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what he never taught ; but as he plainly asserted what is income patible with the notion of original sin , that notion appears \ o com . rnon sense as more than doubtful and suspiciqus , it appears to be a great error and corruption . In opposition to my reasoning upon the gospels , I have been told , that Jesus was silent upon some points which his . apbstles plainly taught afterwards . Though the manner in which this has been asserted seems to degrade Christ , and represent him as an
'imperfect preacher of the gospel in comparison of his apostles , / which is a manifest inconsistency , for they received all their information from him , I have been led carefully to examine the Acts of the apostles , to see whether they *
after the exaltation of % their Lord , taught this supposed fundamental of religion , original sin ; and I find they were as silent upon the subject ^ . s he had been before them . Throughout the book of ActSj the sin of Adam is never mentioned , nor is the least hint
dropped about the natural depravity of man or his being born sinful and incapable of doing the "wiil of God ; on the contrary , the Apostles charged the sins of
both Jews and Gentiles upon them , as originating with themselves , without ever referring to a corrupt nature derived from Adam , as the source of all their crimes . Common sense can
discover nothing in the Acts which gives the least countenance to the doctrine of original sin ; the addresses of the Apostles to both Jews and Qentiles , as recorded there , evidently proceed on a contrary principle .
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Often have I heard prea cher insisting on the necessity of conversion and the new birth , on account of the corrupt , t ] epraved state in which all are born ; and
they have talked as if they though t that had man been born pure his own conduct would not have rendered his conversion necessary ; for the corruption of nature has been their favourite topic when urging upon sinners that they
must be converted and born again . On this conduct of some popular preachers common sense has suggested , that they talked as if men ' s conversion was made necessary by what they could not help , not by their own improper con . duct , and as if God , by a constitution of things which he had fixed , had caused them to be
made as ' individuals in so bad a state , that it was rendered impossible they should be morally good until he had new made them . If the views of such men were just , common , sense would be unable to account for the conduct of Jesus and his Apostles ; as he and they , when speaking of the new
birth , conversion , &c . made not the least reference to Adam ' s sin nor dropped the least hint respecting thq supposed ' natural corruption of mankind , -. „
I rind but one writer in the New Testament , who makes any mention of Adam ' s sin ; that writer is Paul ; and he mentions it incidentally , to illustrate other subjects ; not as a doctrine which he was commissioned to teach , or as making any part of the Christian doctrine ; but as a thing understood among the Jews , and which served to elucidate what he was writing . The passages in
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t 258 Decisions of Common Sense . Letter II .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1809, page 258, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1736/page/12/
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