rendred In him it is violent and hard a distinct period by it self without dependence or proper purpose against the faith of all copies who do not make this a distinct period and against the usual manner of speaking 2. This phrase of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used in 2 Cor. 5.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not for that we would be unclothed and so it is used in Polybius Suidas and Varinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is eâ conditione for that cause or condition and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad quid ades are the words of the Gospel as Suidas quotes them 3. Although 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signifie the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in whom or in him yet it is so very seldom or infrequent that it were intolerable to do violence to this place to force it to an unnatural signification 4. If it did always signifie the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or in him which it does not yet we might very well follow the same reading we now do and which the Apostles discourse does infer for even 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does divers times signifie forasmuch or for that as is to be seen in Rom. 8.3 and Heb. 2.18 But 5. supposing all that can be and that it did signifie in whom yet the sence were fair enough as to the whole article for by him or in him we are made sinners that is brought to an evil state of things usually consequent to sinners we are us'd like sinners by him or in him just as when a sinner is justified he is treated like a righteous person as if he had never sinned though he really did sin oftentimes and this for his sake who is made righteousness to us so in Adam we are made sinners that is treated ill and afflicted though our selves be innocent of that sin which was the occasion of our being us'd so severely for other sins of which we were not innocent But how this came to pass is told in the following words 11. For until the law sin was in the world but sin is not imputed when there is no law Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression who is the figure of him that was to come By which discourse it appears that S. Paul does not speak of all minkind as if the evil occasion'd by Adams sin did descend for ever upon that account but it had a limited effect and reach'd only to those who were in the interval between Adam and Moses This death was brought upon them by Adam that is death which was threatned to Adam only went forth upon them also who indeed were sinners but not after the similitude of Adams transgression that is who sinn'd not so capitally as he did For to sin like Adam is used as a Tragical and a high expression So it is in the Prophet They like men have transgressed so we read it but in the Hebrew it is They like Adam have transgressed and yet death pass'd upon them that did not sin after the similitude of Adam for Abel and Seth and Abraham and all the Patriarchs died Enoch only excepted and therefore it was no wonder that upon the sin of Adam death entred upon the world who generally sinn'd like Adam since it passed on and reigned upon less sinners * It reigned upon them whose sins therefore would not be so imputed as Adams was because there was no law with an express threatning given to them as was to Adam but although it was not wholly imputed upon their own account yet it was imputed upon theirs and Adams For God was so exasperated with Mankind that being angry he would still continue that punishment even to the lesser sins and sinners which he only had first threatned to Adam and so Adam brought it upon them They indeed in rigour did themselves deserve it but if it had not been for that provocation by Adam they who sinn'd not so bad and had not been so severely and expresly threatned had not suffer'd so severely * The case is this Jonathan and Michal were Sauls children it came to pass that seven of Sauls issue were to be hanged all equally innocent equally culpable David took the five sons of Michal for she had left him unhandsomly Jonathan was his friend and therefore he spar'd his son Mephibosheth Here it was indifferent as to the guilt of the persons whether David should take the sons of Michal or of Jonathan but it is likely that as upon the kindness which David had to Jonathan he spar'd his son so upon the just provocation of Michal he made that evil to fall upon them of which they were otherwise capable which it may be they should not have suffered if their Mother had been kind Adam was to God as Michal to David 12. But there was in it a further design for by this dispensation of death Adam was made a figure of Christ So the Apostle expresly affirms who is the figure of him that was to come that as death pass'd upon the posterity of Adam though they sinn'd less than Adam so life should be given to the followers of Christ though they were imperfectly righteous that is not after the similitude of Christs perfection 13. But for the further clearing the Article depending upon the right understanding of these words these two things are observable 1. That the evil of death descending upon Adams posterity for his sake went no further than till Moses For after the giving of Moses's law death passed no further upon the account of Adams transgression but by the sanction of Moses's law where death was anew distinctly and expresly threatned as it was to Adam and so went forward upon a new score but introduc'd first by Adam that is he was the cause at first and till Moses also he was in some sence the author and for ever after the precedent and therefore the Apostle said well In Adam we all die his sin brought in the sentence in him it began and from him it passed upon all the world though by several dispensations 2. In the discourse of the Apostle those that were nam'd were not consider'd simply as born from Adam and therefore it did not come upon the account of Natural or Original corruption but they were consider'd as Sinners just as they who have life by Christ are not consider'd as merely children by title or spiritual birth and adoption but as just and faithful But then this is the proportion and purpose of the Apostle as God gives to these life by Christ which is a greater thing than their imperfect righteousness without Christ could have expected so here also this part of Adams posterity was punish'd with death for their own sin but this death was brought upon them by Adam that is the rather for his provocation of God by his great transgression 14. There is now remaining no difficulty but
sinned he should have been immortal by grace that is by the use of the Tree of life and now being driven from the place where the Tree grew was left in his own natural constitution that is to be sick and die without that remedy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He was mortal of himself and we are mortal from him Peccando Adam posteros morti subjecit universos huic delicto obnoxios reddit said Justin Martyr Adam by his sin made all his posterity liable to the sin and subjected them to death One explicates the other and therefore S. Cyprian calls Original sin Malum domesticum contagium mortis antiquae primâ nativitate contractum His sin infected us with death and this infection we derive in our birth that is we are born mortal Adams sin was imputed to us unto a natural death in him we are sinners as in him we die But this sin is not real and inherent but imputed only to such a degree So S. Cyprian affirms most expresly infans recens natus nihil peccavit nisi quòd secundum Adam carnalitèr natus contagium mortis antiquae primâ nativitate contraxit An infant hath not sinn'd save only that being carnally born of Adam in his first birth he hath contracted the contagion of the old death 20. This evil which is the condition of all our natures viz. to die was to some a punishment but to others not so It was a punishment to all that sinn'd both before Moses and since upon the first it fell as a consequent of Gods anger upon Adam as I before discours'd upon the latter it fell as a consequent of that anger which was threatned in Moses law But to those who sinned not at all as Infants and Innocents it was merely a condition of their nature and no more a punishment than to be a child is It was a punishment of Adams sin because by his sin humane Nature became disrob'd of their preternatural immortality and therefore upon that account they die but as it related to the persons it was not a punishment not an evil afflicted for their sin or any guiltiness of their own properly so called 21. We find nothing else in Scripture express'd to be the effect of Adams sin and beyond this without authority we must not go Other things are said but I find no warrant for them in that sence they are usually suppos'd and some of them in no sence at all The particulars commonly reckoned are that from Adam we derive an Original ignorance a proneness to sin a natural malice a fomes or nest of sin imprinted and plac'd in our souls a loss of our wills liberty and nothing is left but a liberty to sin which liberty upon the summ of affairs is expounded to be a necessity to sin and the effect of all is we are born heirs of damnation 22. Concerning Original or Natural ignorance it is true we derive it from our Parents I mean we are born with it but I do not know that any man thinks that if Adam had not sinn'd that sin Cain should have been wise as soon as his Navel had been cut Neither can we guess at what degree of knowledge Adam had before his fall Certainly if he had had so great a knowledge it is not likely he would so cheaply have sold himself and all his hopes out of a greedy appetite to get some knowledge But concerning his posterity indeed it is true a child cannot speak at first nor understand and if as Plato said all our knowledge is nothing but memory it is no wonder a child is born without knowledge But so it is in the wisest men in the world they also when they see or hear a thing first think it strange and could not know it till they saw or heard it Now this state of ignorance we derive from Adam as we do our Nature which is a state of ignorance and all manner of imperfection but whether it was not imperfect and apt to fall into forbidden instances even before his fall we may best guess at by the event for if he had not had a rebellious appetite and an inclination to forbidden things by what could he have been tempted and how could it have come to pass that he should sin Indeed this Nature was made worse by sin and became devested of whatsoever it had extraordinary and was left naked and mere and therefore it is not only an Original imperfection which we inherit but in the sence now explicated it is also an Original corruption And this is all As natural death by his sin became a curse so our natural imperfection became natural corruption and that is Original sin Death and imperfection we derive from Adam but both were natural to us but by him they became actual and penal and by him they became worse as by every evil act every principle of evil is improv'd And in this sence this Article is affirmed by all the Doctors of the ancient Church We are miserable really sinners in account or effect that properly this improperly and are faln into so sad a state of things which we also every day make worse that we did need a Saviour to redeem us from it For in Original sin we are to consider the principle and the effects The principle is the actual sin of Adam This being to certain purposes by Gods absolute dominion imputed to us hath brought upon us a necessity of dying and all the affections of mortality which although they were natural yet would by grace have been hindred Another evil there is upon us and that is Concupiscence this also is natural but it was actual before the fall it was in Adam and tempted him This also from him is derived to us and is by many causes made worse by him and by our selves And this is the whole state of Original sin so far as is fairly warrantable But for the other particulars the case is wholly differing The sin of Adam neither made us 1. Heirs of damnation Nor 2. Naturally and necessarily vicious 23. I. It could not make us Heirs of damnation This I shall the less need to insist upon because of it self it seems so horrid to impute to the goodness and justice of God to be author of so great a calamity to Innocents that S. Austins followers have generally left him in that point and have descended to this lesser proportion that Original sin damns only to the eternal loss of the sight of Gods glorious face But to this I say these things 24. I. That there are many Divines which believe this alone to be the worm that never dies and the fire that never goeth out that is in effect this and the anguish for this is all the Hell of the damned And unless infants remain infants in the resurrection too which no man that I know affirms or unless they be senseless and inapprehensive it is not to be imagined but that all that know
unless they were his at his death If therefore they be confiscated before his death ours indeed is the inconvenience too but his alone is the punishment and to neither of us is the wrong But concerning the second I mean that which is superinduc'd it is not his fault alone nor ours alone and neither of us is innocent we all put in our accursed Symbol for the debauching of our spirits for the besotting our souls for the spoiling our bodies Ille initium induxit debiti nos foenus auximus posterioribus peccatis c. He began the principal and we have increas'd the interest This we also find well expressed by Justin Martyr for the Fathers of the first ages spake prudently and temperately in this Article as in other things Christ was not born or crucified because himself had need of these things but for the sake of mankind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which from Adam fell into death and the deception of the Serpent besides the evil which every one adds upon his own account And it appears in the greatest instance of all even in that of natural death which though it was natural yet from Adam it began to be a curse just as the motion of a Serpent upon his belly which was concreated with him yet upon this story was changed into a malediction and an evil adjunct But though Adam was the gate and brought in the head of death yet our sins brought him in further we brought in the body of death Our life was left by Adam a thousand years long almost but the iniquity of man brought it quickly to 500 years from thence to 250 from thence to 120 and at last to seventy and then God would no more strike all mankind in the same manner but individuals and single sinners smart for it and are cut off in their youth and do not live out half their days And so it is in the matters of the soul and the spirit Every sin leaves an evil upon the soul and every age grows worse and adds some iniquity of its own to the former examples And therefore Tertullian calls Adam mali traducem he transmitted the original and exemplar and we write after his copy Infirmitatis ingenitae vitium so Arnobius calls our natural baseness we are naturally weak and this weakness is a vice or defect of Nature and our evil usages make our natures worse like Butchers being used to kill beasts their natures grow more savage and unmerciful so it is with us all If our parents be good yet we often prove bad as the wild olive comes from the branch of a natural olive or as corn with the chaff come from clean grain and the uncircumcised from the circumcised But if our parents be bad it is the less wonder if their children are so a Blackamore begets a Blackamore as an Epileptick son does often come from an Epileptick father and hereditary diseases are transmitted by generation so it is in that viciousness that is radicated in the body for a lustful father oftentimes begets a lustful son and so it is in all those instances where the soul follows the temperature of the body And thus not only Adam but every father may transmit an Original sin or rather an Original viciousness of his own For a vicious nature or a natural improbity when it is not consented to is not a sin but an ill disposition Philosophy and the Grace of God must cure it but it often causes us to sin before our reason and our higher principles are well attended to But when we consent to and actuate our evil inclinations we spoil our natures and make them worse making evil still more natural For it is as much in our nature to be pleased with our artificial delights as with our natural And this is the doctrine of S. Austin speaking of Concupiscence Modo quodam loquendi vocatur peccatum quòd peccata facta est peccati si vicerit facit reum Concupiscence or the viciousness of our Nature is after a certain manner of speaking called sin because it is made worse by sin and makes us guilty of sin when it is consented to It hath the nature of sin so the article of the Church of England expresses it that is it is in eâdem materiâ it comes from a weak principle à naturae vitio from the imperfect and defective nature of man and inclines to sin But that I may again use S. Austins words Quantum ad nos attiâ—et sine peccato semper essemus donec sanaretur hoc malum si ei nunquam consentiremus ad malum Although we all have concupiscence yet none of us all should have any sin if we did not consent to this concupiscence unto evil Concupiscence is Naturae vitium but not peccatum a defect or fault of nature but not formally a sin which distinction we learn from S. Austin Non enim talia sunt vitia quae jam peccata dicenda sunt Concupiscence is an evil as a weak eye is but not a sin if we speak properly till it be consented to and then indeed it is the parent of sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so S. James it brings forth sin 85. This is the vile state of our natural viciousness and improbity and misery in which Adam had some but truly not the biggest share and let this consideration sink as deep as it will in us to make us humble and careful but let us not use it as an excuse to lessen our diligence by greatning our evil necessity For death and sin were both born from Adam but we have nurs'd them up to an ugly bulk and deformity But I must now proceed to other practical rules 86. II. It is necessary that we understand that our natural state is not a state in which we can hope for heaven Natural agents can effect but natural ends by natural instruments and now supposing the former doctrine that we lost not the Divine favour by our guilt of what we never did consent to yet we were born in pure naturals and they some of them worsted by our forefathers yet we were at the best born but in pure naturals and we must be born again that as by our first birth we are heirs of death so by our new birth we may be adopted into the inheritance of life and salvation 87. III. It is our duty to be humbled in the consideration of our selves and of our natural condition That by distrusting our own strengths we may take sanctuary in God through Jesus Christ praying for his grace entertaining and caressing of his holy Spirit with purities and devotions with charity and humility infinitely fearing to grieve him lest he leaving us we be left as Adam left us in pure naturals but in some degrees worsted by the nature of sin in some instances and the anger of God in all that is in the state of flesh and blood which shall never inherit the
