Answers from church history on today's questions
What Christian writers said, from about AD 206 to 1949.
52 passages · 31 writers · 9 centuries
Calvin reads Psalm 51:5 as David's confession of impurity from his birth, and Spurgeon reads it as meaning "I am a sinner by nature." Origen quotes the verse in connection with new-born infants, and Augustine quotes it when asking where or when he was innocent. Luther, Calvin, and Wesley say we are sinful by nature or from the womb, and Tertullian says every soul has its nature in Adam by birth and is unclean until it is born again in Christ. Hodge says a child gives evidence of a perverted moral character as soon as it is capable of moral action, Edwards asks how wickedness comes to be fixed in children's hearts if it is not there naturally, and Baxter says infants have sinful natures before they think, speak, or do amiss. Finney says moral depravity is not to be accounted for by a nature or constitution sinful in itself, and Chrysostom says a man is not by nature evil.
24 passages · 17 writers · 200s to 1900s
Calvin, Luther, Wesley, and Tertullian say we are sinful or unclean by nature or by birth. Calvin, Wesley, Spurgeon, Origen, Augustine, and Law cite Psalm 51:5.
c. 206–207 · Tertullian, A Treatise on the Soul (De anima) 40
Every soul, then, by reason of its birth, has its nature in Adam until it is born again in Christ; moreover, it is unclean all the while that it remains without this regeneration; and because unclean, it is actively sinful, and suffuses even the flesh (by reason of their conjunction) with its own shame.
c. 248 · Origen, Against Celsus (Contra Celsum) 7.50
Celsus has not explained how error accompanies the “becoming,” or product of generation; nor has he expressed himself with sufficient clearness to enable us to compare his ideas with ours, and to pass judgment on them. But the prophets, who have given some wise suggestions on the subject of things produced by generation, tell us that a sacrifice for sin was offered even for new-born infants, as not being free from sin. They say, “I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me;” also, “They are estranged from the womb;” which is followed by the singular expression, “They go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.”
c. 303–311 · Arnobius of Sicca, Against the Heathen (Adversus nationes) 2.50
In our opinion, however, that which is good naturally, does not require to be either corrected or reproved; nay more, it should not know what evil is, if the nature of each kind would abide in its own integrity, for neither can two contraries be implanted in each other, nor can equality be contained in inequality, nor sweetness in bitterness. He, then, who struggles to amend the inborn depravity of his inclinations, shows most clearly that he is imperfect, blameable, although he may strive with all zeal and stedfastness.
c. 397–401 · Augustine of Hippo, Confessions 1.7.12
Thou, therefore, O Lord my God, who gavest life to the infant, and a frame which, as we see, Thou hast endowed with senses, compacted with limbs, beautified with form, and, for its general good and safety, hast introduced all vital energies—Thou commandest me to praise Thee for these things, “to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praise unto Thy name, O Most High;” for Thou art a God omnipotent and good, though Thou hadst done nought but these things, which none other can do but Thou, who alone madest all things, O Thou most fair, who madest all things fair, and orderest all according to Thy law. This period, then, of my life, O Lord, of which I have no remembrance, which I believe on the word of others, and which I guess from other infants, it chagrins me—true though the guess be—to reckon in this life of mine which I lead in this world; inasmuch as, in the darkness of my forgetfulness, it is like to that which I passed in my mother’s womb. But if “I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me,” where, I pray thee, O my God, where, Lord, or when was I, Thy servant, innocent?
415 · Augustine of Hippo, On Nature and Grace (De natura et gratia) 67.81
In a passage occurring shortly after the last quoted one, I said in reference to nature: “Of nature itself we speak in one sense, when we properly describe it as that human nature in which man was created faultless after his kind; and in another sense as that nature in which we are born ignorant and carnally minded, owing to the penalty of condemnation, after the manner of the apostle, ‘We ourselves likewise were by nature children of wrath, even as others.’”
