Forbes on Article IX: Of Original or Birth-sin

things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of very God, Begotten not made, Being of one substance with the Father, by Whom all things were made, Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, And was incarnate, and was made man; He suffered and rose again on the third day; and ascended into heaven, and shall come again to judge … And I believe in the Holy Ghost1/ ”

’ De Broglie, L’eglise et V empire Romaln au 4<‘ieme siecle, t. ii. p. 68.

PECCATUM oriyinis non est (at fabulantur Pelagiani) in imitatione Adami situm, sed est ritiiim, et depravatio nature, cujuslibrt hominis ex Adamo naturaliter pro- payati : qua ft, ut ab oriyinaJi jiistitia quam lontjix- simedistft) ad mahim sua natura propendcat, et caro semper advcrsus spiritum concupiscat, unde in wioquo- que nascentium, iram Dei atque damnationcm meretur. Manet ctiam in renatis licec naturce depravatio. Qua -fit, lit affectus carnis, Grace typovrj^a 0-aprcbs (quod alii sapientiain, alii scasum, a/it affectnm, alii studium carnis interprctantur) lecji Dei non subjiciatur. Et quanquam renatis ct eredentilus, nnlla propter Chris tum est condemnatio, peecati tamen in sese ration-em habere concupiscentiam, fatctur Apostohts.

” Of Original or Birth-Sin.

” ORIGINAL sin standetli not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk,) but it is the fault and 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 righteous ness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit; and, therefore, in every person born into this world, it de- serveth (rod’s wrath and damnation. And this in-

section of nature doth remain, yea, in them that are regenerated; whereby the lust of the flesh, called in Greek, <f)p6v?j/jLa vapKos, which some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some the affection, some the desire of the flesh, is not subject to the law of God. And although there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized, yet the Apostle doth confess, that concupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin.”

IN approaching the subject of the Ninth Article of religion, we have to bear in mind, that at the Re formation, the Church had to deal 1. with those who denied original sin, and 2. with those who mistook its nature and unduly magnified its consequences. The Family of Love affirmed that the elect and re generate sin not. The Adamites maintained that they were in as good a state as Adam before the Fall, there fore without original sin. The older sect of the Be- gards (condemned in the Council of Yienne under Clement V. A.U. 1311) maintained that man in the pre sent life can attain unto so great a measure of per section, that he is rendered absolutely impeccable, and cannot grow more in grace. The Socinians very soon developed the doctrine of the denial of original sin. On the contrary side, as will be seen, men ran into the opposite extreme.

The learned Mohler, in treating of the doctrine of original sin, states that the Confession of the An-

glican Church on every point endeavours to avoid a tone of exaggeration a. Exaggeration on this sub ject was the cardinal error of the Reformers of the sixteenth century.

In order to estimate what is the meaning of original sin, it becomes necessary in the first place to consider what was the primitive state of man, in what condi tion, endowed with what faculties, did he come forth from his Maker’s hands ? Now we can only attain to this knowledge by directing our view to the renewal of the fallen creature in Jesus Christ, because as re generation consists in the re-establishment of our pri- maBval condition, the insight into what Christ has given us back affords us the desired knowledge of what was originally imparted to us. Moreover, the Holy Scriptures tell us ” that God made man up right.” Man in Paradise was blessed with pre eminent gifts of body and soul. He was a spiritual being endowed with freedom, capable of knowing and loving God, and of viewing all things in Him. He was formed in God’s image and likeness. His lower faculties acted under the guidance of his reason, as his reason was in obedience to God, and thus he lived in blessed harmony with himself and his Creator. He had also the great gift of immortality, even in his earthly part, and an exemption from disease and the ills that lead to death, and all this by a special divine gift, for it is one thing not to be able to die, and another thing to be able not to die, as St. Augustine

a Symbolism, vol. i. p. 110, ed. 1843.

