The Grace of Christ, or,
Sinners Saved by Unmerited Kindness
William S. Plumer, 1853
"We believe it is through the grace of our
Lord Jesus that we are saved." Acts 15:11
THE CORRUPTION OF MAN IS HEREDITARY
No mere man was ever born without a sinful nature. The
Son of God miraculously derived his human nature from his mother alone, and
escaped the taint of original sin. Mary herself however was a sinner and
needed a Savior, as she readily confessed. Luke 1:47. As Emesenus said, "the
mother of the Redeemer is not otherwise loosed from the bonds of her sin,
than by redemption." All the Pope's teachings on this subject are idle
dreams. Every human being whose descent has been in the ordinary way has
inherited a corrupt nature. The faith of the people of God on this subject
has been as uniform as on any other truth of the Gospel. In Psalm 51:5, in
the midst of the humblest and most penitent confessions, David says:
"Behold, I was shaped in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me."
All attempts to set aside the clear teachings of this passage have been such
as rather to shock by their profaneness, than to deceive by their
plausibility. Sound commentators have been wonderfully agreed as to the
teaching of this verse. Ambrose says: "All are born in sin, as David
witnesses," and then quotes these words. Luther says: "It is a great part of
wisdom, for one to know, that there is nothing good in us, but vain sin,
that we do not think and speak so triflingly of sin as those, who say that
it is nothing else than the thoughts, words, and deeds, which are contrary
to the law of God. But if you will rightly point out according to this
Psalm, what sin is, you must say, that all are sinners, who are born of
father and mother, even before the time that man is of age to know what to
do, speak, or think."
Calvin says: "David does not confess himself guilty
merely of some one or more sins, as formerly, but he rises higher, that from
his mother's womb he has brought forth nothing but sin, and by nature is
wholly corrupt, and, as it were, immersed in sin. And certainly we have no
solid conviction of sin, unless we are led to accuse our whole nature of
corruption." Perhaps in all his writings this great man has not made a
remark more fully coincident with religious experience, and of more weight
in personal piety than the last sentence quoted from him: "Certainly we have
no solid conviction of sin, unless we are led to accuse our whole nature of
corruption." Patrick's paraphrase of the verse is: "It is true indeed, and
you, O Lord, know it better than I--that there is in me an innate proneness
to evil; but I am so far from representing this as an excuse for what I have
done, that I confess the consideration of it ought to have rendered me the
more watchful and diligent to suppress those bad inclinations; which I knew
to be so natural, that I brought them into the world with me." Horne says:
"Divine mercy is implored by the penitent, because that alone can dry up the
fountain of original corruption, from which the streams of actual
transgression derive themselves; and which is here only lamented as their
cause, not as their excuse; seeing that the greater our danger is of
falling, the greater should be our care to stand. David was the offspring of
the marriage-bed, which is declared to be honorable and undefiled. No more,
therefore, can be intended here, than that a creature begotten by a sinner,
and formed in the womb of a sinner, cannot be without that taint, which is
hereditary to every son and daughter of Adam and Eve."
Matthew Henry says: "David here confesses his original
corruption." "He elsewhere speaks of the piety of his mother, that she was
God's handmaid, and he pleads his relation to her, and yet he here says she
conceived him in sin; for though she was, by grace, a child of God, she was
by nature a daughter of Eve, and not excepted from the common character.
Note--it is to be sadly lamented by everyone of us that we brought into the
world with us a corrupt nature, wretchedly degenerated from its primitive
purity and rectitude." Scott says that David, "having received from his
parents Adam's fallen nature with all its evil propensities, confesses that
he was conceived and shaped in iniquity." Hengstenberg says that the
doctrine of original sin is so plainly taught here, "that nothing but the
most confused mind can deny it. For when David confesses, that even before
the development of his consciousness, before the time of his distinguishing
between good and evil, that even at his birth, nay at his very conception,
sin dwelt in him, and had so poisoned his nature, that he was quite
incapable of attaining to true righteousness and wisdom; he places himself
in direct collision with those, who consider sin merely as a product of the
abused freedom of each individual, and leaves room for no other derivation
of sinfulness than this, that it goes down from parents to their children,
according to the word, 'what is born of the flesh is flesh.'" J. A.