the image of the Earthly we shall also bear the image of the Heavenly Now this I say That flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven neither doth corruption inherit incorruption This Discourse of the Apostle hath in it all these propositions which clearly state this whole Article There are two great heads of Mankind the two Adams the first and the second The first was framed with an earthly body the second had viz. after his resurrection when he had died unto sin once a spiritual body The first was Earthly the second is Heavenly From the first we derive an Earthly life from the second we obtain a Heavenly all that are born of the first are such as he was naturally but the effects of the Spirit came only upon them who are born of the second Adam From him who is earthly we could have no more than he was or had the spiritual life and consequently the Heavenly could not be derived from the first Adam but from Christ only All that are born of the first by that birth inherit nothing but temporal life and corruption but in the new birth only we derive a title to Heaven For flesh and blood that is whatsoever is born of Adam cannot inherit the Kingdom of God And they are injurious to Christ who think that from Adam we might have inherited immortality Christ was the Giver and Preacher of it he brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel It is a singular benefit given by God to mankind through Jesus Christ. 3. Upon the affirmation of these premises it follows That if Adam had stood yet from him we could not have by our natural generation obtained a title to our spiritual life nor by all the strengths of Adam have gone to Heaven Adam was not our representative to any of these purposes but in order to the perfection of a temporal life Christ only is and was from eternal ages designed to be the head of the Church and the fountain of spiritual life And this is it which is affirmed by some very eminent persons in the Church of God particularly by Junius and Tilenus that Christus est fundamentum totius praedestinationis all that are or ever were predestinated were predestinated in Christ Even Adam himself was predestinated in him and therefore from him if he had stood though we should have inherited a temporal happy life yet the Scripture speaks nothing of any other event Heaven was not promised to Adam himself therefore from him we could not have derived a title thither And therefore that inquity of the School-men Whether if Adam had not sinned Christ should have been incarnate was not an impertinent Question though they prosecuted it to weak purposes and with trifling arguments Scotus and his Scholars were for the affirmative and though I will not be decretory in it because the Scripture hath said nothing of it nor the Church delivered it yet to me it seems plainly the discourse of the Apostle now alledged That if Adam had not sinned yet that by Christ alone we should have obtained everlasting life Whether this had been dispensed by his Incarnation or some other way of oeconomy is not signified 4. But then if from Adam we should not have derived our title to Heaven though he had stood then neither by his Fall can we be said to have lost Heaven Heaven and Hell were to be administred by another method But then if it be enquired what evil we thence received I answer That the principal effect was the loss of that excellent condition in which God placed him and would have placed his posterity unless sin had entred He should have lived a long and lasting life till it had been time to remove him and very happy Instead of this he was thrown from those means which God had designed to this purpose that is Paradise and the trees of life he was turned into a place of labour and uneasiness of briars and thorns ill air and violent chances nova febrium terris incubuit cohors the woman was condemned to hard labour and travel and that which troubled her most obedience to her Husband his body was made frail and weak and sickly that is it was leâ—t such as it was made and left without remedies which were to have made it otherwise For that Adam was made mortal in his nature is infinitely certain and proved by his very eating and drinking his sleep and recreation by ingestion and egestion by breathing and generating his like which immortal substances never do and by the very tree of life which had not been needful if he should have had no need of it to repair his decaying strength and health 5. The effect of this consideration is this that all the product of Adam's sin was by despoiling him and consequently us of all the superadditions and graces brought upon his nature Even that which was threatned to him and in the narrative of that sad story expressed to be his punishment was no lessening of his nature but despoiling him of his supernaturals And therefore Manuel Pelaeologus calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the common driness of our nature and he adds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by our Fathers sin we fell from our Fathers graces Now according to the words of the Apostle As is the earthly such are they that are earthly that is all his posterity must be so as his nature was left in this there could be no injustice For if God might at first and all the way have made man with a necessity as well as a possibility of dying though men had not sinned then so also may he do if he did sin and so it was but this was effected by disrobing him of all the superadded excellencies with which God adorned and supported his natural life But this also I add that if even death it self came upon us without the alteration or diminution of our nature then so might sin because death was in re naturali but sin is not and therefore need not suppose that Adam's nature was spoiled to introduce that 6. As the sin of Adam brought hurt to the body directly so indirectly it brought hurt to the soul. For the evils upon the body as they are only felt by the soul so they grieve and tempt and provoke the soul to anger to sorrow to envy they make weariness in religious things cause desires for ease for pleasure and as these are by the body always desired so sometimes being forbidden by God they become sins and are always apt to it because the body being a natural agent tempts to all it can feel and have pleasure in And this is also observed and affirmed by S. Chrysostom and he often speaks it as if he were pleased in this explication of the Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Together with death entred a whole troop of affections or passions For when the body became mortal then of necessity it did admit desires
say this may be a final event I find no warrant for that and think it only to be an intermedial event that is though Adam's sin left us there yet God did not leave us there but instantly gave us Christ as a remedy and now what in particular shall be the state of Unbaptized infants so dying I do not profess to know or teach because God hath kept it as a secret I only know that he is a gracious Father and from his goodness nothing but goodness is to be expected and that is since neither Scripture nor any Father till about Saint Augustine's time did teach the poor Babes could die not onely once for Adam's sin but twice and for ever I can never think that I do my duty to GOD if I think or speak any thing of him that seems so unjust or so much against his goodness And therefore although by Baptism or by the ordinary Ministery Infants are new born and rescued from the state of Adam's account which metonymically may be called a remitting of Original sin that is a receiving them from the punishment of Adam's sin or the state of evil whither in him they are devolved yet Baptism does but consider that grace which God gives in Jesus Christ and he gives it more ways than one to them that desire Baptism to them that die for Christianity and the Church even in Origen's time and before that did account the Babes that died in Bethlehem by the Sword of Herod to be Saints and I do not doubt but he gives it many ways that we know not of And therefore S. Bernard and many others do suppose that the want of Baptism is supplied by the Baptism of the H. Ghost To which purpose the 87 Epistle of S. Bernard is worth the reading But this I add that those who affirmed that Infants without actual Baptism could not be saved affirmed the same also of them if they wanted the H. Eucharist as is to be seen in Paulinus epigr. 6. The writer of Hypognosticon lib. 5. S. Augustin Hom. 10. Serm. 8. de verbis Apostoli 107 Epistle to Vitalis And since no Church did ever enjoyn to any Catechumen any Penance or Repentance for Original sin it seems horrible and unreasonable that any man can be damned for that for which no man is bound to repent SECT V. The Doctrine of Antiquity in this whole matter The summe of all is this 18. I. ORiginal Sin is Adam's sin imputed to us to many evil effects II. It brings death and the evils of this life III. Our evils and necessity being brought upon us bring in a flood of passions which are hard to be bridled or mortified IV. It hath left us in pure naturals disrobed of such aids extraordinary as Adam had V. It deprives us of all title to Heaven or supernatural happiness that is it neither hath in it strength to live a spiritual life nor title to a heavenly VI. It leaves in us our natural concupiscence and makes it much worse Thus far I admit and explicate this Article But all that I desire of the usual Propositions which are variously taught now adays is this I. Original sin is not an inherent evil not a sin properly but metonymically that is it is the effect of one sin and the cause of many a stain but no sin II. It does not destroy our liberty which we had naturally III. It does not introduce a natural necessity of sinning IV. It does not damn any Infant to the Eternal Pains of Hell And now how consonant my explication of the Article is to the first and best antiquity besides the testimonies I have already brought here concerning some parts of it will appear by the following authorities speaking to the other parts of it and to the whole Question S. Ignatius the Martyr in his Epistle to the Magnesians hath these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If a man be a pious man He is a man of God if he be impious he is of the Devil not made so by nature but by his own choice and sentence by which words he excludes nature and affirms our natural liberty to be the cause of our good or evil that is we are in fault but not Adam so as we are And it is remarkable that Ignatius hath said nothing to the contrary of this or to infirm the force of these words and they who would fain have alledged him to contrary purposes cite him calling Adam's sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the old iniquity which appellative is proper enough but of no efficacy in this question Dionysius the Areopagite if he be the Author of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy does very well explicate this Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When in the beginning humane nature foolishly fell from the state of good things which God gave it it was then entred into a life of passions and the end of the corruption of Death This sentence of his differs not from that of S. Chrysostome before alledged for when man grew miserable by Adam's fall and was disrobed of his aids he grew passionate and peevish and tempted and sick and died This is all his account of Adam's story and it is a very true one But the writer was of a later date not much before S. Austin's time as it is supposed but a learned and a Catholick believer 19. Concerning Justin Martyr I have already given this account that he did not think the liberty of choice impaired by Adam's sin but in his Dialogue with Tryphon the Jew he gives no account of Original sin but this that Christ was not crucified or born as if himself did need it but for the sake of Mankind which by Adam fell into death and the deception of the Serpent besides all that which men commit wickedly upon their own stock of impiety So that the effect of Adam's sin was death and being abused by the Devil for this very reason to rescue us from the effects of this deception and death and to redeem us from our impiety Christ was born and died But all this meddles not with any thing of the present Questions for to this all interests excepting the Pelagians and Socinians will subscribe It is material which is spoken by him or some under his name in the Questions and Answers to the Orthodox 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is no man who is by nature born to sin and do wickedly but hath sinned and done wickedly But he is by nature born to sin who by the choice of his free-will is author to himself of doing what he will whether it be good or bad But an infant as being not indued with any such power it appears sufficiently that he is not by nature born to sin These words when they had been handled as men pleased and turned to such sences as they thought they could escape by at last they appear to be the words of one who understood nothing
we by his fall received evil enough to undo us and ruine us all but yet the evil did so descend upon us that we were left in powers and capacities to serve and glorifie God Gods service was made much harder but not impossible mankind was made miserable but not desperate we contracted an actual mortality but we were redeemable from the power of Death sin was easie and ready at the door but it was resistable our Will was abused but yet not destroyed our Understanding was cosened but yet still capable of the best instructions and though the Devil had wounded us yet Gâ—d senâ— his Son who like the good Samaritan poured Oyl and Wine into our wounds and we were cured before we felt the hurt that might have ruined us upon that Occasion It is sad enough but not altogether so intolerable and decretory as some would make it which the Sibylline Oracle describes to be the effect of Adam's sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Man was the work of God fram'd by his hands Him did the Serpent cheat that to deaths bands He was subjected for his sin for this was all He tasted good and evil by his fall But to this we may superadd that which Plutarch found to be experimentally true Mirum quod pedes moverunt ad usum rationis nullo autem fraeno passiones The foot moves at the command of the Will and by the Empire of reason but the passions are stiff even then when the knee bends and no bridle can make the Passions regular and temperate And indeed Madam this is in a manner the summ total of the evil of our abused and corrupted nature Our soul is in the body as in a Prison it is there tanquam in alienâ domo it is a sojourner and lives by the bodies measures and loves and hates by the bodies Interests and Inclinations that which is pleasing and nourishing to the body the soul chuses and delights in That which is vexatious and troublesome it abhorrs and hath motions accordingly for Passions are nothing else but acts of the Will carried to or from material Objects and effects and impresses upon the man made by such acts consequent motions and productions from the Will It is a useless and a groundless proposition in Philosophy to make the Passions to be the emanations of distinct faculties and seated in a differing region for as the reasonable soul is both sensitive and vegetative so is the Will elective and passionate the region both of choice and passions that is When the Object is immaterial or the motives such the act of the Will is so merely intellectual that it is then spiritual and the acts are proper and Symbolical and the act of it we call election or volition but if the Object is material or corporal the acts of the Will are passion that is adhesion and aversation and these it receives by the needs and inclinations of the body An Object can diversifie an act but never distinguish faculties And if we make it one faculty that chuses a reasonable object and another that chuses the sensual we may as well assign a third faculty for the supernatural and religious and when to chuse a sensual object is always either reasonable or unreasonable and every adherence to pleasure and mortification or refusing of it is subject to a command and the matter of duty it will follow that even the passions also are issues of the Will by passions meaning the actions of prosecution or refusal of sensitive objects the acts of the Concupiscible and Irascible appetite not the impresses made by these upon the body as trembling redness paleness heaviness and the like and therefore to say the passions rule the will is an improper saying but it hath no truth in its meaning but this that the Will is more passionate than wise it is more delighted with Bodily pleasures than Spiritual but as the understanding considers both and the disputation about them is in that faculty alone so the choice of both is in the will alone Now because many of the bodies needs are naturally necessary and the rest are made so by being thought needs and by being so naturally pleasant and that this is the bodies day and it rules here in its own place and time therefore it is that the will is so great a scene of passion and we so great servants of our bodies This was the great effect of Adams sin which became therefore to us a punishment because of the appendant infirmity that went along with it for Adam being spoiled of all the rectitudes and supernatural heights of grace and thrust back to the form of nature and left to derive grace to himself by a new Oeconomy or to be without it and his posterity left just so as he was left himself he was permitted to the power of his enemy that betray'd him and put under the power of his body whose appetites would govern him and when they would grow irregular could not be mastered by any thing that was about him or born with him so that his case was miserable and naked and his state of things was imperfect and would be disordered But now Madam things being thus bad are made worse by the superinduced Doctrines of men which when I have represented to your Ladiship and told upon what accounts I have reproved them you will find that I have reason There are one sort of Calvin's Scholars whom we for distinctions sake call Supralapsarians who are so fierce in their sentences of predestination and reprobation that they say God looked upon mankind only as his Creation and his slaves over whom he having absolute power was very gracious that he was pleased to take some few and save them absolutely and to the other greater part he did no wrong though he was pleased to damn them eternally only because he pleased for they were his own and Qui jure suo utitur nemini facit injuriam says the Law of reason every one may do what he please with his own But this bloody and horrible opinion is held but by a few as tending directly to the dishonour of God charging on Him alone that He is the cause of mens sins on Earth and of mens eternal torments in Hell it makes God to be powerful but his power not to be good it makes him more cruel to men than good men can be to Dogs and Sheep it makes him give the final sentence of Hell without any pretence or colour of justice it represents him to be that which all the World must naturally fear and naturally hate as being a God delighting in the death of innocents for so they are when he resolves to damn them and then most tyrannically cruel and unreasonable for it says that to make a postnate pretence of justice it decrees that men inevitably shall sin that they may inevitably but justly be damned like the Roman Lictors who
this may be well suppos'd without inferring their suffering the pains of Hell But this sentence of theirs I admit and explicate with some little difference of expression For so far I admit this pain of loss or rather a deficiency from going to Heaven to be the consequence of Adam's sin that by it we being left in meris Naturalibus could never by these strengths alone have gone to Heaven Now whereas your Lordship in behalf of those whom you suppose may be captious is pleas'd to argue That as loss of sight or eyes infers a state of darkness or blindness so the loss of Heaven infers Hell and if Infants go not to Heaven in that state whither can they go but to Hell and that 's Damnation in the greatest sence I grant it that if in the event of things they do not go to Heaven as things are now ordered it is but too likely that they go to Hell but I add that as all darkness does not infer horror and distraction of mind or fearful apparitions and phantasms so neither does all Hell or states in Hell infer all those torments which the School-men signifie by a poenaseâ—sus for I speak now in pursuance of their way So that there is no necessity of a third place but it concludes only that in the state of separation from Gods presence there is a great variety of degrees and kinds of evil and every one is not the extreme and yet by the way let me observe that Gregory Nazianzen and Nicetas taught that there is a third place for Infants and Heathens and Irenaeus affirm'd that the evils of Hell were not eternal to all but to the Devils only and the greater criminals But neither they nor we nor any man else can tell whether Hell be a place or no. It is a state of evil but whether all the damned be in one or in twenty places we cannot tell But I have no need to make use of any of this For when I affirm that Infants being by Adam reduc'd and left to their mere natural state fall short of Heaven I do not say they cannot go to Heaven at all but they cannot go thither by their natural powers they cannot without a new grace and favour go to Heaven But then it cannot presently be inferred that therefore they go to Hell but this ought to be inferr'd which indeed was the real consequent of it therefore it is necessary that Gods Grace should supply this defect if God intends Heaven to them at all and because Nature cannot God sent a Saviour by whom it was effected But if it be asked what if this grace had not come and that it be said that without Gods grace they must have gone to Hell because without it they could not go to Heaven I answer That we know how it is now that God in his goodness hath made provisions for them but if he had not made such provisions what would have been we know not any more than we know what would have followed if Adam had not sinned where he should have liv'd and how long and in what circumstances the posterity should have been provided for in all their possible contingencies But yet this I know that it follows not that if without this Grace we could not have gone to Heaven that therefore we must have gone to Hell For although the first was ordinarily impossible yet the second was absolutely unjust and against Gods goodness and therefore more impossible But because the first could not be done by nature God was pleased to promise and to give his grace that he might bring us to that state whither he had designâ—d us that is to a supernatural felicity If Adam had not fallen yet Heaven had not been a natural consequent of his obedience but a Gracious it had been a gift still and of Adam though he had persisted in innocence it is true to say That without Gods Grace that is by the mere force of Nature he could never have arriv'd to a Supernatural state that is to the joys of Heaven and yet it does not follow that if he had remain'd in Innocence he must have gone to Hell Just so it is in Infants Hell was not made for man but for Devils and therefore it must be something besides mere Nature that can bear any man thither mere Nature goes neither to Heaven nor Hell So that when I say Infants naturally cannot go to Heaven and that this is a punishment of Adam's sin he being for it punished with a loss of his gracious condition and devolv'd to the state of Nature and we by him left so my meaning is that this Damnation which is of our Nature is but negative that is as a consequent of our Patrialous sin our Nature is left imperfect and deficient in order to a supernatural end which the School-men call a poena damni but improperly they indeed think it may be a real event and final condition of persons as well as things but I affirm it was an evil effect of Adam's sin but in the event of things it became to the persons the way to a new grace and hath no other event as to Heaven and Hell directly and immediately In the same sence and to the same purpose I understand the word Damnation in the Ninth Article But the word Damnation may very well truly and sufficiently signifie all the purposes of the Article if it be taken only for the effect of that sentence which was inflicted upon Adam and descended on his posterity that is for condemnation to Death and the evils of mortality So the word is used by S. Paul 1 Cor. 11.29 He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh Damnation to himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word but that it did particularly signifie temporal death and evils appears by the instances of probation in the next words For for this cause some are weak amongst you some are sick and some are fallen asleep This also in the Article Original Sin deserves damnation that is it justly brought in the angry sentence of God upon Man it brought him to death and deserv'd it it brought it upon us and deserv'd it too I do not say that we by that sin deserv'd that death neither can death be properly a punishment of us till we superadd some evil of our own yet Adam's sin deserv'd it so that it was justly left to fall upon us we as a consequent and punishment of his sin being reduc'd to our natural portion In odiosis quod minimum est sequimur The lesser sence of the word is certainly agreeable to truth and reason and it were good we us'd the word in that sence which may best warrant her doctrine especially for that use of the word having the precedent of Scripture I am confirm'd in this interpretation by the second Section of the Article viz. of the remanency of Concupiscence or Original Sin in the Regenerate All the sinfulness of
