Bicknell on Articles IX, X, XV, XVI: Of Original or Birth-sin; Of Free-Will; Of Christ alone without Sin; Of Sin after Baptism

bably it was directed against certain Anabaptists who denied our Lord’s sinlessless. Others have held that it was aimed at the belief in the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin. This is unlikely. The belief was not yet de fide in the Roman Church. The Articles usually are perfectly straightforward in their attack on views that they do not accept. A much shorter and more definite Article would have sufficed. Further, the Blessed Virgin was never ‘baptized and born again in Christ.’ Hence the former view is preferable.

It is characteristic of the age in which our Articles were written that they hasten at once to speak of ‘ the fault and corruption’ of man’s nature. ‘ Man is very far gone from original righteous- ness,’ 1.e. aS the Article of 1553 stated, ‘ his former righteousness which he had at his creation.’ But we cannot understand man’s present condition unless we know something of man as he is in himself. What is meant by that ‘original righteousness ’ which man has lost ? What is man’s true nature and what is his relation to God ?

(a) The phrase in the Article is an allusion to the picture of man’s life given in the opening chapters of Genesis. The com- pilers of our Articles, no doubt, like all other men of their day, regarded these chapters as literal history, and Adam and Eve as historical persons. Such a view to-day is impossible, but the religious value of these chapters has been increased rather than diminished by modern knowledge. The Jews inherited from their ancestors a stock of common Semitic traditions about the origin of the world and of mankind. As these were handed down from generation to generation, they were taken up by the pro- phets and under the guidance of God purged of their grosser elements and transformed into a vehicle of moral and spiritual

truth.* In their present form these chapters come not at the beginning but rather towards the close of God’s revelation to Israel. They are, as it were, the summing up of those great truths about the nature and purpose of human life that God had been teaching the people by His prophets through the cen- turies. Israel had risen to a higher conception of human nature than that attamed by any other pre-Christian religion.t God had given to the prophets a unique insight into the meaning and value of man’s personality, and into the true goal and pur- pose of our earthly life. In Genesis we find these truths that God had revealed set forth in an ideal picture of man living as God made and meant him to be.

Scripture, like science, represents man as the ‘ roof and crown ’ of God’s creation (Gen. 1%, 9’7, Ps. 8, etc.). He is the link between nature and God, God’s vicegerent in the world. On the one hand he possesses a body akin to that of the beasts and made, like theirs, of the dust of the earth (Gen. 2724 19 et¢.), Modern science tells us that our bodies are the product of long ages of evolution and are derived by physical descent from animal life. They are not one bit the less either human bodies or the creation of God because they have come to be what they are as the climax of a long process and not as the immediate result of the creative word of God. On the other hand, man is created ‘in the image of God ’ (Gen. 1”) by a special in-breathing of divine spirit (2’). No words could bring out more clearly the dignity and possibilities of human nature made ‘ but little lower than God’ (Ps. 8°, R.V.).£ It is in virtue of this ‘image of God’ in him that man is able to know and love God. Like can only know like. More particularly this image of God includes the possession of reason and will. Man is able to do what the animals cannot do, understand and co-operate with the divine purposes.§ Further man was made for social life and

• Cp. C. H. Robinson, Human Nature and Revelation of the Divine, c. v.

{ The superiority of man to the animals is shown in Gen. 218-29, Not one of the animals is found able to share Adam’s life and be a ‘help meet’ for him. Cp. also 1° ff.

§ The possession of reason and will is implied by the imposition of a definite

command and prohibition (2°17). No animal is treated in this way. Further, Adam learns to exercise his reason as infants to-day begin to exercise theirs

development. All these elements of human life have their place in the picture of the Garden of Eden. Man is depicted as God meant him to be, at peace with himself, his neighbour, the world and God. By congenial employment in active fellow- ship with God his faculties are trained and developed. Did such a state of things ever exist in actual fact on this earth ? We do not know. We may regard these chapters either as containing an allegorical account of human life as it once actually was, or as an allegorical description of man’s life as God meant it to be, though His purpose was never historically realized.*

For a scientific account of primitive man see: H. v. Buttel Reepen, Man and His Forerunners. Cp. also Duckworth, ‘ Man’s Origin and his Place in Nature,’ Camb. Theol. Hssays, iv. On the general principles of the relation of science to Genesis, see Aubrey Moore, Science and the Faith, c. vi.

(b) But for the Christian the supreme revelation of the possi- bilities of human life is to be found in the example and teaching of Jesus Christ. As Man He exhibited in their completeness all those powers that Adam is represented as exhibiting in some small and preparatory degree. He lived in unbroken fellowship with God. He displayed a perfect sympathy with the divine will and a perfect obedience. He lived His human life as Son of God because man was created to live as son of God. His human faculties were developed by the discipline of the home. He displayed an unfailing love to all men. Since man is made in the image of God, and God is love, man must be love too. In His teaching He interpreted human life from withm. He knew what was in man, because He knew what was in Himself. His perfect humanity held no secrets from Him. The full meaning of ‘original righteousness’ may be studied in Jesus Christ. He alone fulfilled the destiny intended for man on this

by distinguishing things and giving them names (2’*). The social nature of man is shown in vv. 18-25, The family was to be the school of love, in which man was to learn to develop his social nature. It has often been pointed out that in Scripture man begins in a garden and ends in a city.

earth. Further He recognized in every human being the capacity for this same life. Alike in His teaching and in His behaviour He asserted the value of every human soul, just because it was human (cp. Mt. 676, 121%). Christ came to bring light and sal- vation because man was made for light and salvation. Because man was created in the image of God, he was called to live up to his position.

(c) This Scripture doctrine of ‘original righteousness’ rules out as un-Christian many widespread views of man’s nature. It insists that every part of it is ‘ very good.’ There is no neces- sary conflict between the lower and higher elements. We can glorify God in our bodies no less than in our spirits (1 Cor. 67°, cp. Rom. 121). Even our highest activities are conditioned by bodily functions. Every natural desire has a purpose to fulfil. Man has been endowed with reason by which to guide his desires and with will by which to control them. A holy life is not a life in which the body is neglected or ignored. It is rather one in which all the powers of the body are subordinated to a single purpose, the will of God. Our Lord’s example shows us a human body fulfilling its true function as the organ of a life consecrated to God. Accordingly, the man who indulges any passion is not being ‘manly ’ in the true sense.* True manliness consists in subduing all desires to the will. Christian asceticism aims not at annihilating such desires but at reducing them to order (1 Cor. 97’). The true Christian is not the man who has learnt to desire nothing, but the man who has learnt to desire the right things. We must regard our bodies neither as evil nor as neglig- ible. Our Lord never belittled the dignity of the body or despised its needs. A large part of His ministry was taken up in healing it. ‘Mens sana in corpore sano’ is a sound Christian maxim.

§ 2. While the study of man’s nature discloses such magnificent possibilities, his actual condition is very different. He is at peace neither with God nor with the world, nor with his neigh- bour, nor with himself. This disordered state of his nature is

• It is specially necessary to insist that sins of the flesh are not ‘natural’ to man. They are a violation of his true nature. Impurity, for instance, is in the strict sense of the term ‘ abnormal,’ not because it is uncommon but because it destroys the balance of man’s constitution. It violates the law of his being. It is also anti-social,

what is meant by original sin. Before we can discuss the meaning of such a phrase or the account of it given in the Article, we must understand the meaning of the word ‘sin.’

(2) No term is more frequently misused than ‘sin.’ The essential nature of sin depends upon our relation to God. An act that is morally wrong, if viewed as committed against the laws of the state, is a crime: viewed as an offence against our neighbour, it is an injustice or an injury: viewed as offence against our own well-being, it is an act of folly or a piece of damage. Only as committed against God is it asin. To an atheist the word sin has no meaning whatever. Since the state has divine authority a crime is almost always a sin. Since we are commanded to love our neighbour, to injure him is to disobey God’s command. Since God’s law for us is not in any sense arbitrary, but expresses at once His will and the condition of our own highest welfare, an act committed against our own self is a sin. But in every case sin involves a reference to God. We may define sin as ‘personal hostility to the will of God.’ It is setting our will against His: actively disobeying His command or refusing Him the love and submission that we owe. ‘Sin is lawlessness ’ (1 Jn. 34). The effect in ourselves is a dislocation of our inner life, a destruction of the balance and unity of our nature. Sin issues in a divided self. In relation to our fellow men sin is selfishness. The law of God represents the common welfare of all men. Disobedience results from the desire for some personal or private gain. By setting aside God’s will we impair not only our own soundness but the soundness of the society in which we live. So, then, sin is primarily disobedience to the known will of God, either by doing what we ought not to do or leaving undone what we ought todo. It is often pictured as a disease, or a burden, or a stain, or again as an enemy attacking us. All these meta- phors express a truth, but they are far too external. Sin is a condition of our own wills and so of our inmost selves. The definite acts of sin that we commit are evidence of and spring out of this inward disposition, a heart turned away from God and a will divided and impaired.

