God had condemned, and none will come to him for salvation, until they approve of God for condemning them. This shows the vast importance of teaching sinners, that they are so corrupt and guilty that they deserve the damnation of hell. For though they hear the gospel, they will not understand it; and though they understand it, they will not feel their need of it; and though they feel their need of it, they will not cordially embrace it, unless they see and feel themselves to be what Christ has said they are, "serpents, a generation of vipers," deserving endless ruin. IMPROVEMENT. 1. If the native total depravity of sinners has been properly and scripturally described, there is reason to think that many, who profess to believe this doctrine, do not really believe it. All that call themselves Calvinists profess to believe, that all mankind have become morally depraved by 'the means, or in consequence of the apostasy of Adam. But there are many who believe this universal depravity of mankind, that do not believe any sinner is totally depraved. They do not believe that all sinners are naturally destitute of all moral goodness; that they have no true love to God, nor man; and that their hearts are totally selfish and malignant, deserving the description given in the text. But if they do not believe this, they do not believe total depravity in a true, scriptural sense. They only believe universal depravity, which is the common opinion of mankind. Many who profess to be Calvinists and to believe total depravity, never preach it, but virtually deny it. Though they do, indeed, use the term, total depravity, and sometimes professedly preach upon the subject; yet they either neglect to explain it, or explain it away. They more commonly neglect to explain it, and distinguish it from universal depravity; or if they undertake to explain it, they explain it away into universal depravity. For after they have told what they mean by total depravity, they exhort sinners to read and pray and use the means of grace, in order to obtain a new heart. They urge them to persevere in thus seeking and striving for converting grace, by telling them that they are doing their duty, and may expect that God will hear and answer their prayers. Do such preachers believe total depravity in the sense in which Christ and the inspired writers taught it? Do they believe that sinners are totally destitute of all true love to God; that their carnal mind is altogether enmity against him, not subject to his law, neither indeed can be? Do they believe, that the prayers of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord? Do not their common and almost universal exhortations to sinners to continue and persevere in their unregenerate duties clearly prove that they do not believe total depravity in the true scriptural sense? If they believed total depravity in a scriptural sense, would they not draw a scriptural inference from it, that the prayers of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord? How rarely do we find total depravity, clearly explained and taught in any late sermons or tracts? How rarely do we hear total depravity clearly explained and taught from the pulpit? We often hear the doctrine mentioned, and we sometimes hear it explained, but do we often hear the proper inference drawn from it? Do we often hear the reading and praying, the seekings and strivings of sinners represented and condemned as selfish, sinful and highly displeasing to God? Do we often hear sinners exhorted to make a new heart, to repent and pray and submit to God immediately? Why not, if our Calvinistic, Orthodox preachers, who are numerous, really believe total depravity? If they really believe this doctrine, whey not explain it clearly and fully? would they not trace it out in all its serious, interesting, instructive, and important consequences? Would they not represent it as selfish, as malignant, and as destructive as Christ represented it? The most favorable supposition is, that they are not so Calvinistic and Orthodox on the subject of total depravity, as they really think they are. 2. It appears from the description which I have given of total depravity, that the disbelief of it naturally leads men into other gross and dangerous errors. The total depravity of mankind is one of the first and fundamental principles of the gospel; and to disbelieve and deny this fundamental principle must be in itself a great error, and of course, must naturally lead to other great and even fatal errors. And this we find to be true in fact. The disbelief of total depravity in its true and scriptural sense, is the source of some of the most gross and dangerous errors, which prevail at the present day. It naturally leads men to become Arminians, who maintain, that men come into the world as much inclined to good as to evil, and that they continue inclined to good in childhood, youth, and manhood, that they always obey God more or less, and that they never need an essential change of heart by special grace in order to be saved. On this ground, they deny the essential distinction between saints and sinners. Though they allow that one man may be better than another, yet they suppose that all have some moral goodness, and the worst of men differ from the best only in the degrees of their goodness. They therefore deny the doctrine of personal election, or that God has chosen one, rather than another to eternal life. This is true Arminianism, which is entirely founded upon the denial of total depravity. The denial of total depravity leads men to become Methodists, who are essentially Arminians. For they deny the doctrine of election, the doctrine of regeneration or an essential change of heart, the doctrine of saints' perseverance, and the essential distinction between saints and sinners. They suppose a sinner may become a saint, without special grace; and consequently may become a sinner again. Their saints are only reformed sinners, who may be saints one year and sinners the next; saints one month and sinners the next; or saints one day and sinners the next, as long as they live. This shows, that after all they say about depravity and regeneration, and they say a great deal about both these doctrines, yet they do not believe either, in a scriptural sense. Methodists and Arminians both build their whole scheme of religion upon the denial of total depravity and regeneration, in their true, gospel sense, and therefore are grossly and dangerously erroneous in their religious sentiments. The denial of total depravity leads men to embrace the Antinomian