or else there may be punishment where there is no guilt or else natural death was not it which God threatned as the punishment of Adam's fact For it is certain that all men die as well after Baptism as before and more after than before That which would be properly the consequent of this Dilemma is this that when God threatned death to Adam saying On the day thou eatest of the tree thou shalt die the death he inflicted and intended to inflict the evils of a troublesome mortal life For Adam did not die that day but Adam began to be miserable that day to live upon hard labour to eat fruits from an accursed field till he should return to the Earth whence he was taken Gen. 3.17 18 19. So that death in the common sence of the word was to be the end of his labour not so much the punishment of the sin For it is probable he should have gone off from the scene of this world to a better though he had not sinn'd but if he had not sinn'd he should not be so afflicted and he should not have died daily till he had died finally that is till he had returned to his dust whence he was taken and whither he would naturally have gone and it is no new thing in Scripture that miseries and infelicities should be called dying or death Exod. 10.17 1 Cor. 15.31 2 Cor. 1.10 4.10 11 12. 11.23 But I only note this as probable as not being willing to admit what the Socinians answer in this argument who affirm that God threatning death to the Sin of Adam meant death eternal which is certainly not true as we learn from the words of the Apostle saying In Adam we all die which is not true of death eternal but it is true of the miseries and calamities of mankind and it is true of temporal death in the sence now explicated and in that which is commonly received But I add also this probleme That which would have been had there been no sin and that which remains when the sin or guiltiness is gone is not properly the punishment of the sin But dissolution of the soul and body should have been if Adam had not sinn'd for the world would have been too little to have entertain'd those myriads of men which must in all reason have been born from that blessing of Increase and multiply which was given at the first Creation and to have confin'd mankind to the pleasures of this world in case he had not fallen would have been a punishment of his innocence but however it might have been though God had not been angry and shall still be even when the sin is taken off The proper consequent of this will be that when the Apostle says Death came in by sin and that Death is the rages of sin he primarily and literally means the solemnities and causes and infelicities and untimeliness of temporal death and not merely the dissolution which is directly no evil but an inlet to a better state But I insist not on this but offer it to the consideration of inquisitive and modest persons And now that I may return thither from whence this objection brought me I consider that if any should urge this argument to me Baptism delivers from Original Sin Baptism does not deliver from Concupiscence therefore Concupiscence is not Original Sin I did not know well what to answer I could possibly say something to satisfie the boys and young men at a publick disputation but not to satisfie my self when I am upon my knees and giving an account to God of all my secret and hearty perswasions But I consider that by Concupiscence must be meant either the first inclinations to their object or the proper acts of Election which are the second acts of Concupiscence If the first inclinations be meant then certainly that cannot be a sin which is natural and which is necessary For I consider that Concupiscence and natural desires are like hunger which while it is natural and necessary is not for the destruction but conservation of man when it goes beyond the limits of nature it is violent and a disease and so is Concupiscence But desires or lustings when they are taken for the natural propensity to their proper object are so far from being a sin that they are the instruments of felicity for this duration and when they grow towards being irregular they may if we please grow instruments of felicity in order to the other duration because they may serve a vertue by being restrained And to desire that to which all men tend naturally is no more a sin than to desire to be happy is a sin desire is no more a sin than joy or sorrow is neither can it be fancied why one passion more than another can be in its whole nature Criminal either all or none are so when any of them grows irregular or inordinate Joy is as bad as Desire and Fear as bad as either But if by Concupiscence we mean the second acts of it that is avoidable consentings and deliberate elections then let it be as much condemned as the Apostle and all the Church after him hath sentenc'd it but then it is not Adam's sin but our own by which we are condemned for it is not his fault that we chuse If we chuse it is our own if we chuse not it is no fault For there is a natural act of the Will as well as of the Understanding and in the choice of the supreme Good and in the first apprehension of its proper object the Will is as natural as any other faculty and the other faculties have degrees of adherence as well as the Will so have the potestative and intellective faculties they are delighted in their best objects But because these only are natural and the will is natural sometimes but not always there it is that a difference can be For I consider if the first Concupiscence be a sin Original Sin for actual it is not and that this is properly personally and inherently our sin by traduction that is if our will be necessitated to sin by Adam's fall as it must needs be if it can sin when it cannot deliberate then there can be no reason told why it is more a sin to will evil than to understand it and how does that which is moral differ from that which is natural for the understanding is first and primely moved by its object and in that motion by nothing else but by God who moves all things and if that which hath nothing else to move it but the object yet is not free it is strange that the will can in any sence be free when it is necessitated by wisdom and by power and by Adam that is from within and from without besides what God and violence do and can do But in this I have not only Scripture and all the reason of the world on my side but the complying sentences of the
of whom we reade nothing in Scripture that either they were actually baptized or had a commandment so to be To which may be added that as the taking of Priestly Orders disobliges the suscipient from receiving Chrism or Confirmation in case he had it not before so for ought appears in Scripture to the contrary it may excuse from Baptism But if it does not then the same way of arguing which obliges women or the Clergy to be baptized will be sufficient warrant to us to require in the case of Infants no more signal precept then in the other and to be content with the measures of wise men who give themselves to understand the meaning of Doctrines and Laws and not to exact the tittles and unavoidable commands by which fools and unwilling persons are to be governed lest they die certainly if they be not called upon with univocal express open and direct commandments But besides all this and the effect of all the other Arguments there is as much command for Infants to be baptized as for men there being in the words of Christ no nomination or specification of persons but onely in such words as can as well involve children as old men as Nisi quis and omnes gentes and the like Ad 16. But they have a device to save all harmless yet for though it should be granted that infants are press'd with all the evils of original sin ye there will be no necessity of Baptism to Infants because it may very well be supposed that as Infants contracted the relative guilt of Adam's sin that is the evils descending by an evil inheritance from him to us without any solemnity so may Infants be acquitted by Christ without solemnity or the act of any other man This is the summe of the 16 th Number To which the Answer is easie First that at the most it is but a dream of proportions and can infer onely that if it were so there were some correspondency between the effects descending upon us from the two great Representatives of the world but it can never infer that it ought to be so For these things are not wrought by the ways of Nature in which the proportions are regular and constant but they are wholly arbitrary and mysterious depending upon extrinsick causes which are conducted by other measures which we onely know by events and can never understand the reasons For because the sin of Adam had effect upon us without a Sacrament must it therefore be wholly unnecessary that the death of Christ be applied to us by Sacramental ministrations If so the Argument will as well conclude against the Baptism of men as of Infants for since they die in Adam and had no solemnity to convey that death therefore we by Christ shall all be made alive and to convey this life there needs no Sacrament This way of arguing therefore is a very trifle but yet this is not As Infants were not infected with the stain and injured by the evils of Adam's sin but by the means of natural generation so neither shall they partake of the benefits of Christ's death but by spiritual regeneration that is by being baptized into his death For it is easier to destroy then to make alive a single crime of one man was enough to ruine him and his posterity but to restore us it became necessary that the Son of God should be incarnate and die and be buried and rise again and intercede for us and become our Law-giver and we be his subjects and keep his Commandments There was no such order of things in our condemnation to death must it therefore follow that there is no such in the justification of us unto life To the first there needs no Sacrament for evil comes fast enough but to the latter there must goe so much as God please and the way which he hath appointed us externally is Baptism to which if he hath tied us it is no matter to us whether he hath tied himself to it or no for although he can goe which way he please yet he himself loves to goe in the ways of his ordinary appointing as it appears in the extreme paucity of Miracles which are in the world and he will not endure that we should leave them So that although there are many thousand ways by which God can bring any reasonable soul to himself yet he will bring no soul to himself by ways extraordinary when he hath appointed ordinary and therefore although it be unreasonable of our own heads to carry Infants to God by Baptism without any direction from him yet it is not unreasonable to understand Infants to be comprehended in the duty and to be intended in the general precept when the words do not exclude them nor any thing in the nature of the Sacrament and when they have a great necessity for the relief of which this way is commanded and no other way signified all the world will say there is reason we should bring them also the same way to Christ. And therefore though we no ways doubt but if we doe not our duty to them God will yet perform his mercifull intention yet that 's nothing to us though God can save by miracle yet we must not neglect our charitable ministeries Let him doe what he please to or for Infants we must not neglect them Ad 6. The Argument which is here described is a very reasonable inducement to the belief of the certain effect to be consequent to the Baptism of Infants Because Infants can do nothing towards Heaven and yet they are designed thither therefore God will supply it But he supplies it not by any internall assistances and yet will supply it therefore by an externall But there is no other externall but Baptism which is of his own institution and designed to effect those blessings which Infants need therefore we have reason to believe that by this way God would have them brought Ad 17. To this it is answered after the old rate that God will doe it by his own immediate act Well I grant it that is he will give them Salvation of his own goodness without any condition on the Infants part personally performed without Faith and Obedience if the Infant dies before the use of Reason but then whereas it is added that to say God will doe it by an externall act and ministery and that by this Rite of Baptism and no other is no good Argument unless God could not doe it without such means or said he would not The Reply is easie that we say God will effect this grace upon Infants by this externall ministery not because God cannot use another nor yet because he hath said he will not but because he hath given us this and hath given us no other For he that hath a mind to make an experiment may upon the same argument proceed thus God hath given bread to strengthen man's heart and hath said that in the sweat of our
this also we exercise a holy fear and work out our salvation with fear and trembling It enlarges our care and endears our watchfulness and caution It cures or prevents our pride and bold challenges of God for rewards which we never can deserve It convinces us of the necessity of the Divine aid and makes us to relie upon Gods goodness in helping us and his mercy in pardoning us and truly without this we could neither be so sensible of our infirmities nor of the excellent gifts and mercies of God for although God does not make necessities on purpose that he may serve them or introduce sin that he might pardon it yet he loves we should depend upon him and by these rare arts of the Divine Oeconomy make us to strive to be like him and in the midst of our finite abilities have infinite desires that even so we may be disposed towards the holiness and glories of eternity 38. IV. Although God exacts not an impossible law under eternal and insufferable pains yet he imposes great holiness in unlimited and indefinite measures with a design to give excellent proportions of reward answerable to the greatness of our endeavour Hell is not the end of them that fail in the greatest measures of perfection but great degrees of Heaven shall be their portion who do all that they can always and offend in the fewest instances For as our duty is not limited so neither are the degrees of glory and if there were not this latitude of duty neither could there be any difference in glory neither could it be possible for all men to hope for Heaven but now all may The meanest of Gods servants shall go thither and yet there are greater measures for the best and most excellent services 39. Thus we may understand that the imposing of the Divine Laws in all the periods of the world was highly consistent with the Divine Justice and an excellent infinite wisdome and yet in the exacting them Mercy prevail'd because the Covenant of Works or of exact obedience was never the rule of life and death since the Saviour of the world was promised that is since the fall of Adam but all Mankind was admitted to repentance and wash'd clean in the blood of the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world and was slain from the beginning of it Repentance was the measure of our duty and the remedy for our evils and the Commandments were not impossible to him that might amend what was done amiss SECT III. How Repentance and the Precept of Perfection Evangelical can stand together 40. THAT the Gospel is a Covenant of Repentance is evident in the whole design and nature of the thing in the preparatory Sermons made by the Baptist by the Apostles of our Lord by the seventy two Disciples and the Exhortations made by S. Peter at the first opening the Commission and the secret of the Religion Which Doctrine of Repentance lest it should be thought to be a permission to sin a leave to need the remedy is charged with an addition of a strict and severe holiness the Precept of Perfection It therefore must be such a repentance as includes in it perfection and yet the perfection is such as needs repentance How these two are to stand together is the subject of the present inquiry Be ye therefore perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect that 's the charge To be perfect as God and yet to repent as a Man seem contrary to each other They seem so only For 41. I. It does not signifie perfection of degrees in the natural sence of the word For as Philo said well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Perfections and the heights of excellencies are only proper to one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Clemens of Alexandria God alone is wise he alone is perfect All that we do is but little and that little is imperfect and that imperfection is such as could be condemned if God did not use gentleness and mercy towards us But II. Although perfection of degrees cannot be understood to be our duty in the periods and spaces of this life because we are here in the state of labour and contention of pilgrimage and progression yet even in this life we are to labour towards it and Be ye perfect viz. with the highest degrees of holiness is to be understood in a current and transient sence For this Precept thus understood hath its obligation upon our endeavour only and not upon the event When a General commands his Army to destroy the Enemy he binds them only to a prudent a possible and vigorous endeavour to do it and cannot intend the effect but by several parts answerable to the steps of the progression So is that in the Psalms Be learned ye that are Princes of the world that is learn and so by industry and attention arrive at knowledge For although though every man be a sinner yet he that does not endeavour to avoid all sin is not only guilty of the sin he commits but the negligence also which is the parent of the sin is another sin and directly criminal So it is in the degrees of perfection what we cannot attain to we must at least desire In this world we cannot arrive thither but in this life we must always be going thither It is status â—iae grace is the way to glory And as he that commands us to enter into a City from which we are hugely distant means we should pass through all the ways that lead thither so it is here The Precept must be given here and begun and set forward and it will be finished hereafter But as a man may be an adulterer or a thief with his heart and his eye as well as with his hand so it is also in good things A mans heart and eye may be in Heaven that is in the state of perfection long before he sets his feet upon the golden threshold His desires are first crown'd and fainted and then the work shall be made perfect 43. III. There is another sort of perfection which may not be improperly meant in this charge of duty and that is a perfection of state Be ye perfect that is Be ye holy for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is sanctifico and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is festum or a holy day a day that hath the perfection added to it of which a day is capable a day sanctified to the Lord. For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to sanctifie is to make perfect Nihil enim sanctificavit lex so the Latin reads the words of S. Paul but in the Greek it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The law made that perfect which it did sanctifie So that Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect is Be ye holy like him or in imitation of him And thus the word is expounded in Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That 's the perfection of