See Strong, Christian Ethics, Lect. V. Simpson, What is the Gospel ? c. vi. Temple, Rugby Sermons, vol. iii. Sermon XIII. W. H. Moberly in Foundations, p. 274 ff. P

(6) How did sin originate? To-day we should confess that we find no ultimate answer to this question in Scripture. Scrip- ture represents moral evil as not originated by man or confined to him. The compilers of our Articles no doubt regarded Gen. 3 as a historical account of the commission of the first sin. This has coloured the language employed, ‘The condition of man after the fall of Adam…’ (Art. X.). They regarded all men as literally the offspring of Adam. To-day such a view is impossible. In this, as in the preceding chapters, we have an old myth that has passed through the hands of the Hebrew prophets and been transfigured so as to teach in the form of a story the meaning of sin. It gives us not a historical account of the origin of sin but an inspired analysis of its meaning. Its value lies not in its historical but its spiritual accuracy. Through their own experi- ence and the experience of the nation, the prophets had been led to see that sin is essentially disobedience to God. This is wonder- fully brought out in the picture of the taking of the forbidden fruit.* Though no certain reference to this chapter occurs in the rest of O.T. this same conception of sin is implied throughout. The story awakens an echo in our own experience. All we can say is that whatever the first sin was, in order to be sin at all, it must have involved, first a knowledge of a higher law binding on the will, and then the conscious choice of a lower course, by one who knew it to be the lower. Our Lord in His teaching accepts and deepens the O.T. doctrine of sin. He assumes sin but never explains its origin. He calls us to deal in a practical manner with the sin in ourselves, by repentance and obedience. It is more important for us to recognize the unsatisfactoriness of our present condition and the remedy for it than to know how it originated. Jesus Christ came to save men from sin and to impart new life. Through the obedience of His Cross He restores that fellowship with God which our disobedience has impaired.

(c) This then is ‘actual’ sin, personal antagonism to the known will of God. But our Article speaks in the main of ‘original sin.’ The phrase is not Scriptural, but was used first

• We notice first the recognition of God’s command by Eve as binding (v. 3), then the temptation that is allowed to find a response within. The appeal is made to all sides of their nature. The fruit is ‘good for food ’—the lust of the flesh ; ‘ pleasant to the eye “—the lust of the eyes ; ‘to be desired to make one wise ’—the longing for a richer and fuller experience at all costs.

by Tertullian. It denotes not an act or habit but a condition ofournature. ‘Original sin’ is at bottom the attempt to express the fact that all men fall into sin. ‘ Original sin is, fundamen- tally, simply universal sin. This is the fact which is at once the evidence and substance of it. We know that if sin is universal, and if there is no instance of a human being without it, universal sin must receive the same interpretation that any other universal does, namely, that it implies a law in consequence of which it is universal. Nobody supposes that anything takes place univer- sally by chance, accident, or what we call curious coincidence.

. This consequence applies just as much to the fact of sin in the human race if it is universal and this law we call “ original sin.”’ * Our Article appears definitely to associate this universal tendency to sin with the fall of Adam. ‘Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam’ (2.e. does not consist in the universal imitation of Adam’s bad example), ‘but it is the fault and cor- ruption 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 is of his own nature inclined to evil.’ As we have seen, we no longer believe in the historical existence of Adam, and such phrases sound strange to our ears. But the truth of original sin is not in the least affected by any view that we hold about the historical value of Genesis. The whole religious experience of Israel bore witness to the sinfulness of the human heart, and this fact of universal conviction of sin shaped the story of Genesis. “The story did not create the conviction, but the conviction the story. A deeper insight into the holiness of God was always followed by a deeper sense of human unworthiness (Is. 615, Jer. 17% etc.). Many passages in the Old Testament attest the universal sense of alienation from God (Ps. 515, 148, Job 144, etc.). So, too, in the New Testa- ment, our Lord assumes the universal sinfulness of man (Mt. 7#). He places in the universal prayer the petition ‘ Forgive us our trespasses.’ He has no message for the ‘righteous’ (Mk. 21’, etc.). In order to enter the Kingdom of God repentance is always required (e.g. Mt. 41”). Men need not simply to be made better but to be born ‘anew’ or ‘from above’ (Jn. 3! ff.). The Cross is the remedy for sin. Our Lord died to give His life as a ransom

for those who had forfeited their lives by disobedience (Mk. .10®, etc.). ‘If we say that we have not sinned we make God a liar’ (1 Jn. 129, cp. 18), because all His dealings with us imply our need of a Saviour from sin. It is true that St. Paul twice connects our sin with the fall of Adam (Ro. 5!715, 1 Cor. 15?) following contemporary Jewish teaching. But the theory did not create the facts: the facts demanded a theory. St. Paul saw every- where in the world of his day, among Jew and Gentile alike, the ravages of the sin that he knew in his own heart. The teaching that ‘all have sinned ’ (Ro. 32°) was the result of the evidence of his senses, not of a too literal interpretation of a Jewish allegory.*

The same consciousness of universal sin is found outside Scripture, though it may be described in different language.t It is reflected in the literature of all ages and all countries. Even those who deny the Church’s doctrine of sin are oppressed by the dulness and heaviness of human nature. Periods of progress are followed by periods of decline. Mysterious though it is to all who believe in the goodness of God, man seems unable to make any united and sustained effort to forward his true happi- ness. Sin is universal and yet felt not to be natural.

For evidence of universal sin, see :

Newman, Apologia, c. v. Church, Pascal, p. 7 ff.

(d) Again, just because Jesus Christ is the revelation to us of what man was made to be, so He is also the final argument for the unnaturalness of our ‘present condition. He convicts of sin those who come to Him. By placing their lives side by side with His, they realize the gulf between what they are and what they were meant to be. ‘Christ in the truth of our nature was made like unto us in all things (sin only except) from which He was clearly void both in His flesh and in His spirit. He came to be the Lamb without spot, who by the sacrifice of Himself once made should take away the sins of the world ; and sin (as St. John saith) was not in Him’ (1 Jn. 3°). This is the unanimous teaching of Scripture (Heb. 415, 72627, 914 1 Pet. 274, 2 Cor. 574).t The

[…]

{In Ro. 8* He is said to have come in the likeness of sinful flesh. “The flesh of Christ is ‘like’ ours inasmuch as it is flesh: ‘like’ and only ‘like’ because it is not sinful.”—S. and H. ad loc.

strongest argument is not the assertions of N.T. writers nor even isolated texts from the Gospels (e.g. Which of you con- victeth me of sin? Jn. 8, cp. 143°), but the whole impression that He made on others, the claims that He made publicly for Himself and the glimpses that we are allowed to catch of His inner consciousness. He preserved an unbroken union with the Father (Jn. 10°°). As a rule it is the holiest men and those living most closely to God who are most conscious of their sinful- ness and most deeply penitent. He taught others to pray for forgiveness, but never did so Himself. Even on the Cross, when His whole life seemed ending in failure, He utters no prayer for pardon. He perceived that forgiveness was needed for His murderers, not for Himself. Two passages have been quoted on the other side. (i) ‘ Why callest thou me good? None is good save one, even God’ (Mk. 101’). Our Lord’s apparent refusal of the title ‘good’ seems at first sight to imply a con- sciousness of sin. But in the Greek the emphatic word is not ‘me’ but ‘good.’ He was rebuking an emotional young man who was using extravagant language without thinking what it really meant, and had no true appreciation of the meaning of goodness. (ii) The cry from the Cross ‘My God, why has thou forsaken me?’ (Mk. 15%). Here the Greek would more accurately be translated ‘ Why didst thou leave me?’ It was no random cry, but a definite quotation from a particular psalm. It must be interpreted in the light of its context. This psalm is the only one of its class that contains no personal confession of sin and it ends in a song of triumph. The words imply un- broken trust in God and are an appeal that His help is long delayed. They are evidence of our Lord’s unbroken faith, preserved even amid great darkness of soul.*

