GENETIC LAW OF DEPRAVITY

I. Genetic means pertaining to the genesis of anything. It is the law of organic life that everything produces its own kind. Now we have examined the Calvinistic theories and found them unsustained by either Scripture or reason. They make native depravity a penal retribution and deserving of damnation. Against this view the unperverted reason of man revolts. It does not at all alter the fact of depravity which still remains to be explained in its origin and effect.

1. There is an entirely sufficient account of depravity, in the: simple law of heredity. By the universal law of genetic transmission the corruption of the progenitors of the race is thus transmitted to their offspring. The offspring are a reproduction of the; parentage not only in anatomical structure and physiological constitution, but also in the qualities of instinct and disposition. The old lion likes blood and the young whelp inherits the taste. The meekness and gentleness of the sheep is transmitted to the lamb through all ages. This divinely created law rules over the human family as well as over the brutes.

If Adam had maintained his primitive holiness, his offspring; would have been born in the same state; but subject just as Adam was to a possible lapse. "Any notion of an immediate imputation of Adam's personal righteousness to his offspring as the judicial ground of their birth in subjective holiness is utterly groundless. It must assume that without such imputation, all must have been born in depravity, which at once contradicts the determining law of; heredity, and the holiness and goodness of God. There is no requirement for any other law than that of genetic transmission"; (Miley, Vol. I, p. 506).

2. Sufficiency of this law, This law once instituted by God will work without any special legislation from Him. If Adam had remained holy His children would have been born holy without any divine imputation of Adam's righteousness. As Adam sinned, there was no need of any imputation of sin, and divine infliction of penalty. This self-acting law passed on the corruption of Adam to the posterity with infallible certainty; not as a penalty inflicted upon innocent beings; for imputed sin, but as a natural consequence. So the inherited depravity of every babe is not a penalty for a sin he committed before he was born, but is simply an inherited misfortune.

We have thus at a stroke freed ourselves from three monstrous errors of Calvinism. (1) Imputation of one person's guilt to others; (2) The notion that depravity is a penalty inflicted by God for sin committed before birth; or that still more horrible reflection on the goodness of God, that it is a penalty inflicted on men when perfectly innocent, because of the sin of an imaginary representative; (3) that heathenish notion that all infants at birth are sinners fully deserving eternal damnation! We may well pause here to draw a long breath of satisfaction at an escape from mischievous errors which have perplexed the centuries, by adopting the genetic law of depravity, which is in perfect harmony with universal facts, and also with all the truth involved.

Were it not for the consequences of the law of heredity, there would have been no common depravity needing vindication. Why account the corruption of human nature a punishment when it exists in fullest accord with all the beneficent processes of propagation?

Some may then infer that the children born of holy parents should be holy. This we know is not the case, and we are asked to explain. The truth of a common native depravity forbids the inference that the children of the sanctified will be born in the same high state of grace. Depravity is a matter of race; regeneration or sanctification is a personal work of grace in the individual heart. It is not a matter of original constitution, but a gracious state achieved through the supernatural agency of the Holy Spirit, and is not transmissible through natural generation. There are analogies in the natural world. "The fruit of a graft produces, not its own special quality, but that of the natural stock."

3. This law of genetic depravity must be the true one, for it covers all the facts and is in perfect harmony with Scriptures and the demands of reason. The Psalmist said: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity," etc. This is a poetic description of an inherited native evil, transmitted through natural generation. The same truth was taught by Jesus in explaining the necessity for regeneration. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." "Sarx" in this text stands for depraved human nature; and so here is a distinct declaration that our fallen nature reproduces itself. Therefore there is no need of resorting to the law of penal retribution to explain what is amply accounted for by a well-known law of nature.

The transmission is not a penalty; it is the working out of an original and beneficent law. By the same law good qualities are propagated as well as bad. If the love of art, or music, or literature, or oratory is handed down from generation to generation, if the human race still continues to propagate human beings, with erect form, and God-like faculties instead of propagating brutes, we have no just ground for complaint that the same law reproduces depravity.

