A Treatise on Atonement, by Hosea Ballou
Part I. -- Of Sin.
Chapter 2. Its Origin
Having hinted so much on the nature of sin as to make the subject plain to the reader's understanding, I will now pass to an inquiry into its cause, or origin.
The origin of sin has, among Christians in general, been very easily accounted for; but in a way, I must confess, that never gave me any satisfaction, since I came to think for myself on subjects of this nature. A short chimerical story of the bard, Milton, has given perfect satisfaction to millions, representing the introduction of moral evil into the moral system which we occupy. The substance of the account is: Some time before the creation of man, the Almighty created multitudes of spiritual beings, called angels. Some of these creatures of God were much higher in dignity and authority than others, but all perfectly destitute of sin, or moral turpitude. One dignified above all the rest, stood Prime Minister of the Almighty, clothed with the highest missive power, and clad with garments of primeval light; obsequious to nothing but the high behest of his Creator, he discharged the functions of his office with promptitude and dignity, suited to the eminence of his station, and to the admiration of celestial millions. But when it pleased Jehovah to reveal the brightness of his glory and the image f the Godhead in humanity, he gave forth the command (see Psalm xcvii. 7), "Worship him, all ye gods." And (Heb. i. 6) "and again, when he bringeth the first begotten into the world, he saith, and let all the angels of God worship him." Lucifer, Son of the Morning (as Christians have called him), surprised at the idea of worshipping any being but God himself, looked on the Son with ineffable disdain, and in a moment grew indignant, brushed his strongest pinions, and waved his wings for the throne of God, challenged supremacy with the Almighty, and cast his eye to the sides of the north as a suitable place to establish his empire. Legions of spirits followed this chief in rebellion, and formed a dangerous party in the kingdom of the Almighty. The Son of God was invested with full power as Generalissimo of Heaven, to command the remaining forces, against the common enemy. And in short, after many grievous battles between armies of contending spirits, where life could not, in the least, be exposed, Lucifer and his party were driven out of Heaven, leaving it in peace, through in a great measure, depopulated!
God, having created the earth, and placed the first man and woman in a most happy situation of innocence and moral purity, without the smallest appetite for sin, or propensity to evil, the arch Apostate enviously looked from his fiery prison, to which he was consigned by a command of the Almighty, and beholding man placed in so happy a situation, and in a capacity to increase to infinite multitudes, by which the kingdom of Heaven would be enlarged, was determined to crop this tree in the bud. He, therefore, turns into a serpent, goes to the woman and beguiles her, gets her to eat of a fruit which god had forbidden, by which means he introduced sin into our system.
I have not been particular in this sketch, but it contains the essence of the common idea. I shall now put it under examination, looking diligently for the propriety of accounting for the origin of moral evil in this way.
And first, of this memorable rebellion in heaven! It seems that this rebel angel was always obedient to the commands of his Maker, until the hour of his fall; that there was not the least spot of pollution in him, until he felt the emotions of pride, which lifted him above submission to the Son of God. This being the case, I ask, was this angel ignorant of the real character of the Son, whom he was commanded to worship? If he were not, but knew it to be no other than the true Eternal, his Creator, manifested in a nature which Jehovah created; if he loved his Maker as he ought to do, which none would pretend to dispute; he would have worshipped him with due reverence, the moment he made the discovery and command: this is no person in his senses will dispute. If he did not know the real character whom he was commanded to worship, had he complied, he would have worshipped he knew not what. And nothing can be more absurd than to suppose that infinite wisdom would command his creatures to worship ignorantly. I ask, further, could purity produce impurity; or moral holiness, unholiness? All answer, no. Was the angel holy in every faculty? Was not the command, for him to worship the Son, holy and just? All answer, yes. Then from such causes, how was sin produced? The reader will easily see the question cannot be answered. Now, reader, be so kind as to turn to the scripture, to which I have referred you on this subject, and see if we have any authority for saying, that either gods or angels refused to worship when commanded. "Again, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he saith, let all the angels of God worship him." That this first begotten is Christ, no doubt will be entertained. But when was he brought into the world, before or since the first transgression of man? Since, most certainly. Then, supposing millions of angels had sinned at that time, it could have had no consequence productive of man's transgression, as a cause cannot be posterior to its effects. Therefore, to suppose that those angels