TOTAL DEPRAVITY, S. A. Paine The depravity of sinners is hereditary, entire and universal. This they [Campbellites] deny, and of course if successfully so, they could make some show in their affirmation. I do not mean now, by saying that depravity is entire, that the sinner is entire depravity, but the sinner is entirely depraved, entirely affected with depravity, which I will fully explain later.
We will now take the assertion in its order. First, depravity or sin is hereditary, i.e., we are born into this world having a sinful nature which invariably develops into sinful practice, for the reason that a tree bears fruit after its kind. We do not mean that at birth the child is as corrupt as it can be, but “sin is cast and mingled in our frame; it grows with our growth and strengthens with our strength” is a fair statement of the disease.
Take a pint cup full of water, drop into it ten drops of arsenic, the poison will so completely permeate the water until every molecule of water will be affected by the poison, hence totally or entirely poisoned; but will one dare say that because it is totally poisoned that it can not be made more poison? Then would it not be as absurd for one to insist, that if an infant is totally affected with the poison of sin that it can not become more sinful? That is a fudge to deceive the unguarded.
But is sin or depravity hereditary? I believe I will give them their father’s testimony for them to masticate first. You will observe, when I give it, that the boys have made a gross departure.
Hear him: “The stream of humanity, thus contaminated at its fountain, can not in this world ever rise of itself to its primitive purity and excellence. We all INHERIT a frail constitution physically, intellectually, but especially morally frail and imbecile. We have all inherited our father’s constitution and fortune; for Adam, we are told, after he fell, ‘begat a son in his own image,’ and that son was just as bad as any other son ever born into the world, for he murdered his own dear brother because he was a better man than himself.”
Notice, dear reader, humanity is here compared to a stream which is corrupted at its fountain. Could anything be plainer? But again he declares that “we INHERIT a constitution that is morally imbecile,” “Especially” so, he says.
Now, remember that Campbell understood the meaning of language and of course used words that expressed his idea. Remember they INHERITED moral imbecility.
To inherit, Webster says, is “to take by descent from an ancestor, to receive by nature from a progenitor.”
Imbecile, says Webster, means “impotent, destitute of strength either of body or mind.”
Could an Old Baptist present hereditary depravity any stronger?
By descent we inherit moral imbecility. Well we are making good progress even our enemies being judges.
But we hear him further:”Because in him (Adam) they have all sinned, or been made mortal, and consequently are BORN under condemnation to that death which fell upon our common progenitor because of his transgression.” Stronger still! They have all sinned in Adam. Then they must all be sinners, or else how could one sin without being a sinner? And “consequently,” i.e., for that reason; what reason? For the reason they are sinners “they are born under condemnation.”
If that doesn’t affirm sin before birth I would like for some one to state it. But it is too plain to need any comment. So we try him again. “In Adam all have sinned; therefore in Adam all die.” Your nature, gentle reader, not your person, was in Adam when he put forth his hand to break the precept of Jehovah.
You did not personally sin in that act; but your nature then in the person of your father, sinned against the Author of your existence.
There is therefore a sin of our nature as well as personal transgression. Some inappositely call the sin of our nature our original sin, as if the sin of Adam was the personal offence of all his children.
“True indeed it is; our nature was corrupted by the fall of Adam before it was transmitted to us.”
Well, well, boys, what now? Our nature was in Adam and sinned against God, and corrupted, and then transmitted to us! What does that lack proving that “we are by nature (inheritance) the children of wrath even as others?”
This is all any informed Baptist has ever claimed, that we get our depravity as a result of our corrupt nature which was in Adam, being entailed upon or transmitted to his off-spring in their natural conception and birth.
Be careful, boys, how you open your mouth against this, for your founder said:
“Let no man open his mouth against the transmission of a moral distemper, until he satisfactorily explains the fact, that the special characteristic vices of parents appear in their children as much as the color of their skin, their hair or the contour of their faces.”
You will find these quotations in A. Campbell’s Christian System, pp. 27, 28.’ This is one time that Campbell told the truth and his admirers must subscribe to all we claim on depravity or denounce him as an heretic on this point. Come, friends, what will you do? But now we appeal to better and more unerring testimony than Campbell or any other uninspired man—the Bible.
Paul declares that sinners before quickening are “by nature the children of wrath even as others (the rest).” Eph. 2:3.
