speech, whereby God mocked and upbraided man for his folly. But I rather think it a declaration of the divine will; for since man had taken on him to choose for himself, and to judge what was good and evil for him without consulting his Maker, therefore God resolved to deprive him of the supernatural assistance he designed to afford him, and leave him to his natural faculties to guide and direct him; let him be, as it were, his own God, and enjoy the fruit of his choice. To this purpose he deprived him of the use of the tree of life, drove him out of the garden where it was, and fenced it against him. "The effects of man's being left to his own power and faculties for his direction and support, are many and fatal. It is easy to shew that from hence come all the errors and follies of our lives. For our understandings being finite, we are every moment at a loss, we are forced in most things to guess, and being unable to find the truth, are frequently mistaken. From the same come all the sins, corruptions and crimes that overwhelm the world. For being left to our choice, we not only mistake, but choose amiss. One error, or sin, makes way for another; we proceed daily in corruption, and the infection spreads as the world grows older. Custom, education and company, do all contribute to make us worse and worse; and in nothing of all this is God to be blamed. We bring these on our. selves, and they are not to be prevented without a miracle, which no one can say God is obliged to work for us *." This profound reasoner, and most orthodox Divine, neither charges God with injustice, by talking of imputed guilt, nor perplexes himself and his readers with the question, which never can be solved, whether the natural powers of the human mind were depraved by the fall of the first man; but proves that all which has been forfeited by Adam, might, with perfect justice on the part of the Deity, have been withheld from his descendants, though he himself had never fallen; and that all the natural and moral evil of the world may be fairly accounted for by the withdrawing of that supernatural aid, which was vouchsafed to the parents of mankind in Paradise. In these sentiments Bishop Bull agrees with him; though he admits, as the Schoolmen admitted, that a taint may have been transmitted from Adam to the corporeal part of every individual of the human race. "Cæterum patres illi, qui negârunt, hominem per gratiam Christi, quæ in Evangelio promittitur, posse legem perfecti implere ac sine peccato esse, videntur mihi legem intellexisse xar' angiberav, nempe originalem illam, quæ primum hominem in statu integro obligavit, perfectissimum. que fuit exemplar legis æternæ; ac peccati vocem minus proprie accepisse pro quoticunque nævo sine défectu, qui licèt jam humano generi in pænam primi peccati naturalis factus sit, neque ullo modo in hâc vitâ penitus exui possit adeoque non sit propriè ac formaliter peccatum, sed potius, ut dixi, peccati primi pœna; tamen est quædam à lege æterna, sive a creationis lege deflexio. In hunc peccati censum venit illa concupiscentiæ sol. * Sermon on the Fall of Man, licitatio, licitatio, quæ optimos in hac mortali vita plùs minùsve perpetuó exercet, etiamsi nullum omnino voluntatis assensum extorqueat: item defectus illi omnes atque infirmitates, quæ prorsus necessario profluunt a vitioso humani corporis temperamento primum peccatum consecuto, sine ab amissione exquisitissimæ illius lungaolas, qua in creatione sua detatus fuit Protoplastes, quam. que, nisi peccasset, conservare potuisset per esum ligni vitæ, ipsi a Deo concessum *." If this be compared with what we have quoted (p. 9) from the English works of the same eminently learned and pious man, no doubt can remain what side of this alternative he adopted He who affirmed, in one work, that the original righteousness of the first mant was supernatural, cannot with candour be supposed to have taught, in another, that the forfeiture of that righteousness consisted in the positive depravation of his natural faculties. The question, however, to be discussed here is, whether this primitive view of the consequences of the first transgression be consonant with the doctrine of our Church; for though the two Prelates were men of the highest abilities and integrity, they were yet liable to mistake, and may have deceived themselves when they subscribed the Articles, as they undoubtedly believed, in their literal and grammatical sense. That they did deceive themselves is incontrovertible, if our author's interpretation of the Ninth Article be perfectly correct; but whilst this is admitted on the one hand, it will not surely be denied on the other, either that Dr. Laurence is as liable to mistake as they were, or that the language cannot be remarkable for perspicuity and precision, which he and they have interpreted differently. "The application of what has been observed" (says Dr. L.) "to the Article of our Church upon the same subject, has been already, perhaps anticipated. Original sin is there defined to be, the fault and cirruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is far