bears witness. This condition of tilings is the state of ” original righteousness/’ a state, which by no means merely implies that man was unpolluted by any alloy adverse to God, but what is more, that he stood in the most interior and closest communion with his Maker, and such a state and condition cannot be attained or upheld by the natural powers; in short, no created being can be holy but by the Holy Spirit, and no finite essence can live in loving communion with God but through Him. Therefore the relation of Adam to God, as it raised him above human nature, and made him partaker of that of God, was caused by a super natural gift of divine grace superadded to the endow ments of nature. Had these gifts been natural, they would have survived sin, as those of the demons : and it is necessary to distinguish between the state of pure nature, and the superadded gifts which in one sense are accidental qualities. Though, as a matter of fact, both existed together in the unfallen man, it is neces sary for theological precision to bear the distinction very clearly in mind.

Some theologians hold that on Adam the super natural superadded gifts were bestowed simultaneously with his natural endowments, i.e. in the first moment of his creation; others, distinguishing between holi ness and justice, prefer the opinion that Adam was created in a sound, pure, and unpolluted nature ; and that he was favoured with the supernatural gift of communion with God after he had by his efforts ren dered himself worthy of its reception. Both theories

sharply distinguish alike between the provinces of nature and grace.

Luther’s cardinal error was, that he mistook the distinction between the natural and the superadded gifts, maintaining that Adam’s acceptableness with God was natural, and an integral constitutive part of his nature. He failed to distinguish between the nature itself of the mind and will, created by God alone without us; and the virtue and uprightness, which are perfected by our co-operation with the grace of God. Divines called the former ” the image,” the latter ” the likeness of God.” The importance of this distinction is obvious. Moreover, Luther and many of his followers denied the freedom of the will in fallen man. Though Melanchthoii at one time held with his master, he afterwards perceived the abyss into which such a doctrine must plunge the Church, and abandoned it. ^et the servitude of the human will, as it was termed, profoundly influenced the Lu theran system. Calvin’s paradisaic man was also de void of supernatural gifts, but he allowed him free will. How this is compatible with an actual predes tination of all things, even of the Fall itself, is un intelligible.

What has gone before is necessary to the elucida tion of the Doctrine of Original Sin. Our Article tells first of all what it is not. ” It consisteth not in the following or imitation of Adam.” The rise of the Pelagian heresy in the fifth century is the be ginning of a new epoch in the history of doctrine.

Till this period, the mind of man had occupied itself with Christology, with the conditions of the existence of the Son of God ; for the earlier heresies, if we ex cept Gnosticism and Manicheism, had chiefly concerned themselves with His Divine Person and Natures. Theo logy began now to deal with the subjective. Anthro pology, the science of man, became its subject. It re mained for St. Augustine to re-exhibit those wonderful doctrines of the grace of God so precisely stated before by St. Cyprian, which, expressed with the most subtle analysis by St. Paul, had not been drawn out with precision by the Fathers, either in the epoch of the apologies to the heathen, or in the age of persecu tion, or in that of the controversies on the mode of existence of the Word made Flesh. Perhaps tho Christian was occupied in defending the faith against the heathen public opinion that surrounded him, in strengthening himself and his friends to die for Christ, and in humbly meditating on that Lord who was all in all to him, rather than concerning himself about his own nature in the eyes of Almighty God; or Christians held the faith implicitly ; else they would not have been startled by the errors of Pelagius, when he appeared, as something new. St. Augustine shews that it was stated in terms by eminent fathers and bishops in all parts of the world who preceded himb. But the truth was fenced more precisely to meet the errors of Pelagius. Said to be of Welch or Scottish extraction, it seems strange that the scion of

b c. Julian, 1. ii.