II. Doctrine of Native Demerit.

It still remains to consider a doctrine advocated by many, that native depravity, however it was obtained, is in itself intrinsically evil, and deserves punishment. Dr. Charles Hodge taught this and Dr. Shedd. It is involved in the statements of the creeds that are formed on the basis of Augustinian anthropology. The Augsburg Confession: "This disease or original fault, is truly sin, condemning and bringing eternal death." The Belgic Confession: "Original sin is sufficient to condemn all mankind." "In every person born into the world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation" (Articles of Church of England). Our native corruption, doth, in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God, and curse of the law (Westminster Conference).

The proof they bring is that depravity is called sin. We have admitted this in a previous chapter. But that does not prove that "hamartia" always carries with it the sense of demerit. Often this is not the case. "I took your sin, the calf ye made, and burnt it with fire" (Deut. 9: 21). The sin offering is frequently called sin (Ex. 29: 14; 2 Cor. S: 21). So by metonymy our depravity is called sin because it tends to actual sin, but without demerit, simply as a subjective state (Miley, p. 511). This occurs twenty-nine times between Rom. 5: 12 and Rom. 8: 10. So our depravity, though the fountain of our sinful-ness, may not, in itself have demerit, it certainly does not have in the case of an infant.

For an illustration, it is proper to place in comparison the primitive state of Adam and the fallen state of the race. What he was in respect to holiness we may be in respect to sinfulness. What was the holiness of Adam? Simply a divinely created subjective state free from evil tendencies, and with spontaneous inclination to the good. No credit was due to Adam for having been created so. His holiness possessed no strictly ethical character such as arises and can arise only, from holy obedience to the divine will. THERE IS BLESSEDNESS IN THIS STATE BUT NO REWARDABLE MERIT, no worthiness in any proper sense rewardable. Compare this with the fallen state of infants. They come into the world depraved just as Adam came holy. This depravity brings spontaneous aversion to good, and inclination to evil, but no blame is due to them for having been created so. THERE is DISCOMFORT AND PERIL IN IT BUT NO DEMERIT OR DAMNABLE SIN. The infants are no more to blame for being born depraved, than they are to blame for being born with two hands or two feet, or two eyes. Dr. Fisk well says: "The guilt of depravity is not imputed to the subject of it until by intelligent volition he makes the guilt his own, by resisting and rejecting the grace of the gospel" (Calvinistic Controversy, p. 183). Dr. Whedon says: "We hold, on the contrary, that though sinward tendencies exist in germ in the infant, yet there is no responsibility and no damnability, until these tendencies are deliberately acted in real life, and by that action appropriated and sanctioned" (Commentary, Eph. 2:3). In other words, guilt can arise only in connection with responsible personal volition.

But the Calvinists will not have it so. Their argumentative chain has five links: 1. Adam sinned; 2. The guilt of this sin was put upon the race by immediate imputation; 3. The race is punished by God, on the ground of this imputation; 4. The common native depravity is the consequence of that penal infliction; S. This native depravity is intrinsically sinful and merits damnation. Miley makes this appropriate comment: "We are all absolutely without any personal agency in a single link of this chain. It is not even pretended that we have any. The doctrine is, that the universal amenability to an eternal penal doom arises from the common native depravity passively inherited from Adam. If consistently with Divine justice there can be such native sinfulness, such penal desert of a mere nature passively received, then the absolute infliction of the deserved punishment upon all the race, and in an eternal penal doom, would be equally consistent with that justice. There can be no injustice in the infliction of deserved penalty. If such are the possibilities respecting the human race, then there must be possible modes wherein the guilt of sin could be spread over the moral universe, and all intelligences without any agency of their own be justly whelmed in an eternal penal doom. There must be error in a doctrine which clearly points to such possibilities" (p. 517). "If this doctrine be true the infant just born, yea, and before it is born, deserves an eternal penal doom and might be justly damned forever" (p. 518). That is: 1. The depravity itself is a punishment from God inflicted upon innocent, unborn babes! 2. The punishment is so bad, that it merits another punishment from the same God of eternal damnation of these helpless infants, whom God himself, over and over again, calls "innocent"! Thus the absurdities and horrors of this atrocious theology multiply until men are filled with amazement that theologians could ever sit down and calmly write such reflections on the goodness and government of God.

