Free-will and so the praise shall be given partly to our selves and partly to God But above all he that doth either deny or diminish the guilt and contagion of this sinne can never exalt Christ in all his Offices as he ought to do He that denieth the disease must needs derogate from the Physician The whole need not the Physician saith our Saviour Matth. 9. 12. And therefore it 's of great consequence to be fully perswaded about the depth breadth and length of this sinne that thereby we may be able to comprehend the dimensions of Christs love to us Not that Christ came only to take away the guilt of original sin as some Papists affirm but because this is the womb wherein all other sins are conceived This is the wound of the whole nature actual sins only infect the person of a man We may then easily see the necessity of being truly informed about this Subject for this is like miscarriage in the first concoction which cannot be amended by that which followeth And therefore this consideration should quicken you up in a diligent attention to the whole Doctrine which shall be delivered about it SECT III. IN the next place we are to shew you of what practical advantage it is for all to be fully informed about this native contagion and leprosie we bring with us into the world And First He that doth truly believe in this point will quickly silence all those impatient if not blasphemous complaints that are uttered by many against nature because as they say it is such an hard step-mother to mankind Non tam editi quum ejecti said the Heathen I call them blasphemous complaints because what is spoken against Nature redounds upon God the Author of Nature Hence in the Scripture what Nature doth God is said to do Now then if we consider what impatient expostulations the Heathens have made why man of all creatures should be by Nature most miserable No true answer could ever be given to satisfie but this because man comes sinfull into the world The young ones of beasts and birds are not so miserable as our Infants because not corrupted with evil in their Natures as they are So that if we see our very Infants which yet as the Scripture saith cannot discern between the right hand and left and have not done actual good or evil subject to grievous diseases and death it self Wonder not at this for they have in themselves through their native sinfulness a desert not only of this pain but eternal torments in hell Hence it is that the Scripture instructs us in that which all Philosophy could never inform us viz. the cause and original of all those diseases and pains yea of death it self which reigneth over all mankind Insomuch that thereby we see though there were not one actual sinne in the world though all men had no more sinne upon them then what they had in the womb and in the cradle yet there was demerit enough of that vengeance of God which upon mans transgression was threatned in the Word Gen. 6. 5. The main cause why God brought that universal deluge upon the whole world was not so much their actual wickedness as such but because it came from a polluted fountain which would never be wholly cleansed Their hearts were so many shops wherein were constantly formed all manner of impieties yea by this we see not only the miseries upon man but all the bondage an vanity that is upon the whole world That there are any barrenness any famines that the ground brings forth thorns and thistles that the woman brings forth with so much labour and forrow all these things come by original sinne God did not at first create things in such disorder and confusion If therefore thou wouldst quiet thy heart under all tumults and vexing thoughts to see the manifold mischiefs and miseries mankind is subject unto This Grave jugum super filios Adam as Austin often out of Ecclesiasticus this heavy yoke upon the sons of Adam have recourse to a serious meditation about original sin Secondly The true knowledge of this natural defilement will also satisfie us in those doubtfull Questions which some have greatly tormented themselves with viz. How sinne comes to be in the world And whence it is Austin in his seventh Book of his Confessions and fifth Chapter doth there bewail before God the great agonies and troubles of mind he was in about the beginning of sinne whence it did arise For seeing every thing that God made was exceeding good this exceedingly puzzled him to know how evil should be Yea this knot was so hard to unty in some mens judgments that it made many of the Marcionites heresie who because they saw men commit evil as soon as they were born and yet withall being convinced That God was good and could not be the beginning of evil They therefore maintained two principles of all things the one good of all good things The other evil of evil things Thus men have wonderfully plunged themselves into boggs and quagmires of danger and destruction because not acquainted with this main Truth of Original sin Thirdly For want of knowledge herein that main duty so much commended both by Scripture and the Heathens viz. To know our selves can never be put in practice The Heathen said è Coelo descendit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And as for the Scripture How often is it required That we should search and try our hearts That we should examine our selves and commune with our own hearts and be still Psal 4. Now these duties can never be effectually done without a firm belief of that desperate pollution which is in our heart And till we acknowledge with Jerem. 