a race, ever most susceptible of supernatural ideas, should have been the first promulgator of a system, whose error was a too great reliance on the rectitude and power of the human will. Aided by Celestius and by Julian, he maintained with exceeding acuteness the thesis that man by his natural powers is able to merit eternal life, and that consequently the Fall was hurt ful only from causing the possibility of the imitation of Adam’s sin, and that to all intents and purposes there was no such thing as original sin. These errors were met by St. Augustine, who maintained the power, the freeness, and the efficacy of divine grace ; in which he was followed by St. Fulgentius, and his teaching be came so authoritative, that it was formalized and sane tioned by the Council of Orange, in language which has been ever since accepted by the Catholic Church of Christ. It is to the effect that Adam, by sin, lost his original righteousness and holiness, drew down upon himself the anger of the Almighty, incurred the penalty of death, and in body and soul became deteriorated ; that this sinful condition is transmitted to all his posterity, through natural generation, en tailing the consequences that man is of himself in capable of doing acts well-pleasing to God, or of being in any way justified before Him, save only by the merit of Jesus Christ, the one Mediator between God and man.

To state the matter scientifically : ” as between things opposite there is an opposite relation, so from original righteousness; original sin its opposite, may be ex-

plained. But the order of original righteousness con sisted in this, that the will of man was obedient to God ; and it is the province of the will to direct and rule all the other parts of the soul in conformity to this. Hence, when the will fell away from God, disorder in all the other faculties ensued. Hence, the deprivation of ori ginal righteousness is the formal cause of original sin, and the disorder in all the faculties of the soul, the material cause ; and that disorder manifests itself in the perverted affection for transitory good, which we call concupiscence.”

“Now this disorder or displacement is called the wound of nature, and it is chiefly felt in the four powers of the soul, which become the conduits of virtue, viz. reason wherein is prudence, will wherein is justice, the faculty of exertion wherein is courage, the faculty of desire wherein is temperance. Reason wounded suffers from ignorance, justice or righteous ness wounded suffers from wickedness, the faculty of exertion wounded results in frailty, and that of desire in concupiscence/’

The inheritance of a nature marred both by punish ment and guilt is manifest in the want of the intuition of God, which presupposes guilt ; for no one can be de prived of that eternal good for which he was created, unless there be in him something which renders him unworthy to stand in the divine Presence; in the ignominy which hangs upon the reason, for that reason is now ashamed of certain motions of the flesh ; and in the preponderance of concupiscence, because man must

“be guilty unless the spirit be in subjection to God, and the flesh and the animal faculties in subjection to the spirit. Here faith, philosophy, and daily experience concur. It is undeniable that the soul of each one from his birth is perverted, and this perverted state is guilt, us the right state of the soul is righteousness. Hence the Apostle, speaking in the person of fallen humanity, says: “I see another law in my members striving against the law of the Spirit, and holding me captive under the law of sin.” Then he exclaims : ” 0 wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Then he replies : “Thanks be to God — or better, the grace of God — through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Let it never be forgotten that all this is a great mys tery. How the soul created by God, and created in nil soundness, purity, and integrity, should at the moment of its union with the body not only be deprived of all its supernatural gifts, but be deeply wounded in its natural faculties, is a very great difficulty ; yet this, which, involves the doctrine of Creatianism, that souls are created by God, must be accepted rather than the opinion called Traducianism, that souls are transmitted through generation by the parent to the children.

The error which Luther maintained with regard to the state of man in Paradise told profoundly on his view of original sin. If Adam’s acceptableness with God was natural, by the Fall he lost certain natural powers. According to this school fallen man no longer possessed even the mere faculty to understand God and

His holy will, and in conformity to that knowledge to direct his own will. The image of God, according to Luther’s definition, the natural capacity in man to love God, to fear Him, and to confide in Him, was utterly effaced ; the image of the devil was substituted. The freedom of will is only an external freedom, non-existent in spiritual things ; man is now a mere earthly power. Luther maintained that original sin was a substance ; Melanchthon, that it was an innate power. At last it was held that original sin was the very substance of fallen man.

While we cannot fail to respect that sense of human misery and sin, as well as of the need of redemption, which prompted these notions, we must guard against an error, which by making man the mere mechanical instrument of God’s actions, by obliterating a spiritual faculty, transforms moral into physical evil. How can. man sin when he has not the faintest idea of God, when he has no faculty to will, when he is devoid of freedom ?