Let no one think for a moment that we are pressing this argument unduly, or overstating its importance. This question is fundamental and vital to sound theology; for, granting the natal desert of damnation of all children, then there can be no valid objection.

1. To the unconditional election of a few out of the reprobate mass of universal humanity;

2. To the limited atonement made only for the elect.

3. To irresistible, efficacious grace which forcibly secures the salvation of the chosen few.

4. To the reprobation of all the rest to an unavoidable damnation.

5. To the final perseverance which inevitably brings to eternal salvation the predestinated number. "Methodism clearly perceives that to admit that mankind are actually born into the world justly under condemnation is to grant the foundation of the whole Calvinistic scheme" (Summers: Systematic Theology, Vol. II, p. 38).

"An actual sin with the desert of punishment in the sinner, is clearly open to the cognizance of the average mind, but the sinfulness of a mere nature, with the desert of punishment, is hidden in obscurity. Its utter unintelligibility disproves its reality" (Miley, Vol. I, p. 519). In this he agrees perfectly with Finney and Fairchild and Dr. Taylor of Yale. "It is an easy and plausible thing" observes Watson, "to say in the usual loose and general manner of stating the sublapsarian doctrine, that the whole race having fallen in Adam, and become justly liable to death, God might, without any impeachment of his justice, in the exercise of his sovereign grace, appoint some to life and salvation by Christ, and leave the others to their deserved punishment." But this is a false view of the case, built upon the false assumption that the whole race were personally and individually, in consequence of Adam's fall, absolutely liable to eternal death. It is easy to be refuted on the clear authority of Scripture. 'Sin is the transgression of the law,' and in no other light is it represented in Scripture, when eternal death is threatened as its penalty, than as an act of a rational being, sinning against a law, known or knowable, and as an act, avoidable and not forced or necessary (Institutes, Vol. II, pp. 394, 395) This is the only logical position of Arminianism, viz., to hold firmly to the doctrine of native depravity but to reject the idea of native demerit. "Freedom is to Arminianism what sovereignty is to Calvinism. In Arminianism, freedom must include the power of choosing, the good as the necessary ground of a responsible probation. Repentance and faith as requisite to salvation must be possible; punishable deeds must possibly be avoidable; responsible duties must be practicable. This is the meaning of Arminianism in the maintenance of a universal grace through a universal atonement; a grace which lifts up mankind into freedom with power to choose the good. Such freedom is the condition of moral responsibility; and without it we could be neither sinful nor punishable, because our moral life could not proceed from our own personal agency. This is the doctrine of Arminianism, always and everywhere firmly maintained. But if we could not be sinful and punishable in our actual life without free personal agency, or through morally necessitated evil deeds, how can we be sinful and punishable through the sin of Adam, or on the ground of an inherited corruption of nature?" (Miley, Vol. I, p. 522).

JOHN WESLEY plainly saw this. In 1784 he prepared and sent over by Bishop Coke a set of articles for the American "Methodists then to be organized into a Church. He rewrote the Ninth Article of the Church of England, making the Seventh Article of the Methodist Church. In doing it he left out the word "fault," and the words: '"So that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit, and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation." Thus Wesley eliminated at a stroke this idea of the penal desert of depravity from Methodist theology. Whedon observes: "Wesley rejects the doctrine of our personal desert of damnation here affirmed, for the very good reason that it contradicts our intuitive sense of right and justice. That rejection removes a contradiction to the moral sense and to common sense from theology" (Miley, Vol. I, pp. 524, 525).

The following important truths shine out upon us from the elaborate discussion.

1. Sin can never be defined as the guilt of an inherited nature. "A mere nature cannot be the subject of guilt. No more can it ,be sinful in the sense of penal desert. Only a person can be the subject of guilt; and a person can be a responsible sinner only through his own agency. There can be no true definition of sin which omits a responsible personal agency" (Miley, p. 527).