moved God to smite would also move him to forbear which were a strange Oeconomy The words therefore are not a reason of his forbearing but an aggravation of his kindness as if he had said Though man be continually evil yet I will not for all that any more drown the world for mans being so evil and so the Hebrews note that the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes signifies although 49. But the great out-cry in this Question is upon confidence of the words of David Behold I was shapen in wickedness and in sin hath my mother conceived me To which I answer that the words are an Hebraism and signifie nothing but an aggrandation of his sinfulness and are intended for an high expression meaning that I am wholly and intirely wicked For the verification of which exposition there are divers parallel places in the holy Scriptures Thou wert my hope when I hanged yet upon my mothers breasts and The ungodly are froward even from their mothers womb as soon as they be born they go astray and speak lies which because it cannot be true in the letter must be an idiotism or propriety of phrase apt to explicate the other and signifying only a ready a prompt a great and universal wickedness The like to this is that saying of the Pharisees Thou wert altogether born in sin and dost thou teach us which phrase and manner of speaking being plainly a reproach of the poor blind man and a disparagement of him did mean only to call him a very wicked person but not that he had derived his sin originally and from his birth for that had been their own case as much as his and therefore S. Chrysostome explaining this phrase says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is as if they should say Thou hast been a sinner all thy life time To the same sence are those words of Job I have guided her the widow from my mothers womb And in this expression and severity of hyperbole it is that God aggravated the sins of his people Thou wast called a transgressor from the womb And this way of expressing a great state of misery we find us'd among the Heathen Writers for so Seneca brings in Oedipus complaining Infanti quoque decreta mors est Fata quis tam tristia sortitus unquam Videram nondum diem jam tenebar Mors me antecessit aliquis intra viscera Materna lethum praecocis fati tulit Sed numquid peccavit Something like S. Bernards Damnatus antequam natus I was condemn'd before I was born dead before I was alive and death seised upon me in my mothers womb Somebody brought in a hasty and a too forward death but did he sin also An expression not unlike to this we have in Lucian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pardon me that I was not born wicked or born to be wicked 2. If David had meant it literally it had not signified that himself was born in original sin but that his father and mother sinn'd when they begat him which the eldest son that he begat of Bathsheba for ought I know might have said truer than he in this sence And this is the exposition of Clemens Alexandrinus save only that by my mother he understands Eva 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Though he was conceived in sin yet he was not in the sin peccatrix concepit sed non peccatorem she sinn'd in the conception not David And in the following words he speaks home to the main article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let them tell us where an infant did fornicate or how he who had done nothing could fall under the curse of Adam meaning so as to deserve the same evil that he did 3. If it did relate to his own person he might mean that he was begotten with that sanguine disposition and libidinous temper that was the original of his vile adultery and then though David said this truly of himself yet it is not true of all not of those whose temper is phlegmatick and unactive 4. If David had meant this of himself and that in regard of original sin this had been so far from being a penitential expression or a confessing of his sin that it had been a plain accusation of God and an excusing of himself As if he had said O Lord I confess I have sinn'd in this horrible murder and adultery but thou O God knowest how it comes to pass even by that fatal punishment which thou didst for the sin of Adam inflict on me and all mankind above 3000. years before I was born thereby making me to fall into so horrible corruption of nature that unless thou didst irresistibly force me from it I cannot abstain from any sin being most naturally inclin'd to all In this sinfulness hath my mother conceived me and that hath produc'd in me this sad effect Who would suppose David to make such a confession or in his sorrow to hope for pardon for upbraiding not his own folly but the decrees of God 5. But that David thought nothing of this or any thing like it we may understand by the preceding words which are as a preface to these in the objection Against thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight that thou mightest be justified in thy saying and clear when thou art judged He that thus acquits God cannot easily be supposed in the very next breath so fiercely to accuse him 6. To which also adde the following words which are a sufficient reproof of all strange sences in the other In sin hath my mother conceived me But loe thou requirest truth in the inward parts as if he had said Though I am so wicked yet thy laws are good and I therefore so much the worse because I am contrary to thy laws They require truth and sincerity in the soul but I am false and perfidious But if this had been natural for him so to be and unavoidable God who knew it perfectly well would have expected nothing else of him For he will not require of a stone to speak nor of fire to be cold unless himself be pleased to work a miracle to have them so 50. But S. Paul affirms that by nature we were the children of wrath True we were so when we were dead in sins and before we were quickned by the Spirit of life and grace We were so now we are not We were so by our own unworthiness and filthy conversation now we being regenerated by the Spirit of holiness we are alive unto God and no longer heirs of wrath This therefore as appears by the discourse of S. Paul relates not to our Original sin but to the Actual and of this sence of the word Nature in the matter of sinning we have Justin Martyr or whoever is the Author of the Questions and Answers ad Orthodoxos to be witness For answering those words of Scripture There is not any one clean who is born of a woman
non poenae utitur He uses the right of Empire not of justice of dominion not of punishment of a Lord not of a Judge And Philo blames it for the worst of institutions when the good sons of bad Parents shall be dishonoured by their Fathers stain and the bad sons of good Parents shall have their Fathers honour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the law praises every one for their own not for the vertue of their Ancestors and punishes not the Fathers but his own wickedness upon every mans head And therefore Josephus calls the contrary way of proceeding which he had observ'd in Alexander 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a punishment above the measures of a man and the Greeks and Romans did always call it injustice Illic immeritam maternae pendere linguae Andromedam poenas injustus jusserat Ammon And hence it is that all Laws forbear to kill a woman with child lest the Innocent should suffer for the Mothers fault and therefore this just mercy is infinitely more to be expected from the great Father of spirits the God of mercy and comfort And upon this account Abraham was confident with God Wilt thou slay the righteous with the wicked shall not the Judge of all the world do right And if it be unrighteous to slay the righteous with the wicked it is also unjust to slay the righteous for the wicked Ferréine ulla civitas laborem istiusmodi legis ut condemnetur Filius aut Nepos si Pater aut Avus deliquissent It were an intolerable Law and no community would be govern'd by it that the Father or Grandfather should sin and the Son or Nephew should be punish'd I shall add no more testimonies but only make use of the words of the Christian Emperors in their Laws Peccaâ—a igitur suos teâ—eant auctores nec ulteriùs progrediatur metus quà m reperiatur delictum Let no man trouble himself with unnecessary and melancholy dreams of strange inevitable undeserved punishments descending upon us for the faults of others The sin that a man does shall be upon his own head only Sufficient to every man is his own evil the evil that he does and the evil that he suffers SECT IV. Of the Causes of the Vniversal wickedness of Mankind 66. BUT if there were not some common natural principle of evil introduced by the sin of our Parent upon all his posterity how should all men be so naturally inclined to be vicious so hard and unapt so uneasie and so listless to the practices of vertue How is it that all men in the world are sinners and that in many things we offend all For if men could chuse and had freedom it is not imaginable that all should chuse the same thing As all men will not be Physicians nor all desire to be Merchants But we see that all men are sinners and yet it is impossible that in a liberty of indifferency there should be no variety Therefore we must be content to say that we have only a liberty of adhesion or delight that is we so love sin that we all chuse it but cannot chuse good 67. To this I answer many things 1. If we will suppose that there must now be a cause in our nature determining us to sin by an irresistible necessity I desire to know why such principle should be more necessary to us than it was to Adam what made him to sin when he fell He had a perfect liberty and no ignorance no original sin no inordination of his affections no such rebellion of the inferior faculties against the superior as we complain of or at least we say he had not and yet he sinned And if his passions did rebel against his reason before the fall then so they may in us and yet not be long of that fall It was before the fall in him and so may be in us and not the effect of it But the truth of the thing is this He had liberty of choice and chose ill and so do we and all men say that this liberty of chusing ill is still left to us But because it is left here it appears that it was there before and therefore is not the consequent of Original sin But it is said that as Adam chose ill so do we but he was free to good as well as to evil but so are not we we are free to evil not to good and that we are so is the consequent of original sin I reply That we can chuse good and as naturally love good as evil and in some instances more A man cannot naturally hate God if he knows any thing of him A man naturally loves his Parents He naturally hates some sort of uncleanness He naturally loves and preserves himself and all those sins which are unnatural are such which nature hates and the law of nature commands all the great instances of vertue and marks out all the great lines of justice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a law imprinted in the very substance of our natures and incorporated in all generations of reasonable creatures not to break or transgress the laws which are appointed by God Here only our nature is defective we do not naturally know nor yet naturally love those supernatural excellencies which are appointed and commanded by God as the means of bringing us to a supernatural condition That is without Gods grace and the renovation of the Spirit of God we cannot be saved Neither was Adams case better than ours in this particular For that his nature could not carry him to Heaven or indeed to please God in order to it seems to be confessed by them who have therefore affirmed him to have had a supernatural righteousness which is affirmed by all the Roman party But although in supernatural instances it must needs be that our Nature is defective so it must needs have been in Adam and therefore the Lutherans who in this particular dream not so probably as the other affirming that justice was natural in Adam do yet but differ in the manner of speaking and have not at all spoken against this neither can they unless they also affirm that to arrive at Heaven was the natural end of man For if it be not then neither we not Adam could by Nature do things above Nature and if God did concreate Grace with Adam that Grace was nevertheless Grace for being given him as soon as he was made For even the holy Spirit may be given to a Chrysome child and Christ and S. John Baptist and the Prophet Jeremy are in their several measures and proportions instances of it The result of which is this That the necessity of Grace does not suppose that our Nature is originally corrupted for beyond Adams mere Nature something else was necessary and so it is to us 68. II. But to the main objection I answer That it is certain there is not only one but many common principles from which sin derives it self into
the manners of all men 1. The first great cause of an universal impiety is that at first God had made no promises of Heaven he had not propounded any glorious rewards to be as an argument to support the superior faculty against the inferior that is to make the will chuse the best and leave the worst and to be as a reward for suffering contradiction For if the inferior faculty be pleas'd with its object and that chance to be forbidden as it was in most instances there had need be something to make recompence for the suffering the displeasure of crossing that appetite I use the common manner of speaking and the distinction of superior and inferior faculties though indeed in nature there is no such thing and it is but the same faculty divided between differing objects of which I shall give an account in the Ninth Chapter Section 3. But here I take notice of it that it may not with prejudice be taken to the disadvantage of this whole Article For if there be no such difference of facultie◠founded in Nature then the rebellion of the inferior against the superior is no effect of Adams sin But the inclination to sensual objects being chastis'd by laws and prohibitions hath made that which we call the rebellion of the inferior that is the adherence to sensual objects which was the more certain to remain because they were not at first enabled by great promises of good things to contest against sensual temptations And because there was no such thing in that period of the world therefore almost all flesh corrupted themselves excepting Abel Seth Enos and Enoch we find not one good man from Adam to Noah and therefore the Apostle calls that world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the world of the ungodly It was not so much wonder that when Adam had no promises made to enable him to contest his natural concupiscence he should strive to make his condition better by the Devils promises If God had been pleased to have promis'd to him the glories he hath promised to us it is not to be suppos'd he had fallen so easily But he did not and so he fell and all the world followed his example and most upon this account till it pleas'd God after he had tried the world with temporal promises and found them also insufficient to finish the work of his graciousness and to cause us to be born anew by the revelations and promises of Jesus Christ. 69. II. A second cause of the universal iniquity of the world is because our Nature is so hard put to it in many instances not because Nature is originally corrupted but because Gods laws command such things which are a restraint to the indifferent and otherwise lawful inclinations of Nature I instance in the matters of Temperance Abstinence Patience Humility Self-denial and Mortification But more particularly thus A man is naturally inclined to desire the company of a woman whom he fancies This is naturally no sin for the natural desire was put into us by God and therefore could not be evil But then God as an instance and trial of our obedience put fetters upon the indefinite desire and determin'd us to one woman which provision was enough to satisfie our need but not all our possibility This therefore he left as a reserve that by obeying God in the so reasonable restraint of our natural desire we might give him something of our own * But then it is to be considered that our unwillingness to obey in this instance or in any of the other cannot be attributed to Original sin or natural disability deriv'd as a punishment from Adam because the particular instances were postnate a long time to the fall of man and it was for a long time lawful to do some things which now are unlawful But our unwillingness and averseness came by occasion of the law coming cross upon our nature not because our nature is contrary to God but because God was pleas'd to superinduce some Commandments contrary to our nature For if God had commanded us to eat the best meats and drink the richest wines as long as they could please us and were to be had I suppose it will not be thought that Original sin would hinder us from obedience But because we are forbidden to do some things which naturally we desire to do and love therefore our nature is hard put to it and this is the true state of the difficulty Citò nequitia subrepit virtus difficilis inventa est Wickedness came in speedily but vertue was hard and difficult 70. III. But then besides these there are many concurrent causes of evil which have influence upon communities of men such as are Evil Examples the similitude of Adams transgression vices of Princes wars impunity ignorance error false principles flattery interest fear partiality authority evil laws heresie schism spite and ambition natural inclination and other principiant causes which proceeding from the natural weakness of humane constitution are the fountain and proper causes of many consequent evils Quis dabit mundum ab immundo saith Job How can a clean thing come from an unclean We all naturally have great weaknesses and an imperfect constitution apt to be weary loving variety ignorantly making false measures of good and evil made up with two appetites that is with inclination to several objects serving to contrary interests a thing between Angel and Beast and the later in this life is the bigger ingredient Hominem à Naturâ noverca in lucem edi corpore nudo fragili atque infirmo animo anxio ad molestias humili ad timores debili ad labores proclivi ad libidines in quo Divinus ignis sit obrutus ingenium mores So Cicero as S. Austin quotes him Nature hath like a stepmother sent man into the world with a naked boy a frail and infirm mind vex'd with troubles dejected with fears weak for labours prone to lusts in whom the Divine fire and his wit and his manners are covered and overturn'd And when Plato had fiercely reprov'd the baseness of mens manners by saying that they are even naturally evil he reckons two causes of it which are the diseases of the Soul but contracted he knew not how Ignorance and Improbity which he supposes to have been the remains of that baseness they had before they entred into bodies whither they were sent as to a prison This is our natural uncleanness and imperfection and from such a principle we are to expect proper and proportion'd effects and therefore we may well say with Job What is man that he should be clean and he which is born of a woman that he should be righteous That is our imperfections are many and we are with unequal strengths call'd to labour for a supernatural purchase and when our spirit is very willing even then our flesh is very weak And yet it is worse if we compare our selves as Job does
