iousness, drunkenness, reveling,” etc.; while others belong as exclusively to the mind, as "hatred, variance, wrath, strifes, heresies, envyings," etc. Here are operations which categorically belong only to the intellective and moral nature, and are yet called "works of the oáps, flesh." Can anything be more plain than that the term flesh was understood of the total being of man as apart from grace? his mind as well as his body? If the higher nature of man did not partake of the evil effects of the fall, how could disordered bodily desires prevail against orderly mental operation, so that deranged mental, as well as bodily action should become the characteristic of man in all ages? Love of power and love of fame are aspirations of the higher nature, misdirected, lawless, corrupt, and ruinous passions, originating not in depraved bodies, but in depraved minds. The mind "hath desires against the Spirit of God" no less than the body.

In Eph. ii, 3, where Paul describes the traits of depravity common to both Jews and Gentiles, he says, they "fulfilled the desires (τῆς σαρκὸς καὶ τῶν διανοιῶν) of the FLESH and of the MIND." Here oaps, flesh, is not used in its figurative sense, but literally, to denote the body and its organism. Whenever “flesh and mind," or "flesh and spirit," or "body and spirit," are thus enumerated and contrasted, the terms are to be understood literally as of the two natures of man, body and soul, material and immaterial. In the entire New Testament diavola, here translated mind, never means anything but the thinking principle, the intelligent soul. To this sense both etymology and usage confine us. Here then is an inspired declaration that Gentile and Jewish corruptions were brought about by "fulfilling the desires of the mind," as well as of the "flesh" or body. And these literal σapkòç Kai diavolaç, FLESH and MIND of Eph. ii, 3, which in their natural state are the fountains of Jewish and Gentile corruption, the seed and soil of all the outgrowth of the "body of sin," are both comprehended in the ethical sense of oáps, flesh, as above given.

How consonant to this doctrine is the current teaching of both the Old and New Testaments! Speaking of human depravity, God goes directly to the inner man, the moral and intellective ego, the heart. "Every formation of the devices, or purposes ring, is only evil every day." Gen. vi, 5.

of his heart, in

Here the fountain of evil is laid in the heart. His cogitations, whenever they take the form of design or purpose, that is, assume a moral character, are only evil. And this evil, is of great significance and comprehension. It is the standing antithesis of i, good, throughout the Old Testament, as in the phrase "good and evil." "Depart from evil and do good." "For as an angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and bad." Gen. ii, 17; 1 Sam. xxvi, 17; 2 Sam. xiiii, 17; Psa. xxxiv, 14. The good is the state of blessedness and perfection in which God created man, and for which he designed him when he pronounced him "very good;" the evil is the quality of badness in which the common nature of man is involved, and wherein every formation of his purposes, all the operations of his heart, are "only evil continually." The good and the evil were set before man in the garden of paradise as the two possible states of his existence; the former as the inheritance of his being as he came from his Creator, the latter as the bitter consequence of eating the forbidden fruit of "the tree of knowledge of good and evil." Such is the import of the word, and such the condition of the fallen heart.

To this same "heart" Jeremiah bears witness, chap. xvii, 9, that it is "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked," totally deceitful, and incurably diseased. Its disease is such that in human nature is left no curative or recuperative power, not even power to fathom and comprehend its own depth of deceit and perversity. That the term heart here represents the entire intellectuality of man is proved from the prophet's own words, which follow. Who can know this heart? "I Jehovah search the heart, I try the reins, even to give to every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings." How pertinently do the words of Christ apply here. "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies; these are the things which defile a man." Matt. xv, 19, 20. It is this heart which is the real ego, the responsible, individual entity, of which is predicated in Scripture all the personal good or evil of the character. When the heart is surrendered to God all is surrendered; when that is withdrawn and alienated, no work or worship is acceptable. The Hebrews were not a phil

osophic people, and their language is not adapted to the uses of exact science. Not a metaphysical turn of thought occurs throughout the Bible. The outward, physical world, and the inward intellectual, are alike spoken of in the language of common life, in words borrowed from the observation of the senses. Their knowledge of nature and of mind being phenomenal rather than scientific, their language was hence simple, and better adapted to general moral instruction than to philosophic discourse, their meaning being apparent from the connection and drift of discourse, if not from the precision of words. The ethical use of the terms "heart" and "flesh" in Scripture cannot be doubtful.

