NATURAL & CARNAL THE SAME?...

EXPLANATION OF THE TERMS: NATURAL & CARNAL.

BROTHER BEEBE: - Will you permit me to propose an answer for the consideration of brethren a little different from yours on page 113 of the SIGNS for Aug.1, 1848 – to the first of Elder Goldsmith’s^§ queries on page 115, same number. To your answer to the second query I have no objections.


This first query is, “Is it certain that natural and carnal are synonymous terms as used in the Scriptures? You give an answer according to the import of the two words as found in lexicons, but the query was in reference to the use of the terms in the Scriptures. There is this difference in this, as in some other cases. Lexicons speak of men and things as they are manifested in the world to the natural eye, or human reason, the Scriptures speak of them by the revelation of God. I understand, and so I presume you do, the term carnal in its application to man as designating him as depraved. This is what I understand God as charging him with, when he says, “For that he also is flesh.” Gen.6:3. 

As man universally is flesh or depraved we cannot contemplate the natural man as he exists in the world but as carnal. But the term natural is not, I think, in the scriptures confined to man as carnal or depraved. My recent experience on the point is this; in preaching a short time since, I had occasion to quote I Cor.2:14, “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, &c.,” and in quoting it the idea was presented with considerable force to my mind that the Apostle did not design to convey the idea only, that man in consequence of his fallen state, “receiveth not the things,” but, that man as made a living soul, being of the earth, earthy, had no faculty, either in his original upright, or present fallen state, capable of receiving the things of the Spirit of God, and I so explained the passage. 

In reviewing the subject since, I have been confirmed in the correctness of that idea, both from the connection of that text, and from the use of the term natural in I Cor.15:44-46, where it is evidently used to denote man in his original creation as distinguished by his peculiar formation, faculties, &c., from the second man who is the Lord from heaven; without its having any special bearing as to the state of man, either as upright or fallen. 

Hence, whilst the word is here used in relation to man in his original creation, and therefore whilst in his upright state, it is just before, in verse 44, used in relation to the human body as mortal and therefore as subject to the consequences of sin. So that neither uprightness, nor carnality are essential to man as natural. If I am correct in these views, the terms natural and carnal or flesh as found in the Scriptures are not strictly synonymous. 

The difference is about this; the carnal man is the natural man as he exists in consequence of the disobedience of Adam, a depraved creature; the natural man, is the same man, as he exists in his distinct formation and powers as a creature of God, whether in his original upright or present carnal state. From what I have said, it will be seen that one expression of mine found in the queries I proposed, published in SIGNS for July 15, 1848, page 106, is according to my present views incorrect. It is this, “Is the mind which by nature is earthly and fleshly &c.?” 

The mind of man is by nature earthly being so formed of God as adapted to man’s earthly residence. But man’s mind is fleshly or carnal, by the offence of one, Adam. This makes the idea involved in the query still more formable, for the mind of man in order to become spiritual and heavenly must be changed both from its carnal state and its earthly nature. Excuse me, Brother Beebe, for introducing my views in answer to a query addressed to you and differing from yours. I thought perhaps the query was induced by my expressions above referred to, though not meeting them exactly. Besides as the query was introduced, I wished it to receive an answer through the SIGNS, such as the scriptures will fully justify. If you and I have both failed in giving a correct answer, some other brother may be induced to set the thing right.

S.TROTT.

Centreville, Fairfax County, Va. 
Aug. 4, 1848.

[ed. ^§We have the following account from a book titled, At The Celebration Of The 250th Anniversary Of The Settlement Of Guilford, Conn., September 8-10th, 1889:

In the year 1823, Alvah Bradley Goldsmith was ordained over the Baptist Church in Guilford, the Services being performed in the First Congregational Church.  Mr. Goldsmith was a native of Guilford, where he was born, as my informant infers, December 2, 1792.  When a young man he became a bookseller in New Haven, and was an open and bitter unbeliever.  A revival in the year of 1820 aroused his deepest animosity.  On the 8th of January 1821, at a celebration of the Battle of New Orleans, (though after the regular proceedings were over and most had gone) some infidel friends who had been singing hymns in mockery, and among these hymns "There shall be mourning at the judgment seat of Christ," requested him to give a sermon.  The hymn had profoundly affected him and he preached in deadly earnest for, perhaps two or three hours.  He had a struggle for two or three days during which God's wrath was manifest enough to him and he felt himself excluded from salvation.  In attempting to describe the love of Christ to some of his old companions, that became an experience and a lasting one.  He wrote a tract describing his conversion, called "The Infidel Preacher."  His experiences were evidently influenced by the prevalent belief of religious people at that period, but his conversion was certainly genuine.  Being unfortunate in business he returned to Guilford, where, besides he worked as a wheelwright.  Having no church building, they met in what was then the Academy.  We infer that Mr. Goldsmith sympathized with the movement which led about the year 1835, to the organization of associations of "Old School Baptists," though it is not known that his church was connected with any association.  He is described as the first opposer in Connecticut of Fullerism and other so-called new religious inventions, the ter, Fullerism standing for the teachings of Rev. Andrew Fuller, an eminent English Baptist, who modified and softened the extreme Calvinism which had prevailed in his denomination and who was an earnest promoter of Baptist missionary efforts.  The old school or primitive Baptists did not believe in missions and are also known as Anti-Mission Baptists.  By degrees Mr. Goldsmith drifted away from the tenets of his denomination in the direction of Quakerism.  It is said that he always held firmly to the central truths of Christianity, while he became less and less careful about dogmatic accuracy and set the highest value on practical religion.  His life was eminently Christian and he was on friendly terms with other ministers.  Those who remember Goldsmith say that he loved Christ, Christ was his all in all.  In his family he was particularly kind and sympathetic.  He was clerk and judge probate, trustee for many widows and orphans and thoroughly good citizen.  He was remarkably patient under strong provocation, and a member his family says that he never saw him angry.  His strong tendency toward the spiritual in religion must have led to much sympathy with the Quaker idea of "the inward Christ," and Christ's second coming seems to him to have been a spiritual one in the hearts of Christians.  Mr. Goldsmith died June 12, 1863.