or lust and anger and grief and all things else which need great constancy and wisdom lest the storm should drown reason in us in the gulf of sin For these affections or passions were not sin but the excess of them not being bridled did effect this The same he affirms in Homl. 11. ad 6. Rom. and the 12. Homil. on Rom. 7. And not much unlike this was that excellent discourse of Lactantius in his seventh Book de Divino praemio cap. 5. But Theodoret in his Commentaries upon the Romans follows the same discourse exactly And this way of explicating the entrance and facility of sin upon us is usual in antiquity affirming that because we derive a miserable and an afflicted body from Adam upon that stock sin enters Quae quia materiam peccati ex fomite carnis Consociata trahit nec non simul ipsa sodali Est incentivum peccaminis implicat ambas Vindex poena reas peccantes mente sub unâ PeccandÃque cremet socias cruciatibus aequis Because the soul joyned to the body draws from the society of the flesh incentives and arguments to sin therefore both of them are punished as being guilty by consociation But then thus it was also before the fall For by this it was that Adam fell So the same Prudentius Haec prima est natura animae sic condita simplex Decidit in vitium per sordida foedera carnis The soul was created simple and pure but fell into vice by the evil combination with the flesh But if at first the appetites and necessities and tendencies of the body when it was at ease and health and blessed did yet tempt the soul to forbidden instances much more will this be done when the body is miserable and afflicted uneasie and dying For even now we see by a sad experience that the afflicted and the miserable are not only apt to anger and envy but have many more desires and more weaknesses and consequently more aptnesses to sin in many instances than those who are less troubled And this is that which was said by Arnobius Proni ad culpas ad libidinis varios appetitus vitio sumus infirmitatis ingenitae By the fault of our natural infirmity we are prone to the appetites of lust and sins 7. From hence it follows that naturally a man cannot do or perform the Law of God because being so weak so tempted by his body and this life being the bodies day that is the time in which its appetites are properly prevailing to be born of Adam is to be born under sin that is under such inclinations to it that as no man will remain innocent so no man can of himself keep the Law of God Vendidit se prior ac per hoc omne semen subjectum est peccato Quamobrem infirmum esse hominem ad praecepta legis servanda said the Author of the Commentary on S. Paul's Epistles usually attributed to S. Ambrose But beyond this there are two things more considerable the one is that the soul of man being devested by Adam's fall by way of punishment of all those supernatural assistances which God put into it that which remained was a reasonable soul fitted for the actions of life and of reason but not of any thing that was supernatural For the soul being immerged in flesh feeling grief by participation of evils from the flesh hath and must needs have discourses in order to its own ease and comfort that is in order to the satisfaction of the bodies desires which because they are often contradicted restrained and curbed and commanded to be mortified and killed by the laws of God must of necessity make great inlets for sin for while reason judges of things in proportion to present interests and is less apprehensive of the proportions of those good things which are not the good things of this life but of another the reason abuses the will as the flesh abuses the reason And for this there is no remedy but the grace of God the holy Spirit to make us be born again to become spiritual that is to have new principles new appetites and new interests The other thing I was to note is this That as the Devil was busie to abuse mankind when he was fortified by many advantages and favours from God So now that man is naturally born naked and devested of those graces and advantages and hath an infirm sickly body and enters upon the actions of life through infancy and childhood and youth and folly and ignorance the Devil it is certain will not omit his opportunities but will with all his power possess and abuse mankind and upon the apprehension of this the Primitive Church used in the first admission of infants to the entrance of a new birth to a spiritual life pray against the power and frauds of the Devil and that brought in the ceremony of Exsufflation for ejecting of the Devil The ceremony was fond and weak but the opinion that introduced them was full of caution and prudence For as Optatus Milevitanus said Neminem fugit quod omnis homo qui nascitur quamvis de Christianis parentibus nascitur sine Spiritu immundo esse non possit quem necesse sit ante salutare lavacrum ab homine excludi ac separari It is but too likely the Devil will take advantages of our natural weaknesses and with his temptations and abuses enter upon children as soon as they enter upon choice and indeed prepossess them with imitating follies that may become customs of sinfulness before they become sins and therefore with rare wisdom it was done by the Church to prevent the Devils frauds and violences by an early Baptism and early offices 8. As a consequent of all this it comes to pass that we being born thus naked of the Divine grace thus naturally weak thus incumbred with a body of sin that is a body apt to tempt to forbidden instances and thus assaulted by the frauds and violences of the Devil all which are helped on by the evil guises of the world it is certain we cannot with all these disadvantages and loads soar up to Heaven but in the whole constitution of affairs are in sad dispositions to enter into the Devils portion and go to Hell Not that if we die before we consent to evil we shall perish but that we are evilly disposed to do actions that will deserve it and because if we die before our new birth we have nothing in us that can according to the revelations of God dispose us to Heaven according to these words of the Apostle In me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing But this infers not that in our flesh or that in our soul there is any sin properly inherent which makes God to be our present enemy that is the only or the principal thing I suppose my self to have so much reason to deny But that the state of the body is a
contrary appetites which is infinitely confuted by the experience of Adam's fall For by the Rebellion and prevailing of his concupiscence it was that he fell and that which was the cause could not be the effect of the same thing as no child can beget his own Father nor any thing which it leads and draws in after it self Indeed it is True that by Adam's sin this became much worse and by the evils of the body and its infirmities and the nakedness of the soul as well as the body and new necessities and new Emergencies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Macarius said an entire contrariety both manifest and secret came in upon us from the transgression of Adam This I say became much worse and more inordinate and tempted and vexed and we were more under the Devils power because we had the loss of our own 12. The result is this that neither the one nor the other is our sin formally but by imputation only that is we are not sinners but we are afflicted for his sin and he is punished in us and that it cannot be our sin properly but metonymically that is our misery only appears to me demonstratively certain upon this account For how can that in another be our sin when it is in us involuntary when our own acts if involuntary are not sins If it be asked how can we have the punishment unless we also have the fault I return this answer that S. Augustine and some others who make this objection have already given answer themselves and Delirant reges plectuntur Achivi is an answer enough as Saul sinned and his seven sons were hanged and all that evil which is upon us being not by any positive infliction but by privative or the taking away gifts and blessings and graces from us which God not having promised to give was neither naturally nor by covenant obliged to give it is certain he could not be obliged to continue that to the sons of a sinning Father which to an innocent Father he was not obliged to give But these things which are only evils and miseries to us upon Adam's account become direct punishments upon our own account that is if we sin But then as to the argument it self Certainly it were more probable to say we had not the fault we did not do the sin which another did therefore the evil that we feel is our misery but not our punishment rather than to say we are punished therefore we are guilty For let what will happen to us it is not true that we are guilty of what we never did and what ever comes upon us by the way of Empire and Dominion nothing can descend upon us by the way of Justice as relating to our own fault But thus it was that in him we are all sinners that is his sin is reckoned to us so as to bring evil upon us because we were born of him and consequently put into the same natural state where he was left after his sin No otherwise than as children born of a bankrupt father are also miserable not that they are guilty of their fathers sin or that it is imputed so as to involve them in the guilt but it is derived upon them and reckoned to evil events the very nature of birth and derivation from him infers it 13. And this it is that S. Augustine once said Nascimur non propriè sed originaliter peccatores that is Adam's sin is imputed to us but we have none of our own born with us and this expression of having Adam's sin imputed to us is followed by divers of the Modern Doctours by S. Bernard Serm. 11. de Dominicâ prima post 8. Epiph. by Lyr◠in 5. cap. Rom. by Cajetan ibidem by Bellarmine tom 3. de amiss gratiae lib. 5. cap. 17. by Dr. Whitaker lib. 1. de peccato Originali cap. 7. 9. by Paraeus in his animadversions upon Bellar. lib. 5. de amiss gratiae cap. 16. by Dr. George Charleton lib. de consensu Ecclesiae Catholicae contra Tridentinos Controvers 4. which is the 5. chapter of Grace in these words either we must with Pelagius wholly deny Original sin or it must be by the imputation of the injustice that was in Adam that we are made sinners because Original sin is an imputed sin The effect of this is that therefore it is not formally ours and it is no sin inherent in us and then the imputation means nothing but that it brought evils upon us Our dying our sorrow and the affections of mortality and concupiscence are the consequents of Adam's sin and the occasion of ours and so we are in him and by him made sinners and in this there can be no injustice for this imputation brings nothing upon us as in relation to Adam's sin but what by his power and justice he might have done without such Relation And what is just if done absolutely must needs be just if done Relatively and because there is no other way to reconcile this with God's Justice it follows that there is no other sence of imputation than what is now explicated SECT III. The Doctrine of the Ancient Fathers was that Free-will remained in Vs after the Fall 14. ADAM's sin did not destroy the liberty of our election but left it naturally as great as before the Fall And here I observe that the Fathers before S. Augustine generally maintained the Doctrine of Man's liberty remaining after the Fall the consequents of which are incompossible and inconsistent with the present Doctrines of Original sin That the Doctrine of Mans liberty remaining was general and Catholick appears by these few testimonies in stead of very many Justin Martyr in his second apology for the Christians hath these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ hath declared that the Devil and his Angels and men that follow him shall be tormented in Hell for ever which thing is not yet done for the sake of Mankind because God foresees that some by repentance shall obtain salvation even some that are not yet born and from the beginning be created Mankind so that he should be endued with understanding and by the power of his free will should obtain choice to follow truth and to do well wherefore all men are wholly left without excuse and defence before God for they are created by him reasonable and fit for contemplation S. Cyrillus lib. 4. in Johan 1.7 Non possumus secundum Ecclesiae veritatisque dogmata liberam potestatem hominis quod liberum arbitrium appellatur ullo modo negare S. Hieronymus epist. ad Ctesiphontem extrem Frustra blasphemas ignorantiam auribus ingeris nos liberum arbitrium condemnare Damnetur ille qui damnat Author Hypognosticôn lib. 3. Ipsum liberum arbitrium in hominibus esse certâ fide credimus praedicamus indubitantèr infra est igitur liberum arbitrium quod quisquis negaverit Catholicus non est Gregor Nyssenus the great Divine saith lib. 7. de
World by Adam's sin was Death Eternal that is God then decreed to punish sinners with the portion of Devils It is likely he did so but that this was the death introduced for the sin of Adam upon all Man-kind is not at all affirmed in Scripture but temporal death is the effect of Adam's sin in Adam we all die and the Death that Adam's sin brought in is such as could have a remedy or recompence by Christ but Eternal Death hath no recompence and shall never be destroyed but temporal death shall But that which I say is this that for Adam's sin alone no man but himself is or can justly be condemned to the bitter pains of Eternal Fire This depends also upon the former accounts because meer Nature brings not to Hell but choice Nihil ardet in inferno nisi propria voluntas said S. Bernard and since Original sin is not properly ours but only by imputation if God should impute Adam's sin so as to damn any one for it all our good we receive from God is much less than that evil and we should be infinitely to seek for justifications of God's justice and glorifications of his mercy or testimonies of his goodness But now the matter is on this side so reasonable in it self that let a man take what side he will he shall have parties enough and no prejudices or load of a consenting authority can be against him but that there shall be on the side of reason as great and leading persons as there are of those who have been abused by errour and prejudice In the time of S. Augustine Vincentius Victor and some others did believe that Infants dying without Baptism should never the less be saved although he believed them guilty of Original sin Bucer Peter Martyr and Calvin affirmed the same of the children of faithful Parents but Zuinglius affirmed it of all and that no Infant did lose Heaven for his Original stain and corruption Something less than this was the Doctrine of the Pelagians who exclude Infants unbaptized from the Kingdom of Heaven but promised to them an eternal and a natural beatitude and for it S. Augustine reckons them for Hereticks as indeed being impatient of every thing almost which they said But yet the opinion was imbraced lately by Ambrosius Catherinus Albertus Pighius and Hieronymus Savanarola And though S. Augustine sometimes calls as good Men as himself by the Name of Pelagians calling all them so that assign a third place or state to Infants yet besides these now reckoned S. Gregory Nazianzen and his Scholiast Nicetes did believe and reach it and the same is affirmed also by S. Athanasius or whoever is the Author of the Questions to Antiochus usually attributed to him and also by S. Ambrose or the Author of the Commentaries on S. Paul's Epistles who lived in the time of Pope Damasus that is before 400. Years after Christ and even by S. Augustine himself expresly in his third Book de libero arbitrio cap. 23. But when he was heated with his disputations against the Pelagians he denied all and said that a middle place or state was never heard of in the Church For all this the opinion of a middle state for unbaptized Infants continued in the Church and was expresly affirmed by Pope Innocent the third who although he says Infants shall not see the face of God yet he expresly denies that they shall be tormented in Hell and he is generally followed by the Schoolmen who almost universally teach that Infants shall be deprived of the Vision Beatifical but shall not suffer Hell torments but yet they stoop so much towards S. Augustin's harsh and fierce Opinion that they say this deprivation is a part of Hell not of torment but of banishment from God and of abode in the place of torment Among these they are also divided some affirming that they have some pain of sense but little and light others saying they have none even as they pleased to fancy for they speak wholly without ground and meerly by chance and interest and against the consent of Antiquity as I have already instanced But Gregorius Ariminensis Driedo Luther Melancthon and Tilmanus Heshusius are fallen into the worst of S. Augustine's opinion and sentence poor Infants to the flames of Hell for Original sin if they die before Baptism To this I shall not say much more than what I have said otherwhere But that no Catholick Writer for 400. Years after Christ did ever affirm it but divers affirmed the contrary And indeed if the Unavoidable want of Baptism should damn Infants for the fault which was also unavoidable I do not understand how it can in any sence be true that Christ died for all if at least the Children of Christian Parents shall not find the benefit of Christ's Death because that without the fault of any man they want the ceremony Upon this account some good men observing the great sadness and the injustice of such an accident are willing upon any terms to admit Infants to Heaven even without Baptism if any one of their Relatives desire it for them or if the Church desires it which in effect admits all Christian infants to Heaven Of this opinion were Gerson Biel Cajetan and some others All which to my sence seems to declare that if men would give themselves freedom of judgment and speak what they think most reasonable they would speak honour of God's mercy and not impose such fierce and unintelligibe things concerning his justice and goodness since our blessed Saviour concerning infants and those only who are like infants affirms that of such is the Kingdom of Heaven But now in the midst of this great variety of Opinions it will be hard to pick out any thing that is certain For my part I believe this only as certain That Nature alone cannot bring them to Heaven and that Adam left us in a state in which we could not hope for it but this I know also that as soon as this was done Christ was promised and that before there was any birth of Man or Woman and that God's Grace is greater and more communicative than sin and Christ was more Gracious and effective than Adam was hurtful and that therefore it seems very agreeable to God's goodness to bring them to happiness by Christ who were brought to misery by Adam and that he will do this by himself alone in ways of his own finding out And yet if God will not give them Heaven by Christ he will not throw them into Hell by Adam if his goodness will not do the first his Goodness and his Justice will not suffer him to do the second and therefore I consent to Antiquity and the Schoolmens opinion thus far that the destitution or loss of God's sight is the effect of Original sin that is by Adam's sin we were left so as that we cannot by it go to Heaven But here I differ Whereas they