c. 1120–1140 · Bernard of Clairvaux, Some Letters of Saint Bernard (selection of 66) 65.7
Wherefore, although it has been given to some, though few, of the sons of men to be born with the gift of sanctity, yet to none has it been given to be conceived with it. So that to One alone should be reserved this privilege, to Him who should make all holy, and coming into the world, He alone, without sin should make an atonement for sinners. The Lord Jesus, then, alone was conceived by the Holy Ghost, because He alone was holy before He was conceived. He being excepted, all the children of Adam are in the same case as he who confessed of himself with great humility and truth, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin hath my mother conceived me (Ps. li. 6).
c. 1553 · John Bradford, Sermons and Tracts fear-of-death
(1 John i.) A child of a nights birth is not pure in God's sight. (Job xxv.) In sin we were born, and by birth or nature we are the children of wrath, and firebrands of hell; therefore confess ourselves to be sinners we needs must.
1554 · John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis, part 1 (chapters 1-23) 3.6
In the first place, Scripture clearly teaches us that we are born vicious and perverse. The cavil of Pelagius was frivolous, that sin proceeded from Adam by imitation. For David, while still enclosed in his mother’s womb, could not be an imitator of Adam, yet he confesses that he was conceived in sin, (Psalm 51:5.)
1554 · John Calvin, Commentary on Genesis, part 1 (chapters 1-23) 8.21
For, (as was before said,) the very affections of nature, which in themselves are laudable, are yet vitiated by original sin, and on account of their irregularity have degenerated from their proper nature; such are the mutual love of married persons, the love of parents towards their children, and the like. And the clause which is added, “from youth,” more fully declares that men are born evil; in order to show that, as soon as they are of an age to begin to form thoughts, they have radical corruption of mind. Philosophers, by transferring to habit, what God here ascribes to nature, betray their own ignorance. And no wonder; for we please and flatter ourselves to such an extent, that we do not perceive how fatal is the contagion of sin, and what depravity pervades all our senses. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the judgment of God, which pronounces man to be so enslaved by sin that he can bring forth nothing sound and sincere. Yet, at the same time, we must remember, that no blame is to be cast upon God for that which has its origin in the defection of the first man, whereby the order of the creation was subverted.
1554 · John Calvin, Commentary on Acts, part 2 (chapters 14-28) 15.9
When I say that all mankind is polluted, my meaning is, that we bring nothing from our mother’s womb but mere filthiness, and that there is no righteousness in our nature which can reconcile us to God. Man’s soul was indeed endued with singular gifts at the first; but all parts thereof are so corrupt with sin, that there remaineth in it no drop of pureness any longer; therefore we must seek for cleanness without ourselves.
1559 · John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 2.1.5
Surely there is no ambiguity in David’s confession, “I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me,” (Ps. 51:5). His object in the passage is not to throw blame on his parents; but the better to commend the goodness of God towards him, he properly reiterates the confession of impurity from his very birth. As it is clear, that there was no peculiarity in David’s case, it follows that it is only an instance of the common lot of the whole human race. All of us, therefore, descending from an impure seed, come into the world tainted with the contagion of sin.
1559 · John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 2.1.11
We say, then, that man is corrupted by a natural viciousness, but not by one which proceeded from nature. In saying that it proceeded not from nature, we mean that it was rather an adventitious event which befell man, than a substantial property assigned to him from the beginning. We, however call it natural to prevent any one from supposing that each individual contracts it by depraved habit, whereas all receive it by a hereditary law. And we have authority for so calling it. For, on the same grounds the apostle says, that we are “by nature the children of wrath,” (Eph. 2:3). How could God, who takes pleasure in the meanest of his works be offended with the noblest of them all? The offence is not with the work itself, but the corruption of the work. Wherefore, if it is not improper to say, that, in consequence of the corruption of human nature, man is naturally hateful to God, it is not improper to say, that he is naturally vicious and depraved. Hence, in the view of our corrupt nature, Augustine hesitates not to call those sins natural which necessarily reign in the flesh wherever the grace of God is wanting.
1566 · Martin Luther, Table Talk 7
We are all sinners by nature—conceived and born in sin; sin has poisoned us through and through; we have from Adam a will, which continually sets itself against God, unless by the Holy Ghost it be renewed and changed.