17. The heart is deceitfull above all things and desperately wicked Who can know it Yea we see David Psal 19. 13. though a godly man and much enlightned thereby being enabled to make deep search into his soul and having the Sun beams could discern those atoms and motes of sinne which man in the dark could not do yet he crieth out Who can understand his errors Cleanse me from secret sins that is such sins that lie latent and lurking in my heart that never yet I could find out If then this duty be so great of knowing our selves that some make all Religion to be in these two things The knowledge of our selves and of God then how necessary is it that we should be thorowly acquainted with this heart and nature-sinfulness for without this we can never know how vile and loathsom we are Our actual impieties though never so gross and numerous do not demonstrate our loathsomness so much as this bitter and sour leven within These are the stream that is the fountain These are the effects that is the cause Therefore the greatest strength of our wickedness lieth in a defiled Nature as you see in a Serpent or Toad that venom it sends forth at any time is nothing to the venom in
Ecclesiastical word only to call it a natural evil they did not presume for fear of the Marcionites who held That there was an evil Nature as well as the good And the Pelagians accused the Orthodox for Manicheism in this point because they held the propagation of this corruption by Nature Therefore they avoided the term of a Natural evil yet Austin at last did use it and indeed it is a very proper and fit name for it hereby differencing it from all actual voluntary and personal sinnes as also from sinne by imitation and custom for Aristotle makes a distinction of things that are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib Ethic. 2. cap. 1. where he sheweth what is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by nature as the stone to descend and the fire to ascend is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so according to him who knew nothing of original sinne we are neither good or evil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by nature And withall this Text doth fully warrant the expression If we are by Nature sinnefull then there is a natural evil Not that God put it at first into our Natures or that it is our substantial Nature but we have it by Natural Propagation Let us therefore consider How much is implied in this expression SECT II. ANd first It may well be called Natural because it doth infect the whole Nature of Mankind It 's a defilement that followeth our specifical not individual being Even as we call death natural because it followeth all mankind Rich men die and poor men die learned men die and foolish None are exempted from it Thus also it is with this sinne All that are born in a natural way of mankind have this contagion The sonnes of Noblemen and Princes though they glory in their blood and their descent yet they are as full of sin and the children of wrath as well as the children of the basest so that though in civil respects they boast of their birth and are above others yet in a theological and divine respect all are alike yea the children of godly parents though they have a promise to their seed and in that respect their children are said to be holy 1 Cor. 7. yet they come into the world with inherent corruption in them They do not generate their children as godly men but corrupt men as Austin of old expressed it A circumcised man begat a child uncircumcised and the Husbandman though he soweth his seed out of the chaff and husk yet that brings up others with chaff and husk upon it Well therefore may we call it a natural sinne because it doth extend to the whole humane Nature as it is in every one that partaketh of it in a natural way So that as Divines do distinguish of infirmities and evils There are some that are specifical which follow the Species as death and some are accidental which follow the individual nature Thus there are some sinnes which follow the particular nature of a man and these are actual sinnes Every man is not a drunkard an adulterer but some are defiled one way some another but then there is a sinne which followeth the whole and universal nature of man and this is original sinne though every man be not guilty of such or such a particular sinne yet all are of original sinne And therefore the Schoolmen say Actual sinne doth corrumpere personam but original Naturam actual sins corrupt the person original the nature SECT III. WE are declaring the Naturality of this Original sinne not as if it were ingredient into or constitutive of our nature but an universal and inseparable pollution adhering to it as they say of death as though it be praeter Naturam or contra yet if we do regard the principles of mortality which are in every man so death is natural Come we therefore to a second demonstration of the Naturality of this evil and that is seen In that it is the inward principle of all the sinfull motions of the soul and that perâ—se not per accidens This is a great part of that definition which Aristotle giveth of Nature now we may in a moral sense apply it to our purpose First I say It 's the inward principle of all the sinfull motions and workings of the Soul For as the nature of the stone is the cause of its motion downward as the nature of the fire is the cause of the fires motions and operations Thus is original sinne the intrinsecal cause and root of all the actual evil we are guilty of It is