Dr. George Duffield on the Doctrines of New-School Presbyterians [pp. 655-675]

660 rr. ~eorye 1)uffleld on tTte [Oc~o~~~
itself sinful. This view New-school Presbyterians cou]d not
reconcile with the fact, as affirmed by the Confession of Faith,
that God is not the author of sin, nor with the nature of God's
moral government, the freedom of the human will, and the
accountability of the moral creature.
"The Old-school Presbyterians, on the other hand, charged
their brethren who dissented from their theological ideas as to
the nature of moral corruption, with denying that`Adam's
posterity inherit from him a depraved nature,' and also`that
there is any such thing as`a corrupted natme,' distinct froni
voluntary acts. The ground of controversy here lies in a terra
inco~nita. New-sc/tool ~resbyterians care not to expThre it."
Pp. 587, 58~.
"If Old-school Presbyterians do not believe that the agency
of the Spirit in regeneration is physical, like that of his physical omnipotence in creation, they have failed to make themselves understood. ~Ye confess ourselves utterly unable to get
any other idea from such language as this:`the formal efficiency
of the Spirit, indeed, in the putting forth the exceeding greatness of his power in our quickening, is no otherwise to be comprehended by us than any other creating act of Divine power.`*
Dr. Rice, the exponent of Old-school views, insists upon there
being`a moral nature or disposition, distinct and anterior to
its acts,' produced, of course, by a new creation,`so that the
regenerated man is, in his moral character, as really a new
creature as he would be in his physical character, if the natural powers of his mind were radically changed.'" Pp. 605, 60(3.
Thus it is avowed that New-school Presbyterians regard
our doctrine of native ~and hereditary sinfulness, as, "if not
physical, in wrought or involved in his constitutional nature,
transmitted like any otlter corporeal facult~ or ~ualit~," so
reducing it to the genus of "corporeal faculties or qualities,"
and making it a part of man's original and essential nature.
They ignore, and "do not care to" know anything about
depraved nature inherited from Adam, or distinct from voluntary acts. To say that this is terra incognita to them, is to
say that they disbelieve it, and do not hold it. ~Ioreover it
shows that their meaning of the word "physical" when they
* Owen on the Spirit, book iii., chap. i. p. 225.