1674 · John Owen, Pneumatologia, or a Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit (Books I-V) 3.3
There being an affirmation and a negation concerning the state of regeneration in the Scripture, one of them may be used concerning every capable subject; every man living is so, or he is not so. And herein, as I suppose, there is a general consent of Christians. Again, it is evident in the Scripture, and we have proved it in our way, that all men are born in an unregenerate condition. This is so positively declared by our Saviour that there is no rising up against it, John iii. 3–8.
1707 · Isaac Watts, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Book 1: Collected from the Holy Scriptures 57
[Conceiv'd in sin (O wretched state!) Before we draw our breath, The first young pulse begins to beat Iniquity and death. How strong in our degenerate blood The old corruption reigns, And, mingling with the crooked flood, Wanders thro' all our veins!] Wild and unwholesome as the root Will all the branches be; How can we hope for living fruit From such a deadly tree? What mortal power from things unclean Can pure productions bring? Who can command a vital stream From an infected spring?] Yet, mighty God, thy wondrous love Can make our nature clean, While Christ and grace prevail above The tempter, death, and sin. The second Adam shall restore The ruins of the first, Hosanna to that sovereign power That new creates our dust.
1710–1714 · Matthew Henry, Commentary on John 3.1-21
How we came to be so; by being born of the flesh. It is a corruption that is bred in the bone with us, and therefore we cannot have a new nature, but we must be born again. The corrupt nature, which is flesh, takes rise from our first birth; and therefore the new nature, which is spirit, must take rise from a second birth.
1752 · William Law, The Spirit of Love 2.2
The Apostle saith, that "we are by Nature Children of Wrath"; the same Thing as when the Psalmist saith, "I was shapen in Wickedness, and in Sin hath my Mother conceived me." And therefore, that Wrath which wants the Atonement of the Sufferings, Blood, and Death of Christ, is no other than that Sin, or sinful State, in which we are naturally born.
1767 · John Gill, A Body of Doctrinal Divinity Chapter 11. Of The Of The Corruption Of Human Nature
Revelation asserts it; the Scriptures abound with testimonies of it, affirming that no man can be born pure and clean; that whatever is born of the flesh, or comes into the world by ordinary generation, is flesh, carnal and corrupt; that all men, Jews and Gentiles, are under sin, under the guilt, pollution and dominion of sin; that the imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart is only evil, and that continually; that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked; and that out of it proceeds all that is vile and sinful (Job 14:4; John 3:6; Rom. 3:9; Rom. 6:5; Jer. 17:9; Matthew 15:19). Reason confirms it, that so it must be; that if a tree is corrupt, it can bring forth no other than corrupt fruit; that if the root of mankind is unholy, the branches must be so too; if the fountain is impure, the streams must be so likewise; if immediate parents are unclean, their posterity must be unclean, since a clean thing cannot be brought out of an unclean; and if God has made of one man’s blood all nations that are upon the face of the earth, and that blood is tainted with sin, all that proceed from him by ordinary generation must have the same taint.
c. 1861 · Horatius Bonar, God's Way of Peace I
Man has fallen! Not this man or that man, but the whole race. In Adam all have sinned; in Adam all have died. It is not that a few leaves have faded or been shaken down, but the tree has become corrupt, root and branch. The “flesh,” or “old man” - that is, each man as he is born into the world, a son of man, a fragment of humanity, a unit in Adam’s fallen body, - is “corrupt.” He not merely brings forth sin, but he carries it about with him, as his second self; nay, he is a “body” or mass of sin, a “body of death,” subject not to the law of God, but to “the law of sin.”
1868 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 14 (1868) 790
Men are born no longer with balanced minds, but a heavy weight of original sin in the scale. We are averse to that which is good. The bias of the mind of man, when he is born into the world, is towards that which is evil and we as naturally go astray as the serpent naturally learns to hiss, or the wolf to tear and to devour.
