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

origin. It throws its life into them; without it they might not be; it is not only
original, it is also the originating sin, or that sin which gives the original to
all others.
Negatively, then, original sin is the lack of original righteousness, that
is, of the righteousness which man originally had as God's creature,
bearing His image, and is the perpetuation morally of original
unrighteousness, that is, of the nonrighteousness which fallen man, as
fallen, originally had. Positively, original sin is evil desire and propensity,
first existing potentially and seminally, so to speak, the power of all sinful
results, and the seed of all sinful growths; and then revealing itself
invariably and necessarily in conscious and actual sin, if not checked by
the Spirit of God.
iii. As we have by nature no true fear of God, no true love of God, no
true faith in God, so neither can we get them by nature. Conf., "Keinen von
Natur haben können." Original sin is not only retrospective, looking back
to the origin of our race, but it is prospective, covering the future as it
covers the past, a pall upon the face of the nations. In the sphere of nature it
renders our condition utterly hopeless. A man may by nature have a weak
body, a feeble constitution, an imperfection of speech, but in nature he may
find relief for them all. Strength may come by natural exercise, fluency by
repeated efforts, but there is no power in man, in his reason or in his will,
none in education, none in the whole store of the visible, or intellectual, or
moral world, which can repair this fatal defect, and render him God's
reverent, loving, and trusting child. There is no surf-beaten shore on which
man may go forth and train himself amid its thunders and its whispers, to
speak in true faith and love into the ear of God words which may remove
His righteous disapproval of our sinful and sinning nature. In other words,
in the sphere of nature, original sin leaves us in utter and hopeless ruin.
Without faith it is impossible to please God; without holiness no man shall
see the Lord; and by nature we are destitute of faith and holiness
potentially. In our conscious, moral life there can be no development of
them actually. We neither have, nor can have them, unless something not
of us, nor of