2. God's law lays no demands upon human nature, simply as such, but only on persons.

3. We are only responsible for the continuance of depravity after we learn of its remedy. "While not responsible for the corruption of our nature by genetic transmission, yet, with the grace of purification freely offered and at hand, we are justly responsible for its continuance" (Miley). This means that it is the duty of every intelligent Christian to be sanctified.

4. We reach in this discussion some practical definitions of sin, (actual sin for which we are blameworthy). (1) Arminius gives a good definition of sin. "Something thought, spoken, or done against the law of God; or the omission of something which has been commanded, by that law to be thought, spoken or done." (2) Wesley defines sin as "a voluntary transgression of a known law." (3), Miley defines thus: "Sin is disobedience to a law of God, conditioned on free-moral agency and opportunity of knowing the law. The specified free agency and opportunity of knowing the law are necessary conditions of moral responsibility and therefore the necessary conditions of sin.

NATIVE DEMERIT EXCLUDES EVERY ELEMENT OF THE TRUE DEFINITION. THEREFORE NATIVE DEPRAVITY CAN NOT BE SIN IN THE SENSE OF PENAL DESERT." Dr. Samuel Harris of Yale: "Sin is the gratification of desire against the protest of right reason."

5. Nor is moral depravity any the less a state of moral ruin. It unfits for heaven. We cannot get rid of it by our own endeavor. Only the healing cleansing grace of heaven can fit us for glory.

III. THE STATE OF INFANTS.

It is now proper to ask-what is the state of infants as they come into the World, and if they die how are they saved? Or, are they saved at all? A Calvinistic Creed lying before us tenderly consigns all but the "elect" to hell as follows: "Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ, who worketh when and where and how he pleaseth; so also are all other elect persons, who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word." "Others not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the Word, and may have some common operations of the Spirit, yet not being effectually drawn by the Father, they neither do nor can come unto Christ and therefore cannot be saved." The clerk of the Church of which we were pastor heard a Calvinistic preacher say at the funeral of a babe: "No doubt this infant is at this moment a writhing little viper in hell!" How comforting such ministrations must have been to the bereaved parents!

On the other hand, three months ago we heard a Methodist Bishop say, when baptizing a babe: "This babe has a right to be baptized, for it was born regenerated." Dr. Godbey goes farther still. He said in the Revivalist (Jan. 13, 1910): "The wonderful redeeming grace of Christ reaches every human being the moment soul and body are united in the prenatal state and thus constitute personality. Therefore, every one born into this world is born a Christian. At the same time everyone is born with the inherited depravity, or the carnal nature dwelling in them."

In his Theology, Dr. Godbey says: "The prenatal justification and regeneration constitute the normal redemption of every soul, verifying the consolatory fact that every human being, through the wonderful and stupendous grace of God in Christ, is actually born in the kingdom, and only gets out by overt transgression" (p. 217). "Conversion does not include justification and sanctification, because the child already had these works of grace, having, received them in the prenatal state" (p. 225). No scripture is given for these statements, and we doubt if there is any.

Other great sections of the Christian Church teach that infants are regenerated by baptism. This is the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church and of most churches that came directly from it. Where lies the truth among these conflicting opinions? If the doctrine of baptismal regeneration be true, the unbaptized babes, dying in infancy would be lost.

"Augustine's doctrine of native sin carried with it, of course, the damnation of infants. This consequence was felt to be horrible. Augustine himself was appalled. No wonder that he cried to Jerome for help in this awful perplexity. There could be no rest. All the better feelings of pious souls cried out for relief. There were no eyes to see the assured blessedness of dying infants in the free grace of a universal atonement. Relief was sought in the sacrament of baptism. Baptism must have power to wash away sin- must have because of the exigency of infant salvation. Baptism thus became a saving ordinance and, naturally enough very soon for adult sinners as well as for dying infants. So one false doctrine led to another which has been of infinite detriment to the spiritual life of the Church. But if the sacraments are saving we must have a priesthood for their proper administration. Sacerdotalism is the result. Sacerdotalism, like baptismal regeneration has been a ca- i lamity to the Christian life. By a legitimate consequence, Augus-! tine's exaggerated doctrine of native sin, greatly strengthened and , intensified both, and sent them down the centuries as a fearful heritage of evil. Moral paralysis and despair were in his doctrine. Within the moral and religious sphere, man was absolutely helpless; a mass of sin and perdition, with power only to sin, and under the absolute necessity of sinning. In the utter blackness and darkness of the doctrine no eyes could see the universal grace of a universal atonement" (Miley, Vol. I, p. 532). We all have reason to thank God that a kindlier and saner theology has come to the world.

