tages increasing its strength, and furthering its power. As, First it always abides in the soul, it is never absent." It is obvious to every reader, that from the above quotation, Dr. Owen, understood what he called "indwelling sin," to be itself an operative principle, having power to determine and control the acts of the soul, and in this respect, to be the very opposite of the vital, or holy principle, which he taught, is implanted in regeneration. This is rendered perfectly indisputable, from the definition which he has given of "indwelling sin," considered as a law. "It is," says he, "a powerful, effectual indwelling principle, inclining and pressing unto actions, agreeable and suitable unto its nature. ""2 But while, in one place, he speaks of sin positively as an indwelling law or principle, something operative-having power to produce actions "suitable unto its nature," which is unquestionably, a physical depravity; in another place, he contemplates it negatively, as a natural impotency, or defect in our being, thus also maintaining a physical depravity. He denominates it a natural impotency, "because" he says "it consists in the deprivation of the light and power that was origi nally in the faculties of our minds or understandings, and because it can never be taken away or cured, but by an immediate communication of a new spiritual power and abilily, TO THE MIND ITSELF, by the Holy Ghost in this renovation, so evincing the deprivation oF THE FACULTY ITSELF. Language more appropriate could not be employed to teach the doctrine of physical depravity. It is unnecessary to quote any further from him on this subject. We add some things to the same purport from other of the old Calvinistic writers. "Every person" says Boston, "that is born according to the course of nature, is 1. Owen on Indwelling Sin, chap, ii. p. 29. 2. Owen on Indwelling Sin, chap. i. p. 15. born unclean: if the root be corrupt, so must the branches be: neither is the matter mended, though the parents be sanctified ones; for they are but HOLY IN PART, and that by grace, not by nature; and they beget their children as men, not as holy men: wherefore as the circumcised parent begets an uncircumcised child, and after the present grain is sown, we reap corn with the chaff; so the holiest parents beget unholy children, and cannot communicate their grace to them, as they do their nature." Here he evidently predicates sin of simple existence, as propagated by natural descent. Elsewhere he speaks of "the sin of our nature," in contradistinction from voluntary acts of transgression, and describes it in terms plainly expressing a physical depravity. "Of all sins" he says, "it is the most extensive and diffusive. It goes through the whole man, and spoils all. The corruption of nature, is the poison of the old serpent, cast into the fountain of action; and so infects every action, every breathing of the soul. It is the cause of all particular lusts, and actual sins in our hearts and lives. It is virtually all sin: for it is the seed of all sins, which want but the occasion to set up their heads: being in the corruption of nature, as the effect in the virtue of its cause. The sin of our nature is, of all sins, the most fixed and abiding. It remains with men, in its full power, by night and by day, at all times, fixed as with bands of iron and brass. It is the great reigning sin.""] "All of every man is corrupt; it is a leprosy that has overspread universally; a leaven that hath leavened the whole lump. It has overspread, 1. The soul in all its faculties. 2. As for the will, call it no more will, but lust. It is free to evil, but not to good. 3. As to the af 1. Boston's fourfold state, pp. 39. 40. fections they are quite disordered, Further, this corrup tion has spread even to the body.” The above are specimens of the whole school, and they do, if language has any definite meaning, plainly teach the doctrine of physical depravity. This is manifestly the doctrine Calvin taught; and the view he took of original sin, when he defined it to be, "an hereditary depravity and corruption of OUR NATURE, DIFFUSED THROUGH EVERY PART OF THE SOUL. Yet from him, (Adam,) hath not punishment alone marched upon us as a pestilence, (grassata est,) but the pestilence (lues) instilled from him, resides in us, for which punishment is justly due. " Still more decisive and pointed are the following, when commenting on the Apostle's declaration, "that all have sinned." "That is," says he, "they are involved in original sin and polluted with its spots, and for this reason, infants also themselves, while they, bring their own damnation with themselves from their "mother's womb, are obnoxious, not for another's but their own especial vice. (suo ipsorum vitio.) For although they may not have produced the fruits of their own iniquity, yet have they the seed included in themselves: yea, their whole nature, is some such seed of sin; so that it cannot but be odious and abominable to God." 1. Boston's body of Divinity, vol. 1, pp. 307, 308, 309. 