farre from me to justifie Flacius his discourse or opinion of original sin making it the natural substance of a man and not an accident though he so expresseth himself that some think its his Logical and Metaphysical errour rather than Theological Only that which I aim at is to shew That this birth-sinne is naturally ours because from it doth flow all the sinnefull and evil operations of the whole man So that we may say as it is natural to the stone to descend to the sparks to flie upwards so it is natural to man to think evil to speak evil and to do evil Aristotle observeth Lib. 2. Ethic. cap. 1. this as one property of things by nature that there the principles are before the actions A man hath the power to see or hear before he can actually do either but in moral things the actions are before the habits As it is natural to the Toad to vent poison and not honey so when a man sinneth it 's from his own it 's natural to him but when inabled to do any thing that is good this is wholly of grace Now I say It 's an inward principle of all sinne within us to distinguish it from external cause viz. the devil or wicked men who sometimes may tempt and cause to sinne Therefore the devil is called The tempter Mat. 4. 3. Insomuch that it is made a Question Whether there be any sinne a man commits that the Devil hath not tempted unto but that I attend not to at this time This is enough that the Devil is but an outward cause of sinne and therefore were there not that original filth in us his sparks could never kindle a fire he cannot compell or force to sinne In somuch that whatsoever sinne we do commit we are not to lay the fault principally upon the Devil but our own corrupt hearts Though Ananias lied against the holy Ghost because the Devil had filled his heart And Judas betrayed Christ because Satan had entred into his heart yet the devil could not have come into their hearts had they not been of uncleane and corrupt Constitutions before it was an evil heart and therefore the devil took possession of it The Apostle James cap. 1. 14. doth notably discover the true cause and natural fountain of all the evil committed by us and that is The lust and concupiscence that is within
further actings of original sinne in the mind and spirit of man And The second in order is That incapacity which is in every mans understanding about holy things Divine and supernatural things are no more received by him then a Beast doth apprehend the things of reason We have this fully affirmed 1 Cor. 2. 14. But the natural man receiveth not the things of God neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned you see there is no habitude or proportion between the understannding of a natural man and spiritual things no more then is between the bodily eie and a spiritual 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is one that doth excolere animam such as labour to adorne and perfect the soul with the most intellectual and moral indowments that are a Tully a Plato an Aristotle these if brought to Gospel-truth are not so much as noctuae ad solem Owles to the Sunne-beames To this purpose also Rom. 8. 7 we have not only this truth asserted but also aggravated where the carnal mind is said To be enmity against God and it is not subject to the Law of God neither can it be By which places of Scripture it is evident That the mind of man hath an utter incapacity as to any divine things Indeed there is a passive capacity as some express it and so the mind of man is susceptible of holy truth and such a capacity is not in a beast as that is not capable of sinne so neither of regeneration But then there is an active capacity when the soul by some ability and power of its own is able to move to these supernatural objects and thus the understanding of the most learned in the world cannot of it self receive it and therefore faith is said To be the gift of God so that we may justly abhorre the Arminians Probitas animi and Pia doxilitas which they make preparatory or main part to conversion Now there is a twofold receiving of divine Truths 1. Speculatively by a bare dogmatical assent and even thus none by nature can receive the Truths of God for the Pharisees though they heard Christ preached and saw the miracles he did yet they did not believe with so much as a dogmatical faith 2. There is a practical and experimental receiving of holy Truths in the power of them which is here called the knowing of Truths as they are in Jesus and this much less are we able to receive To the former is required the common grace of God To this a more special one Wonder not then if you see men even the most learned naturally so brutish so ignorant about divine things That they have no more understanding and apprehension about heavenly things Oh bewail original corruption which maketh thee so unteachable so untractable Why doth not every Scripture-truth every powerfull Sermon have its full and powerfull operation upon thee but because it doth not me et with a preparedand fitted subject Thirdly Adam's actual sinne which is our original imputed one was partly this They desired to be as gods to know good and evil which hath left its impression upon all Like the Bethshemite we desire to be looking into the Ark. The Apostle 1 Cor. 4. 