This has been fully explained by the quotation from Campbell. David, on inherent sin, says, “Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Psa. 51:5.
But they say, that only proves that David’s parents were sinners. If so, then you tell us, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” Job 14:4.
I have had them try to impeach Job as a witness. They say if that be true, then Jesus Christ was depraved, because he was born of a woman, hence came from the unclean. They forget, or rather ignore, the fact that God was His Father and that his mother, Mary, was divinely prepared and made a clean source from which the babe sprang. When the angel told Mary that she should “conceive and bring forth a son,” she replied and said: “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” “And the angel answered and said unto her, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore (notice, therefore, because of the power of the Highest) also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” Luke 1:35.
Any one, who wants to, can see how the conception and birth of Jesus differs from the common or regular process of generation. The power of the Highest is able to reverse any law of nature at His option.
Having moved the trash from over the text we pass to another on hereditary sin. David says again, Ps. 58:3, “The wicked are estranged from the womb, they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. Their poison is like the poison of a serpent; they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear.”
This text is very conclusive in the establishment of hereditary sin. It will bear the closest scrutiny and the most skillful criticism falters when confronted by it. They will always avoid answering until pressed to it, and then ’tis simply amusing to see the repulse and their humiliation over the defeat.
The thought I wish to emphasize first is that David has for a subject, the wicked, not the innocent that afterwards become wicked. He says: “The wicked are estranged from the womb.” This shows that the wicked are at first directly associated with the womb and are estranged, withdrawn from the womb and hence alienated, held at a distance from the original possessor (the womb). Webster defines estrange, thus: “to withdraw, to keep at a distance, to alienate, to divert from its original possessor,” etc.
How then could the wicked be estranged from the womb, if the wicked were never in the womb?
If the womb was always a stranger to the wicked and the wicked always a stranger to the womb, then tell me how the wicked are estranged from the womb? Of course there is impudence enough somewhere to deny this fact if they have to ignore the text to do it. But be still and hearken further: “They go astray.” Who goes astray? The text says “the wicked.” Wicked is the antecedent of the pronoun they. What wicked is it that goes astray? They that are “estranged from the womb” of course. But one says, “I thought they came from the womb innocent and holy, and at the age of account-ability went astray and became wicked as a result.
Yes, we knew you thought that, but the proof is what we want. What does David say? Did he tell the truth? If so, can you find a Bible witness that will contradict him. Of course they were not wicked by practice in the womb; only a wicked nature, “by nature a child of wrath;” this is the sinful nature that Campbell says is transmitted to us before we are born.
They go astray because of the wicked nature or tendency which we sometimes call depravity, and which Campbell calls “moral imbecility.” If it is “moral imbecility” then they go astray, do wrong because they have no power to do that which is morally right; and if they have not the power to do the moral right, it is because of “moral imbecility,” and that hereditarily.
Right here Campbellism is bottled and I propose to drive the cork so tight the thing will smother to death, if indeed it has any life to begin with.
But notice the next clause: “As soon as they be born speaking lies.” What is the antecedent of the pronoun they this time? I know an answer to this is a death knell to Campbellism, but it should not be in the path of divine truth, so let it come.
Wicked, of course is the antecedent and is equivalent to “As soon as the wicked be born.”
If the wicked are born, have not I proven my position?
The Bible says the “wicked are born,” therefore every claim of infantile purity is subverted forever. Campbellism says: “The holy are estranged from the womb, they (the holy) go astray as soon as they reach the line of accountability and as a result become wicked.”
Friendly reader, which will you have, the Bible or Campbellism? I speak of Campbellism in its latter day dress, as it is today.
Tradition may tell you to choose the latter, but which is true? Remember “If the truth make you free you shall be free indeed.”
The only turn our friends endeavor to make here is to charge infant damnation upon the advocates of depravity, not because we believe or advocate it, but to prejudice the minds of others against us. Is it conclusive that because an infant is by nature a sinner, that those of them that die, die in their sin and go to torment?
By no means. While we believe in original sin we also believe there is a reigning, all-prevailing remedy for sin, which is sent to the heart of every infant that dies in infancy, preparing it for glory. This is sovereign grace.
Grace saves every infant that is taken from us. The child, is saved like the adult and the adult like the child.
Proof: “Verily (truly) I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom as a little child, shall in no wise enter therein.” Luke 18:17.