1872 · John Wesley, Sermons on Several Occasions 6
Is it not then the very foolishness of folly, for fallen man to seek life by this righteousness? for man, who was “shapen in wickedness, and in sin did his mother conceive him?” man, who is, by nature, all “earthly, sensual, devilish;” altogether corrupt and abominable;” in whom, till he find grace, “dwelleth no good thing;” nay, who cannot of himself think one good thought; who is indeed all sin, a mere lump of ungodliness, and who commits sin in every breath he draws; whose actual transgressions, in word and deed, are more in number than the hairs of his head?
1904 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 50 (1904) 2903
Behold I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. ' 'It is not merely that I have sinned in practice, but I am a sinner by nature. Sin would not have come out of me if it had not first been in me. I am a mass of sin and must, therefore, be loathsome in Your sight."
1913 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 59 (1913) 3347
Child of God, let me bring to your remembrance, tonight, the fact that you are by nature no better than the vilest of the vile! "Children of wrath even as others," are we. Even you who are favored by Divine Grace to enter into rich fellowship with Christ are no better, naturally, than the lost spirits in Hell! There was no difference at birth and no intrinsic essential difference of moral constitution between Peter and Judas, between Paul and Demas, between the brightest Apostle and the bloodiest persecutor! We have grown in Grace—had we been left to ourselves, we would have rotted in sin!
1938 · William R. Newell, Romans Verse-by-Verse 4
“Ye were by nature children of wrath,” is an awful word, but a true word,—going back to our mother’s womb, who, “in sin conceived us!” We were born into a lost, guilty race,—we were born part of that race! And it was written of all of us, concerning Adam’s sin: “Through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners.”
15 passages · 12 writers · 1600s to 1900s
Hodge says a child shows a perverted moral character as soon as it is capable of moral action, and Spurgeon says children begin to sin very early in life. Edwards argues that wickedness fixed in children's hearts, without time for habits of sin, is there naturally, and Baxter says infants have sinful natures before they think, speak, or do amiss. Owen says something in infants as soon as they are born excludes them from the kingdom of heaven unless they are born again of the Spirit.
1605–1610 · Johann Arndt, True Christianity 1.2
Who could ever have supposed that such a depth of wickedness and depravity could be found in such a weak and helpless child; that so venomous a principle, so corrupt a heart, lay hid in a babe apparently so harmless? Who could possibly have believed this, had not man himself, by his sinful and abominable life, by the imaginations of his thoughts (being “only evil continually,” and desperately bent on what is bad), of his own will brought it to light, and expressed, from his childhood, what was before concealed as in a seed?
1642 · John Owen, A Display of Arminianism 7
“The weakness of the members of infants is innocent, and not their souls;” they want nothing, but that the members of their bodies are not as yet ready instruments of sin. They are not sinful only by external denomination, — accounted so because of the imputation of Adam’s actual transgression unto them; for they have all an uncleanness in them by nature, Job xiv. 4, from which they must be “cleansed with the washing of water by the word,” Eph. v. 20. Their whole nature is overspread with such a pollution as is proper only to sin inherent, and doth not accompany sin imputed; as we may see in the example of our Saviour, who was pure, immaculate, holy, undefiled, and yet “the iniquity of us all” was imputed unto him. Hence are those phrases of “washing away sin,” Acts xxii. 16; of “cleansing filth,” 1 Pet. iii. 21, Tit. iii. 5. Something there is in them, as soon as they are born, excluding them from the kingdom of heaven; for except they also be born again of the Spirit, they shall not enter into it, John iii. 5.
1658 · Richard Baxter, A Call to the Unconverted to Turn and Live 1
Job xiv. 4. As a lion hath a fierce and cruel nature before it doth devour; and an adder hath a venomous nature before she sting; so in our infancy we have those sinful natures, or inclinations, before we think, or speak, or do amiss: and hence springeth all the sin of our lives.
1674 · John Owen, Pneumatologia, or a Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit (Books I-V) 3.6
First, That the corrupt principle of sin, the native habitual inclination that is in us unto evil, worketh early in our natures, and for the most part preventeth all the actings of grace in us. Though some may be sanctified in or from the womb, yet in order of nature this native corruption hath first place in them; for a clean thing cannot be brought out of an unclean, but “that which is born of the flesh is flesh:” Ps. lviii. 3, “The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.”