6 as he would not have the Corinthians think of men above that which is written so much less of God contrary to that which is revealed This is a great evil upon the understandings of men by original sinne that now the mind is not contented with the rule God hath given it They think it a small and contemptible matter to know no more then what may be known by the Scripture but they affect extraordinary things This curiosity is that which filled the Church once with so many Schoolemen and their Questions as Aegypt was once with Caterpillars It is true School-divinity hath its use and so farre as they deal solidly and improve natural reason in any point they are very admirable but when once they fall into their useless unprofitable and sublime Questions where neither the Word of God or sure reason can conduct them then they vanish like smoak in the air how rash are they in their Disputes about Angels With what nice conceits have they obscured the Doctrine of the Trinity Insomuch that we may see much of original sinne in them inclining and hurrying of them to a bold and venturous determination of such things which God hath not manifested so that none of their seraphical sublime or angelical Doctors could begin their Disputations as John his Epistle That which we have seen we have heard and our hands have handled 1 Joh 1. 1. Though therefore the Schoolemen have in somethings their great use yet in their difficult niceties which are but as so many cob-webs there they are as much to be slighted as one king did a man who boasted he could stand at a distance and throw a grain of corn through the eie of a needle Again this original curiosity of the mind venteth it self in all those Magick Arts and Witchcrafts which have abounded in the world as also in judiciary Astrology and such deceitful impostures men affecting as Adam did to be like God to be able to declare the things that are to come Act. 19 19. They are called curious arts Furthermore this curiosity of the mind is seen in nauseating and disdaining known things and what are already discovered and ambitiously thirsting to find out some Veritas incognita as others have done Terra incognita To bring such new things to the world that were never knowen or heard before It 's from this sinful curiosity that men forsake the good Truths of God and runne after heresies errors and whatsoever hath novellisme in it so that he who would examine himself about his regeneration must look to the renovation of his mind in this particular as well as any other Fourthly Original sinne discovereth it self in our minds by the vanity that they are filled with 1 Cor. 3 20 The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise that they are vain If the thoughts of wise men without the Scripture be vain how much more of men who have no more then natural ability And certainly this must needs be a very heavy censure upon man that he who hath the best parts the greatest understanding yet till grace sanctify he is but a vain man His mind is a vain mind his understanding is a vain understanding many waies the vanity of it might be discovered as thus The understanding of man is naturally more affected with pleasing things then with solid and sound Truths it is more affected with words language jests and merry tales then with that matter which tendeth to spiritual edification Is not this a great instance of the vanity upon our minds to regard leaves more then fruit chaff more then good seed pictures and shews more then substances whence ariseth that delight in embroydered language in playes and Comedies and in Romances and such bubles and empty vapours but from
and affections are seated The will then is in a man his rational appetite following the proposition and manifestation of the understanding For if a man did know what was good or what is evil and no appetite to imbrace the one or avoid the other he would be no better than a stone or a statue for all his reason We see then why God hath placed such a power in the soul as the will is It is that the good which the understanding manifesteth may be imbraced and entertained and the evil it doth discover may be shunned Whether this will be distinct really from the soul it self and from the understanding is a Philosophical Dispute and will not tend to your edification Secondly Though it be the appetite in a man yet it is a rational appetite it is subjected in the rational soul There is a three-fold appetite 1. Natural which is in the motion of inanimate things as in the stone to descend downwards this is called an appetite though properly it is not so because it doth not follow knowledge but is consequent upon the forme immediately 2. There is the sensitive appetite which moveth upon the knowledge of sense and this is both in beasts and also in men yea naturally we live and desire even all the motions of the soul are according to sense and so in this respect man is become like the bruit beast But of this afterwards 3. There is the rational appetite and that is called the will and this is in man onely a beast hath not properly any will no more then he hath understanding so that the will of a man is a noble and high faculty in him appointed to follow reason and to be regulated by it in all things and therefore Austin saith Voluntas tantum est in bonis The will is only in good things If a man love evil or desire evil this is not voluntas saith he but cupiditas It doth not deserve the name of the will but of lust but common speech is otherwise there is a bad will a corrupted will as well as a good will only when we say the will is a rational appetite that must not be understood formaliter but participativè as they say that is the will doth not know doth not reason but is directed thereby therefore it is called coeca potentia a blind