The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

the natural process of descent, "secundum naturam," i. e. with natural
propagation, and natural birth; and such is the clear teaching of the Holy
Scriptures. Ps. li. 5, "Behold! I was shapen in iniquity." See Gen. v. 1 & 3:
in the first verse we have, "in the likeness of God made he him;" and in the
third verse this antithesis, "and Adam begat a son, after his image." So our
Lord Jesus says, (John iii. 6,) "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and
that which is born of the spirit is spirit." Eph. ii. 3, "We all were by nature
children of wrath," that is, as Tyndale, Cranmer, and others say, "were
natural children of wrath." The sin of Adam is so related to the condition of
the race, that by and because of our natural descent from him, sin and its
penalty passes over to us. Rom. v. 12, "By one man sin entered the world."
Fact.
VI. Next the great fact is asserted, That all human beings are
conceived and born in sin and with sin,--"Nascantur cum peccato," "In
Sünden empfangen und geboren werden."
This fact can be mentally separated from the particular theory upon
which it rests. Even Pagans have acknowledged the fact. And those whose
theory seemed irreconcilable with it, and those who have even denied it in
downright terms, have been forced virtually to concede it. All the
refinement in. terms, in philosophy, in the mode of statement or of
argument, has not been able to conceal the fact, that in, with, and under our
human nature, there lies something evil; foreign to the original condition of
man; foreign to the divine ideal, and to man's own better ideal; something
derived from parent to child, producing misery, death, and despair;
something that is the power of all sinful results, and the seed of all sinful
growths.
The Scripture testimony to this great fact is very explicit. Gen. viii.
21, "The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth," i. e. inclusively
in his youth and ever after. Gen. vi. 5,"God saw that the wickedness of
man," etc., "was only evil continually." (Heb. lit. "evil all the day;" margin-
-"The whole imagination.") The Hebrew word signifies not only the
imagination, but also the PURPOSES AND DESIRES.
The actual condition of the race is depicted in the 14th Ps.,