1680 · John Bunyan, The Life and Death of Mr. Badman The Life and Death of Mr. Badman
For to speak my mind freely, I do confess, that it is mine opinion, that Children come polluted with sin into the World, and that oft-times the sins of their youth, especially while they are very young, are rather by vertue of Indwelling sin, than by examples that are set before them by others. Not but that they learn to sin by example too, but Example is not the root, but rather the Temptation unto wickedness. The root is sin within; for from within, out of the heart of man proceedeth sin.
1757 · Jonathan Edwards, The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended 2.2
And that wickedness belongs to the very nature of men in their present state, may be argued from those places which speak of mankind as being wicked in their childhood, or from their childhood. So Prov. xxii. 15. “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.” Nothing is more manifest, than that the wise man in this book continually uses the word folly, or foolishness, for wickedness; and that this is what he means in this place, the words themselves explain. For the rod of correction is proper to drive away no other foolishness, but that which is of a moral nature. The word rendered bound, signifies (as observed in Pool’s Synopsis) a close and firm union. The same word is used in Prov. vi. 21. ”Bind them continually upon thine heart.” And Prov. vii. 3.“Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart.” The same verb is used, 1 Sam. xviii. 1, “The soul of Jonathan was knit, or bound, to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.”—But how comes wickedness to be so firmly bound, and strongly fixed, in the hearts of children, if it be not there naturally? They have had no time firmly to fix habits of sin, by long custom in actual wickedness, as those who have lived many years in the world.
1757 · Jonathan Edwards, The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended 1.1.3
So that this depravity is both odious, and also pernicious, fatal and destructive, in the highest sense; as inevitably tending to that which implies man’s eternal ruin. It shows, that man, as he is by nature, is in a deplorable state, in the highest sense. And this proves that men do not come into the world perfectly innocent in the sight of God, and without any just exposedness to his displeasure. For the being by nature in a lost and ruined state, in the highest sense, is not consistent with being by nature in a state of favour with God. But if any should still insist on a notion of men’s good deeds exceeding their bad ones, and that, seeing the good more than countervails the evil, they cannot be properly denominated evil; all persons and things being most properly denominated from that which prevails, and has the ascendant in them; I would say further, That if there is in man’s nature a tendency to guilt and ill desert, in a vast overbalance to virtue and merit; or a propensity to sin, the demerit of which is so great, that the value and merit of all the virtuous acts that ever he performs, are as nothing to it; then truly the nature of man may be said to be corrupt and evil.
1771–1772 · George Whitefield, Selected Sermons 23
God's servants unanimously declare, (and Paul cites it from one of them) “that we are altogether now become abominable, altogether gone out of the way of original righteousness, there is not one of us that doeth good (by nature), no not one.” And I appeal to any of you that are mothers and fathers, if ye do not discern original sin or corruption in your children, as soon as they come into the world; and as they grow up, if ye do not discover self-will, and an aversion to goodness. What is the reason your children are so averse to instruction, but because they bring enmity into the world with them, against a good and gracious God? So then, it is plain from scripture and fact, that children are born in sin, and consequently that they are children of wrath. And for my part, I think, that the death of every child is a plain proof of original sin; sickness and death came into the world by sin, and it seems not consistent with God's goodness and justice, to let a little child be sick or die, unless Adam's first sin was imputed to him. If any charge God with injustice for imputing Adam's sin to a little child, behold we have gotten a second Adam, to bring our children to him.
1823 · Robert South, Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions, Volume 7 51
And first, for original sin. It may seem strange perhaps, that sin bears date with our very being; and indeed, in some respect, prevents it. That we were sinners before we were born; and seem to have been held in the womb, not only as infants for the birth, but as malefactors in a prison. And that, if we look upon our interest in this world, our forfeit was much earlier than our possession: We are, says the apostle, by nature children of wrath, Ephes. ii. 3. Not only by depravation, or custom, and ill-contracted habits, but by nature; the first principle and source of action. And nature we know is as entire, though not as strong in an infant, as in a grown man. Indeed the strength of man’s natural corruption is so great, that every man is born an adult sinner. Sin is the only thing in the world which never had an infancy, that knew no minority. Tantillus puer, tantus peccator, says St. Austin.