Some one asks: "But if the infant is irresponsible, how can Christ be to him a pardoner of sin and a Saviour? Probably Dr. Miley voices the best Methodist thought when he answers thus: "Christ still stands a Saviour to the infant as we hold, in the following respects:

1. Had not Christ been given, the race, in all probability, would not have been permitted to be propagated after the fall. So the grace of God underlies the very existence of every human being that is born.

2. Between the infant descendant of fallen Adam and God there is a contrariety of moral nature, by which the former is irresponsibly, and in undeveloped condition, averse to the latter, and so displacent to him. By Christ, the Mediator, that averseness is regeneratively removed, and the divine complacency restored; so that the race is enabled to persist under the divine grace. I

3. Christ, in case of infant death, entirely removes this sin- f ward nature, so as to harmonize the being with the holiness of heaven.

4. Christ is the infants' justifier against every accuser, whether devils, evil men, or mistaken theologians; asserting their claim through his merits, in spite of their fallen lineage, to redemption and heaven. Being thus purified, justified and glorified by Christ, none are more truly qualified to join in the song of Moses and the Lamb" (Vol. I, p. 530).

IV. THEOLOGICAL INCONSISTENCIES OF METHODIST WRITERS.

In an appendix to his Second Volume, Miley, the keenest minded and most astute logician of them all, points out the logical inconsistency of many Arminian and Methodist writers. They sometimes wrote carelessly, after the Calvinistic fashion of their day, using phrases inconsistent with the basic principles of their own theology, which Calvinists clearly saw, and were quick to make use of. It all turned on this question of the connection of the race with Adamic sin. ARMINIUS, after speaking of the sin of Adam and Eve, proceeds: "The whole of this sin, however, is not peculiar to our first parents, but is common to the entire race and to all their posterity."

Wesley, arguing against Taylor, once wrote: "If no other was justly punishable, then no other was punished for that transgression But all were punished for that transgression, namely, with death. Therefore all were justly punishable for it." "And, since it is sc plain that all men are actually punished for Adam's sin, it musf needs follow that they 'all sinned in Adam' " (Works, Vol. V, p. 526). FLETCHER holds the common guilt of the race through a participation in the Sin of Adam. This appears in his doctrine of infant-justification through the grace of the atonement. This grace is universal and the justification unconditional. But the justification is' the cancellation of sin in the sense of demerit or guilt and therefore implies such form of native sin.

MR. WATSON, says Miley, held to the present Calvinistic theory of Adamic representation. He says of infants, "The fact of their being born liable to death, a part of the penalty, is sufficient to show that they were born under the whole malediction (Vol. II, p. 58). POPE says: "But when St. Paul establishes the connection between sin and death, as its comprehensive penalty, he teaches that the condemnation of the first sin reigns over all mankind, as in some sense one with Adam" (Vol. II, p. 48). "Dr. Pope holds the intrinsic sinfulness of the corruption of nature with which we are born" (Miley). "Dr. Pope maintains a free justification in Christ which fully covers the Adamic sin of the race. "The condemnation resting upon the race as such is removed by the virtue of the one oblation beginning with the beginning of sin" (p. 59).

Let it be understood that all these writers held that the atonement of Christ covered all the guilt of original sin and all came into the world justified from it. But Miley points out that they admitted too much and put themselves in a false and untenable position. Unless the infants somehow sinned in Adam, or their depravity brought penal desert why did they need to be justified? What were they to be pardoned for? or justified from? Miley well says: "If we agree with the Calvinist on the consequence of the Adamic, connection of the race, that all are thereby constituted sinners in the sense of punitive desert, there is where we ought to meet the issue. But our theologians refuse to do this, but interpose a common justification in Christ, and on this ground dispute the Calvinistic position. The real issue is thus avoided. There are here three closely connected questions. (1) The consequence of Adam's sin to the race. (2) The manner in which God has actually dealt with the race, as involved in that consequence; (3) and the manner in which he might justly have dealt with it.

