Читать книгу An Appeal to the People in Behalf of Their Rights as Authorized Interpreters of the Bible - Catharine Esther Beecher - Страница 6

Table of Contents

The Creator has proved his power to make minds with such “a holy nature” that they will have no propensity to sin, by creating the minds of angels and of Adam on this pattern. Adam having this holy nature, with no propensity to sin, did sin, and, as a penalty, or in consequence, all his posterity commence existence without this holy nature, and with such a depraved nature that every moral act is sin and only sin until God regenerates each mind. This favor is bestowed only on a certain “elect” number, whose salvation was purchased by the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ.

The rest of the race, after death, are to continue an existence of hopeless torment in hell.

This depraved nature is the “origin of evil;” that is to say, it is the cause of all the sin and consequent misery of our race in time and through eternity. It is what is meant by the terms “total depravity,” and “original sin” as used by theologians.

At first the pope and the church councils refused this theory, but eventually, the Augustinian party triumphed; Pelagius and his followers were persecuted and driven out of the church, and thus this dogma was established as a leading feature in all the creeds and confessions of both Catholic and Protestant churches.

[pg 005]

So thoroughly has it been adopted that, since the time of Pelagius, there has been little discussion among the great Christian sects on the theory itself. These disputes have chiefly related to certain questions connected with this dogma, which will next be noticed.