(e) Our Article goes on to describe ‘ original sin’ as ‘ the fault and corruption of the nature of every man.’ It explains the fact that all men sin by laying down that all men inherit a common human nature that is corrupt inasmuch as it possesses a positive downward tendency to evil. This statement can only be under- stood in the light of previous theological discussion. No attempt was made to give any formal account of original sin until the time of Augustine. The first traces of any controversy on the subject are to be found in the different views taken as to the

• Cp. Gould on Mk. 15%.

origin of the human soul. The Hastern Fathers and Jerome and Hilary in the West taught that each soul was created out of nothing by God and joined to a body derived from its parents. This is known as ‘Creationism.’ Itseems to reduce the ‘solidarity’ of the human race to a merely physical fact. Original sin on this view would lie in the body. The Western Fathers and Gregory of Nyssa in the Hast taught that the human soul was derived from its parents. Thus the first man contained within him all mankind. On this view a transmission of a tendency to sin is intelligible: The ‘ vitium originis ’“—to use Tertullian’s phrase—necessarily affects all who are born of the common stock.* We may fairly hold that both views express a real truth. In some sense every human being is created by God. Each human life is His gift, none the less His because mediated by human action. Every man can say ‘God made me.’ On the other hand, no human life is an isolated unit : it would not be human if it were. And that common humanity which we share with others includes far more than merely physical attributes. It includes those moral, intellectual and spiritual capacities that distinguish man from the beasts,f and can only be developed in society. Again, the early Fathers, Hastern and Western alike, took a hopeful view of human nature. They laid no very great stress upon the ‘ Fall’ and its consequences. They had no very clear or unanimous teaching about the origin of sin. So far as they dealt with the results of the ‘Fall,’ they held that man lost then a supernatural bias towards righteousness, comparable to the bias towards righteousness that follows from a good char- acter. Man was left weak but fundamentally sound. Thus ‘original sin’ would be a loss of higher goodness, a ‘ privatio naturae.’ But with St. Augustine a darker view of the results of the ‘Fall’ won considerable though by no means universal acceptance in the West. Augustine regarded man’s original bias towards righteousness as natural. Hence Adam fell below the level of his true nature and corrupted his entire posterity.

• Origen explained original sin by the theory of pre-existence. Men are really fallen spirits who fell in another world. This view won little accept- ance in the Church and lies outside the main stream of Christian thought. I1tis maintained by theosophists. For a criticism of position see Miss Dougall’s Essay in Immortality.

• For a fuller statement see Bethune Baker, Christian Doctrine, pp. 302-305.

We inherit a nature that is not indeed entirely corrupt but yet has a positive inclination towards evil. The result is more than a mere ‘privatio naturae’: it is ‘depravatio naturae.’ This teaching of St. Augustine was partly drawn out in conflict with Pelagius. Pelagius denied any corruption of human nature at all. He held that Adam’s sin injured no one but himself. As we should expect, he was a creationist. The widespread existence of sin he attributed, as our Article says, to the following o! Adam’s bad example. He was prepared to allow that some men even before the coming of Christ had lived free from sin. Thus the existence of ‘ original sin,’ so far as he allowed that it existed at all, was due to purely external causes, bad environ- ment, bad example and education and the like.

At the Reformation these questions were again debated with great vigour. Hence our present Article. Mediaeval teaching on the whole had taken a moderate view of the effects of the ‘Fall.’ The Council of Trent was content to speak of ‘ the loss of holiness and righteousness.’ On the other hand, Calvinists and many Lutherans pushed the teaching of St. Augustine so far as to assert the total corruption of human nature. Our Article adopts a mediating position. On the one side it clearly takes a gloomier view of man’s present position than the Council of Trent. It follows St. Augustine so far as to speak of ‘ the fault and corruption (depravatio) 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 rs of his own nature inclined to evil.’ It definitely repudiates the Pelagian idea that the ‘Fall’ had no effect on man at all. On the other side it carefully avoids the Calvinistic extravagance of saying ‘ Tota depravatio.’ This would be obviously untrue. If man were wholly corrupt he could not be aware of his corruption. There would be no moral struggle within, no discontent with self or desire for better things. The spirit would not lust against the flesh, as St. Paul tells us that it does (Gal. 51’).* Nothing has done more to create a prejudice against the doctrine of original sin, than the idea that it means the total badness of human nature.

How can we regard the teaching of the Article to-day? In

• So, too, our Lord appeals to the natural affection of parents for children and the like. He rouses men to use their natural powers of reason and will. Cp. also Ro. 214-15,

the light of modern knowledge much of the old language seems unreal. We begin by pointing out that ‘original sm’ is not altogether a happy phrase. If sin means a will hostile to God, sin in the strict sense can only be predicated of a person and not of a nature. No part of our nature, no faculty that we possess can in itself be ‘sinful.’ It only becomes sinful when we exercise it unlawfully. No created thing in God’s universe is evil in itself. It only becomes evil when it is misused by a being who has free-will. We must avoid any mental picture of original sin that would represent it as an evil substance trans- mitted by inheritance in the same way as physical peculiarities are transmitted. Hence the statement of our Article that original sin ‘deserves God’s wrath and damnation’ is open to serious criticism. Neither charity nor common-sense allow us to suppose that an infant who cannot choose between good and evil is personally exposed to the wrath of God because it will commit actual sin when it grows up. The words of the Article are only true if we look at the matter in an entirely abstract way.* No doubt St. Paul calls us ‘children’ (ze. simply ‘ objects’) ‘of wrath’ ¢ (Eph. 2%), because apart from Christ we cannot live up to the standard of a holy God. But Scripture adds what the Article does not, that ‘ original sin ’ is an appeal not only to God’s wrath but to God’s pity ’ (e.g. Lk. 191°), The mind of God is to be seen in Christ, who hated sin

• The best defence is that given by Dean Church, Life and Letters, pp. 294-295. ‘The fact of what is meant by original sin is as mysterious and inexplicable as the origin of evil, but it is obviously as much a fact. There is a fault and vice in the race, which, given time, as surely develops into actual sin as our physical constitution, given at birth, does into sickness and physical death. It is of this inherited sin, looked upon in the abstract and without reference to concrete cases, that I suppose the Article speaks. How can we suppose that such a nature looks in God’s eyes according to the standard of perfect righteousness which we also suppose to be God’s standard and law? Does it satisfy that standard ? Can He look with neutrality on its divergence from His perfect standard ? What He may do to cure it, to pardon it, to make allowances for it in known or unknown ways, is another matter about which His known attributes of mercy alone may reassure us; but the question is, How does He look upon this fact of our nature in itself, that without exception it has this strong efficacious germ of evil within it, of which He sees all the possibilities and all the consequences ? Can He look on it, even in germ, with complacency or indifference ? Must He not judge it and condemn it as in itself, because evil, deserving condemnation ?’

• Armitage Robinson, Lphesians, pp. 49-50. The phrase contains no idea of inheriting God’s wrath, and ‘children’ has nothing to do with infancy.

aT

aD eS eS

en a,

and loved the sinner. The Article does, indeed, say that it is the ‘nature’ rather the person that deserves God’s wrath. But a nature apart from a person is a mere abstraction.

On the other hand if we reject illustrations drawn from heredity in the physical world as misleading, the great fact of the solidarity of human nature still remains. The unity of the race is moral and spiritual, not only physical. Mankindisoneinsin.* Moreover, though we cannot inherit ‘sin,’ experience shows that we do in- herit dispositions and tendencies that easily become sin. Children resemble their parents in certain tastes and characteristics which we label good and bad in themselves, apart from the actions in which they may or may not issue. Further, in the moral and spiritual life it is by no means easy to draw a hard and fast line between heredity and environment and to say when the influence of one begins and the other ends. In any case human nature does not come to us ready-made. It begins as a bundle of possi- bilities that need the life of the community for their development. A purely individual human life is an impossibility. If ‘ original sin’ seems unfair, we need to remember that the good tendencies and good dispositions of our nature come down to us by inheri- tance as well as its deficiencies. The unity of race that conditions original sin, conditions also salvation through Christ.