I explicate it is wholly against the Pelagians for they wholly deny Original sin affirming that Adam did us no hurt by his sin except only by his example These Men are also followed by the Anabaptists who say that death is so natural that it is not by Adam's fall so much as made actual The Albigenses were of the same opinion The Socinians affirm that Adam's sin was the occasion of bringing eternal death into the World but that it no way relates to us not so much as by imputation But I having shewed in what sence Adam's sin is imputed to us am so far either from agreeing with any of these or from being singular that I have the acknowledgment of an adversary even of Bellarmine himself that it is the doctrine of the Church and he laboriously endeavours to prove that Original sin is meerly ours by imputation Add to this that he also affirms that when Zuinglius says that Original sin is not properly a sin but metonymically that is the effect of one sin and the cause of many that in so saying he agrees with the Catholicks Now these being the main affirmatives of my discourse it is plain that I am not alone but more are with me than against me Now though he is pleased afterwards to contradict himself and say it is veri nominis peccatum yet because I understood not how to reconcile the opposite parts of a contradiction or tell how the same thing should be really a sin and yet be so but by a figure onely how it should be properly a sin and yet onely metonymically and how it should be the effect of sin and yet that sin whereof it is an effect I confess here I stick to my reason and my proposition and leave Bellarmine and his Catholicks to themselves 25. And indeed they that say Original sin is any thing really any thing besides Adam's sin imputed to us to certain purposes that is effecting in us certain evils which dispose to worse they are according to the nature of error infinitely divided and agree in nothing but in this that none of them can prove what they say Anselme Bonaventure Gabriel and others say that Original sin is nothing but a want of Original righteousness Others say that they say something of truth but not enough for a privation can never be a positive sin and if it be not positive it cannot be inherent and therefore that it is necessary that they add indignitatem habendi a certain unworthiness to have it being in every man that is the sin But then if it be asked what makes them unworthy if it be not the want of Original righteousness and that then they are not two things but one seemingly and none really they are not yet agreed upon an answer Aquinas and his Scholars say Original sin is a certain spot upon the soul. Melancthon considering that concupiscence or the faculty of desiring or the tendency to an object could not be a sin fancied Original sin to be an actual depraved desire Illyrious says it is the substantial image of the Devil Scotus and Durandus say it is nothing but a meer guilt that is an obligation passed upon us to suffer the evil effects of it which indeed is most moderate of all the opinions of the School and differs not at all or scarce discernibly from that of Albertus Pighius and Catharinus who say that Original sin is nothing but the disobedience of Adam imputed to us But the Lutherans affirm it to be the depravation of humane nature without relation to the sin of Adam but a vileness that is in us The Church of Rome of late sayes that besides the want of Original righteousness with an habitual aversion from God it is a guiltiness and a spot but it is nothing of Concupiscence that being the effect of it only But the Protestants of Mr. Calvin's perswasion affirm that concupiscence is the main of it and is a sin before and after Baptism but amongst all this infinite uncertainty the Church of England speaks moderate words apt to be construed to the purposes of all peaceable men that desire her communion 26. Thus every one talks of Original sin and agree that there is such a thing but what it is they agree not and therefore in such infinite Variety he were of a strange imperious spirit that would confine others to his particular fancy For my own part now that I have shown what the Doctrine of the purest Ages was what uncertainty there is of late in the Question what great consent there is in some of the main parts of what I affirm and that in the contrary particulars Men cannot agree I shall not be ashamed to profess what company I now keep in my opinion of the Article no worse Men than Zuinglius Stapulensis the great Erasmus and the incomparable Hugo Grotius who also says there are multi in Gallia qui eandem sententiam magnis same argumentis tuentur many in France which with great argument defend the same sentence that is who explicate the article intirely as I do and as S. Chrysostome and Theodoret did of old in compliance with those H. Fathers that went before them with whom although I do not desire to erre yet I suppose their great names are guard sufficient against prejudices and trifling noises and an amulet against the Names of Arminian Socinian Pelagian and I cannot tell what Monsters of appellatives But these are but Boyes tricks and arguments of Women I expect from all that are wiser to examine whether this Opinion does not or whether the contrary does better explicate the truth with greater reason and to better purposes of Piety let it be examined which best glorifies God and does honour to his justice and the reputation of his Goodness which does with more advantage serve the interest of holy living and which is more apt to patronize carelesness and sin These are the measures of wise and good men the other are the measures of Faires and Markets where fancy and noise do govern SECT VI. An Exposition of the Ninth Article of the Church of England concerning Original sin according to Scripture and Reason 27. AFter all this it is pretended and talked of that my Doctrine of Original sin is against the Ninth Article of the Church of England and that my attempt to reconcile them was ineffective Now although this be nothing to the truth or falshood of my Doctrine yet it is much concerning the reputation of it Concerning which I cannot be so much displeased that any man should so undervalue my reason as I am highly content that they do so very much value her Authority But then to acquit my self and my Doctrine from being contrary to the Article all that I can do is to expound the Article and make it appear that not only the words of it are capable of a fair construction but also that it is reasonable they should be expounded so
temptation but he offends God and then how we should understand S. James's rule that we should count it all joy when we enter into temptation is beyond my reach and apprehension The Natural inclination hath in it nothing moral and g. as it is good in Nature so it is not ill in manners the supervening consent or dissent makes it morally good or evil 34. In every person born into the world it deserveth Gods wrath and damnation Viz. When it is so consented to when it resists and overcomes the spirit of grace For we being devested of the grace given to the first Adam are to be renewed by the spirit of grace the effect of the second Adam which grace when we resist we do as Adam did and reduce our selves back into the state where Adam left us That was his sin and not ours but this is our sin and not his both of them deserve Gods wrath and damnation but by one he deserved it and by the other we deserve it But then it is true that this corrupted Nature deserves Gods wrath but we and Adam deserve not in the same formality but in the same material part we do He left our Nature naked and for it he deserved Gods wrath if we devest our Nature of the new grace we return to the same state of Nature but then we deserve Gods wrath so that still the object of Gods wrath is our mere Nature so as left by Adam but though he sinned in the first disrobing and we were imperfect by it yet we sin not till the second disrobing and then we return to the same imperfection and make it worse But I consider that although some Churches in their confessions express it yet the Church of England does not they add the word Eternal to Damnation but our Church abstains from that therefore Gods wrath and damnation can signifie the same that damnation does in S. Paul all the effects of Gods anger Temporal Death and the miseries of mortality was the effect of Adams sin and of our being reduc'd to the Natural and Corrupted or worsted state Or secondly they may signifie the same that hatred does in S. Paul and in Malachi Esau have I hated that is lov'd him less or did not give him what he was born to he lost the primogeniture and the Priesthood and the blessing So do we naturally fall short of Heaven This is hatred or the wrath of God and his Judgment upon the sin of Adam to condemn us to a state of imperfection and misery and death and deficiency from supernatural happiness all which I grant to be the effect of Adams sin and that our imperfect Nature deserves this that is it can deserve no better 35. And this infection of Nature Viz. This imperfection not any inherent quality that by contact pollutes the relatives and descendants but this abuse and reproach of our Nature this stain of our Nature by taking off the supernatural grace and beauties put into it like the cutting off the beards of Davids Embassadors or stripping a man of his robe and turning him abroad in his natural shame leaving him naked as Adam and we were But the word infection being metaphorical may aptly signifie any thing that is analogical to it and may mean a Natural habitude or inclination to forbidden instances But yet it signifies a very great evil for in the best Authors to be such by Nature means an aggravation of it So Carion in Aristophanes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This man is very miserable or miserable by Nature and again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Do you believe me to be such a man by Nature that I can speak nothing well 36. Doth remain yea in them that are regenerated That is all the baptized and unbaptized receive from Adam nothing but what is inclined to forbidden instances which is a principle against which and above which the spirit of God does operate For this is it which is called the lust of the flesh for so it follows whereby the lust of the flesh that is the desires and pronenesses to Natural objects which by Gods will came to be limited order'd and chastis'd curb'd and restrain'd 37. Called in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Here it is plain that the Church of England though she found it necessary to declare something in the fierce contention of the time in order to peace and unity of expression yet she was not willing too minutely to declare and descend to the particulars on either side and therefore she was pleas'd to make use of the Greek word of the sence of which there were so many disputes and recites the most usual redditions of the word 38. Which some do expound the wisdom some the sensuality some the affection some the desire of the flesh is not subject to the law of God These several expositions reciting several things and the Church of England reciting all indefinitely but definitely declaring for none of them does only in the generality affirm that the flesh and spirit are contrary principles that the flesh resists the law of God but the spirit obeys it that is by the flesh alone we cannot obey Gods law naturally we cannot become the sons of God and heirs of Heaven but it must be a new birth by a spiritual regeneration The wisdom of the flesh that is Natural and secular principles are not apt dispositions to make us obedient to the law of God Sensuality that signifies an habitual lustfulness Desires signifie actual Lustings Affections signifie the Natural inclination now which of these is here meant the Church hath not declar'd but by the other words of the Article it is most probable She rather inclines to render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by desires and sensuality rather than by affection or wisdom though of these also in their own sence it is true to affirm that they are not subject to the law of God there being some foolish principles which the flesh and the world is apt to entertain which are hindrances to holiness and the affection that is inclination to some certain objects being that very thing which the laws of God have restrained more or less in several periods of the world may without inconvenience to the Question be admitted to expound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 39. And although there is no condemnation to them that believe and are baptized That is this concupiscence or inclination to forbidden instances is not imputed to the baptized nor to the regenerate that is when the new principle of grace and of the spirit is put into us we are reduced to as great a condition and as certain an order and a capacity of entring into Heaven as Adam was before his fall for then we are drawn from that mere natural state where Adam left us and therefore although these do die yet it is but the condition of nature not the punishment of the sin For Adams sin brought in Death and baptism and regeneration does not hinder
a rare reason for it is so certain that it did not perish in a sinner that this thing only is it by which they do sin especially when they delight in their sin and by the love of sin that thing is pleasing to them which they list to do And therefore when we are charged with sin it is worthy of inquiry whence it is that we are sinners Is it by the necessity of Nature or by the liberty of our Will If by nature and not choice then it is good and not evil for whatsoever is our Nature is of Gods making and consequently is good but if we are sinners by choice and liberty of will whence had we this liberty If from Adam then we have not lost it but if we had it not from him then from him we do not derive all our sin for by this liberty alone we sin If it be replied that we are free to sin but not to good it is such a foolery and the cause of the mistake so evident and so ignorant that I wonder any man of Learning or common sence should own it For if I be free to evil then I can chuse evil or refuse it If I can refuse it then I can do good for to refuse that evil is good and it is in the Commandment Eschew evil but if I cannot chuse or refuse it how am I free to evil For Voluntas and Libertas Will and Liberty in Philosophy are not the same I may will it when I cannot will the contrary as the Saints in Heaven and God himself wills good they cannot will evil because to do so is imperfection and contrary to felicity but here is no liberty for liberty is with power to do or not to do to do this or the contrary and if this liberty be not in us we are not in the state of obedience or of disobedience which is the state of all them who are alive who are neither in Hell nor Heaven For it is to many purposes useful that we consider that in natural things to be determined shews a narrowness of being and therefore liberty of action is better because it approaches nearer to infinity But in moral things liberty is a direct imperfection a state of weakness and supposes weakness of reason and weakness of love the imperfection of the Agent or the unworthiness of the object Liberty of will is like the motion of a Magnetick needle toward the North full of trepidation till it be fixt where it would fain dwell for ever Either the object is but good in one regard or we have but an uncertain apprehension or but a beginning love to it or it could never be that we could be free to chuse that is to love it or not to love it And therefore it is so far from being true that by the fall of Adam we lost our liberty that it is more likely to be the consequent of it as being a state of imperfection proper indeed to them who are to live under Laws and to such who are to work for a reward and may fail of it but cannot go away till we either lose all hopes of good by descending into Hell or are past all fear or possibility of evil by going to Heaven But that this is our case if I had no other argument in the world and were never so prejudicate and obstinate a person I think I should be perfectly convinced by those words of S. Paul 1 Cor. 7.37 The Apostle speaks of a good act tending not only to the keeping of a Precept but to a Counsel of perfection and concerning that he hath these words Nevertheless he that standeth stedfast in his heart having no necessity but hath power over his own will and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his Virgin doth well The words are plain and need no explication If this be not a plain liberty of choice and a power of will those words mean nothing and we can never hope to understand one anothers meaning But if sin be avoidable then we have liberty of choice If it be unavoidable it is not imputable by the measures of Laws and Justice what it is by Empire and Tyranny let the Adversaries inquire and prove But since all Theology all Schools of learning consent in this that an invincible or unavoidable ignorance does wholly excuse from sin why an invincible and an unavoidable necessity shall not also excuse I confess I have not yet been taught But if by Adam's sin we be so utterly indisposed disabled and opposite to all good wholly inclined to evil and from hence come all actual sins that is That by Adam we are brought to that pass that we cannot chuse but sin it is a strange severity that this should descend upon Persons otherwise most innocent and that this which is the most grievous of all evils For prima maxima peccantium poena est peccâsse said Seneca To be given over to sin is the worst calamity the most extreme anger never inflicted directly at all for any sin as I have other-where proved and not indirectly but upon the extremest anger which cannot be supposed unless God be more angry with us for being born Men than for chusing to be sinners The Consequent of these Arguments is this That our faculties are not so wholly spoiled by Adams fall but that we can chuse good or evil that our nature is not wholly disabled and made opposite to all good But to nature are left and given as much as to the handmaid Agar nature hath nothing to do with the inheritance but she and her sons have gifts given them and by nature we have Laws of Vertue and inclinations to Vertue and naturally we love God and worship him and speak good things of him and love our Parents and abstain from incestuous mixtures and are pleased when we do well and affrighted within when we sin in horrid instances against God all this is in Nature and much good comes from Nature Neque enim quasi lassa effaeta natura est ut nihil jam laudabile pariat Nature is not so old so obsolete and dried a trunk as to bring no good fruits upon its own stock and the French-men have a good proverb Bonus sanguis non mentitur a good blood never lies and some men are naturally chast and some are abstemious and many are just and friendly and noble and charitable and therefore all actual sins do not proceed from this sin of Adam for if the sin of Adam left us in liberty to sin and that this liberty was before Adams fall then it is not long of Adams fall that we sin by his fall it should rather be according to their principles that we cannot chuse but do this or that and then it is no sin But to say that our actual sins should any more proceed from Adams fall than Adams fall should proceed from it self is not to be imagined for
here also they are not to be confuted and as for the particular Scriptures unless we have the advantage of essential reason taken from the Divine Attributes they will oppose Scripture to Scripture and have as much advantage to expound the opposite places as the Jews have in their Questions of the Messias anâ— therefore si meos ipse corymbos necterem if I might make mine own arguments in their Society and with their leave I would upon that very account suspect the usual discourses of the effects and Oeconomy of Original sin 8. For where will they reckon the beginning of Predestination will they reckon it in Adam after the Fall or in Christ immediately promised If in Adam then they return to the Presbyterian way and run upon all the rocks before reckoned enough to break all the world in pieces If in Christ they reckon it and so they do then thus I argue If we are all reckoned in Christ before we were born then how can we be reckoned in Adam when we are born I speak as to the matter of Predestination to salvation or damnation For as for the intermedial temporal evils and dangers spiritual and sad infirmities they are our nature and might with Justice have been all the portion God had given to Adam and therefore may be so to us and consequently not at all to be reckoned in this enquiry But certainly as to the main 9. If God looks upon us all in Christ then by him we are rescued from Adam so much is done for us before we were born For if this is not to be reckoned till after we were born then Adams sin prevailed really in some periods and to some effects for which God in Christ had provided no remedy for it gave no remedy to children till after they were born but irremediably they were born children of wrath but if a remedy were given to Children before they were born then they are born in Christ not in Adam but if this remedy was not given to Children before they were born then it follows that we were not at first looked upon in Christ but in Adam and consequently he was caput praedestinationis the head of predestination or else there were two the one before we were born the other after So that haereâ—leâ—hâ—lis arundo The arrow sticks fast and it cannot be pulled out unless by other instruments than are commonly in fashion However it be yet methinks this a very good probable Argument As Adam sinned before any child was born so was Christ promised before and that our Redeemer shall not have more force upon children that they should be born beloved and quitted from wrath than Adam our Progenitor shall have to cause that we be born hated and in a damnable condition wants so many degrees of probability that it seems to dishonour the mercy of God and the reputation of his goodness and the power of his redemption For this serves as an Antidote and Antinomy of their great objection pretended by these learned persons for whereas they say they the rather affirm this because it is an honour to the redemption which our Saviour wrought for us that it rescued us from the sentence of damnation which we had incurred To this I say that the honour of our blessed Saviour does no way depend upon our imaginations and weak propositions and neither can the reputation and honour of the Divine goodness borrow aids and artificial supports from the dishonour of his Justice and it is no reputation to a Physician to say he hath cured us of an evil which we never had and shall we accuse the Father of mercies to have wounded us for no other reason but that the Son may have the Honour to have cured us I understand not that He that makes a necessity that he may find a remedy is like the Roman whom Cato found fault withall he would commit a fault that he might beg a pardon he had rather write bad Greek that he might make an apology than write good Latin and need none But however Christ hath done enough for us even all that we did need and since it is all the reason in the world we should pay him all honour we may remember that it is a greater favour to us that by the benefit of our blessed Saviour who was the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world we were reckoned in Christ and born in the accounts of the Divine favour I say it is a greater favour that we were born under the redemption of Christ than under the sentence and damnation of Adam and to prevent an evil is a greater favour than to cure it so that if to do honour to Gods goodness and to the graces of our Redeemer we will suppose a need we may do him more honour to suppose that the promised seed of the woman did do us as early a good as the sin of Adam could do us mischief and therefore that in Christ we are born quitted from any such supposed sentence and not that we bring it upon our shoulders into the world with us But this thing relies only upon their suppositions For if we will speak of what is really true and plainly revealed From all the sins of all mankind Christ came to redeem us He came to give us a supernatural birth to tell us all his Fathers will to reveal to us those glorious promises upon the expectation of which we might be enabled to do every thing that is required He came to bring us grace and life and spirit to strengthen us against all the powers of Hell and Earth to sanctifie our afflictions which from Adam by Natural generation descended on us to take out the sting of death to make it an entrance to immortal life to assure us of resurrection to intercede for us and to be an advocate for us when we by infirmity commit sin to pardon us when we repent Nothing of which could be derived to us from Adam by our natural generation Mankind now taken in his whole constitution and design is like the Birds of Paradise which travellers tell us of in the Molucco Islands born without legs but by a celestial power they have a recompence made to them for that defect and they always hover in the air and feed on the dew of Heaven so are we birds of Paradise but cast out from thence and born without legs without strength to walk in the Laws of God or to go to Heaven but by a power from above we are adopted in our new birth to a celestial conversation we feed on the dew of Heaven The just does live by faith and breaths in this new life by the spirit of God For from the first Adam nothing descended to us but an infirm body and a naked soul evil example and a body of death ignorance and passion hard labour and a cursed field a captive soul and an imprisoned body that is a soul naturally apt to comply with the
