The following facts should be borae in mind. 1. That some of
those texts refer to particular generations or classes of men, the
enemies of the Jews, the heathen world, or some age of ^eat
wickedness. 2. That a state of general and lamentable wickecuiess
does not prove an innate and total corruption, no more than a state
of general ignorance proves an incapacity for mental improvement.
3. That no text in the Scripture ever speaks of mankind in general
as being bom depraved, or born in sin. 4. That it is repeatedi
again and again, after the fall of Adam, that man is still made in
the image and likeness of God. 5. That the sinfulness of any
period is condemned for actual, open transgression, personal sin,
never for birth sin. 6. That so great and remarkable a change
from heathenism to Christianity may well be called a new life, from,
darkness to light, a new birth, life from the dead, without assum-
ing inborn depravity.
"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the
earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil continually." — Genesis vL 6. In the 12th verse, we read,
fi^t that mankind were bom corrupt, ** God looked upon the earth,
and behold it was corrupt; for all flesh 7iad corrupted hU way
upon the earth." The sin of that period was that mankind had
corrupted themselves. The passage neither asserts nor implies
inborn depravity, but the reverse, notes the prevailing iniquity of
that age, and the punishment it justly deserved.