But we have hardly yet got to the bottom of the problem. The difference between sin and righteousness is in the last resort one of personal relationship to God. As we saw, man cannot live his true life apart from that union with God for which he was made. We cannot draw hard and fast distinctions between the

*Tn all its forms Pelagianism is hopelessly individualistic. It is contradicted to-day by our sense of corporate and national sin, as a spiritual force hostile to God, lying behind the sins of individuals, yet in some sense independent of them.

+It is a question whether St. Paulin Ro. 512-21 asserts the transmission of a sinful nature from Adam. ‘The view taken of the sin of Adam is not so much that thereby human nature was infected in itself, but rather that thereby sin, an alien power, got a footing in the world, and involving all men in actual sin brought death upon all. This is very far short of the Augustinian doctrine of original sin, which appears to be a development of 2 Es. 371 490, rather than of anything to be found in N.T. The language of St. Paul (‘sin came into the world,’ Ro. 5!2), leaves room for the communication of a sinful tendency, not only by heredity in the strict sense of the word, but also by all that inter- penetration of the individuals by the race which makes it impossible to regard

them as isolated atoms dependent only on birth for their characteristics.’ i. RB. Bernard, art. ‘Sin,’ M.D. B. iv. pp. 534b-535a.

natural and supernatural elements in man’s nature, simply because man’s essential nature is to live in fellowship with God. By sm that fellowship has been impaired. Hence man’s whole constitu- tion has become disordered. Apart from God the heart becomes cold, the will enfeebled, the mind darkened. The result is that selfish desires lack control and the body tends to become master rather than servant. We are unable to resist evil suggestions from without. This would seem to be the root of original sin. We are born into a condition of life in which our full union with God is broken. To use the old language, original sin begins with a ‘ privatio,’ a cutting-off of the needed light and strength, and inevitably ends in a ‘depravatio,’ a positive alienation of mind and heart from God. For this condition we are not personally responsible. Original sin in itself does not involve personal accountability. We believe in original sin, not original guilt. As we have seen, it appeals to God’s pity. It only becomes actual sin when of our own will we yield to temptation and choose the wrong. Cp. Webb, Problems in the Relations of God and Man, p. 1165 fi.

W. H. Moberly in Foundations, p. 282 fi.

Simpson, article ‘Sin’ in D.C.G. ii. 632b-635a.

Bernard, article ‘ Fall’ in H.D.B.

The latter part of the Article deals with a question that arose out of the discussion about the results of the ‘Fall.’ Ex- perience shows that sinful desires remain even in the Christian after Baptism. How far are these ‘true and proper’ sin? The Calvinists naturally said that concupiscence was sin. The Council of Trent said that it was not ‘truly and properly sin but …is of sin and inclines to sin.’ Our Article is purposely vague. The allusion seems to be to James 1%. But the Apostle is clearly St. Paul. The most probable reference is to “Rom. 717 as expounded by St. Augustine.’*

(f) The question still remains : ‘Is this view of sin consistent with the assured results of modern science ?’ ‘ Has it not been shown that man has risen, not fallen?’ It has been argued that so-called ‘ original sin ’ is no sign of any estrangement from God or any corruption of our nature. Rather it is a necessary pro- duct of man’s upward development. It is the survival in us of passions and desires derived from our animal ancestry. It is the ‘ape and tiger’ within us. Our consciousness of a divided

self is only due to the fact that these animal instincts, once useful and necessary at an earlier stage for the preservation of life, are in process of being moralized. If there has been ¢ a fall ’ at all, it has been a ‘ fall upwards.’ That is to say there came a time when man first exchanged the life of merely animal content- ment and harmony for the life of moral struggle and effort. He began to be aware, however dimly, of the distinction between a higher and a lower course of action. He learnt to contrast his gross animal habits with the idea of what he ought to be and might become. This new-born dissatisfaction with his former self was proof not of a fall but of an advance. It marked the ‘ passage from a brute life unconscious of moral distinctions to the spiritual consciousness of right and wrong.’ There are as many ‘falls’ as ‘souls.’ It has been asserted: ‘Man never possessed the original harmony of his whole being such as the doctrine of an unfallen state requires. … Sin is derived solely from the individual will and cannot be inborn; and the discord between flesh and spirit, lower nature and higher, animal propensity and rational morality, is no sign of a bias to evil but the inevitable outcome of man’s development.’ *

Others, from a slightly different standpoint, would argue that sin is a necessary phase in the evolution of mankind, which is being outgrown. No doubt we must admit that many sins are voluntary and deserve blame. But sin is primarily a mistake. The sinner is really seeking for God, but he is seeking for God in the wrong way. Sin is only a temporary error. Man finds out his mistake by the unsatisfactory consequences that follow his action. He learns to condemn himself. His higher self passes judgment on his lower self. He turns again to the right road having learnt the lesson. The ‘relics of our brute ancestry ’ in us, that is to say, the tendency to seek our own selfish ends instead of the common good are being gradually purged away as civilization and culture advance. ‘Slowly, very slowly, the race is climbing the steep ascent.’ Ultimately in every member of the human race the ideal life will be attained. Some such view of sin not formulated or put into words is exceedingly common to-day. It may be stated in forms that, as far as they go, are perfectly Christian. But the question is whether it

accounts for all the facts of the moral life as we observe it in our own hearts or in the history of the world.

(i) We may doubt whether the results of physical science throw any real light upon the problem of sm. We have to deal with man as he now is, not with man as he once was. We may recognize the continuity of all life on this earth of ours, but the fact still remains that man is no longer an animal. We cannot interpret human life in terms of animal life. That would be to interpret the higher by the lower. All sound philosophy allows that a thing’s nature must be estimated not by what it once was but by what it by becoming has become. An oak must be studied as an oak and not as an acorn. We can speak of a baby as a little man but not of a man as a big baby. At whatever stage distinctively human life first appeared, just because it was human life and no longer animal, new factors that were absent in animal life intervened. Hence statements and con- clusions that were valid on the lower level are no longer valid on the higher. Take the case of the individual man. As an infant he has no moral life: he is not morally responsible for his behaviour. Yet when he comes to manhood he has become a rational and moral being. We may not be able to put our finger on a definite moment of time and say that then moral life begins. But the change has taken place. The man is no longer an infant. His adult life cannot be explained or expressed in terms of infant life. No knowledge, however exact, of infant life, can be applied to adult life, because the new factors of reason and conscience have now intervened. So in the development of the human race, we cannot draw a hard and fast line as to where human life first began. It is enough to know that man has become a moral being. The conclusions of physical science are absolutely valid within the sphere of facts that physical science studies. But when we get to the moral life, new influences and powers appear, with which from its abstract character physical science can have nothing to do. In this higher region its con- clusions no longer possess unconditional validity. Sin belongs to this higher region. Physical science may explain whence we derive our animal desires and passions, but it can do no more. Its authority stops short just where the real problem of sin begins.

(ii) Sin in its true sense was not possible until man had reached the level of moral and rational life, however undeveloped he still

was. Man did not become conscious of sin when he first looked upon his former animal behaviour and marked its unsatisfactori- ness in comparison with the new and higher ideal that was dawning upon his consciousness. Rather he first became con- scious of sin when he recognized the good and chose the bad instead. We should agree with St. Paul that ‘sin is not imputed when there is no law’ (Ro. 518). The cryings and fractiousness of an infant are not sinful or proofs of a fallen nature as St. Augustine supposed.* Science tells us that they are the natural result of evolution. The child is not responsible for them. A child can only commit actual sin when he has become conscious of some law as binding upon him and disregards it. By this time he has ceased to be a subject that can be adequately studied by physical science alone. The problem of original sin is the problem of universal sin. Why is a wrong choice always made ? Not, how or why did we get the materials out of which to make it? The difficulty is not that man possesses animal passions and desires that need strict control, but that these are perverted and misused as they are not in the case of animals, and that the will does not control them. Universality of sin cannot be explained by universality of animal inheritance.f

(ui) The unsatisfactoriness of the attempt to account for sin as a by-product of man’s evolution is seen more clearly when we consider those sins which are not sins of his animal nature at all. To say that the drunkard and the profligate are really seeking for God though they are seeking for Him in the wrong place, has a certain air of plausibility. In some sense they are seeking, or at any rate began by seeking, a satisfaction of self in their vices. But when we turn to sins of pride and calculated cruelty, the plausibility disappears. Is it possible to say that, for instance, a solicitor who deliberately schemes to take advantage of a client’s ignorance to steal his money, is doing no more than making a mistake in his quest for God? To quote Dean Church again : ‘It is important to bear in mind that in speaking of sin and sinners we are apt to take as our type one particular class of sin, the sins of the ‘‘ publican and the harlot.” It is natural that re-

• Cp. Aug. Confessions, i. ¢. 7.

