CHAPTER XVI.

ORIGINAL SIN.

IT might have been supposed that Adam's posterity would have been born in the same natural condition in which Adam was created, that only his own individuality would have been injured by his sin. But we find that it was otherwise; the fall had produced a change, not only in Adam's state, but also in his nature. His body had become subject to disease and death, the faculties of his mind were deteriorated, his affections inclined to evil and disinclined to good, his will enfeebled, his original righteousness lost.*

He could only transmit his own corrupted nature to his posterity. "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" (Job xiv. 4). This corruption of nature which every one of his descendants inherits from Adam, is, in theological language, called "original sin," ie., sin of origin, i.e., birth-sin. The doctrine is a most important one, for it lies at the very foundation of religion, and much misapprehension of the doctrines of Christianity may be traced to a want of clear understanding and firm holding of this truth.

* The Fathers appear, almost with one consent, to have held that original righteousness consisted both of natural innocence and of the grace of God vouchsafed to Adam. The one was lost simultaneously with the other. Indeed, the one could not exist without the other. Original righteousness, therefore, according to the primitive teaching, was not only defect of sin, but also the presence of God's Spirit. At the fall, God's Spirit was forfeited, and primæval innocence lost at the same time. (Bishop Harold Browne's "XXXIX Articles," i. p. 321, note).

Let us first see how clearly the truth is taught in Holy Scripture. God declares of the men before the flood, "that the imagination of man's heart was evil from his youth" (Gen. viii. 21). David says that he was "shapen in iniquity, and in sin did his mother conceive him" (Ps. li. 5). Solomon asserts that "there is not a just man on earth that doeth good and sinneth not" (Eccles. vii. 20). In the Epistle to the Romans is a long passage in which this truth of the universality of sin is the very argument: St. Paul says, "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, in that all have sinned Death reigned from Adam to Moses (and ever since) even over them that had not sinned, after the similitude of Adam's trangression," ie., that had not committed actual sin (Rom. v. 12, 14). Again, "I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing" (Rom. vii. 18). By flesh St. Paul does not mean the body only, but the natural man. This, too, is our Lord's meaning in the place in which He contrasts the natural birth with the new birth: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John iii. 6). There are other texts which speak clearly of the moral disability of man in this natural state: They who are in the flesh cannot please God" (Rom. viii. 8); and of his condemnation in this state, we were "by nature the children of wrath, even as others" (Eph. ii. 3).

66

The extent of the corruption of human nature has been a subject of dispute. On one extreme the Pelagians denied original sin, and held that Adam's posterity were only affected as to outward circumstances, not as to their inward nature, by their ancestor's sin; they maintained that men are born in the same state in which Adam was created, and that they have naturally power to keep God's commandments and grow up holy. At the other extreme some of

the followers of Calvin taught that the corruption of man's nature was universal and total, so that there was not one spark of goodness left in him. The truth lies between these extremes; man's nature lies in ruins, and the Spirit of God has gone out of it; but there are portions of the temple standing, and broken columns and sculptures scattered about, which still retain great beauty, and show how goodly the structure originally was. Or to change the metaphor: the mirror which once reflected the likeness of God is shattered, and its brightness corroded and dimmed; but there are still · many fragments in which a partial and a dimmed reflection of the original image may be traced. We all know that there is much which is beautiful, and amiable, and noble in fallen human nature. But in saying this we speak of human nature as we see it, and it must be remembered that it has not been allowed to pursue its natural course of deterioration. God interposed at once, and arrested its downward His Spirit began at once to give men grace, and to strive with their corruption, so that fallen human nature, as we know it, is not fallen human nature utterly abandoned and left entirely to itself.

course.

Again, as to the effect of Baptism on this fallen nature. The Roman theologians, at the Council of Trent, defined that Baptism entirely cancelled original sin, "that by the grace of Baptism the guilt of original sin is remitted, and all is removed which hath the true and proper nature of sin." While our own Church, adhering carefully to the language of Scripture, defines, in the ninth Article, that original or birth sin is the corruption of the nature of all the posterity of Adam, that through this man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is by his own nature inclined to evil, and deserves God's wrath and condemnation. That this infection of nature remains even in the regenerate, and that though there is no condemnation to them that believe and

are baptized, yet this hereditary defect hath of itself the nature of sin.

A great statesman, some years ago, called forth a burst of animadversion by an incautious remark that children were born innocent, and that it was only through bad training and evil example that they grew up bad. There are probably many other people who would admit in words the corruption of our nature by the fall, but who, in unguarded conversation, would use language about the innocence of children which would show that they too do not habitually realise the doctrine of original sin.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE FLOOD.

CHILDREN were born to Adam and Eve, and mankind grew and multiplied, and their gradual progress in the arts of life is briefly indicated in the sacred history. Cain was a tiller of the ground, and Abel a keeper of sheep. Mankindi.e., fallen mankind—began not in the hunter condition, still less in a lower and savage condition, but in the pastoral and agricultural stage of civilisation.

The race of Cain seems to have been the vigorous and progressive race of men. Enoch, a son of Cain, was the first who built a city. Six generations after the city-builder, Jubal, of the same race, was the first to leave the settled habitations of men, and wander with his herds over the vast empty plains, dwelling in tents-the originator of the nomade life. In the same generation, another brother of the same family, Tubal-Cain, was the inventor of the use of metals, "an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron." To Jubal, another brother of the same remarkable family, the world owes the invention of the harp and organ, i.e., of both stringed and wind instruments of music.

But it is the religious history of the world, of which the Bible especially treats, and which especially concerns us now. Alas! the corruption of man's nature soon showed itself; even in the first-born of Adam and Eve, it so wrought in evil passions and unrestrained acts that out of envy he slew his brother.

The grace of God was, however, proved to be enough to