1861 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 7 (1861) 385
Children begin to sin very early in life. If there were any good in us, it would show itself in infancy, before good habits became corrupted, and evil principles were produced by our connection with the world.
1871 · Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 2 (Part II, Anthropology; Part III, Soteriology, chapters I-XIV) 2.8.13
A third great fact of Scripture and experience on this subject is the early manifestation of sin. As soon as a child is capable of moral action, it gives evidence of a perverted moral character. We not only see the manifestations of anger, malice, selfishness, envy, pride, and other evil dispositions, but the whole development of the soul is toward the world. The soul of a child turns by an inward law from God to the creature, from the things that are unseen and eternal to the things that are seen and temporal.
1877 · J. C. Ryle, Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots 1
(John iii. 6; Ephes. ii. 3; Rom. viii. 7; Mark vii. 21.) The fairest babe that has entered life this year, and become the sunbeam of a family, is not, as its mother perhaps fondly calls it, a little “angel,” or a little “innocent,” but a little “sinner.”
1886 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 32 (1886) 1921
Oh, but divines have fine notions nowadays! It appears, according to the latest information, that children are not now born in sin as they used to be! They say that certain highly favored children commence life in a most extraordinary way—they are born gracious! They do not need any regeneration or conversion, for the stock is so superior that the branches naturally bring forth good fruit!
1891 · S. H. Kellogg, The Expositor's Bible: The Book of Leviticus Part II, Chapter XVI
For whenever, in any case, we find all creatures of the same class doing, under all circumstances, any one thing, we conclude that the reason for this can only lie in the nature of such creatures, antecedent to any influence of a tendency to imitation. If, for instance, the ox everywhere and always eats the green thing of the earth, and not flesh, the reason, we say, is found simply in the nature of the ox as he comes into being. So when we see all men, everywhere, under all circumstances, as soon as ever they come to the time of free moral choice, always choosing and committing sin, what can we conclude—regarding this, not as a theological, but merely as a scientific question—but that man, as he comes into the world, must have a sinful nature? And this being so, then why must not the law of heredity apply, according to which, by a law which knows of no exceptions, like ever produces its like?
1932 · Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination 10
Accordingly, to become sinful, men do not wait until the age of accountable action arrives. Rather, they are apostates from the womb, and as soon as they are born go astray, speaking lies (Psalm 58:3); they are even shapen in iniquity, and conceived in sin (Psalm 51:5). The propensity of their heart is evil from their youth (Genesis 8:21), and it is out of the heart that all the issues of life proceed (Proverbs 4: 23; 20: 11). Acts of sin are therefore but the expression of the natural heart, which is deceitful above all things and exceedingly corrupt (Jeremiah 17:9)."
9 passages · 7 writers · 1600s to 1900s
South says there is in every man a corrupt principle disposing him to evil, called sometimes the flesh, sometimes concupiscence, and sometimes sensuality. Owen speaks of an inclination of the flesh that lusts against the Spirit and a perpetual proneness to everything contrary to God's law, and Wesley speaks of an inbred corruption of nature, prone to all evil. Spurgeon calls the nature born with us the old man, and Berkhof says man's tendencies, desires, moods, and affections have a moral character.
1642 · John Owen, A Display of Arminianism 8
Nothing doth more manifest the deviation of our nature from its first institution, and declare the corruption wherewith we are polluted, than that propensity which is in us to every thing that is evil; that inclination of the flesh which lusteth always against the Spirit; that lust and concupiscence which fomenteth, conceiveth, hatcheth, bringeth forth, and nourisheth sin; that perpetual proneness that is in unregenerate nature to every thing that is contrary to the pure and holy law of God. Now, because neither Scripture nor experience will suffer Christians quite to deny this pravity of our nature, this averseness from all good and propensity to sin, the Arminians extenuate as much as they are able, affirming that it is no great matter, no more than Adam was subject unto in the state of innocency. But, what! did God create in Adam a proneness unto evil? was that a part of his glorious image in whose likeness he was framed?