• It is significant that in his last book, The Concept of Sin, Dr. Tennant is driven to what is essentially the Pelagian position, namely, the denial of the universality of sin (p. 268). His view of sin is far too individualistic.

volting, ruinous and flagrant as they are, they should represent sin to our minds. Yet there are sins more malignant and more difficult to conceive cured. I can conceive of many of those poor creatures whom the world speaks of as lost blindly “ seeking after God.” It is difficult to me to conceive this of those who with full knowledge and all advantages prey on human happi- ness in one way or another, the selfish seekers of their own interest and pleasure.’ ‘ Men forget the sins of character, of the Pharisees and of the wicked, wise conspirators against human good and happiness, who are eminently the Bible type of the sinners who have everything to fear.’* If men are honest with themselves they must allow that there have been times when they saw the good and knew it to be the good and wilfully chose the evil. That is no mere survival of animal instinct nor any error of judgment, it is deliberate rebellion against God. Further, if Scripture is right in assigning the highest eminence to such virtues as faith, hope, charity, humility, meekness, purity of heart and the like, it follows that the contrary vices to these are the most grave, that is, those vices such as pride which have the least intimate connexion with our animal nature at all. We need to keep holy not only our bodies but our spirits. Spiritual sins are as real as and more deadly than bodily sins.

(iv) To say that man has risen, not fallen, involves serious confusion of thought. No doubt man has made immense advances in material prosperity, and in knowledge and culture. But such progress is not moral and spiritual progress. In the picture of God’s purpose for man given in the opening chapters of Genesis, Adam is depicted as a naked savage, uncultured and undeveloped, but made for development in dependence upon God. He is further depicted as innocent rather than holy: since holiness can only be attained by the conquest of tempta- tion. He is only making the first steps in the moral life, but as far as he went he was sound. Goodness does not depend upon civilization or knowledge, nor yet upon the possession of any complex moral ideal. It depends rather upon obedience to the will of God, so far as it is known. A child or a savage may be on the road to holiness, by living the life that God means him to live under his present circumstances. A learned and cultured pro- fessor may be unholy, simply because he does not live up to the

best that he knows. Neither Scripture nor science suggests that primitive man was perfect in the sense of fully developed and possessing great powers of will and intellect. The idea, popular in the eighteenth century that Adam in virtue of his unbroken communion with God was endowed with all knowledge, is wholly foreign to Scripture. Rather man is represented as undeveloped, but all that he ought to have been at that particular stage of his development. So far his nature was healthy. He was advancing on the right lines. He was beginning to attain holi- ness by obedience to the commands of God and the deliberate pursuit of good. Man’s progress in the mastery of the world and in knowledge of many kinds has not been forwarded but hindered by sin. We need only reflect how to-day man possesses the knowledge and the means to put an end at once to much of the misery and disease and vice of the world. What is lacking is the will to make the effort and to endure the discomfort and trouble that the needful self-sacrifice would involve. Throughout history man’s upward progress has been hampered by ineradic- able selfishness and sloth. Man has indeed risen but not with that uniform and rapid progress that we should expect. God’s providence may overrule men’s sins and turn them to a good end. Yet ‘there never was an evil action performed but a good one in its place would have led to better results.’ * Further, man’s moral and spiritual progress has lagged behind his advance in material prosperity. Civilization has brought with it new evils and new sorrows.f Every fresh discovery may be used either for the welfare or for the injury of mankind at large. All depends on the moral character of those who use it. Such know- ledge in itself is non-moral.t We do not wish to deny that there has been a real progress in moral ideals outside as well as inside the Jewish and Christian revelations. But there has not been a corresponding increase in the power or the will to live up to them. The sins of to-day may be less brutal] and more refined,

• Cp. Tyrrell, Christianity at the Cross Roads, pp. 120-122.

{In modern warfare we have seen all the resources of science being used for the destruction of human life. Why are they not being used for the betterment of mankind? There is nothing to prevent them from so being used except man himself. Their perversion is due not to any external com- pulsion, but to the uncontrolled passions within man’s own heart. War has only revealed on a large scale man’s inability to govern himself.

but they are sins none the less. Our ideals may have become more elaborate, but we have not become more holy. Our union with God is still broken. The human race shows no sign of outgrowing its sin.

(v) The question is often raised, If man’s nature was ever perfect in the sense of all that God wished it at that time to be, how did temptation find any response within him? We have already seen that all human existence must from its very nature include the liability to temptation. Further, man was made in the image of God to render to Him a free love and obedience. If then man was not to be a mere conscious machine, he must in some sense be free to refuse that love and obedience. A love that is compulsory is not love at all. Thus the creation of a being endowed with free will, must, as far as we can see, include at least the possibility of the misuse of that will. If holiness can only be attained by the deliberate choice of good and the deliberate rejection of the lower, then the possibility of holiness includes within itself the possibility of something like a ‘Fall.’ The ‘ Fall’ may well have been a process, rather than a single act. Further, Scripture and the teaching of Christ always suggest that behind the world lies a background of spiritual influences, good and bad alike. Our Lord quite definitely speaks of personal agencies of evil, external to man but able to influence him. - Such ideas may not be popular to-day, but it is very doubtful whether we can explain the facts without them. No doubt this does not solve the problem : it only pushes it a stage further back. If we ascribe the first human sin to the suggestion of the Devil there still remains the question ‘Who tempted the Devil ? Whence did his temptation to sin come in the first instance ? ’ Here again we can only conjecture that the creation of any form of free and finite being, must involve the possibility of an attempt to win a false independence of God. That is probably as far as human reason can go in attempting an intellectual solution of the problem of evil.*

See The Faith of a Christian, ec. iii.

(vi) Lastly neither experience nor Scripture lend any support

to the view that the progress of the human race is imevitable

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and necessary, or that it is in any degree assured apart from our own moral efforts. History teaches us that nations like indivi- duals do not necessarily grow better as they grow older. There is no uniform advance towards perfection. Sin does not only retard progress but brings down and degrades those who commit it. The world is strewn with the wreck of nations that have fallen into decay and dissolution. Christ teaches most plainly that the loss of present opportunities may involve not a mere temporary postponement of success, but a loss which is irretriev- able. He speaks of an ‘eternal sin’ (Mk. 32), a time when ‘the door was shut’ (Mt. 25118), He warns men in terrible language borrowed from the Old Testament of the worm that dieth not and the fire that is not quenched (Mk. 9448). Present acts of choice carry with them results that endure far beyond this life. We must ‘strive,’ not only ‘seek,’ to enter in by the narrow door (Lk. 1375) and there are few that find it (Mt. 7314), The language may be metaphorical, but it must not, therefore, be explained away. If language has any meaning at all, it shows that salvation is no easy or obvious thing. Again, the New Testament never looks forward to a time when by gradual upward development this present world shall have become perfect. Our Lord can contemplate the possibility that when the Son of Man comes He will not find faith on the earth (Lk. 188). Rather His teaching points forward to some sudden and violent catastrophe that shall usher in the new age and abolish sin. That day is known to the Father alone (Mk. 13%). The pic- tures of an ideal world whose fulfilment Old Testament prophecy located on this earth are in the New Testament transferred to a new heaven and a new earth.* The Christianity of the New Testament is not a ‘Christianity whose optimism is begotten of faith in this world … whose courage and hope is maintained by the belief that the schism between the ideal and the actual will eventually be healed through an inherent ws medrcatrix naturae, that the Kingdom of God is the natural term of a process of moral and social development.’f Moral goodness can never be the product of any mere necessity. Spiritual progress can only be won by effort. Such has always been the distinctively Christian belief and it is through such a belief that the victories * Cp. Mozley, University Sermons, p. 118. + Tyrrell, Christianity at the Cross Roads, pp. 118-119. Q

of Christianity have been won. If men come to believe on any large scale that sooner or later perfection must come automatically, that men by their sins can only delay the full realization of the purpose of God for the world, human nature being what it is, it is safe to predict that men will relax their efforts to do right and reform the world. We can see the havoc wrought in the world by a view of sin other than that of Scripture. Christian teaching has proved its truth by its practical results. Christian leaders of all ages and classes have always insisted that repentance must be the foundation of a strong Christian life. If sin is something less than disobedience to God, if there is no need to worry about our sins, then repentance is needless and indeed unmeaning. Man needs at most an example or a teacher, not a Saviour, and historical Christianity has from first to last been based largely on error.