Alexander says: "Having just before confessed his actual transgressions, he
now acknowledges the corruption of his nature."
Theologians no less than commentators, have taken the
same view of this text. Even John Taylor of Norwich admits that the first
clause is correctly translated "I was born in sin." Whereupon Edwards well
says, "If it is owned that man is born in sin, it is not worth the while to
dispute, whether it is expressly asserted that he is conceived in sin."
Beveridge says, "Sin was in his heart, while he was in his mother's womb;
for seeing he was conceived in sin, sin must needs be conceived in him."
Alexander Hill says: "The Scriptures not only declare that all have sinned,
but they seem to refer the abounding of iniquity to a cause antecedent to
education, example, or the operation of particular circumstances; and in
numberless places they represent the nature of man as corrupt. Of this kind
are the following: "The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth."
"Behold I was shaped in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me."
"The wicked are estranged from the womb, they go astray as soon as they be
born, speaking lies." "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not
one.'" Dr. Leonard Woods of Andover says: "Is it not a plain matter of fact,
that a depraved nature, a propensity to sin, is transmitted from parent to
child, and has descended from the common ancestor of our race to all his
posterity? Are we not 'degenerate plants of a strange vine?' And if
depravity comes in this way, what impropriety is there in calling it
hereditary?"
These views have been presented chiefly in connection
with one text of Scripture, rather than to call attention to many. If any
prefer to examine others, they are easily found. The true spirit of David's
confession in Psalm 51:5 is fully coincident with the sentiments of every
deeply humble and penitent man who ever lived. Different Christian Churches
have spoken very strongly and harmoniously on the subject of native
depravity. The Confession of Bohemia says: "Original sin is naturally
engendered in us, and hereditary; wherein we are all conceived and born into
this world." The Confession of France says: "We believe that all the
offspring of Adam is infected with this contagion, which we call original
sin: that is a stain spreading itself by propagation, and not by
imitation only as the Pelagians thought; all whose errors we do detest.
Neither do we think it necessary to search how this sin may be derived from
one unto another. For it is sufficient that those things which God gave unto
Adam, were not given to him alone, but also to all his posterity; and
therefore we, in his person, being deprived of all these good gifts are
fallen into all this misery and curse." The Confession of England holds this
language: "We say also that every person is born in sin, and leads his life
in sin: that nobody is able truly to say his heart is clean." The Confession
of Scotland says that by the fall "the image of God was utterly defaced in
man; and he, and his posterity of nature became enemies to God, slaves to
Satan, and servants to sin." The Confession of Belgia teaches that,
"Original sin is a corruption of the whole nature, and an hereditary evil;
wherewith even the very infants in their mothers' womb are polluted; the
which also as a most noisome root does branch out most abundantly all kind
of sin in man." The Augsburg Confession says that "after the fall of Adam,
all men descended one from another have original sin, even when they are
born." The Confession of Saxony says: "As touching original sin, we do
plainly affirm that we do retain the consent of the true Church of God,
delivered to us from the first fathers, prophets, apostles, and the
apostles, scholars, even unto Augustine, and after his time, and we do
expressly condemn Pelagius, and all those, who have scattered in the Church
like doting follies."
The Confession of Wirtemberg says: "We believe and
confess that in the beginning, man was created by God--just, wise, endued
with free will, adorned with the Holy Spirit, and happy; but that afterwards
for his disobedience, he was deprived of the Holy Spirit, and made the
bondslave of Satan, and subject both to corporal and eternal damnation; and
that evil did not stay in one only Adam, but was derived into all the
posterity." The Church of England, the Church of Ireland, and the Wesleyan
Methodist Churches all hold this language: "Original sin stands not in the
following of Adam (as the Pelagians do vainly talk) but in the corruption of
the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of
Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and of his
own nature inclined to evil and that continually." The Synod of Dort says:
"Such as man was after the fall, such children he begat; namely, a corrupt
issue from a corrupt father; this corruption being by the just judgment of
God derived from Adam to all his posterity (Christ only excepted) and that
not by imitation (as of old the Pelagians would have it), but by the
propagation of nature." The London and Philadelphia Baptist, the Savoy,
Cambridge and Boston Congregational, and the Presbyterian Confessions in
Great Britain and America, say that a "corrupted nature is conveyed to all
the posterity of our first parents," and that thereby "we are utterly
indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to
all evil."