1679 · Thomas Manton, Works, vol. III A Practical Exposition Upon the Firty-third Chapter of Isaiah, The Sixth Verse
There is pollution or corruption of nature, the stock of sin which we have inbred in us, consisting in a blind mind, perverse will, disorderly affections, an unruly appetite, and evil inclinations to sensual things. This corruption is often spoken of in scripture: Ps. li. 5, ‘Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me;’ John iii. 6, ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh.’ We all partake of the same carnal nature, the dunghill of corruption, which wreaketh out in the mind by vain thoughts, in the heart by carnal desires, and constantly discovereth itself by a proneness to all evil: Gen. vi. 5, the imaginations and ‘the thoughts of his heart are evil, and that continually.’ An aversion from and enmity to all that is good: Rom. viii. 7, ‘The carnal mind is enmity against God, and is not subject to the law, neither indeed can be.’ Man, in respect to that which is good, is described not only by terms that imply weakness, but hostility and opposition, as unfit for every good work, and so opposite to it: Col. i. 21, ‘Alienated and enemies in your minds by wicked works.’ If a man were indifferent to good and evil, a neuter and not a rebel, the case were the less; but the bent of his heart is against it, as appeareth not only by scripture but experience. There is a proneness, and a greater inclination to evil than to good. Now, from whence should it come? Not by example, for then this inclination would not discover itself so early, and children would be as capable of good as evil.
1823 · Robert South, Sermons Preached Upon Several Occasions, Volume 3 14
That in the present state of nature there is in every man a certain propensity to vice, or a corrupt principle more or less disposing him to evil: which principle is sometimes called the flesh, sometimes concupiscence, and sometimes sensuality, and makes one part of that which we call original sin. A principle, which, though it both proceeds from sin, and disposes to sin, yet, till it comes to act, the doctors of the Romish church deny to be in itself sinful. And the Pelagians deny that there is any such thing at all; especially our modern, orthodox, and more authentic Pelagians.
1865 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 11 (1865) 615
Is then, natural depravity, an excuse for sin? Does God use it as such? No, Beloved—that our heart is vile is rather an aggravation of the vileness of our action than any excuse for it.
1869 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 15 (1869) 882
He calls it the "old man," because it is as old as Eden's first transgression. It is as old as we are. It is the nature born with us, the natural depravity, the fleshly mind which we inherited from our parents. It is tainted by the old serpent and bears within it a dread propensity to his old sin. When Adam first plucked the forbidden fruit, sin polluted our race and the original stain abides in all mankind—it is manifest in the most ancient history and continues to reveal itself all along the pages of the story of this blighted world.
1871 · Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 2 (Part II, Anthropology; Part III, Soteriology, chapters I-XIV) 2.8.7
The existence of sin in the heart, the presence of evil dispositions, without regard to their origin, is unavoidably attended by a sense of pollution and guilt. These dispositions being evil in their own nature must include whatever is essential to that nature. And, as has been acknowledged, guilt is essential to the nature of sin. Nothing is sinful which does not involve guilt. The consciousness, or the conviction of sin, must therefore include the conviction of guilt. And consequently if we are convinced from the declarations of Scripture and from the state of our nature that we are born in sin we must be convinced that guilt attaches to innate corruption of nature.
1872 · John Wesley, Sermons on Several Occasions 17
I am, in the Second place, to mention some reflections that naturally arise from such an inquiry, as a plain rule whereby every man may judge of himself, whether he be of the world or of God. And, First, it is clear from what has been said, that no man has a title to the praise of God, unless his heart is circumcised by humility; unless he is little, and base, and vile in his own eyes; unless he is deeply convinced of that inbred “corruption of his nature,” “whereby he is very far gone from original righteousness,” being prone to all evil, averse to all good, corrupt and abominable; having a “carnal mind which is enmity against God, and is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be,” unless he continually feels in his inmost soul, that without the Spirit of God resting upon him, he can neither think, nor desire, nor speak, nor act anything good, or well-pleasing in his sight.