Apostle here speaks of sin imputed therefore not of sin inherent and if imputed only to such purposes as he here speaks of viz. to temporal death then it is neither a sin properly nor yet imputable to Eternal death so far as is or can be implied by the Apostles words And in this I am not a little confirmed by the discourse of S. Irenaeus to this purpose lib. 3. cap. 35. Propter hoc initio transgressionis Adae c. Therefore in the beginning of Adams transgression as the Scripture tells God did not curse Adam but the Earth in his labours as one of the Ancients saith God removed the curse upon the Earth that it might not abide on man But the condemnation of his sin he received weariness and labour and to eat in the sweat of his brows and to return to dust again and likewise the woman had for her punishment tediousness labours groans sorrows of child-birth and to serve her husband that they might not wholly perish in the curse not yet despise God while they remained without punishment But all the curse run upon the Serpent who seduced them and this our Lord in the Gospel saith to them on his left hand Go ye cursed into everlasting fire which my Father prepared for the Devil and his Angels signifying that not to man in the prime intention was eternal fire prepared but to him who was the seducer but this they also shall justly feel who like them without repentance and departing from them persevere in the works of malice 5. The Apostle says By the disobedience of one many were made sinners By which it appears that we in this have no sin of our own neither is it at all our own formally and inherently for though efficiently it was his and effectively ours as to certain purposes of imputation yet it could not be a sin to us formally because it was Vnius inobedientia the disobedience of one man therefore in no sence could it be properly ours For then it were not Vnius but inobedientia singulorum the disobedience of all men 6. Whensoever another mans sin is imputed to his relative therefore because it is anothers and imputed it can go no further but to effect certain evils to afflict the relative and to punish the cause not formally to denominate the descendant or relative to be a sinner for it is as much a contradiction to say that I am formally by him a sinner as that I did really do his action Now to impute in Scripture signifies to reckon as if he had done it Not to impute is to treat him so as if he had not done it So far then as the imputation is so far we are reckoned as sinners but Adams sin being by the Apostle signified to be imputed but to the condemnation or sentence to a temporal death so far we are sinners in him that is so as that for his sake death was brought upon us And indeed the word imputare to impute does never signifie more nor always so much Imputare verò frequenter ad significationem exprobrantis accedit sed ciâ—râ— reprehensionem says Laurentius Valla It is like an exprobration but short of a reprooâ— so Quintilian Imputas nobis propitios ventos secundum mare ac civitatis opulenâ—ae liberalitatem Thou dost impute that is upbraid to us our prosperous voyages and a calm Sea and the liberality of a rich City Imputare signifies oftentimes the same that computare to reckon or account Nam haec in quartâ non imputantur say the Lawyers they are not imputed that is they are not computed or reckoned Thus Adams sin is imputed to us that is it is put into our reckoning and when we are sick and die we pay our Symbols the portion of evil that is laid upon us and what Marcus said I may say in this case with a little variety Legata in haereditate sive legatum datum sit haeredi sive percipere sive deducere vel retinere passus est ei imputantur The legacy whether it be given or left to the heir whether he may take it or keep it is still imputed to him that is it is within his reckoning But no reason no Scripture no Religion does inforce and no Divine Attribute does permit that we should say that God did so impute Adams sin to his posterity that he did really esteem them to be guilty of Adams sin equally culpable equally hateful For if in this sence it be true that in him we sinned then we sinned as he did that is with the same malice in the same action and then we are as much guilty as he but if we have sinned less then we did not sin in him for to sin in him could not by him be lessened to us for what we did in him we did by him and therefore as much as he did but if God imputed this sin less to us than to him then this imputation supposes it only to be a collateral and indirect account to such purposes as he pleased of which purposes we judge by the analogy of faith by the words of Scripture by the proportion and notices of the Divine Attributes 7. There is nothing in the design or purpose of the Apostle that can or ought to infer any other thing for his purpose is to signifie that by mans sin death entred into the world which the son of Sirach Ecclus. 25.33 expresses thus A muliere factum est initium peccati inde est quod morimur from the woman is the beginning of sin and from her it is that we all die and again Ecclus. 1.24 By the envy of the Devil death came into the world this evil being Universal Christ came to the world and became our head to other purposes even to redeem us from death which he hath begun and will finish and to become to us our Parent in a new birth the Author of a spiritual life and this benefit is of far more efficacy by Christ than the evil could be by Adam and as by Adam we are made sinners so by Christ we are made righteous not just so but so and more and therefore as our being made sinners signifies that by him we die so being by Christ made righteous must at least signifie that by him we live and this is so evident to them who read S. Pauls words Rom. 5. from verse 12. to verse 19. inclusively that I wonder any man should make a farther question concerning them especially since Erasmus and Grotius who are to be reckoned amongst the greatest and the best expositors of Scripture that any age since the Apostles and their immediate successors hath brought forth have so understood and rendred it But Madam that your Honour may read the words and their sence together and see that without violence they signifie what I have said and no more I have here subjoyned a Paraphrase of them in which if I use any violence I can very easily be reproved
so that now although a comparison proportionate was at first intended yet the river here rises far higher than the fountain and now no argument can be drawn from the similitude of Adam and Christ but that as much hurt was done to humane nature by Adams sin so very much more good is done to mankind by the incarnation of the Son of God 16. And not as it was by one that sinned so is the gift for the judgment was by one to condemnation but the free gift is of many offences unto justification And the first disparity and excess is in this particular for the judgment was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by one man sinning one sin that one sin was imputed but by Christ not only one sin was forgiven freely but many offences were remitted unto justification and secondly a vast disparity there is in this that the descendants from Adam were perfectly like him in nature his own real natural production and they sinned though not so bad yet very much and therefore there was a great parity of reason that the evil which was threatned to Adam and not to his Children should yet for the likeness of nature and of sin descend upon them But in the other part the case is highly differing for Christ being our Patriarch in a supernatural birth we fall infinitely short of him and are not so like him as we were to Adam and yet that we in greater unlikeness should receive a greater favour this was the excess of the comparison and this is the free gift of God 17. For if by one offence so it is in the Kings MS. or if by one mans offence death reigned by one much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. And this is the third degree or measure of excess of efficacy on Christs part over it was on the part of Adam For if the sin of Adam alone could bring death upon the world who by imitation of his transgression on the stock of their own natural choice did sin against God though not after the similitude of Adams transgression much more shall we who not only receive the aids of the spirit of grace but receive them also in an abundant measure receive also the effect of all this even to reign in life by one Jesus Christ. 18. Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation Even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life Therefore now to return to the other part of the similitude where I began although I have shown the great excess and abundance of grace by Christ over the evil that did descend by Adam yet the proportion and comparison lies in the main emanation of death from one and life from the other judgment unto condemnation that is the sentence of death came upon all men by the offence of one even so by a like Oeconomy and dispensation God would not be behind in doing an act of Grace as he did before of judgment and as that judgment was to condemnation by the offence of one so the free gift and the grace came upon all to justification of life by the righteousness of one 19. For as by one mans disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous The summ of all is this By the disobedience of one man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 many were constituted or put into the order of sinners they were made such by Gods appointment that is not that God could be the Author of a sin to any but that he appointed the evil which is the consequent of sin to be upon their heads who descended from the sinner and so it shall be on the other side for by the obedience of one even of Christ many shall be made or constituted righteous But still this must be with a supposition of what was said before that there was a vast difference for we are made much more righteous by Christ than we were sinners by Adam and the life we receive by Christ shall be greater than the death by Adam and the graces we derive from Christ shall be more and mightier than the corruption and declination by Adam but yet as one is the head so is the other one is the beginning of sin and death and the other of life and righteousness It were easie to add many particulars out of S. Paul but I shall chuse only to recite the Aethiopick version of the New Testament translated into Latin by that excellent Linguist and worthy Person Dr. Dudly Loftus The words are these And therefore as by the iniquity of one man sin entred into the world and by THAT SIN death came upon all men therefore because THAT SIN IS IMPUTED TO ALL MEN even those who knew not what that sin was Until the Law came sin remained in the world not known what it was when sin was not reckoned because as yet at that time the Commandment of the Law was not come Nevertheless death did after reign from Adam until Moses as well in those that did sin as in those that did not sin by that sin of Adam because every one was created in the similitude of Adam and because Adam was a type of him that was to come But not according to the quantity of our iniquity was the grace of God to us If for the offence of one man many are dead how much more by the grace of God and by the gift of him who did gratifie us by one man to wit Jesus Christ life hath abounded upon many Neither for the measure of the sin which was of one man was there the like reckoning or account of the grace of God For if the condemnation of sin proceeding from one man caus'd that by that sin all should be punished how much rather shall his grace purifie us from our sins and give to us eternal life If the sin of one made death to reign and by the offence of one man death did rule in us how much more therefore shall the grace of one man Jesus Christ and his gift justifie us and make us to reign in life eternal And as by the offence of one man many are condemned Likewise also by the righteousness of one man shall every son of man be justified and live And as by one man many are made sinners or as the Syriack Version renders it there were many sinners In like manner again many are made righteous * Now this reddition of the Apostles discourse in this Article is a very great light to the Understanding of the words which not the nature of the thing but the popular glosses have made difficult But here it is plain that all the notice of this Article which those Churches derived from these words of Saint Paul was this That the sin of Adam
brought death into the world That it was his sin alone that did the great mischief That this sin was made ours 〈◊〉 by inherence but by imputation That they who suffered the calamity did not know what the sin was That there was a difference of men even in relation to thiâ— sin and it passed upon some more than upon others that is some were more miserable than others That some did not sin by that sin of Adam and some did that is some there were whose manners were not corrupted by that example and some were that it was not our sin but his that the sin did not multiply by the variety of subject but was still but one sin and that it was his and not ours all which particulars are as so many verifications of the doctrine I have delivered and so many illustrations of the main Article But in verification of one great part of it I mean that concerning Infants and that they are not corrupted properly or made sinners by any inherent impurity is clearly affirmed by S. Peter whose words are thus rendred in the same Aethiopick Testament 1 Pet. 2.2 And be ye like unto newly begotten Infants who are begotten every one without sin or malice and as milk not mingled And to the same sence those words of our Blessed Saviour to the Pharisees asking who sinn'd this man or his Parents John 9. the Syriack Scholiast does give this Paraphrase some say it is an indirect question For how is it possible for a man to sin before he was born And if his Parents sinn'd how could he bear their sin But if they say that the punishment of the Parents may be upon the Children let them know that this is spoken of them that came out of Egypt and is not Universal And those words of David In sin hath my Mother conceived me R. David Kimchi and Abeâ—esra say that they are expounded of Eve who did not conceive till she had sinned But to return to the words of S. Paul The consequent of this discourse must needs at least be this that it is impossible that the greatest part of mankind should be left in the eternal bonds of Hell by Adam for then quite contrary to the discourse of the Apostle there had been abundance of sin but a scarcity of grace and the access had been on the part of Adam not on the part of Christ against which he so mightily and artificially contends so that the Presbyterian way is perfectly condemned by this discourse of the Apostle and the other more gentle way which affirms that we were sentenced in Adam to eternal death though the execution is taken off by Christ is also no way countenanced by any thing in this Chapter for that the judgment which for Adams sin came unto the condemnation of the world was nothing but temporal death is here affirmed it being in no sence imaginable that the death which here S. Paul says passed upon all men and which reigned from Adam to Moses should be eternal death for the Apostle speaks of that death which was threatned to Adam and of such a death which was afterwards threatned in Moses's Law and such a death which fell even upon the most righteous of Adams posterity Abel and Seth and Methuselah that is upon them who did not sin after the similitude of Adams transgression Since then all the judgment which the Apostle says came by the sin of Adam was sufficiently and plainly enough affirmed to be death temporal that God should sentence mankind to eternal damnation for Adams sin though in goodness through Christ he afterwards took it off is not at all affirmed by the Apostle and because in proportion to the evil so was the imputation of the sin it follows that Adams sin is ours metonymically and improperly God was not finally angry with us nor had so much as any designs of eternal displeasure upon that account his anger went no further than the evils of this life and therefore the imputation was not of a proper guilt for that might justly have passed beyond our grave if the sin had passed beyond a metonymy or a juridical external imputation And of this God and Man have given this further testimony that as no man ever imposed penance for it so God himself in nature did never for it afflict or affright the Conscience and yet the Conscience never spares any man that is guilty of a known sin Extemplo quodcunque malum committitur ipsi Displicet Authori He that is guilty of a sin Shall rue the crime that he lies in And why the Conscience shall be for ever at so much peace for this sin that a man shall never give one groan for his share of guilt in Adams sin unless some or other scares him with an impertinent proposition why I say the Conscience should not naturally be afflicted for it nor so much as naturally know it I confess I cannot yet make any reasonable conjecture save this only that it is not properly a sin but only metonymically and improperly And indeed there are some whole Churches which think themselves so little concerned in the matter of Original sin that they have not a word of it in all their Theology I mean the Christians in the East-Indies concerning whom Frier Luys di Vrretta in his Ecclesiastical story of Aethiopia says That the Christians in Aethiopia under the Empire of Prestre Juan never kept the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary no so entremetieron en essas Theologias del peccato Original porque mâ—nca tuvieron los entendimientes muy metafisicos antes como gente afable benigna Llana de entendimientos conversables y alaguenos seguian la dotrina de los santos antiguos y de los sagrados Concilios sin disputas ni diferencias nor do they insert into their Theology any propositions concerning Original Sin nor trouble themselves with such Metaphysical contemplations but being of an affable ingenuous gentle comportment and understanding follow the Doctrine of the Primitive Saints and Holy Councils without disputation or difference so says the story But we unfortunately trouble our selves by raising Ideas of Sin and afflict our selves with our own dreams and will not believe but it is a vision And the height of this imagination hath wrought so high in the Church of Rome that when they would do great honours to the Virgin Mary they were pleased to allow to her an immaculate conception without any Original Sin and a Holy-day appointed for the celebration of the dream But the Christians in the other world are wiser and trouble themselves with none of these things but in simplicity honour the Divine attributes and speak nothing but what is easie to be understood And indeed Religion is then the best and the world will be sure to have fewer Atheists and fewer Blasphemers when the understandings of witty men are not tempted by commanding them to believe impossible Articles and unintelligible propositions when every thing is
