendom, or at least one of the most common that is to be found

among what are called revival Christians. This class of deluded souls

do not see that they are, in such cases, governed by their feelings,

and that if their feelings were changed, their conduct would be so, of

course; that as soon as the excitement subsides, they will go back to

their former ways, as a thing of course. When the state of feeling that

now controls them has given place to their former feelings, they will of

course appear as they used to do. This is, in few words, the history of

thousands of professors of religion.



This has greatly stumbled the openly impenitent. Not knowing how

to account for what they often witness of this kind among professors of

religion, they are led to doubt whether there is any such thing as true

religion.



Again: many sinners have been deceived just in the way I have

pointed out, and have afterwards discovered that they had been

deluded, but could not understand how. They have come to the

conclusion that everybody is deluded, and that all professors are as

much deceived they are. This leads them to reject and despise all

religion.



Some exercises of impenitent sinners, and of which they are

conscious, have been denied for fear of denying total depravity. They

have been represented as necessarily hating God and all good men;

and this hatred has been represented as a feeling of malice and

enmity towards God. Many impenitent sinners are conscious of

having no such feelings; but, on the contrary, they are conscious of

having at times feelings of respect, veneration, awe, gratitude, and

affection towards God and men. To this class of sinners, it is a snare

and a stumbling-block to tell them, and insist, that they only hate God,

and Christians, and ministers, and revivals; and to represent their

moral depravity to be such, that they crave sin as they crave food, and

that they necessarily have none but feelings of mortal enmity against

God. Such representations either drive them into infidelity on the one

hand, or to think themselves Christians on the other. But those

theologians who hold the views of constitutional depravity of which we

have spoken, cannot, consistently with their theory, admit to these

sinners the real truth, and then show them conclusively that in all their

feelings which they call good, and in all their yielding to be influenced

by them, there is no virtue; that their desires and feelings have in

themselves no moral character, and that when they yield the will to

their control, it is only selfishness. The thing needed is a philosophy

and a theology that will admit and explain all the phenomena of

experience, and not deny human consciousness. A theology that

denies human consciousness is only a curse and a stumbling-block. 

But such is the doctrine of universal constitutional moral depravity.



It is frequently true, that the feelings of sinners become exceedingly

rebellious and exasperated, even to the most intense opposition of

feeling toward God, and Christ, and ministers, and revivals, and

toward everything of good report. If this class of sinners are

converted, they are very apt to suppose, and to represent all sinners

as having just such feelings as they had. But this is a mistake, for

many sinners never had those feelings. Nevertheless, they are no

less selfish and guilty than the class who have the rebellious and

blasphemous feelings which I have mentioned. This is what they need

to know. They need to understand definitely what sin is, and what it is

not; that sin is selfishness; that selfishness is the yielding of the will to

the control of feeling, and that it matters not at all what the particular

class of feelings is, if feelings control the will, and not intelligence. 

Admit their good feelings, as they call them, and take pains to show

them, that these feelings are merely constitutional, and have in

themselves no moral character.



The ideas of depravity and of regeneration, to which I have often

alluded, are fraught with great mischief in another respect. Great

numbers, it is to be feared, both of private professors of religion and of

ministers, have mistaken the class of feelings of which I have spoken,

as common among certain impenitent sinners, for religion. They have

heard the usual representations of the natural depravity of sinners,

and also have heard certain desires and feelings represented as

religion. They are conscious of these desires and feelings, and also,

sometimes, when they are very strong, of being influenced in their

conduct by them. They assume, therefore, that they are regenerate,

and elected, and heirs of salvation. These views lull them asleep. 

The philosophy and theology that misrepresent moral depravity and

regeneration thus, must, if consistent, also misrepresent true religion;

and oh! the many thousands that have mistaken the mere

constitutional desires and feelings, and the selfish yielding of the will to

their control for true religion, and have gone to the bar of God with a lie

in their right hand!



Another great evil has arisen out of the false views I have been

exposing, namely:



Many true Christians have been much stumbled and kept in

bondage, and their comfort and their usefulness much abridged, by

finding themselves, from time to time, very languid and unfeeling. 

Supposing religion to consist in feeling, if at any time the sensibility

becomes exhausted, and their feelings subside, they are immediately

thrown into unbelief and bondage. Satan reproaches them for their

want of feeling, and they have nothing to say, only to admit the truth of

his accusations. Having a false philosophy of religion, they judge of

the state of their hearts by the state of their feelings. They confound

their hearts with their feelings, and are in almost constant perplexity to

keep their hearts right, by which they mean their feelings, in a state of

great excitement.



Again: they are not only sometimes languid, and have no pious

feelings and desires, but at others they are conscious of classes of

emotions which they call sin. These they resist, but still blame

themselves for having them in their hearts, as they say. Thus they are

brought into bondage again, although they are certain that these

feelings are hated, and not at all indulged, by them.



Oh, how much all classes of persons need to have clearly defined

ideas of what really constitutes sin and holiness! A false philosophy of

the mind, especially of the will, and of moral depravity, has covered

the world with gross darkness on the subject of sin and holiness, of

regeneration, and of the evidences of regeneration, until the true

saints, on the one hand, are kept in a continual bondage to their false

notions; and on the other, the church swarms with unconverted

professors, and is cursed with many self-deceived ministers.

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