1901 · Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Spurgeon's Sermons, Volume 47 (1901) 2734
You may look at a foul stream as it comes rolling along and you may stir it to its depths, or you may alter its channel—but as long as the source, from which the stream flows, is impure, the water that comes from it will also be impure and it will not be able to purify itself. So, human nature may pass through as many processes as you please, but as long as it remains merely human nature, and God the Holy Spirit has not transformed it and made it like the Nature of God, it will still be an impure thing—and no clean thing can come out of it.
1949 · Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology 2.2.2
According to this view everything in the life of man that is not a conscious choice of the will, is deprived of all moral quality. But the consciousness of men in general testifies to the fact that the contrast between good and evil also applies to man's tendencies, desires, moods, and affections, and that these also have a moral character. In Pelagianism sin and virtue are reduced to superficial appendages of man, in no way connected with his inner life. That the estimate of Scripture is quite different appears from the following passages: Jer. 17:9; Ps. 51:6,10; Matt. 15:19; Jas. 4:1,2.
4 passages · 2 writers · 300s to 1800s
Finney says moral depravity is not to be accounted for by a nature or constitution sinful in itself, and that sin is a voluntary and responsible choice. Chrysostom says a man is not by nature evil, since men shift quickly from evil to good and back again.
c. 386–397 · John Chrysostom, Homilies on First Corinthians 2.10
Let us not say then that such an one is by nature evil: for if a man were by nature good, he could never at any time become evil; and if he were by nature evil, he could never be good. But now we see that changes take place rapidly, and that men quickly shift from this side to the other, and from that fall back again into this.
1845–1861 · Charles G. Finney, Sermons on Gospel Themes 24
Facts show that sin has become in a most significant sense natural to the race, so that they all spontaneously, not of necessity, yet spontaneously, if no special grace interpose, begin to sin as soon as they begin to act morally, or in other words, as soon as they become capable of moral action. Not that men are born sinners, not that they sin before they are born, not that sin is born in them, nor that they are beyond their control born into sin; but yet the constitution of the man—body and mind—is such, and the law of development is such, that men sin naturally (none the less voluntarily, responsibly, and guiltily), but they all sin of free choice; the temptations to sin being developed in advance of those intellectual and moral powers which should counteract the excessive demands of the sensibility.
1878 · Charles G. Finney, Lectures on Systematic Theology 23
Moral depravity is not then to be accounted for by ascribing it to a nature or constitution sinful in itself. To talk of a sinful nature, or sinful constitution, in the sense of physical sinfulness, is to ascribe sinfulness to the Creator, who is the author of nature. It is to overlook the essential nature of sin, and to make sin a physical virus, instead of a voluntary and responsible choice.
1878 · Charles G. Finney, Lectures on Systematic Theology 31
The school whose views I am examining, maintain, that this inability is founded in the first sin of Adam. His first sin plunged himself and his posterity, descending from him by a natural law, into a total inability of nature to render any obedience to God. This first sin of Adam entailed a nature on all his posterity “wholly sinful in every faculty and part of soul and body.” This constitutional sinfulness that belongs to every faculty and part of soul and body, constitutes the inability of which we are treating. But mark, it is not physical inability, because it is a sinful inability! Important theological distinction!—as truly wonderful, surely, as any of the subtleties of the Jesuits. But if this inability is sinful, it is important to inquire, Whose sin is it? Who is to blame for it? Why to be sure, we are told that it is the sin of him upon whom it is thus entailed by the natural law of descent from parent to child without his knowledge or consent. This sinfulness of nature, entirely irrespective of, and previous to any actual transgression, renders its possessor worthy of and exposed to the wrath and curse of God for ever. This sinfulness, observe, is transmitted by a natural or physical law from Adam, but it is not a physical inability. It is something that inheres in, and belongs to every faculty and part of soul and body. It is transmitted by a physical law from parent to child. It is, therefore, and must be a physical thing.
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