Posted by
ValiantForTruth on Tuesday, February 26, 2008 7:05:30 PM
DEPRAVITY as defined in Webster’s 1828 edition…
1. Corruption; a vitiated [debased] state; as the depravity of manners and morals.
2. A vitiated state of the heart; wickedness; corruption of moral principles; destitution of holiness or good principles.
Our culture has lost the meaning of depravity because it has lost the authority of the Bible. The Bible was the textbook of Colonial Americans for theology as will as political science. They had a Biblical sense of the word depravity that shaped their understanding of Law and Gospel…
'But we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, knowing this: that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers…, for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine’ [1 Timothy 1:8-11].
Depravity is our nature. The natural law augmented by revealed law is behind the concept of the rule of law and the divine purpose of government to restrain the lawlessness of men. The Gospel is more powerful than depravity. It is able to make men slaves of righteousness rather than willing captives to their sins.
Liberty must start with self before it can be realized in the society of other men. Herein is the purpose of religious liberty and a free church governed by Jesus Christ through the New Covenant in His blood. Civil liberty is dependent on both the Law and the Gospel.
If we believe the testimony of our forefathers, then these things are the foundational principles of the American system of Constitutional government.
It is free men appealing to Biblical authority to set the form and limits of their government that makes our Constitution unique in the history of men.
How is it that so many Americans now find socialism acceptable rather than reprehensible as against the natural law and the enemy of liberty? Even though we have a written Constitution, the first principles are dead to them; the ways of liberty they have not known.