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Dr. Dwight's system of theology is regarded as the fairest exhibition of the theological opinions of the majority of the New England Congregational clergy.

While the Catholic mode, as taught by Dr. Woods so many years at Andover, is probably adopted by many, the views of Dr. Dwight, and his successor, Dr. Taylor, on the point under consideration, are taught now both at the Andover and New Haven seminaries, and probably are adopted by the great majority of the clergy in the Congregational and New School Presbyterian denominations.

These theologians maintain that man is the author of his own depraved nature in this way. Adam sinned and ruined his own nature, and then, in consequence of this sin, God instituted such a constitution [pg 027]of things, that this ruined nature has been transmitted to all his posterity, after the same manner as bodily diseases are transmitted from parent to child. This constitution also was established when God had the power to bestow on each human mind the same “holy nature” which he gave to Adam. The following from Dr. Dwight sustains this statement:

“The corruption of mankind exists in consequence of the apostacy of Adam. By means of the offense or transgression of Adam, the judgment or sentence of God came upon all men unto condemnation, because, and solely because all men in that state of things which was constituted in consequence of the transgression of Adam, became sinners.”

That is to say, God having the power to make all men with minds as perfect as Adam's before his fall, on account of Adam's sin constituted a state of things that would insure the universal sinfulness of the whole race.

Dr. Taylor, the successor of Dr. Dwight as head of the New Haven school of divines, teaches thus:

“Men are entirely depraved by nature. I do not mean that their nature is in itself sinful, nor that their nature is the physical or efficient cause of their sinning; but I mean that their nature is the occasion or reason of their sinning—that such is their nature, that in all the appropriate circumstances of their being they will sin and only sin.”

He further states:

“That sin is by nature owing to propensities to inferior good, with a difference between Adam's mind and ours (though we can not assert that in which this difference may consist); that our propensities are the same in kind, though different in degree, from those of Adam; that perhaps this distinction may consist in mental [pg 028]differences—or in superior tendencies, compared with Adam's, to natural good, and less tendency to the highest good.”

Thus, on account of the first sin of the first pair, God constituted such a state of things, that instead of perfect minds, such as God gave to the angels and to Adam, all men receive such “a nature” as insures “sin and only sin,” until regeneration takes place.

The next extracts will verify the statements made as to the mode adopted by Catholic theologians.