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portant the epoch of awakening moral consciousness may be, it has a past behind it, which is not without co-determining influence upon the conduct of the child in that crisis.

And is it probable that a decision on which depends the future moral character of an immortal soul, would be entrusted to the weak hand of a child? Go back as far as we may, we do not find formal freedom in this life. From the earliest period of his existence in this world, the moral character of man is already determined. On the ground of a practical empiricism, i. e. a mode of thinking which seeks for the circumstances and conditions of the moral actions of men only in what comes under our observation during this earthly life, the doctrine of necessity cannot be refuted.

To originate one's own character is an essential condition of personality, and since from the beginning of this life man's character is already determined, we are obliged to step over the bounds of time to find the source of his freedom of will, to discover that act of free-will by which he determined himself to a course of sin. Is the moral condition in which, irrespective of redemption, we find man to be, one of guilt, and a consequence of his own act; is there truth in the testimony of conscience which imputes to us our sins; is there truth in the voice of religion that God is not the author of sin, then the freedom of man must have its beginning in a domain out of time. In this domain is that power of original choice to be sought for, which precedes and preconditions all sinful decisions in time.

In contemplations of this kind the unfathomable depth of our depravity and guilt is opened to us, and we find a solution to the riddle of that inextinguishable melancholy and sorrow which forms the hidden ground of all human consciousness, until relieved by the light of redemption. The irrational animal is joyous and contented, if its natural wants are supplied, and if it is undisturbed and unendangered from without; in the human consciousness the dark background of sinful choice casts its shadow even upon the brightest scenes of life, and amid the sounds of hearty joy is mingled the tone of secret complaint. Here we may find a cause of that spirit of sadness which breathes in the arts and mythology of ancient times, and in the popu lar poetry and music of the moderns. Moreover, that anxiety and sorrow which modern philosophers have regarded as the pervading and constant character of animal life, is scarcely anything else than the coloring of that gloom which the sorrow of the human self-consciousness throws upon the animal world; only personal beings have in themselves this original source of pain and discomfort, and only they can have it, because they alone have the beginning of their existence without the domain of time.

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Sin is innate in the Race.

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§4. The Universality of Sin.

Sin is not merely to be found here and there among the children of men, but it is a universal characteristic of the race. With but one exception, no human life is free from it. It is sufficient to say of any person that he belongs to the family of man, and at once to settle the point that he is a sinner. The natural condition of man presents itself as a supremacy of selfishness over moral and religious impulses, and in connection therewith, as a partial and often almost total perversion and obscuration of the knowledge of God and of duty. Consistent with this is the acknowledgment, that even in heathenism and generally in the entire extent of unrenewed life, there are found elements of a nobler striving which betoken a reverence for moral law; for, in human nature in its present condition, there is a discordant action; there is the idea of God and the sense of duty, there is also a propensity to selfishness, but the latter is the dominant one. Consistent also is the acknowledgment of a relative innocence in early childhood in comparison with the period of riper years, and by reason of which it is set before us as a pattern for imitation, Matt. 18: 3. 19: 14. 1 Cor. 14: 20; for this innocence rests upon the fact that the germs of sin are still undeveloped, but that the germs are already present in the child, is evident from the fact, that as soon as moral consciousness is awakened by the moral law, sin appears.

The Holy Scriptures declare the universal presence of sin in the human race, not merely by individual texts which expressly teach it, Rom. 3:9, 20, 23. 5: 12. Gal. 3: 22. Eph. 2: 3. 1 John 1: 8. 1 Kings 8: 46. Ps. 143: 2. Prov. 20: 9. Eccles. 7: 20, but still more decisively by the facts, that the New Testament everywhere refers redemption to the whole world, and thereby describes the whole world as needing redemption, therefore sinful, John 3: 16. 6: 51. 12: 47; that it knows of no other salvation than in Christ, John 1: 12. 14: 6. Acts 4: 12. Mark 16: 16; that Christ announces as an indispensable condition of a share in this salvation to all without distinction, repentance and regeneration, Matt. 4: 17. Mark 1: 15. 6: 12. Luke 24: 47. John 3: 3, 5, and even designates as evil those who had already allied themselves to him, Luke 11: 13.

There are many facts of common life which serve for confirmation of the doctrine that in every man there is a deeply rooted, an inborn tendency to sin. On what other ground are we to comprehend the certainty with which, whenever a human form meets us, we know we have to do, not with a holy, but with a sinful being? Whoever presumes to have a little knowledge of men, compassionates him as a

good natured fool, who would work upon them or with them in the various relations of life without taking into the account their moral weakness, and the consequences that may result therefrom. We would not, indeed, deny that that view of human nature which teaches us to expect only evil of others, is itself of evil. We must rather acknowledge it as duty to meet every one with confidence in the honesty of his disposition, till we have proof of the contrary; but will any one, on that account, call in question the general conviction above referred to? On the contrary, the certainty of it is so great, that if any one should profess to be absolutely sinless, the conclusion would be, that his share in human sinfulness was doubled by his arrogance and conceit. So universal is sin, that it is precisely the morally earnest man, the man who means to do right, that least ventures to declare himself to be free from it; and only then would we acknowledge an exception to the doctrine, when the entire moral appearance of a man who announced himself as holy, was altogether another and a higher than that of other men, even of those who were prominent among their fellows for their virtue.