The Heidelberg Catechism, speaking of the misery of man,
says:
3. Whence know you your misery? Out of the law of God.
4. What does the law of God require of us? Christ teaches us briefly, (Matt.
22:37-40,) "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all
your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first
and the great command; and the second is like to this: You shall love your
neighbor as yourself. On these two commands hang the whole law and the
prophets."
5. Can you keep all these things perfectly? In no sense; for I am prone by
nature to hate God and my neighbor.
6. Did God then create man so wicked and perverse? By no means, but God
created man good, and after his own image, in righteousness and true
holiness, that he might rightly know God his Creator, heartily love him, and
live with him in eternal happiness, to glorify him and praise him.
7. Whence, then, proceeds this depravity of human nature? From the fall and
disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise; hence our
nature is become so corrupt, that we are all conceived and born in sin.
8. Are we then so corrupt that we are wholly incapable of doing any good,
and inclined to all wickedness? Indeed we are, except we are regenerated by
the Spirit of God.
9. Does not God then do injustice to man, by requiring of him, in his law,
that which he cannot perform? Not at all; for God made man capable of
performing it; but man, by the instigation of the devil, and his own willful
disobedience, deprived himself and all his posterity of those divine gifts.
10. Will God allow such disobedience and rebellion to go unpunished? By no
means, but he is terribly displeased with our original sin, as well as
actual sins; and will punish them in his just judgment temporally and
eternally, as he has declared, "Cursed is everyone who continues not in all
things which are written in the book of the law, to de them."
11. Is not God then also merciful? God is indeed merciful, but also just;
therefore his justice requires that sin, which is committed against the most
high majesty of God, be also punished with extreme, that is, with
everlasting punishment, both of body and soul."
John Wesley says, "If, therefore, we take away this
foundation, that man is by nature foolish and sinful, fallen short of the
glorious image of God, the Christian system falls at once; nor will it
deserve so honorable an appellation as that of a 'cunningly devised fable.'"
Richard Watson says: "The true Arminian, as fully as the Calvinist, admits
the doctrine of the total depravity of human nature in consequence of the
fall of our first parents." Arminius, speaking of the first sin oft the
first man, says: "The whole of this sin is not peculiar to our first
parents, but is common to the whole race, and to all their posterity, who at
the time when the first sin was committed, were in their loins, and who
afterwards descended from them in the natural mode of propagation." Richard
Baxter says: "You cannot exempt infants themselves from sin and misery."
Beveridge says: "Adam begat Seth and all his posterity in his own likeness,
(Gen. 5:3,) and, if in his own likeness, then sinners like himself. A wolf
begets wolves, not lambs; so a sinner begat sinners, not saints."
Let the celebrated saying of Augustine not be forgotten:
"Neither the guilty unbeliever, nor the justified believer begets
innocent--but guilty children; because the generation of both is from
corrupted nature." Nor is the remark of Calvin less weighty: "Original sin
is properly accounted sin in the sight of God, because there could be no
guilt without crime."
As frequent allusion is made to the Pelagians, it
may be useful here to insert their opinions on the subject of the native
corruption of man. Pelagius says: "In our birth we are equally destitute of
virtue and vice; and previously to moral agency, there is nothing in man,
but that which God created in him." His disciple Celestius held that
"infants are born in that state in which Adam was before he sinned." Julian,
another of the same school, held that "human nature in the time of our being
born is rich in the gift of innocence;" and "nobody is born with sin." It is
a very favorite idea with all Pelagians that sin consists only in acts, and
is a voluntary transgression of known law and nothing else. As to the text
of Scripture, on which such rely, it should be remembered that while we read
"sin is the transgression of the law;" the word rendered "transgression" is
literally "want of conformity," and no one denies that sin is either a
transgression of law, or a lack of conformity to it. The same inspired
apostle tells us that "all unrighteousness is sin."