Sin and Judgment to Come ishing sin I f by the law of his fallen nature man were incapable of doing right, it would be clearly inequitable to pun- ish him for doing wrong. I f the Fall had made him crooked- backed, to punish him for not standing upright, would be worthy of an unscrupulous and cruel tyrant. But we must distinguish between theological dogma and divine truth. That man is without excuse is the clear testimony of Holy Writ This, moreover, is asserted emphatically of the heathen; and its truth is fully established by the fact that even heathendom h a s produced some clean, upright lives. Such cases, no doubt, are few and far between; but that in no way affects the prin- ciple of the argument; for, what some have done all might do True it is that m the antediluvian age the entire race was sunk in vice; and such was also the condition of the Canaan- i es in later times. But the divine judgments that fell on them are proof that their condition was not solely an inevitable R B I ’S § 3 ¡n that c a s e t te 3 ^ ° f di™ ' i “ «“ . 1 « of
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DEPRAVITY IN RELIGIOUS NATURE
M 1 1 1 » Were true’ aI1 ««regenerate men would be equally degraded, whereas, in fact, the unconverted religion st can maintain as high a standard of morality as the spiritual Christian. In this respect the life of Saul the Phari- see was as perfect as that of Paul the Apostle of the Lord. tf Stlm°ny t0 thls 13 ««equivocal. (Acts 26 :4, S; Phil, h i iff t , ? ICS,S 80 iS His confessio« that, notwithstanding . ,e ° klanie_les_s «lorallty, he was a persecuting blasphemer and the chief of sinners. (1 Tim. 1:13.) The solution of this seeming enigma is to be found in the fact so plainly declared in the Scripture, that it is not in the r i V V re! f 0US ° r the spiritual sphere. that man s hopelessly depraved and lost. Hence the terrible wo rd -as true of those who stand on a pinnacle of high morality as of
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