If we consider the general course of the moral development of man, it is one of the most known and acknowledged facts, that in order to progress in good, constant exertion, toil and conflict are necessary; while, on the other hand, progress in wickedness is easy, and can be made without difficulty. The seed of sin grows and ripens in the human heart of itself, without any special care; one needs only hold no restraint upon himself, and he is at once deep in sin. But that any man can, only through new and repeated conquests over himself, make progress in good, has no meaning, if there is not something in the natural condition of man, which must be resisted as striving against the good, and which consequently is a propensity to sin.

Another fact which shows us how deeply rooted sin is in our nature, meets us in the observation, that virtues are usually so intwined with faults, that often the latter present themselves as the reversed side of the former. Serious earnestness imperceptibly glides into a censorious hardness, and mildness into softness; a ready activity for the welfare of others goes over into an imprudent intermeddling, and quiet moderation into a lazy ease; firm decision, which would make one's own conviction avail, becomes intolerant narrowness, and a regard for the rights of the individuality and convictions of others becomes an idle and crippling indifferentism; a lively, vigorous confidence degenerates into haughtiness and presumption, and wise caution into pusillanimity and wavering fear. Upon every human virtue easily creeps its degeneracy, and this exchange is wont to take place by such slight transitions,

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In this Life no complete Purity from Sin.

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that by the comparatively unimportant alteration of a few features, the noble countenance has become a repulsive caricature.

One of the most convincing testimonies of the exceeding depth of human depravity is, that it is still everywhere present in the life of those who, by means of the new powers imparted to them by redeeming grace, are striving after sanctification. True, in them the dominion of sin has been broken; the individual will is, with determined purpose, devoted to the Divine will; this unity is the impelling and determining principle of their life; in them, sin is deprived of its power to develope itself progressively; it is to be regarded as declining and vanishing, as the after-working of the old man, Eph. 4: 22 sq. And one should not be induced to doubt this because of those occasional progressive movements by which sin sometimes, in the life of the renewed, seems again to recover a lost domain; for every such result, since it cannot sunder the continuous connection of the new life, calls forth a stronger and more deeply penetrating reäction of the Divine principle; and so, taking into view the entire condition, it still remains true that the power of sin is on the decline. Yet notwithstanding all this, it is a decided fact in reference to the life that is renewed by Christ, and a fact which will be denied least of all by those in whom this life really is, that in its earthly development it never becomes completely free from sin; that in the Christian life there is a continual conflict; that it needs careful watching lest by an imperceptible decline of the principle within which comes from God, and by a corresponding unperceived growth of the selfish element, it be made to suffer losses which are hard to be retrieved. Sometimes the power of sin, yet remaining in the renewed, manifests itself in the form of an unholy emotion which arises in the heart before the better will can hinder it; at other times, in the form of unknown or indistinctly perceived intermingling of impure and selfish elements with those services which arise from worthy and holy impulses. And there is also another remarkable fact in Christian experience, that scarcely anywhere, where sanctification has begun, is there wanting an accompanying consciousness (as if of an essential necessity), that within the bounds of this earthly life one cannot come to a complete and perfect purity from sin. This can be explained only on the ground that sin is so interwoven with our nature from the beginning of our earthly life, as to codetermine the form of its development.

The universality of sin in the human race has been generally explained by the doctrine of Original Sin. The doctrine is briefly this. God made man in his own image, i. e. he endowed our first parents

with an original righteousness, the elements of which are holiness of will and wisdom of understanding. These glorious attributes belong to human nature itself; so that, if they fail, the purity of nature is lost. Therefore, God gave them to man not merely as a personal possession, but with the destination, if they should truly keep the same, to continue them to their posterity, of course in such a manner that in the latter they should at first be only as a disposition, or a faculty to produce and exercise these qualities with unconstrained ease. But our first parents fell from the state wherein they were created, by disobedience to the divine command; and thereby not only lost the divine image, but also poisoned human nature in soul and body with a lust to all iniquity. The loss of the divine image, together with the dominant sinful inclination, passes over from them to all their children, who are descended from them in the way of natural generation; and in these two elements (the negative-defectus justitiae originalis; and the positive-concupiscentia) consists original sin, the inexhaustible source of all actual sins. But original sin is by no means to be regarded merely as a calamity, which brings no guilt with it to him in whom it is; but as it is really sin, so it makes every man, from the beginning of his life, guilty before God and worthy of eternal damnation. Original sin is, at the same time, original guilt.

In the doctrine thus stated, two principles are manifestly presupposed. 1) Where sin is, there is guilt. 2) A condition of human nature, from which all kinds of actual sins proceed, must be regarded as itself sin. These principles are true. But it is equally true, that where in relation to actions and states which appear as sinful, the origination of those actions and states by the subject of them is absolutely impossible, there those actions and states are not really sinful. It is a question, whether the doctrine is sufficiently protected against the application of this principle. Only a personal being, and not a mere being of nature, can render himself a subject of guilt; for only a personal being is the real author of his actions and states. Where there is no personality, and accordingly no freedom of will, there the power of original self-determination is wanting; what appears as a self-determining, if traced into its real causes, is resolved into a being determined. Accordingly, reprobate actions and states can be regarded as criminal, only so far as they have their ultimate ground in the selfdetermination of the subject. If the subject is merely the transition point for influences received from another power, whether that other power be of nature, or a personal one, then these states and activities are not his fault, unless he by some preceding self-determination gave entrance to the determining influence of such power upon him. Now

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