2. Videtur ergo peccatum originale hæreditaria naturæ nostræ pravitas et corruptio, in omnes animæ partes diffuse: Ab illo tamen non Sola in nos pœna grassata est, sed in stillata ab ipso, LUES in nobis residet, cui jure pœna debetur. Calvini. Instit. Lib. ii. cap. 1. Sec. 8. 3. Et apostolus ipse disertissime testatur, ideo mortem in omnes pervagatam, quod omnes peccarint, id est, involuti sint originali peccato, et ejus maculis inquinati. Atqui ideo infantes quoque ipsi, dum suam secum damnationem a matris utero afferunt, non alienio sed suo ipsorum vitio sunt obstricti. Nam tametsi suœ iniquitatis fructus nondum protulerint, habent, tamen in se inclusum semen imo tota corum natura, quoddam est peccati VINK, in his sermon published in the morning exercises, entitled "Original sin inhering," has given exactly the same view which Boston after him and many other theologians of that day have done. We select a few passages: he says, "1. "Tis called original sinne, because 'tis in every one from his original; it may say to every one, as soon as thou wert I am: or 2. Because it is derived from Adam the original of all man-kinde, out of whose blood, God hath made us all: or 3. Because 'tis the original of all other sinne; it is the seed and spawn, out of which they all grow; this is that lust, which when it hath conceived, bringeth forth sinne. This sin runs parallel with our being men, or partaking of man's nature in this world. This sin, and our nature in us, are twins, in life and death. Our whole fabrick is so overspread with this leprosie, that it can never be sufficiently cleansed, till it be wholly taken down. 1. This sin cleaves to the soul: and 2. It infects the very body also."'1 It is unnecessary to crowd our pages with other extracts.2 Those adduced, shew plainly, that original sin is spoken of, by some old Calvinistic writers, as an operative or efficient cause of sin, which is lodged in the very soul of man, from the very first moment of his origin, anterior to all voluntary acts whatever, and therefore can only be physical; i. e. must consist in some constitution of simple nature or created being, which is the appropriate, immediate, and necessary cause of sinful actions. This is semen: ideo non odiosa et abominabilis Deo esse non potest. Cal. Inst. 1. ii. c. 1. Sec. 8. 1. See Morning Exercise, at Giles in the fields, pp. 155, 156, 157, 158. 1. The reader may find many in the first volume of a work entitled, Views of Theology published in New York, in which the author has undertaken to prove that in some theories and reasonings of divines, depravity e exhibited as a physical attribute. philosophy. It is an inference drawn from certain facts, and sustained by false analogies. Who does not see, that it as deeply implicates the character of God, as it certainly relieves the sinner from obligation? If simple created nature, or EXISTENCE is sinful, then is God the direct and immediate author of sin, for it is His exclusive prerogative to create. This however, He cannot be. Nor is it sufficient to vindicate the purity of God in this matter, to say that Adam, having corrupted himself by his own act, propagated to his progeny a corrupt nature, and that by virture of fixed and established laws, ordained to regulate the agency of God, in the production of successive creatures. For it does not appear, that Adam lost or acquired any physical property by his rebellion; nor that his nature, consisting simply of his created substance and its constitutional properties, sustained any physical change by his sin. IIis voluntary exercises were sadly deranged, and became awfully depraved, but that depravity formed no part of his substance, nor belonged to his constitutional properties. It attached to his character, as a moral agent. How then could he transmit, by natural generation what did not inhere in his own constitution. It does not appear that Adam's sin, produced in his own soul, any physical defect, or lodged there any new efficient principle or physical being, possessing power to control his voluntary actions. We shall have occasion presently to trace the influence of certain great moral principles, as they operated to regulate his actions, and to shape his character: but certainly, no one will affirm, that the first sin of Adam, inhered in him, changing his very physical constitution, and becoming an efficient cause of all his subsequent sinful actions. For that sin was an act, not a substance, and had no other existence, than as an event which transpired in his history, |