gone from original righteousness, and is if his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth alwys contrary to the spirit, and therefore, in every person born into this world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation. When we recollect the peculiar theory of the scholastics, we immediately perceive with what this definition was intended to be contrasted. According to their statement, original sin is nothing more than a defect of original righteousness, which instead of being a connatu. ral quality, was itself only a supernatural ornament, unessential to the soul. In opposition, therefore, to such a conceit, our Church represents it to be the fault and corruption of every man's nature, not the loss of a superadded grace, but the vitiation of his innate powers; a vitiation, by which he is very far removed from original righteousness, and by which she subjoins, again repeating the word before used as distinctly expressive of her meaning, he is inclined to evil of his own nature; so that his passions continually resist the controul of his reason. Yet while she esteems. * Appendix ad Examen Animadversionis, 17, § 15. it not, as her adversaries held, an innocuous propensity, she does not declare it to be punishable as a crime; but steering a middle course, with a moderation, for which she is always remarkable, asserts it only to be deserving of God's dipleasure*. After the preceding definition, to which none but the sophists of the schools could object, she proceeds to observe, in perfect conformity with common sense, and with the doctrine of the Lutherans, that this depravation of nature remains after baptism, so that concupiscence, or whatever else may be meant by the pmua capnos of St. Paul, is not, as the Council of Trent had then recently maintained, and as the Church of Rome had always believed it to be, a sinless inclination; but one rebelling against the law of God, and which, according to the Apostle, who nevertheless admits that there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized, retains in itself the nature of sin.”— (P. 64-66.) That the Article of our Church, thus interpreted, is Lutheran and not Calvinistical, cannot be denied; and that the language of it will admit of this interpretation we feel not ourselves inclined to controvert; but we are persuaded that it will likewise admit of an interpretation somewhat different from this, for it is certainly less precise and perspicuous than the language of any other of our existing Articles. The phrase, original righteousness, cannot be taken literally in the sense in which the word righteousness is now used by any party; for, in that sense, Adam, when immediately created, was neither righteous nor unrighteous. He was, indeed, innocent, but however perfect we may suppose his nature to have been, he had then done neither good nor evil; and we know, on the highest authority, that it is only "he who doth righteousness, that is righteous." Ey the phrase, original righteousness, therefore, must be understood, either that Adam's appetites were under complete subjection to his moral and intellectual power, or that he was in all things of importance directed by the superadded grace of God's good spirit, for another alternative is plainly inconceivable. That his appetites were not under such complete subjection as Dr. Laurence seems to suppose, is apparent from his conduct; for we learn from Moses † and St. Paul †, that Adam was not deceived by the serpent, but seduced by his wife; and it deserves to be considered, whether, on that occasion, he betrayed not more of the Gimpa apos, than his descendant Joseph afterwards betrayed, when This is not the language of the Article. The lusting of the flesh contrary to the spirit deserveth, according to the Article, "God's wrath and damnation ;" and the meaning of these words may probably be discovered, by comparing them with the same words as used Thess. ii. 15, 16. and Cor. xi. 29, 30. Our author, indeed, admits (Notes, p. 271), that damnation does not here imply God's final condemnation to hell-fire, and quotes Bishop Hooper, one of the Reformers, as speaking of persons damned by the magistrates. Gen.. chap. iii, and 1 Tim. ii. 14. he he resisted the solicitations of Potiphar's wife. Is it not, therefore, more reasonable to suppose that our Reformers understood the phrase, original righteousness, as it had been understood by the primitive Church, and by those authors of more recent date, with whose works they had all been conversant; than that they employed it in a sense, at once modern, and directly contrary to facts, recorded by those who wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost? The Article, indeed, appears to have been directed not so much against the Schoolinen, as against the nabaptists, who had lately revived the heresy of Pelagius on this subject; for, as it was agreed upon in 1552, it ran thus :--" Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam, as the Pelagians do vainly talk, which also the Anchap tists do now a-days renew (ut fabulantur Pelagiani, et hodie Anabaptistæ repetunt);” thus condemning both these sets, but passing not the slightest censure on the doctrine of the Schoolmen. Dr. Laurence, indeed says, that in every part of the definition of original sin adopted by our Reformers, the attack is made principally against the Papists; that the error of the Anabaptists seems to have been introduced merely for the purpose of less openly declaring the object of assault; and that the clause respecting the Anabaptists was consequently omitted in 1562, .when disguise was less necessary, or less regarded. But for all this no evidence whatever is produced. By comparing the Articles, of works done before justification, and purgatory, as they were drawn up in 1552, with those which are now established on the same subjects, the reader will perceive that Cranmer and his friends scrupled as little as Parker to censure the Schoolmen directly, when they deemed them worthy of censure; and yet, when treating of original sin they kept them, it seems from delicacy, entirely out of view, and answered them only through the sides of the Anabaptists! But if, as our author says, these substitutes were drept, when disguise was less necessary, how came the Pelagians to be retained, and still no mention to be made of the Schoolmen ? The answer to this question seems to be, that, on the subject of original sin, the doctrines of Pelagius and the Schoolmen have little or nothing in common; and that our Reformers never intended to class them together, or to pass on them the same censure. Pelagius taught that Adam would have died, whether he had eaten of the forbidden fruit or not; that his transgression affected himself only; that death is not the consequence of that transgression, but proceeds from the necessity of nature; that man stands not in need of divine aid to enable him to subdue his appetites, and perform all that is required of him; and that by the grace of Christ nothing more is meant than his doctrine and his example t. To these doctrines the scholastic view of original ཚོ༞ ༢; *Note, p. 269. . + We know little of the peculiar doctrines of Pelagius, but from Augustine, original sin, which our author exhibits, bears no resemblance; and we need hardly say, that the doctrine of our Church, as understood by Bishop Bull and Archbishop King, is farther removed from Pelagianism, than the same doctrine as understood by Dr. Laurence. The man can be in very little danger of flattering human pride, or of claiming any thing as the reward of human merit, who is aware that no created being has a title to eternal life, either as the right of his nature, or as the reward of his obedience; and who believes that even in Paradise man could perform nothing acceptable to his Maker, but through the grace of God, preventing him and working with him.Such appears to have been the doctrine of the primitive Church; such was indisputably the doctrine of those eminent Divines of our own Church, to whom we have already referred; and such, we believe, to be the sense of our Article. When God placed man in the Garden of Eden, he appears to have in effect said to him : "Your nature requires that you should choose those things, the enjoy. ment whereof will make you happy. I will make your duty easy to you: abstain from this one tree, and whilst you do, I will take care that you shall not chuse amiss in any thing else. Your obedience in this shall be an infallible means to secure you from choosing wrong in any other thing. Whilst you use your free-will right in this, I will take care that you shall not abuse it on any other occasion. You are sufficient to conduct yourself properly as a man upon earth; but you are now by covenant made the heir of immortality and heaven, to which you are not sufficient to guide yourself. I will, therefore, be your guide in all things, if by violation of the covenant you do not forfeit your title to immortality, and thereby render my supernatural direction superfluous *.” If this be a just view of the state of man before the fall, and to the present writer it has long appeared to be just, the original righteousness mentioned in the Eighth Article, must be looked upon as essential to man, considered only as an heir of heaven and immortality, but as not essential to him, considered merely as a rational and sentient inhabitant of this earth. When Heaven, therefore, was forfeited, this original righteousness was forfeited likewise; and it was restored to us as our title to Heaven, and immortality was restored only through the interposition of our Redeemer, who was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. But though every regenerate Christian is influenced by the same spirit, which was the guide of Adam in Paradise, the lust of the flesh, which is often strongly felt, even by the gustine, by whom they were opposed and confuted. Perhaps the most impartial account of them extant, within a very small compass, is given by Cave, in Hist. Literaria; and it is of that account that we have given the substance in the text. * See King's Sermon on the Fall, not for the words which we have used, but for the doctrine. best |