"We have seen the substantial agreement of many Arminian and Calvinistic writers on the first question. There is a wide difference on the second question. With the Calvinist, God dealt with the sinful race in the mode of election and reprobation-redeeming a part of mankind; with the Arminian in the mode of a universal atonement. In this issue the truth is surely with the Arminian. But this gives him no legal right to shun the third question-the manner in which God might have dealt with the race.

The Calvinist asserts that, as by the sin of Adam all men deserve an eternal penal doom, God might justly exclude a part from the grace of redemption. If we hold the Adamic sinfulness in which that position is grounded, we must meet the issue at this point. To answer that God has not so dealt with the race is to evade the question.

There is no escape in this mode. The doctrine of a common Adamic sin with the desert of an eternal penal doom, binds us to its logical implications. To say that God could not justly inflict this penalty on all mankind is to impeach his justice in holding us guilty for the sin of Adam. If the universal execution of the penalty would be unjust, the universal sentence of condemnation would be unjust.

"The doctrine maintained in the quotations from Arminian writers means that the offspring of Adam simply on account of his sin, and without any personal fault of their own, might justly be doomed to an eternal penal death. It means that, previous to the common justification in Christ, all are under this condemnation and might justly suffer the infliction of this penal doom. John Fletcher said: "Calvinists are now ashamed of consigning infants to the torments of hell; they begin to extend their election to them all." Yet Fletcher himself maintained a doctrine of original sin which means the desert of such a doom; and many Arminians in his succession have done the same. If the infliction of such a doom would deeply offend one's sensibilities, why should not the doctrine of its just desert equally offend one's moral reason? IF CALVINISTS ARE ASHAMED OF THE DOCTRINE OF INFANT DAMNATION, IT SEEMS QUITE TIME THAT ARMINIANS WERE ASHAMED OF THE DOCTRINE OF A UNIVERSAL INFANT DESERT OF DAMNATION."

Amen! Miley has the keenest, clearest moral intuition of them all, and the surest-footed logic. He sees clearly that we can not agree with Calvinists on the consequences of Adam's sin without going with them the whole way. It is like a break in the levee; the whole Mississippi will pour through. The way to travel with a Calvinist through his special doctrines is to stop just before you start. Deny his first premise and everything that follows.

When we first began to critically examine this subject we were amazed at the admission of many Methodist writers. We were held true to the faith by what we were taught at Yale, until we studied Miley, who drank at the fountain. Some things are infallibly true. No just penalty needs vindication. If infant guilt be true there is no injustice on the part of God in sending them to hell. "The denial by Methodists of the propagation of the race, except under an economy of universal redemption, is a part of the argument to clear the divine justice of all reason of impeachment in the matter of original sin. There can be no reason for this defense, except with the consent that original sin, with its penalty is in itself an injustice." "If the penalties of original sin are in themselves consistent with the divine justice, no compensatory provision is needed for their vindication; if inconsistent, no such provision can justify them" (Miley, Vol. II, p. 251).

The logical conclusion is that there is no original sin that brings penalty upon infants. All the sufferings and depravity that come to them are a misfortune and not a penalty. And all these misfortunes are more than compensated by the blessings that come through Christ. Punishment without responsibility, offends the moral reason of mankind, and is a wicked reflection on the goodness and justice of God.

The Revising Committee of the Presbyterian Church in 1902 reported as follows: "We believe that our first parents, being tempted, chose evil, and so fell away from God, and came under the power of sin, the penalty of which is eternal death; and we confess that by reason of this disobedience we and all men are born with a sinful nature (?) that we have broken God's law, and that no man can be saved but by His grace." Notice, "all realism and sinning in Adam," all "federal headship representation," all "imputation of Adam's sin" and all "guilt and damnation of infants" is left out. It is too big a load even for Calvinists to carry- at least in public.