Cp. Gore, The New Theology and the Old Religion, c. iv. and p. 231 ff. In« Mundi, Appendix ii. A. W. Robinson, Personal Life of the Clergy, c. iii. Moberly, Atonement and Personality, p. 31 ff. Thornton, Conduct and the Supernatural, p. 116 ff. Forrest, The Christ of History and Experience, note on p. 454.

§ 3. (a) Grace.

‘We have no power to do good works ; without the grace of God.’ In the language of theology grace means the power of God at work in ourselves (cp. Eph. 37 ‘the gift of that grace of God, which was given to me according to the working of His power’ and Eph. 3° ‘the power that worketh in us’). The Greek word xapu began by meaning either ‘ attractiveness’ in an object or subjectively ‘ favour,’ ‘ good-will,’ as, e.g. of a superior towards an inferior. Jn the New Testament, especially in the Epistles of St. Paul, it acquires the additional meaning of ‘ un- earned favour.’ In Eph. 2%? God’s ‘grace’ or ‘favour’ is contrasted with His ‘wrath.’ It is often used to emphasize the free bounty of God’s gifts. In Rom. 44, 118, etc., that which is given by God’s ‘grace’ is compared with what we earn by our efforts, that which is a debt or deserved. The word is further extended to mean ‘the state of favour’ which the Christian enjoys by God’s free mercy (Rom. 5?, 2 Cor. 61, etc.) and even particular gifts (2 Cor. 8&7, Eph 38, etc.). It is thus in the New Testament well on its way to its later theological meaning of the power of God bestowed on us. Grace is not something apart

from God but is God Himself at work in us. The opening words of the Article need explanation: ‘ The condition of Man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his natural strength and good works, to faith and calling upon God: wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God without the grace of God.’ This might suggest that grace is only necessary because of the ‘fall.’ No doubt as sinners we need God’s grace in a special way. But from the first man was absolutely dependent upon God. As we have seen, the weakness of will that these words lament is due to the separation from God that sin brought. In our whole life, physical and moral and spiritual alike, we are entirely sustained by Him. All the powers that we possess are His.

The Article speaks of grace under two aspects :

(i) We need ‘the grace of God by Christ preventing us that we may have a good will.’ This is usually called ‘ prevenient ’ grace, we. grace that goes before (praevenire) or prevents us. We may compare the collect that begins ‘ Prevent us, O Lord,’ 7.e. start us. The actual term ‘ prevenient ’ comes from St. Augustine and was suggested by the Latin of Ps. 591°, ‘Deus meus misericordia elus praeveniet me.’ We need the prompting of God even to wish to do right. All holy desires and aspirations are due to the work of the Holy Spirit within our hearts. ‘It is God that worketh in us both to will and to work, for His good pleasure ’ (Phil. 215). Our Lord Himself said ‘No man can come to me, except the Father which sent me, draw him’ (Jn. 6%, cp. Acts 16! James 17).*

(i) We need God’s grace ‘ working with us when we have that good will.’ We pray to God not only to ‘prevent us with his gracious favour’ but to ‘further us with his continual help.’ This is usually called ‘co-operating grace.’ This term again comes from St. Augustine. It is based on such phrases as “Domino cooperante ’ in the Latin of Mk. 162°. Not only does God’s favour show itself by ‘ putting into our minds good desires ’ but also by continually helping us to ‘bring the same to good effect.’ Our need of co-operating grace is shown by such words of our Lord as ‘ Abide in me,’ ‘Apart from me ye can do nothing.’ St. Paul can say ‘ By the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in

• Cp. also the Collects for Easter Day and 17th Sunday after Trinity.

vain ; but I laboured more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me’ (1 Cor. 151°, cp. 2 Cor. 3° 1 Pet. 54°). We must not limit the grace of God either to the Church or to Christians. All good wherever it is found springs from God. Even the courage and unselfishness of those who with their lips deny God is a sign of the working of God in their hearts. Christ has been in the world from the beginning, even though ‘the world knew Him not’ (Jn. 1*19), This Article has no intention of denying ‘ good works’ to the heathen. The term ‘ good works’ had become almost a technical term for specifically Christian activities. The heathen are not under consideration here at all. All that is affirmed is that if the heathen have good desires and do good actions, they do not either will or perform them apart from God.

(b) Free-will.

God’s grace needs to be met by man’s free-will. What do we mean when we claim that man’s will is free ?

(i) The popular idea of free-will is that it means ‘I am equally able to do either of two opposite actions. I can equally, e.g. speak the truth or tell a lie. The more undecided that I am the more free I am.’ A little consideration shows that this idea is ludicrously false. We are not really free when we are in a state of weakness and indecision. The man who is not quite sure beforehand whether he can resist any given tempta- tion, is not really free. St. Paul describes such a state in Rom. 754° < That which I do I know not: for not what I would that do I practise; but what I hate that I do. But if what I would not that I do, I consent unto the law that it is good. So now it is no more J that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me. For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing : for to will is present with me but to do that which is good is not. For the good which J would I do not : but the evil which I would not that I practise, ete.’ (ep. Gal. 51©1’). But St. Paul does not call this state of vacillation and uncertainty ‘freedom,’ he calls it ‘the body of this death ’ (Rom. 7”).

(ii) So we can see that our wills are only really free whenjwe can do what we wish. True freedom is to have such mastery over myself that, e.g. I can always speak the truth. Every time that we commit an act, our act helps to form a habit. Our aim is by a constant repetition of acts to form the corresponding

habit. We are then really free. We speak indeed of slavery to habits, but we mean by that slavery to bad habits. The power of forming habits, which is the condition of our freedom, may be equally the condition of our bondage to evil. It is obvious that freedom, is not to be attained by the acquiring of the power to do any kind of actions but only right actions. We are really free, when we have built up habits of acting in accordance with the will of God which is equally the law of our own nature. We start with a certain indecision of the will—something like freedom in the sense that we discarded—in order that by repeated acts of right choice we may become free in the true sense. ‘Our wills are ours we know not how, our wills are ours to make them thine.’ The saint is the freest person on earth, not because he can do good and bad equally at will, but because he has fixed his will in harmony with God’s will and is realizing the purpose of God for his life. A man is free when he is able to do that in which alone he can find true satisfaction.

(ui) When we speak of ourselves as free, we mean that we are the ultimate and responsible authors of our own conduct. All political and social life rests upon the assumption of this responsi- bility. Our sense of shame when we are caught doing wrong, our feeling of personal responsibility for our actions, our attempts to influence others for good by argument and appeal to their better selves, our efforts to improve the world, the system of punishment for crimes, all these have no meaning if man is simply part of a great machine. No doubt strong scientific and philo- sophical arguments can be adduced in support of the position that man is the victim of his environment and that all his actions are really determined by external forces. But the moment that we turn to practical life, by our judgments on others and by our own personal behaviour, we deny the validity of these arguments. Of course our power of choice is limited at any time by many things, our environment, our training, our past actions, bad habits, inherited weakness and the like. Nor is it claimed that we can act without motives of some kind. All that we maintain is that man has the power of selecting and making his own motive and following it and that he is not simply the passive victim of the most violent desire.

Cp. Moberly, Atonement and Personality, p. 220 ff, W. Temple, Church and Nation, p. 72 ff.