who never sinned until long after man became a transgressor, were the instigators of what is called the fall, discovers a want of calculation. And further, what authority have we for believing that the command was disobeyed? We find nothing connected with either passage, viz., that in Psalms or that in Hebrews, which intimates a refusal among the gods, or angels. And I see no need of supposing, that by gods, in one text, or by angels in the other, any other beings are intended than men. In respect to the command for all the gods to worship him, I observe, "they were called gods to whom the word of God came, and the scriptures cannot be broken." And the command, for all the angels of God to worship, stands on this proper ground; by angels, are meant messengers, who are employed by God, for the information of their fellow-men; but as all those messengers, or ministers, were inferior to the "Messenger of the covenant," whom the Lord promised to send unto Jerusalem, it was suitable to show his superiority, by giving such a token, in the scriptures, as commanding all the angels to worship him. There is another passage in Isaiah xiv. 12, etc.: "How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, Son of the Morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! for thou has said in thine heart, I will ascent unto heaven; I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north," etc.
"Here," I have been told, "we have a particular account of the sin which Satan committed in Heaven." But as there is nothing in this passage, or its connections, that has reference to any other creature or being, as Lucifer, Son of the Morning, than the King of Babylon, I shall say but little upon it. Observe, the question is asked, How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, Son of the Morning? How art thou cut down to the ground, who didst weaken the nations? This Lucifer wakened the nations before he fell, but was unable to weaken them afterwards. He said in his heart he would ascend unto Heaven. Was this the sin of Satan, as is generally supposed? Was he not already in Heaven? How then could he say in his heart, I will ascend unto Heaven? I will not trouble the reader with anything so vague as the vulgar application of this scripture, only enough to show that it had no such meaning. The King of Babylon is pointed out, in this prophecy, as exalting his throne above the stars of God, which in a figurative sense, undoubtedly meant his exalting himself by the reduction of the Jews, who are figuratively called the stars of God.
Again, this angel of light must have been very ignorant of the power and goodness of the Almighty, in order to have possessed a thought, that to rebel against him could be of any possible advantage, or that he could have carried and maintained a contest with him. If he was as ignorant as all this, the inhabitants of Heaven must have been extremely uncultivated, in that age of eternity, and no great ornament to a place so much famed for glory and grandeur. If Heaven, which is said to be God's throne, be, or ever were inhabited by defectable beings, the place itself must be a defectable place; and why the Almighty should take up his special abode in a defectable place, surrounded by defectable beings, I cannot imagine. But I pass on:
After Satan was turned out of Heaven, he saw no possible way to injure his adversary, only by contaminating his creatures, which he had just made, and placed in the happy situation just described. Here observe, the matter appears strange. Did God not know the evil disposition of Satan? Had he forgotten the awful difficulty but just settled? Or would he leave an innocent lamb to the ferocity of a bear robbed of her whelps? God had driven Satan from Heaven, from his own presence, but left him at loose ends to prey on his tender offspring, whom he has just left in a defenceless situation, on this ball of earth! What would appear more unnatural and shocking than for a father to chase his enemy out at his door, but leave him to slay his defenceless children in the street? I shall, after what I have observed, beg liberty to say, I am so far from believing any such story respecting the cause of sin, that I have not even the shadow of evidence, from scripture of reason, to support the sentiment. But I have been told, that man, standing in a state of sinless purity, could not have fallen from that rectitude, unless there had been some sinful being to have tempted him. Admitting there is any force in this observation, it stands as directly against the fall of Satan, without a sinful temptation, as it does against man's transgressions, without a tempter. Was man more pure, before he sinned, than that holy angel in Heaven? If not, how could that angel sin, without a temptation, easier than man, who was made in a lower grade? but supposing we should admit that God commanded an angel to worship his Son Jesus, and the angel refused, and call that the first sin ever committed, it would not determine its origin or cause. a cause, or origin must exist, before an effect, or production. So, after all our journeying to heaven after a sinning angel, and after pursuing him to hell, and from hell to the earth, we have not yet answered the question, viz., What is the origin of sin? We have only shown, that the way in which this question has been generally solved, is without foundation.
Having stated what I have been told was the origin of sin, and given my reasons why I do not believe it, I now come to give my own ideas of the matter.
Scripture, with the assistance of that reason, without which, the scriptures would be of no more service to us than they are to the brute Creation, I shall take from my guide, on the question before me. Almighty God is a being of infinite perfections; this the scriptures will support, and reason declare. He was the author of our existence, being the creator of the first man and woman, the occasion of their being formed of the dust of the ground, and the director of that providence by which we are all introduced by ordinary generation. Our Maker must have had a design in the works of his hands; this the scriptures argue, and reason says. The whole of God's design must be carried into effect, and nothing more, admitting him to be an infinite being. We are informed that God created man in his own image; that he blessed him, and set him over the works of his hands; and reason cannot deny the truth of it. But what was this image of God in which man was created? Answer, it was Christ, who, in scripture, is called "the beginning of the creation of God;" who, St. Paul says, "is the brightness of the Father's glory, and express image of his person." Now there is no need of saying much where the truth is easy to come at. If Christ be the image of God, and man was created in God's image, it is plain that man was created in Christ, was blessed in Christ, and in Christ set over the works of God's hands. After God had finished his work of creation, consecrated the seveth day, and rested from his labor, we are informed that there was not a man to till the ground. This information is reasonable, and authorizes me to say, that as man stood in his created character, which is Christ, the heavenly man, he was not, at that time, formed of the dust of the ground, was not of the earth earthy, and was, therefore, not a tiller of the ground. We are then informed, by the sacred text, that God formed (not created) man of the dust of the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, whereby man became a living soul, or creature. Man is now a partaker of flesh and blood; is, as the apostle says, "made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who subjected the same in hope." He has now, not an immortal, but a mortal constitution; is possessed of natural appetites and passions; and being unacquainted with the ways of his own imperfect self, knew neither the good or evil of a mortal state. If it be said that man was no mortal before he sinned, and that he became mortal by sin, it is a saying as distant from good reason as imagination can go. For if man were not mortal before transgression, he must have been immortal; if he were immortal, he was not subject to change, but remains still in the same immortal state; and all our notions about the mortality of man is nothing but a groundless chimera. But every day's experience contracts such absurdities.
Man, according to these statements, is of heavenly extraction; is, in his nature, allied to the heavenly state, in which he was created, before he was formed of the dust of the ground. And I call on the reason of my reader to testify to the rationality of the idea. If the mind, spirit, soul, or whatever the reader pleases to call the immortal part of man, originated from the earthly nature of the formed creature, what is the reason that the good, which supports the formed nature, does not satisfy the soul? Our natural appetites originate in the elements of which our bodies are composed, and aliment produced from them is sufficient to satisfy any natural appetite of the body; but can it give a cup of consolation to the heavenly stranger within? No; her food is of a different kind. Were the earth, with all her mines and fruits, my own, this moment, on condition that I should give up the riches which I see in this heavenly relation, my bargain would make me poor.
As man stood in his formed state, clothed with mortal flesh and blood, before his mind became obsequious to the elementary passions, a law was shadowed to his mind from the heavenly and spiritual man. The full spirit, power and beauty of the law were not perfectly understood; only a shadow of the heavenly nature passed on his mind, and the nature of that spirit being eternal and immortally pure, was opposed to the passions which would immediately...
[Incomplete: pp. 50-59; original chapter ends p. 78. Typist, Steven Rowe. Remainder of chapter assigned to Anonymous.]
If you find typographical or other errors, please notify Dan Harper (danrharperATaolDOTcom).