If the child receives it upon its original purity, so does the adult. And if the adult receives it conditionally on their part, so does the little child. The Bible declares they must receive it alike. As the adult can not receive the Kingdom upon inherent purity, and the child can not receive it conditionally, we conclude that neither plan is correct, as neither can save both classes.
But God’s plan can and will save both classes, which plan is grace. Grace is so well adapted to the needs of sinners that it is like a mighty river, flows to the hearts of all for whom it was prepared, regardless of their conditions, stations, or environments of life. It saves heathens, idiots, infants, yea, all the Son received in the gift of the Father. “All the Father giveth me shall come to me,” says Jesus.
But back to our subject. Is sin hereditary?
“What is man that he should be clean? And he which is born of woman that he should be righteous?” Job 15:14. On the same subject, Job asks: “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” Job 14:4. Again, “Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward.” Job 5:7.
Again, “How can he be clean that is born of a woman?” Job 25:4.
“For he knoweth vain man; he seeketh wickedness also. Will He not then consider it? For vain man would be wise though man be born like a wild ass’s colt.” Job 11:12.
Do these texts seem to lend any sympathy to the thought of infantile purity?
The man who would vehemently in the face of all this testimony, contend for infantile purity has made but little, if any, advancement beyond the wild ass’s colt, which was his original condition at birth.
The wild ass’s colt is very noisy, and very wild and reckless. Think of his stubborn, reckless disposition! He wouldn’t know an ear of corn if he were to see it. A stable or a stall would be prison to him. He wouldn’t know a man from a beast. The woods is his home and he delights in it. So sin is the home of all born in the world, and they love their home, until God shines in their heart to give them a nobler life and higher conception of the things of His Kingdom. They are just as unconscious of the blessings and joys of the Kingdom as the wild ass’s colt is of the food, shelter and comfort of the barnyard. As it is unreasonable to think of the wild ass’s colt of his own volition, coming to the barn-yard and taking his place there; even more unreasonable is it to think of the depraved sinner, of his own volition, taking a place quietly and humbly in the assembly of God. The colt must be tamed and domesticated before he will love his Master and His Kingdom.
And like the Gadarene, “whom no man could tame,” the poor sinner, who is the Gadarene, must have a visitation of Jesus, in His love and power, to clothe him and put him in his right mind, to love and serve the Lord. Then you find him so tame that he falls at the feet of his Master, full of praise and adoration.
We now conclude this chapter by giving a quotation from the New Testament.
“For as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” Rom. 5:12.
Notice, “all have sinned,” then all are sinners until that sin is removed and that is done by the “Reigning grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom. 5:21.
In Rom. 3 it is said: “They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable.” But the objector says, I believe they are GONE out of the way and become unprofitable, but they are not born thus, but GO and BECOME thus, at a certain age after birth. But, I ask, had you noticed it says ARE gone? The present tense copulative and past participle represent the act of going as complete. Your position is that some have gone, others are going, and others will yet go. But the text says, “All are gone.” If “all are gone,” who is it that yet remains to go?
Come, boys, let us reason together. Don’t you see your dodge smacks of ignorance?
Notice the other: “They (all) are together become unprofitable.” The same form of the verb again which shows the act of becoming unprofitable as complete. And besides, it says they became unprofitable together. You say they do this one at a time. They became such in Adam, hence together. Right where Campbell said “our nature was,” and when he says, “our nature sinned against the Author of our existence.”
Where do waters mingle together except at the fountain head?
We now leave this part of the subject, and will see in our next whether depravity is entire or not.
Is depravity total, entire, i.e., is the sinner entirely depraved or affected with sin? To find out we will at once analyze or give the Scriptural anatomy of him, and by the rule of exclusion, see whether we can find any thing morally good about him; or whether, as Campbell says, “He is a moral imbecile.” We use the word moral as it relates to divine and not human.
So we proceed, beginning with Rom. 3:13: “Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongue they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: their feet are swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in their ways: and the way of peace have they not known; there is no fear of God before their eyes.” Well, we are making a good start. But, says one, you have not finished; try his heart, mind and conscience, as that is the seat of all service to God. Very well. “Because sentence is not executed speedily against an evil work, therefore the hearts of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.” Eccl. 8:11.
Again, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Jer. 17:9.
Again, “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thought of his heart was only evil continually.” Gen. 6:5.
