The corruption of nature is that aspect of original sin which consists in the pollution and depravity of man’s whole nature, inherited from Adam and propagated to all his posterity—the inward defilement and disorder of the heart, distinguished from the imputed guilt of Adam’s first transgression. Where original guilt is the legal liability charged to us, the corruption of nature is the actual moral pollution within us: a heart, mind, will, and affections all bent away from God and inclined to evil from the womb. The Westminster Confession describes it as that “original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil,” from which proceed all actual transgressions. It is sometimes called the “original pollution” to distinguish it from original guilt. This corruption is total in extent, infecting every faculty and leaving no part of human nature undefiled, though it does not make every man as wicked as he might possibly be, nor erase the image of God entirely or the workings of common grace. Scripture testifies to it everywhere: the imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart is only evil continually; the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; that which is born of the flesh is flesh. The corruption of nature explains why every man sins, why he sins from his earliest days, and why no education, environment, or effort can cleanse the fountain—only the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, who gives a new heart, can begin to renew a nature so deeply spoiled.