The sensational theory of depravity has found a semblance of proof in such phrases as "sin in the flesh," Rom. viii, 3; "Vile body," Phil. iii, 21; and especially the statement, “vóμw τῆς ἁμαρτίας . . . ἐν τοῖς μέλεσί, the law of sin in my members,” Rom. vii, 23, (compare also chap. vi, 19 :) and also in chap. vii, 5, "for when we were in the flesh, (¿v σapkí,) the passions of sin or sinful affections (παθήματα ἁμαρτιῶν) did work (ἐν τοῖς μέλεσιν uv) in our members, [our organism,] to bring forth fruit unto death." But these may be explained in harmony with the foregoing views. The "law of sin" may have been located "in the members" of the physical nature by the apostle, because the greatest force of sinful habit and temptation seemed to lodge and to develop there, and the soul to feel her greatest impotency and servitude from hence. "The soul," says Bengel, “is, as it were, the king; the members are its citizens; sin is, as an enemy, admitted through the fault of the king, who is doomed to be punished by the oppression of the citizens." But in any wise such phrases cannot be construed against the clear and overwhelming light of the analogy of Scripture as already given. The early Christian Church unhappily mistook the Scriptural antithesis of flesh and spirit for the dualistic antagonism of spirit and matter, as taught by the heathen, and as the Jews had done before them when they had become infected with the pagan philosophy, became enamored of a false asceticism in piety, which, in the language of Hundeshagen, “virtually turns the body into a creature of the devil," while the soul is commiserated for its unfortunate companionship therewith. But as Meyer well observes, "There is nothing in the

biblical use of the term to justify the opinion that the flesh [the literal body] (oaps) is in itself evil, or necessarily productive of sin." It is the body in its living animate state, hence as including the soul, and as the instrument of the soul, that has this deadly power. "The physical-corporeal life of man, with its center, I, (says the author last quoted,) departed from the life of God and isolated itself, and being no longer sustained and attracted by the powers of the world above, is drawn downward, its tendency becomes earthly, worldly, and all its functions partake of this character." But united to God it is controlled by the Divine Spirit.

The Church of England in her ninth Article of Religion defines original sin, or natural depravity, to be "the fault or corruption of the nature of every man," which he has by natural birth, "whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil." Now, here are four points in the definition: the "fault," (defect, or infirmity ;) the "corruption," (which is, says Jeremy Taylor, “exegetical of the other;") the loss of "original righteousness," and hence of all supernatural aids, leaving man to "pure naturals;" and the "inclination to evil." The whole definition is then resolved into an "infection of nature," and the sum and essence of depravity declared to be the same as Paul calls φρόνημα σαρκός, which, says the Article, "some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some the affection, some the desire of the flesh." It is simply transalated in our English Bible, "carnal mind." All this cautious avoidance of philosophic terms shows how the framers of the Articles felt themselves pressed upon either hand with human speculations, and with the importance, in giving adequate definitions, of keeping within scriptural phraseology, and not erecting into dogma subjects which lose themselves in obscure depths of psychology and metaphysics. "That the first ages taught the doctrine of original sin," says Jeremy Taylor, "I do no wise doubt, but affirm it all the way; but that it is a sin improperly, that is, a stain and a reproach rather than a sin; that is, the effect of one sin and the cause of many; that it brought in sickness and death, mortality and passions; that it made us naked of those supernatural aids that Adam had, and so more liable to the temptations of the devil : this is all I find in antiquity, and sufficient for the explication of

this question, which," he adds, "the more simply it is handled the more true and reasonable it is."

What, then, is the sum of orthodox teaching as to the nature and extent of original sin, or hereditary depravity? We cannot agree with those who make it to consist merely in the inordinateness of bodily desires. This is one condition of our nature, but does not comprehend the evil. Nor can we agree with those who make the connection of mind and matter, and the consequent impressions of the latter upon the former, through the senses, the cause of universal aberration and alienation from God. This also has its influence, but falls short of the real and adequate cause of the disordered action of the moral ego. Nor can we make out an adequate account of human depravity by adding to these the frailty, disease, disabilities, and mortality of the body. Above all these there is an evil affecting the higher nature, the soul. The soul has lost its original righteousness, its supernatural helps, its holy sympathies, affections, and aspirations. This righteousness was not a development of constitutional powers, but the gift of God superadded to existence. This the sin of Adam forfeited, not merely for himself, but for the race, for universal humanity. Whether the effect of Adam's personal sin on universal human nature was according to a law of natural connection, or of federal relation between him and his posterity, we stop not now to inquire. The fact only we affirm, without speculating upon the modus of its accomplishment. But this absence or loss of righteousness and true holiness," which is the moral image of God, in which man was created, is not merely a negative loss, but implies also the presence of opposite qualities of character. The loss of good implies the presence of evil; the loss of humility is the presence of pride; the loss of love, the dominion of the malevolent affections; the loss of holy desires from the soul, the indwelling of their opposites.

President Edwards lays down the case thus: When God created man he implanted in him two kinds of principles: the one inferior, comprehending all that is simply natural to man; and the other superior, comprehending all that is supernatural, spiritual, holy. These superior principles were given to possess the throne and maintain dominion. Sin forfeited this divine, spiritual, holy nature, and this supernatural aid, and