Observations on Other Parts of the Holy Scriptures, Chiefly in the Old Testament, that Prove the Doctrine of Original Sin
Original depravity may well be argued, from wickedness being often spoken of in Scripture, as a thing belonging to the race of mankind, and as if it were a property of the species. So in Psal. xiv. 2, 3. “The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside; they are altogether become filthy: there is none that doeth good; no, not one.” The like we have again, Psal. liii. 2, 3.—Dr. T. says (p. 104, 105), “The Holy Spirit does not mean this of every individual; because in the very same psalm, he speaks of some that were righteous, ver. 5. God is in the generation of the righteous.” But how little is this observation to the purpose? For who ever supposed, that no unrighteous men were ever changed by divine grace, and afterwards made righteous? The psalmist is speaking of what men are as they are the children of men, born of the corrupt human race; and not as born of God, whereby they come to be the children of God, and of the generation of the righteous. The apostle Paul cites this place in Rom. iii. 10-12. to prove the universal corruption of mankind; but yet in the same chapter he supposes the same persons spoken of as wicked, may become righteous, through the righteousness and grace of God.
Wickedness is spoken of in other places in the book of Psalms, as a thing that belongs to men, as of the human race, as sons of men. Thus, in Psal. iv. 2. “O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame? How long will ye love vanity?” &c. Psal. lvii. 4. “I lie among them that are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.” Psal. lviii. 1, 2. “Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? Do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men? Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weight out the violence of your hands in the earth.” Our author mentioning these places, says (p. 105. note), “There was a strong party in Israel disaffected to David’s person and government, and sometimes he chooseth to denote them by the sons or children of men.” But it would have been worth his while to have inquired, Why the psalmist should choose to denote the worst men in Israel by this name? Why he should choose thus to disgrace mankind, as if the compellation of sons of men most properly belonged to such as were of the vilest character, and as if all the sons of men, even every one of them, were of such a character, and none of them did good; no, not one? Is it not strange, that the righteous should not be thought worthy to be called sons of men, and ranked with that noble race of beings, who are born into the world wholly right and innocent? It is a good, easy, and natural reason, why he chooseth to call the wicked, sons of men, as a proper name for them, That by being of the sons of men, or of the corrupt, ruined race of mankind, they come by their depravity. And the psalmist himself leads us to this very reason, Psal. lviii . “Do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men? yea, in heart ye work wickedness, ye weigh out the violence of your hands. The wicked are estranged from the womb,“ &c. Of which I shall speak more by and by.
Agreeable to these places is Prov. xxi. 8.. “The way of man is froward and strange; but as for the pure, his work is right.” He that is perverse in his walk, is here called by the name of man, as distinguished from the pure: which I think is absolutely unaccountable, if all mankind by nature are pure, and perfectly innocent, and all such as are froward and strange in their ways, therein depart from the native purity of all mankind. The words naturally lead us to suppose the contrary; that depravity and perverseness properly belong to mankind as they are naturally, and that a being made pure, is by an after-work, by which some are delivered from native pollution, and distinguished from mankind in general: which is perfectly agreeable to the representation in Rev. xiv. 4. where we have an account of a number that were not defiled, but were pure, and followed the Lamb; of whom it is said, “These were redeemed from among men.“
To these things agree Jer. xvii. 5, 9. In ver. 5. it is said, Cursed is he that trusteth in man.“ And in ver. 9. this reason is given, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” What heart is this so wicked and deceitful? Why, evidently the heart of him, who, it was said before, we must not trust; and that is man. It alters not the case as to the present argument, whether the deceitfulness of the heart here spoken of, be its deceitfulness to the man himself, or to others. So Eccl. ix. 3 . “Madness is in the heart of the sons of men, while they live.” And those words of Christ to Peter, Matt. xvi. 23 , “Get thee behind me, Satan—for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men. Signifying plainly, that to be carnal and vain, and opposite to what is spiritual and divine, is what properly belongs to men in their present state. The same thing is supposed in that of the apostle, 1 Cor. iii. 3, “For ye are yet carnal. For whereas there is among you envying and strife, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?” And that in Hos. vi. 7. “But they, like men, have transgressed the covenant.” To these places may be added Matt. vii. 11. “If ye being evil, know how to give good gifts.” Jam. iv. 5. “Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, the spirit that dwelleth in us, lusteth to envy?”—1 Pet. iv. 2. “That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the lusts of men, but to the will of God.”—Yet above all, that in Job xv. 16. “How much more abominable and filthy is man, who drinketh iniquity like water?” Of which more presently.