and Moravian error, which is, that sinners may and ought to love God, merely because he loves them, and that if they do love God on this ground, they will be saved. This Antinomian and Moravian doctrine is vastly more prevalent among Christians in Europe and America, at the present day, than is generally supposed. The famous Chalmers and Irving in Scotland, whose writings are much admired and read in America, teach this dangerous sentiment; and so do some of the most popular preachers at the South. It is It is a captivating doctrine, and naturally leads those who deny total depravity to embrace it. It is easy to make Christians, and to make them fast, by preaching the pleasing doctrine of Antinomianism. The Moravians are celebrated for their great success in their preaching. Chalmers and Irving have crowded audiences wherever they go. Those who deny total depravity are prepared to drink in with avidity a totally selfish scheme of religion. The denial of total depravity naturally leads men to become Arians, Socinians, Unitarians, and Universalists. Those who deny total depravity, may easily believe, that men may be saved by an atonement made by a mere dependent, created being, or without any atonement at all. And upon the same ground, the same persons may become Deists, and renounce the Bible, and depend upon mere unrevealed, natural religion to save them. In short, the denial of total depravity tends to lead men into any and every religious error, that ever was devised or propagated in this erroneous world. There is nothing to hinder those who deny total depravity, from running into one error after another till they arrive at the last error in the series, that is absolute Skepticism; by the four following causes. Either because they are too careless and idle to trace their first error to its final consequence; or because they are incapable of tracing their first error to its final consequence; or because they are afraid to trace their first error to its final consequence; or because they find it unpopular to trace their first error to its final consequence. There is no more absurdity in becoming Skeptics than in becoming Arminians, or Antinomians, or Unitarians, or Universalists, or Deists. Their denial of total depravity is absurd, and after they have admitted this absurdity, there is no absurdity too great for them to admit in any doctrinal error. As the whole gospel scheme of salvation is founded on the doctrine of total depravity; so the denial of this doctrine tends to subvert the whole gospel. 3. If total depravity has been properly and scripturally described, it is easy to see why the gospel is so greatly despised by those in general who hear it. Sinners made light of the gospel in Christ's day, and he predicted, in the parable of the gospel feast, that they would make light of it in time to come. His prediction has been, and is still fulfilling. The gospel has been preached nearly two thousand years, and to almost every nation in the world; but it has been very generally despised and rejected, by Jews and Gentiles. This can be easily accounted for, upon the principle of total depravity, which has a powerful tendency to blind the mind, stupify the consciences, and harden the hearts of sinners. Their understanding is "darkened, being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart." They have eyes, but they will not see; they have ears, but they will not hear; and they have hearts, but they will not perceive their guilt and danger. They are loth to look within and see the plague of their own hearts, and the danger which results from it. So long as they feel no guilt, they can see no danger. It is strange, that they do not know they are depraved, guilty, perishing creatures; but it is not strange they make light of the gospel, while they feel no need of it. The feelings and conduct of secure sinners towards the gospel, is one of the most clear and visible evidences of their total depravity. Nothing short of the blinding and infatuating influence of their totally depraved hearts, could lead them to despise the gospel, reject the counsel of God, and run the risk of lying down in everlasting sorrow. And this is the awful effect which the gospel ascribes to total depravity; and which no mere intellectual light or motive can remove. 4. If sinners are totally depraved, it is not strange that they are in deep distress, when the Spirit of God opens their eyes to see their hearts and their lives in a true light. He can bring the divine law home to their consciences, and make them realize that they have broken it, by all the exercises of their hearts and actions of their lives. He can bring God into view, whom they have always despised, disobeyed, and injured. He can bring eternity into view, and make them realize that eternal punishment which they deserve, and to which they are constantly exposed. He can set all their sins in order before them, with the aggravating circumstances that have attended them. And this which he can do, he often does. He awakened three thousand in one day. He has awakened millions since, and some too who were the most stupid, hardened, and obstinate. He is still awakening sinners in one place and another, and he may come into any place, and alarm the most vain, thoughtless, and secure. It is only for the Spirit of God to open the eyes of sinners to see their hearts, which are totally selfish and malignant, and which deserve the damnation of hell, and it would throw them into the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity. Let any sinner only have a full and realizing view of his own heart, conduct, and condition, it would plunge him in darkness and insupportable distress. Some sinners may bid defiance to the arrows of conviction, but they may find that a wounded spirit is more than they can bear. They may make light of the doctrine of total depravity, but they could not, if they realized what Christ says they are, and what he says they de serve. 5. We learn from what has been said, that there is a wide difference between awakenings and convictions. Sinners may be awakened and alarmed in the view of danger, while they have no conviction that they are totally depraved. They may be sensible that they are depraved, that they have externally broken the divine law, and are exposed to be lost; while they imagine that their hearts are better than their lives. This excites them to reform, to read and pray, and seek for mercy, with hopes of pleasing God by doing their duty. They imagine that their sincere and ardent desires to escape future |