are fallible yet when they bring evidence of holy Writ their assertions are infallible and not to be contradicted I am bound to reply that when they do so whether they be infallible or no I will believe them because then though they might yet they are not deceived But as evidence of holy Writ had been sufficient without their authority so without such evidence their authority is nothing But then My Lord their citing and urging the words of S. Paul Rom. 5.12 is so far from being an evident probation of their Article that nothing is to me a surer argument of their fallibility than the urging of that which evidently makes nothing for them but much against them As 1. Affirming expresly that death was the event of Adam's sin the whole event for it names no other temporal death according to that saying of S. Paul 1 Cor. 15. In Adam we all die And 2. Affirming this process of death to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is and ought to be taken to be the allay or condition of the condemnation It became a punishment to them only who did sin but upon them also inflicted for Adam's sake A like expression to which is in the Psalms Psalm 106.32 33. They angred him also at the waters of strife so that he punished Moses for their sakes Here was plainly a traduction of evil from the Nation to Moses their relative For their sakes he was punished but yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for as much as Moses had sinn'd for so it follows because they provoked his spirit so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips So it is between Adam and us He sinn'd and God was highly displeased This displeasure went further than upon Adam's sin for though that only was threatned with death yet the sins of his children which were not so threatned became so punished and they were by nature heirs of wrath and damnation that is for his sake our sins inherited his curse The curse that was specially and only threatned to him we when we sinn'd did inherit for his sake So that it is not so properly to be called Original Sin as an Original curse upon our sin To this purpose we have also another example of God transmitting the curse from one to another Both were sinners but one was the Original of the curse or punishment So said the Prophet to the wife of Jeroboam 1 Kings 14.16 He shall give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam who did sin and who made Israel to sin Jeroboam was the root of the sin and of the curse Here it was also that I may use the words of the Apostle that by the sin of one man Jeroboam sin went out into all Israel and the curse captivity or death by sin and so death went upon all men of Israel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in as much as all men of Israel have sinned If these men had not sinned they had not been punished I cannot say they had not been afflicted for David's child was smitten for his fathers fault but though they did sin yet unless their root and principal had sinned possibly they should not have so been punished For his sake the punishment came Upon the same account it may be that we may inherit the damnation or curse for Adam's sake though we deserve it yet it being transmitted from Adam and not particularly threatned to the first posterity we were his heirs the heirs of death deriving from him an Original curse but due also if God so pleased to our sins And this is the full sence of the 12. verse and the effect of the phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But your Lordship is pleased to object that though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does once signifie For as much as yet three times it signifies in or by To this I would be content to submit if the observation could be verified and be material when it were true But besides that it is so used in 2 Cor. 5.4 your Lordship may please to see it used as not only my self but indeed most men and particularly the Church of England does read it and expound it in Mat. 26.50 And yet if 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were written 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the same with in or by if it be rendred word for word yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 twice in the Scripture signifies for as much as as you may read Rom. 8.3 and Heb. 2.18 So that here are two places besides this in question and two more ex abundanti to shew that if it were not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but said in words expresly as you would have it in the meaning yet even so neither the thing nor any part of the thing could be evicted against me and lastly if it were not only said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that that sence of it were admitted which is desired and that it did mean in or by in this very place yet the Question were not at all the nearer to be concluded against me For I grant that it is true in him we are all sinners as it is true that in him we all die that is for his sake we are us'd as sinners being miserable really but sinners in account and effect as I have largely discoursed in my book But then for the place here in question it is so certain that it signifies the same thing as our Church reads it that it is not sence without it but a violent breach of the period without precedent or reason And after all I have looked upon those places where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is said to signifie in or by and in one of them I find it so Mat. 2.4 but in Acts 3.16 and Phil. 1.3 I find it not at all in any sence but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indeed is used for in or by in that of the Acts and in the other it signifies at or upon but if all were granted that is pretended to it no way prejudices my cause as I have already proved Next to these your Lordship seems a little more zealous and decretory in the Question upon the confidence of the 17 18 and 19. Verses of the 5. Chapter to the Romans The summ of which as your Lordship most ingeniously summs it up is this As by one many were made sinners so by one many were made righteous that by Adam this by Christ. But by Christ we are made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 just not by imputation only but effectively and to real purposes therefore by Adam we are really made sinners And this your Lordship confirms by the observation of the sence of two words here used by the Apostle The first is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies a sentence of guilt or punishment for sin and this sin to be theirs upon whom the condemnation comes because God punishes none but for their own sin Ezek. 18.2 From the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 clear from sin so your Lordship renders
with the beginnings and principles of life not with inherent qualities but with titles and relations to promises and estates of blessing and assistances of holiness which principles of life if they be nourished will express themselves in perfect and symbolical actions The thing is easie to be understood by them who observe the manner of speaking usual in Scripture We are begotten to a lively hope so S. Paul the very consignation and designing us to that hope which is laid up for the Saints is a new birth a regeneration the beginnings of a new life and of this Infants are as capable as any The other thing is this That the Infants vow is invalid till it be after confirmed in the days of Reason and therefore it were as good to be let alone till it can be made with effect I answer that if there were nothing in the Sacrament but the making of a vow I confess I could see no necessity in it nor any convenience but that it engages children to an early piety and their parents and guardians by their care to prevent the follies of their youth but then when we consider that Infants receive great blessings from God in this holy ministery that what is done to them on God's part is of great effect before the ratification of their vow this prudential consideration of theirs is light and airy And after all this it will be easie to determine which is the surer way For certainly to baptize Infants is hugely agreeable to that charity which Christ loved in those who brought them to him and if Infants die before the use of reason it can doe them no hurt that they were given to God in a holy designation it cannot any way be supposed and is not pretended by any one to prejudice their Eternity but if they die without Baptism it is then highly questioned whether they have not an intolerable loss And if it be questioned by wise men whether the want of it do not occasion their eternal loss and it is not questioned whether Baptism does them any hurt or no then certainly to baptize them is the surer way without all peradventure Ad 33. The last number sums up many words of affrightment together but no Argument nothing but bold and unjustifiable assertions against which I onely oppose their direct contradictories But in stead of them the effect of the former discourse is this That whoever shall pertinaciously deny or carelesly neglect the Baptism of Infants does uncharitably expose his babes to the danger of an eternal loss from which there is no way to recover but an extraordinary way which God hath not revealed to us he shuts them out of the Church and keeps them out who are more fit to enter then himself he as much as lies in him robs the children of the gifts of the Holy Ghost and a title to the Promises Evangelical he supposes that they cannot receive God's gifts unless they do in some sense or other deserve them and that a negative disposition is not sufficient preparation to a new Creation and an obediential capacity is nothing and yet it was all that we could have in our first creation he supposes that we must doe something before the first grace that is that God does not love us first but we first love him that we seek him and he does not seek us that we are before-hand with him and therefore can doe something without him that Nature can alone bring us to God For if he did not suppose all this his great pretence of the necessity of Faith and Repentance would come to nothing for Infants might without such dispositions receive the grace of Baptism which is alwaies the first unless by the superinducing of actual sins upon our nature we make it necessary to doe something to remove the hinderances of God's Spirit that some grace be accidentally necessary before that which ordinarily regularly is the first grace He I say that denies Baptism to Infants does disobey Christ's commandment which being in general and indefinite terms must include all that can be saved or can come to Christ and he excepts from Christ's commandment whom he pleases without any exception made by Christ he makes himself Lord of the Sacrament and takes what portions he pleases from his fellow-servants like an evil and an unjust steward he denies to bring little children to Christ although our dearest Lord commanded them to be brought he upbraids the practice and charity of the holy Catholick Church and keeps Infants from the communion of Saints from a participation of the Promises from their part of the Covenant from the laver of regeneration from being rescued from the portion of Adam's inheritance from a new creation from the Kingdom of God which belongs to them and such as are like them And he that is guilty of so many evils and sees such horrid effects springing from his Doctrine must quit his errour or else openly profess love to a serpent and direct enmity to the most innocent part of mankind I do not think the Anabaptists perceive or think these things to follow from their Doctrine But yet they do so really And therefore the effect of this is that their Doctrine is wholly to be reproved and disavowed but the men are to be treated with the usages of a Christian strike them not as an Enemy but exhort them as brethren They are with all means Christian humane to be redargued or instructed but if they cannot be perswaded they must be left to God who knows every degree of every man's understanding all his weaknesses and strengths what impress every argument makes upon his Spirit and how uncharitable every reason is and he alone judges of his ignorance or his malice his innocency or his avoidable deception We have great reason to be confident as to our own part of the Question but it were also well if our knowledge would make us thankfull to God and humble in ourselves and charitabe to our brother It is pride that makes contention but humility is the way of peace and truth SECT XIX That there may be no Toleration of Doctrines inconsistent with Piety or the Publick good 1. BUT then for their other capital Opinion with all its branches that it is not lawfull for Princes to put malefactors to death nor to take up defensive Arms nor to minister an Oath nor to contend in judgement it is not to be disputed with such liberty as the former For although it be part of that doctrine which Clemens Alexandrinus says was delivered per secretam traditionem Apostolorum Non licere Christianis contendere in judicio nec coram gentibus nec coram sanctis perfectum non debere jurare and the other part seems to be warranted by the eleventh Canon of the Nicene Council which enjoyns penance to them that take Arms after their conversion to Christianity yet either these Authorities are to be slighted or be made
his posterity 870 874. That mankind by the fall of Adam did not lose the liberty of will 874. The sin of Adam is not in us properly and formally a sin 876. His sin to his posterity is not damnable 877. Of the Covenant God made with Adam 914. The Law of works onely imposed on him 587 n. 1. What evil we really had from Adam's fall 748 n. 14. The following of Adam cannot be original sin 764 n. 28. The fall of Adam lost us not heaven 748 n. 3 4. Whether if Adam had not sinned Christ had been incarnate 748 n. 4. Adam was made mortal 779 n. 4. Those evils that were the effects of Adam's fall are not in us sins properly inherent 750 n. 8. His sin made us not heirs of damnation 714 n. 22. nor makes us necessarily vicious 717 n. 39. Adam's sin did not corrupt our nature by a physical efficiency 717 n. 40. nor because we were in his loins 717 n. 41. nor because of the decree of God 717 n. 42. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What it signifieth 617 n. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The meaning and use of the word 635 n. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What latitude of signification it hath 809 n. 39. Aelfrick Who lived in England about A. D. 996. determines against Transubstantiation 266 n. 12. Aerius How he could be an heretick being his errour was not against any fundamental article 150 ss 48. He was never condemned by any general Council 150 ss 48. The heresie of the Acephali what it was 151 ss 48. Aggravate No circumstance aggravates sin so much as that of the injured person 614 n. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The use of that word in the Scripture 639 n. 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The meaning and use of the word 638 n. 14. Alms. Are a part of repentance 848 n. 81. How they operate in order to pardon ibid. It is one of the best penances 860 n. 114. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What the word signifieth 617 n. 21. and 619 n. 26. S. Ambrose He was both Bishop and Prefect of Milane at one time 160 ss 49. His testimony against transubstantiation 259 260 261 § 12. and 300. His authority for confirmation by Presbyters considered 19 b. 20 b. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The notion of the word 809 n. 38. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The importance of the word 617 n. 122. Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 11.10 explained 58. § 9. Of worshipping them 467. Antiquity The reverence that is due to it 882. Apostle Whence that name was taken 48 § 4. Bishops were successours of the Apostles ibid. In what sense they were so 47 § 3. Saint James called an Apostle because he was a Bishop 48 § 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Ep. to Philip. 2.25 does not signifie Messenger but Apostle 49 § 4. That Bishops were successours in their office to the Apostles was the judgement of antiquity 59 § 10. St. James Bishop of Jerusalem was not one of the twelve Apostles 48 § 4. Apostles in Scripture called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 85 § 23. That the Canons of the Apostles so called are authentick 89 § 24. Of the Canons that go under their names 981 n. 9. The Apostles were by Christ invested with an equal authority 308. S. Peter did not act as having any superiority over the other Apostles 310 § 10. c. l. 1. Arius His preaching his errours was the cause why in Africk Presbyters were not by Law permitted to preach 128 § 37. How the Orthodox complied with the Arians about the Council of Ariminum 441. How his heresie began 958 n. 26. The opinion of Constantine the Great concerning the heresie of Arius 959 n. 26. How the opposition against his heresie was managed 958 959 960 n. 26 ad 36. Art How much it changes nature 652 n. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The signification of the word 665 n. 18. and 637 n. 8. Athanasius The questions and answers to Antiochus under his name are spurious 544. He intended not his Creed to be imposed on others 963. Concerning his Creed ibid. n. 36. His Creed was first written in Latine then translated into Greek 963 n. 36. Attrition What it is 842 n. 63. and 828 n. 25. The difference between it and contrition ibid. Attrition joyned with absolution by the Priest that it is not sufficient demonstrated by many arguments 830 n. 33. Attrition joyned with confession to a Priest and his absolution is not equal to contrition 842 n. 62 64. S. Augustine He was employed in secular affairs at Hippo as well as Ecclesiastical 161 § 49. His authority against Transubstantiation 261 262 § 12. Of his rule to try traditions Apostolical 432. Gratian quotes that out of him that certainly never was in his writings 451. He prayed for his dead mother when he believed her to be in heaven 501 502. The doctrine of the Roman Purgatory was no article of faith in his time 506. The Purgatory that Augustine sometimes mentions is not the Roman Purgatory 507 508. His authority in the matter of Transubstantiation 525 His zeal against the Pelagians was the occasion of his mistake in interpreting Rom. VII 15 775 n. 18. His inconstancy in the question whether concupiscence be a sin 913. Austerity Of the acts of austerity in Religion of what use they are 955 n. 18. Authority That is most effectual which is seated in the Conscience 160 § 49. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What the Apostle means by it Tit. III. 11 780 n. 30. and 951 n. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What it signifieth 689 n. 5. B. Baptism THE doctrine of Infant-Baptism relieth not upon tradition onely but Scripture too 425 426. S. Ambrose S. Hierome and S. Augustine though born of Christian parents were not baptized till they were at full age 425. The reason why the Church baptizeth Infants 426. An answer to that saying of Perron's That there is no place of Scripture whereby we can certainly convince the Anabaptists 426. The validity of the baptism of hereticks is not to be proved by tradition without Scripture 426 427. Of the salvation of unbaptized Infants that are born of Christian parents 471. Of the Scripture Liturgy in an unknown tongue 471. The promise of quorum remiseritis is by some understood of Baptism 486. Of the pardon of sins after baptism 802 n. 7. Saint Cyprian and S. Chrysostome's testimony for Infant-baptism 760 n. 21 22. The principle on which the necessity of Infants baptism is grounded 426 and 718 n. 42. Sins committed after it may be pardoned by repentance 802 n. 8 9. It admits us into the Covenant of repentance 803 n. 10. If we labour not under the guilt of original sin why in our infancy are we baptized That objection answered 884. The state of unbaptized Infants 897. The difference between this Chrism and that of Confirmation 20 b. The difference between Baptism and Confirmation as to the use 26 b. Of the change