How is that for the heart? Could language be stronger? The heart is deceitful “above all things”; its imaginations and thoughts are “only evil”, and that “continually”. Where will you find a time or place for something good to come from the depraved heart?
But what about the mind, the seat of intellect, upon which our friends so heavily rely?
“The carnal mind is enmity against God; it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be,” Rom. 8:7.
“But the natural (unsaved) man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” 1 Cor. 2:14.
Why is it that the carnal mind is “enmity against God,” and the natural mind “receiveth not the things of the Spirit?” Paul says, because they are “spiritually discerned;” and the sinner has no spiritual mind with which to discern them.
Another reason, “Unto the pure, all things are pure but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving (unsaved) is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.” Titus 1:15.
We have found nothing good about him yet, but for fear some one will claim that I have overlooked some good function or organism, we will now make a clean sweep.
“The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores.” Isa. 1:5, 6.
Wonderful, wonderful condition! What can reach him? Let us turn a Campbellite preacher loose on him, with his method, and see if there be any hope for the poor fellow. Let us remember now that the sinner can do nothing with his heart, mind, or conscience until that particular organ is purified or prepared; for the Saviour declares: “Out of the treasure of an evil man’s heart proceedeth that which is evil.” “A corrupt tree can not bear good fruit.”
So we see the sinner could not prepare himself, for that would be “something clean resulting from the unclean.” The preacher can not prepare his heart, for that would make the preacher the Saviour and would work God out of a job; for a pure, prepared heart is all the sinner needs to “see God.” Matt. 5:8.
Now we have certainly proven that the sinner is not only born depraved but is totally depraved. So now we pass and see whether or not this is universal, i.e. peculiar to all the race.
So if that is the best the sinner has, the wheels are locked and the sinner’s case is hopeless. But we will see more fully about this as we proceed.
The same law that makes hereditary sin true of one would make it true of all. Plant a grain of corn, cultivate it, gather it and replant, i.e., plant its production, and continue that process for thousands of ages, and at the end you have just what you started with—corn. So it is in the progeny of Adam. If the sin of Adam was entailed upon his immediate family, their sin was entailed upon their children, and so on down the line to the present. So it is Adam’s sin and our sin, as we are Adam multiplied. To prove your freedom from the Adamic sin, would be to disprove any relation to Adam; and if you are not the offspring of Adam, the Lord only knows what you are and from whence you came. That would be nearing a demonstration of Darwinism in part at least, after all—that man sprang from a monkey. I don’t belong to that class.
“By the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners.” Rom. 5:19. How many? “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; so death passed upon ALL men for that all have sinned.” Rom. 5:12.
Now if you can prove that you are not a man, do not belong to mankind, then I admit you are exempt from this “transmitted distemper,” as Campbell denominates it. But one says, “That only says men, not babies.”
Well, well, what will people resort to next? Then it leaves out the women too, does it? The word men is, of course, used in a generic sense, embracing all of mankind, that particular specie of God’s creation, and hence embraces women and children.
But we give another text that clearly proves the extent of depravity as respects mankind.
“What then? Are we better, than they?” Are some by nature better than others? “No, in no wise: for we have before proven both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin.” Rom. 3:9.
If all the Jew ands and all the Gentiles were under sin, who was left to be innocent? Of course we would all agree that Paul is here referring to the human family before changed, by the grace of God in regeneration.
He says further: “They are all gone out of the way.” “There is none righteous.” “There is none that doeth good.” “There is none that understandeth.” “There is none that seeketh after God.”
John says, “The whole world lieth in wickedness.”
1 John. 5:19. The world mentioned refers to the unregenerate; for John says, “We are of God,” and then says, “and the whole world lieth in wickedness.”
Now in conclusion I wish to again repeat the charge of Campbell, “Let no man open his mouth against this moral distemper” until he feels that he really can tell what all this train of scripture means, if indeed it does not mean what I contend it does.
This booklet, no doubt, will provoke some man to reply, for I know them. But that is all right with me. All I ask of him is to be as careful as I have been, to give his readers an analyzed presentation and disposition of all the foregoing scripture upon which I rely, in part, to prove my position. If they do this, it is my confidence that he will be buried in the effort. I now bid you adieu on this part. From CAMPBELLISM: A religious deformity, by Elder S. A. Paine.