It will be seen that all true morality must rest on a certain limitation of the idea of the magnitude of the effect of original sin. If all the higher spiritual facul ties be utterly destroyed, how can man really grieve over his shortcomings, if God has deprived him of all power of overcoming and avoiding these shortcomings? Deeply penetrated as the Church is with the enormity und misery of that hereditary evil which affects our race, she would be false to the experience of life, as well as to precise theology, if she were to allow sentiment to take the place of reason in this respect, and by ex-

aggeration to undermine the foundation of Christian ethics by the destruction of moral responsibility. Man is only responsible in the measure that he is free, and the utter destruction of the spiritual faculties in fallen man necessarily acquits him of the misguiding of such faculties.

The Calvinists did not run into such extremes as these. They took warning from the mistakes of the earlier Reformers. They recovered themselves to a de gree, but still the language of some of the confessions is very exaggerated and false. For example, the West minster Confession : — ” By this sinne (our first parents) fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly de filed in all the faculties and parts of soul and body From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual trans gression c.”

Very different is the tone of our own Article : ” It is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteous ness d, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that

c The Confession of Faith, p. 22, ed. 1658.

d “Very far gone from original righteoixsness.” — The assembly of divines of 1643, in the criticisms which were required of them by Parliament, preferred the phrase, ” Wholly deprived of original right eousness,” which would have brought the Article into harmony with the statements of the earlier Lutherans, and the general tenor of the Culvinistic Confessions. Cf. Hard wick, p. 376.

the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit.” Now some of the Schoolmen taught that a destructive and infectious quality was introduced into the human body, and that this quality, propagated by generation, con taminated the soul at the moment of its union with the body. Such a theory, which involves the absurdity of the existence of a positive bad quality, of an essential evil substance, is not taught in the Article ; on the contrary, the words ” fault and corruption” are both privative words, implying the lesion of something good in itself by the abstraction of a certain condition ; and this helps us to understand what follows, “that this infection of the nature remains even in the regenerate/’ which, as held by Luther, and in his sense, constituted one of his quarrels with the Church. Luther by this meant, that all that he implied by original sin, — the utter inability to think, to believe, to will, the entire deadness to good, the obliteration of the image of God and the sub stitution of the image of the devil, — remained even in the regenerate or baptised ; whereas the Anglican Ar tide, by its expression ” whereby the lust of the flesh is not subject to the law of God,” limits it to the con tinuance of concupiscence, a fact which to his sorrow every one must admit.

Now concupiscence or evil desire, being the disorder of the natural powers, was by the Reformers stated to be actual sin, the true image of the devil, which through the loss of the image of God is propagated by gene ration in man : whereas our Article, following the Apo-

stle, says ” that it is of the nature of sin e,” inasmuch as, at least, it provokes to sin. We cannot be wrong in using St. Paul’s words, though we recognise the dis tinctive teaching of our great father in the faith, St. Gregory, who, in answer to the questions of St. Austin of England, lays down distinctly the different stages in sin. Following the teaching of St. James, he shews how there is first the suggestion, then the delight, and then the consent to sin ; and till the consent is given the sin is not complete. The expression that there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptised, while it cuts at the root of the unsacramental teachings of the present day, is nearly equivalent to the statement that God hates nothing in the regenerate ; condemna tion and the hatred of God being to all intents and purposes the same.

It will be seen that the estimate of the nature* and effects of original sin forms the turning-point between the ancient faith of the Church and the sys tems of the sixteenth century. If all the germs of good be extirpated in fallen man, there can be no co operation on his part with the work of divine grace. There can be no response to the operations of God upon the soul, therefore man becomes passive in the

c ” This corruption of nature during this life? doth remain in those that are regenerated; and although it be throug’h Christ pardoned and justified, yet both itself and all the motives thereof are truly and pro perly sin.” — Westminster Couf., p. 2 ! .

The As«eu:l>ly of Divines sr.£gcsi, ” It i-3 truly and properly siii.”- Hurdnifk, 370.