091. Chapter 7: Proofs Of Native Depravity.

Chapter 7 Proofs Of Native Depravity. The proofs of native depravity lie mostly in the Scriptures: partly, in the more direct testimony of particular texts; partly, in the impossibility of righteousness and life by the law, and the necessity for the atonement and spiritual regeneration. Further proof lies in the universality of actual sin. Both the Scriptures and the history of the race witness to the truth of this universality, and the common religious consciousness confirms their testimony. Native depravity, with its characteristic evil tendency, is the only rational account of universal actual sin, and thus finds its proof in that universality. The manifold evils of the present life, the mortality of the race in the Scripture account of it, the small success of providential agencies for the moral and religious improvement of mankind, and the common spiritual apathy give further proof of a moral lapse of the race. We have thus briefly outlined the evidences of native depravity which we shall present in this chapter.