(c) The relation of grace to free-will.

In the true life of man there is union of the graee of God and human free-will. Hach is necessary. Without grace the will to do good would lack strength. Without the man’s free-will the action would not be the action of the man himself at all. Grace and free-will are not in any sense opposing forces. Rather grace 1s the source and condition of all true freedom, enabling man to realize his true self. In the actual life of the Christian the grace of God and our own natural powers are so united that we cannot separate in our consciousness what is due to the one from what is due to the other. All that we can say is that all good thoughts, desires or actions involve both. We may go further and say that ‘the very freedom of choice which grace affords can be used for the purpose of rejecting grace.’ The grace of God places new possibilities within our reach but it remains with ourselves whether they shall be actualized or not. We possess ‘the melancholy power of baffling the divine good- will.’ Grace has been compared to true charity, that does for men just what they cannot do for themselves and no more. It does not pauperize us, but challenges us to do our utmost to respond to it. Grace is never given to save us trouble. God does nothing for us that we can do for ourselves. He ‘helps those that help themselves.’ Grace releases the will from bondage and warms the heart and enlightens the mind, but we must trust to it and use it. We are bidden to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in us (Phil. 21735). It is I who labour, yet not I, but the grace of God that is with me (1 Cor. 151°). That is the paradox of the Christian life: lke our Lord Himself it is both human and divine. As the Article says the grace of God works ‘ with us’ not instead of us. The position may be summed up in two sayings: ‘Qui fecit te sine te, non salvabit te sine te,’ ‘Man without God cannot, God without man will not.’

According as either side of the truth is exaggerated we get two opposite tendencies of thought. The first dwells so exclu- sively on the share of God in our salvation, that it practically denies human responsibility altogether. The second exaggerates the human side so as to put our need of God into the background.

(i) The extreme form of the first error is what is known as Calvinism. In the time of Elizabeth Calvinism was almost the

dominant creed of the clergy of the English Church. Its doctrines have had an enormous influence on our Articles both in what they say and in what they do not say. Calvin himself did little more than push to its logical extreme one side of the teaching of St. Augustine. St. Augustine, like St. Paul, had experienced a sudden and violent conversion. Hence, inevitably, he was more conscious of the power of God in his own life and laid less stress upon the need of human effort. He felt that God Himself had intervened to save him and had bestowed upon him a sal- vation that he could never have achieved by his own struggles. God had entered into his life, rescued him from his former sinful- ness and filled his heart with a passionate love of God that left no room for any lower desires. It seemed to him that God had done all: he had done nothing. This experience colours all his writings. Calvin, taking hold of this side of his teaching, elabor- ated it into a formal system. He taught that man in himself is wholly corrupt, possessing no moral freedom. Till God’s grace comes, all our desires and acts are inevitably sinful. When God’s grace comes its action is irresistible. We do nothing at all, God’s grace does the whole work. Why then are only a few transformed by God’s grace? The only possible answer is that God by His own inscrutable and irresistible decree has chosen out from all eternity some men for salvation. This choice is quite independent of any goodness or merit on man’s part. Those upon whom God’s grace comes, the ‘ elect,’ must be saved : they cannot finally fall from grace. The rest are left to their sin and its eternal consequences. As a result of the ‘fall’ all mankind deserved damnation, but by God’s free love ‘ the elect ’ are redeemed from this. Christ died not for all mankind but only for the elect.*

• Compare the Lambeth Articles which the Puritans desired to inflict upon the Church of England : ;

I. God from eternity has predestined some to life, and some He has repro- bated to death.

II. The moving or efficient cause of predestination to life is not the foresight of faith, or of perseverance, or of good works, or of anything which is in the persons predestinated, but it is the sole will of God who is well pleased.

Ill. The number of the predestinated is predefined and certain, it can be neither increased nor diminished.

IV. Those who are not predestinated to salvation, of necessity will be damned on account of their sins.

V. True, living, and justifying faith, and the sanctifying Spirit of God, is

We must not shut our eyes to the merits of Calvin’s system. It at least realized the sovereignty of God and the utter depen- dence of all human excellence upon Him. It emphasized the truth that all good has its source in God. It was logical and offered an explanation of certain problems in life, e.g. why some men are religious even under the greatest difficulties, while others who have every apparent advantage, are not. Further, it gave to the men who felt that they were among the elect an extra- ordinary strength and confidence. They were convinced that they had behind them all the resources of God, that God’s plan for their lives could not be thwarted. They were ready to face death and danger in dauntless confidence, knowing that they were in the hand of God. But these advantages were purchased at a terrible cost.. Calvinism forgot and allowed men to forget that God is essentially love rather than power. It treated divine justice as something different from human justice. It led inevit- ably to fatalism. As we shall see, Scripture never teaches us that grace is irresistible or that we cannot fall from a state of salvation, and it always assumes that God wishes all men to be saved. It has been well said, ‘The more grace that a man receives the greater becomes his capacity for doing right. But it is always he who perceives and desires what is right… . Grace is the perfection of individuality and not its abolition: the source of freedom and not its negation,’ *

Further, Calvinism cast a gloom over the whole of human life. All purely human activities, yeah as literature, art, science and the like, were discouraged as being tainted by the wickedness of man’s fallen nature. Being treated as corrupt, they tended to become corrupt. All the innocent gaiety of human life was not only ignored but condemned. Religion was too often identified not extinguished, falleth not away, vanisheth not away in the elect, either finally or totally.

VI. A man truly faithful, ¢.e. endued with justifying faith, is certain with the full assurance of faith, of the remission of his sins, and his eternal salvation through Christ.

VII. Saving grace is not given, is not communicated, is not granted to all men, by which they may be saved if they will.

VIII. No man can come unto Christ unless it shall have been given to him, and unless the Father shall have drawn him. And all men are not drawn by

the Father, in order that they may come to the Son. IX. It is not placed in the will or power of each man to be saved.

THE NATURE OF MAN ~ 249

with dulness. There was no grasp of the truth that the Incarna- tion has sanctified the whole of human life. Calvinism was the doctrine of the Scotch Presbyterians and English Puritans. After their failure to enforce it on the Church of England many of the latter separated from the Church because it was not Calvinistic. Similar teaching has been maintained by many within our own Church and in the Roman Church. In its com- pleteness it would now be defended by very few, but traces of its teaching still haunt popular theology. What is really Calvinistic teaching has often been confused with Christian teaching. Many who have attacked or separated from Christianity have really attacked orseparated from Calvinism. To-dayit influences religion mainly by way of reaction. We are tempted to ignore those truths about God that Calvinism distorted and placed in a false isolation.

(ii) At the other extreme stands ‘ Pelagianism.’ Pelagius was an excellent monk, by birth a Briton, who had always lived a decent life and known no great moral crisis. -He was offended by the prayer of St. Augustine ‘Give me the power to do what thus commandest and then command what thou wilt.’ ‘Give the power,’ he cried : ‘Why! you have the power.’ * From the best of motives he endeavoured to rouse men to a sense that everything depended on their own moral efforts. He dwelt upon all that God expected from them. But he was led into an extreme and quite indefensible position. He taught that Adam’s sin had injured no one but himself. Our will remained unaffected not only by original sin but even by our own past sins. Infants at birth were in the same condition as Adam before his fall. At any time our wills can resist sin. Even before the coming of Christ there had been men who had used their free-will so as to lead sinless lives. So far as he acknowledged grace he identified it with our own human powers and such external forces as the example of Christ and the formal gift of pardon when we had sinned. As we have seen, universal or almost universal sinfulness was due only to the following of Adam’s bad example. Pelagius’ view was perfectly logical, but he went upon ideas without con- sidering facts. He relied upon man’s bare sense of ability as if it were an infallible footing for the most complete conclusion.f He

• Mozley, Augustinian Predestination, p. 64.

never got really down to the root of the question. The’difficulty is not simply ‘I want to be good and I can’t’: it is rather ‘I know that I ought to do this : I feel that I could do it if I wanted to do it: but then unfortunately I don’t want to do it or at least a large part of me does not want to do it.’ Pelagianism, how- ever, is very common to-day. It flourishes especially upon its own native soil. The ordinary respectable Englishman is often a Pelagian at heart, though he has never heard of Pelagius. Partly he has very little idea of God’s intense holiness and the absolute consecration and self-sacrifice that God requires of him. He confuses the standard of Christ with the standard of decent society. Virtues such as meekness and patience lie entirely outside his vision. He does not even desire to acquire them. Those qualities that he most admires, courage, fair-play, truth- fulness, he supposes that he can achieve by himself, if he will only make the effort to do so. As soon as a man awakens to a sense of the meaning of holiness as opposed to respectability, he learns his need of God’s help and ceases to be a Pelagian. Cp. For relation of grace to free-will :

Du Bose, Gospel in the Gospels, pp. 38-39.

Chandler, Spirit of Man, c. 4.

Tyrrell, Haternal Religion, cc. 5 and 6.

For Pelagian controversy : Bethune Baker, c. xvii. Bright, Lessons from the Lives of Three Great Fathers, p. 157 ff.

(ii) Since this is the relation of grace to free-will it follows that a man may fall from a state of grace either through sloth or active disobedience. From quite early days some held that any man who fell into ‘deadly sin ’ after baptism, was guilty of “sin against the Holy Spirit.’ Such sin our Lord pronounced to be unforgiveable. They argued therefore that a man who fell into deadly sin not only could not be restored to communion by the Church (locus paenitentiae), but also could not expect forgive- ness from God (locus veniae).* This teaching was revived by the Anabaptists and is directly contradicted by our Article.

• Views of this kind were held among others by the Montanists, Novatianists and Donatists. Some held that though the Church could not restore to com- munion those who had once lapsed, still God might finally grant them His forgiveness. That is, they allowed to them a locus veniae but not a locus paenttentiae.

The distinction between ‘venial’ and ‘deadly’ sin rests on 1 Jn. 5’*1”. St. John, while insisting that ‘all unrighteousness is sin,’ speaks of ‘a sin unto death’ * as contrasted with ‘a sin not unto death.’ This distinction was already familiar among the Jews. Originally the phrase meant quite literally a sin punishable with physical death, such death being a final exclusion from Israel. Then it came to be used of any offence that morally deserved similar punishment. Hence St. John employs the phrase for sin that excludes a man from fellowship in the Divine society. As thus separated from the Body of Christ, he can no longer be prayed for as a fellow Christian.t St. John refuses to forbid prayer for him altogether, nor does he suggest that such sin is unpardonable. The distinction between ‘deadly ’ and ‘ venial ’ sin has a practical value, but we caunot draw a hard and fast line between them. What is venial for one man under certain circumstances, may be mortal for another under other circumstances. Only God can know the full measure of guilt that attaches to any particular act of sin. It is not the outward act by itself but the motive and character lying behind it that count. On the other hand, common sense tells us that in the abstract certain sins are more serious than others.

Our Lord’s teaching on ‘sin against the Holy Ghost ’ has been the cause of much misunderstanding. In Mk. 323°, Mt. 121%, the Pharisees who deliberately assigned Christ’s works of mercy to Beelzebub, are warned of the danger of ‘ blaspheming against the Holy Spirit.’ Those who commit this sin, are ‘ guilty of an eternal sin’ (Mk. 329, R.V.) and never have forgiveness. In Lk. 121° similar language is used, but the context is entirely different. In their present context the words about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit can only refer to Christians who publicly deny Christ under fear of punishment. In each case the sin is not simply a single act, stil] less a sin of the tongue, but a state of mind. It would seem to be the wilful refusal to recognize and welcome goodness, when it is seen to be goodness. The assertion that Christ’s works of mercy were due to Beelzebub was evidence that the Pharisees were in danger of falling into such a state. So, too, the public repudiation of Christ by Christians

would equally be evidence of the beginning of such a state. Unless there is a change of mind the position must become hopeless. If men see and know the good and from hatred or cowardice deliberately call it evil, no more can be done. If such conduct is persisted in, the whole moral nature is warped and the power to discern truth is forfeited. So a character is formed that from its very nature renders forgiveness impossible. If this account of ‘sin against the Holy Ghost’ is true, it is clear that “not every deadly sin after baptism’ even approximates to it.

There are, however, certain passages in the Epistle to the Hebrews that were taken, e.g. by Origen, to teach that those who had fallen into deadly sin after baptism could not be restored to communion by the Church. The most important is 6*%, ‘For as touching those who were once enlightened ’ (i.e. pro- bably baptized, pwricévtas) ‘and tasted (vevoapévous) of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the age to come, and then fall away (7apa7ecdrtas), it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance, the while they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh (avactavpovvras) and put him to an open shame (rapaderyuatiGovras)’ (R.V. mg.). Here a study of the tenses employed brings out the meaning of the passage. So long as men go on crucifying the Son of God afresh and putting Him to an open shame, in spite of their past baptism and Christian privileges, nothing can be done to renew them again unto repentance. But there is not a word to say that if they forsake their sin and turn to God they may not be renewed unto repentance.* The same holds good in reference to 10729, Here also the ‘ fearful expectation of judgment ’ applies to those who after knowing the truth and having rejected Christ, go on sinning (4uapravovtwy). Nothing is said of the impossibility of repentance. So too in 12!*17, as the R.V. makes clear, what Esau sought diligently with tears and failed to find is not a ‘ place of repentance’ but the ‘ blessing.” These passages, in short, are not an assertion that no forgiveness is possible for post-baptismal

*Cp. Westcott ad loc., ‘The apostasy described is marked, not only by a decisive act but also by a continuous present attitude, a hostile relation to Christ Himself and to belief in Christ ; and thus there is no question of the abstract efficacy of the means of grace provided through the ordinances of the Church. The state of the men themselves is such as to preclude their application.’

sin, but an exhortation not to put off repentance too late. The failure to find pardon depends not on God’s unwillingness to grant it, but on the sinner’s refusal to comply with the conditions necessary for obtaining it.

Again, it follows from a right understanding of grace that “After we have received the Holy Ghost we may depart from grace given and by the grace of God we may arise again and amend our lives.’ The Calvinists taught that a man who had once received grace, even if he fell away for a time, must in the end arise again and amend his life. This was known technically as a belief in ‘jndefectible ’ grace. Such teaching is plainly contrary to Scrip- ture and to experience. St. Paul had beyond dispute received the Holy Ghost, but he never supposed that his position was therefore secure apart from his own moral efforts (cp. 1 Cor. 927, Phil. 312). The grace of God may be received in vain (2 Cor. 61, Gal. 54, Heb. 12) or even resisted (Acts 7°1, Mt. 238”). So, too, Saul in the Old Testament certainly received grace, but ulti- mately fell away (cp. 1 Sam. 10° ‘God gave him another heart’). Our Lord also taught that the salt may lose its savour (Mt. 53%) and the good seed begin to grow but be choked (Mk. 41%), and the branch in the vine bear no fruit and be burnt (Jn. 15%). We may rejoice that the efforts of the Calvinists to change ‘ may’ into ‘ must.’ were unsuccessful.

Notes

• Cp. Driver, Genesis, pp. lxi-lxxiv.
• «Whether or not the corrupted state of human nature was preceded in temporal sequence by an incorrupt state, this is the most vivid and natura] way of exhibiting the truth that in God’s primary purpose man was incorrupt, so that evil in him should be regarded as having a secondary or adventitious character. Ideal antecedence is, as it were, pictured in temporal antecedence.’ —Hort, Life and Letters, vol. ii. p. 329.
• Mozley, Lectures and Theological Papers, p. 136. The whole paper deserves most careful attention.
• See Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. 136 ff.
• Kidd, Thirty-nine Articles, p. 127.
• Tennant, Original Sin, p. 31. For a full statement of this view see his larger book, Origin and Propagation of Sin.
• Life, p. 317.
• Dinsmore, Atonement in Literature and Life, p. 244.
• Cp. Sanday and Headlam, pp. 145-146; and A. W. Robinson, God and the World, p. 63 ff,
• Chandler, Spirit of Man, p. 154.
• Confessions, bk. x. c. 29, 31, 37, ‘Da quod iubes et iube quod vis’; cp. de dono Perseverantiae, c. 53.
• duapria mpds Odvaror, t.e. a sin, the natural issue of which is death. +See Westcott’s notes ad loc. and Appendix, p. 209, in his commentary on 1 Jn.