power and if you say it is blind How then can it see the good proposed I answer it followeth the good proposed not because it knoweth it but because of its essential subordination to the understanding Hence it is that to have a good will it is so requisite to have a sound mind Ignorant and blind minds are alwayes accompanied with corrupt and polluted wils There cannot be a sanctified will where there is not an enlightened mind This should make the ignorant and stupid to tremble in their estate they live in This should make you prize knowledge above gold and pearls as also to wait upon the Ministery with diligence seeing that by knowledge the will cometh to be made holy Fourthly we are the more to inform our selves about its depravation by how much the more noble and excellent it is It is hotly disputed between the two factions of Thomists and Scotists which is the more excellent faculty the understanding or the will The Thomists are for the understanding the Scotists for the will but these two cannot absolutely and in every respect be commended before each other only in respect of power and efficacy the will is more eminent for the understanding it self in respect of its exercise is subject to the dominion of the will and the will also is properly the original and fountain of all good or evil in a man for though the understanding hath actual sinfulnesse and the affections yet this is because of the will either directly or indirectly so that to an actual deliberate sinne there is required some kind of voluntarinesse either expresly or interpretatively either in se or in causâ Original sinne you heard was voluntary in some sense although we need not judge of that by Aristotle's rules who was ignorant of any such thing Therefore Julian the Pelagian triumphed in his Aristotelical Philosophy against original sinne despising his Ecclesiastical Judges as not knowing Aristotle's Categories as if saith Austin he desired a Synod of Peripateticks rather than Judges in the Church but though original sinne with the indeliberate motions thereof have not the actual personal will of a man yet all other sinnes have so that the pollution of the will is in effect the pollution of the whole man Hence In the fifth place There is this difference between the understanding and the wil in relation to its objects The understanding doth receive the species of the object to it self not the objects themselves and therefore when we know or understand evil as an object this doth not defile the understanding but is a perfection of it Thus Godknoweth all the evil committed in the world yet his knowledge is not polluted thereby Scire malum non est malum but the will that goeth out to the objects as they are in themselves and thereby loving of them is what the object is Thus if we will sinne it is sinne and not if we know sin because the will goeth out to a sinfull object as it is in it self so that above all keepings we are to keep the will for what that is placed upon it presently becomes like it If thou lovest the world or earth thou art earth thou art of the world Hence all the while sinne is kept out from the will though it be in thy mind though it be by suggestion to thee yet because there is no consent it is not thy sinne but thy misery I speak not of the motus principatus which are antecedent to our will but of suggestions only offered from without but when the will yeeldeth when that consencs it becometh thy evil immediately as poison while it is in the remote parts of the body may not kill but when it striketh to the heart then it is mortall Thus sinne in temptation sinne in suggestion doth not destroy till the will receive it so great a matter is it to look to this power of the soul For In the sixth place Because of this rule and dominion the will hath therefore it is called the universall appetite of the whole man We see all the other powers of the soul have their peculiar and proper inclination The eye to see the ear to hear the understand to know but the will is to will the good for the whole person therefore it is not limited to one good object more then another but bonum in communi the good in general is the object of it so that the will is the universall appetite and inclination of the whole man now if this great wheel that moveth all be irregular and out of order what good can be expected in the less wheeles if the foundation
a consequent from the former viz. The Privacy and Propriety of it For whereas by the primitive Institution our will is to be commensurated and regulated by the will of God now it naturally abhorreth and refuseth any such agreement as if our will were to take place of Gods will as if the prayer were that our will not Gods will might be done In this is an Abysse of all evil that our will naturally inclineth to be independent on Gods will we would have that a measure and rule even to Gods will that God should not will but what we would have Oh horrible blasphemy and confusion for the humane will of the Lord Christ was not a rule and measure of things to be done being the will of a creature therefore he prayeth Not my will but thy will be done Luk. 26. 39. If then Christs humane will was to be regulated by that superiour and increated will how much more is the will of a sinfull and corrupt man This then is that which maketh the whole soul like a Blackmoor This is the essence as it were of all sinne A mans own will not Gods will is regarded but a mans own proper will is wholly followed we would give Laws to God and not God to us Whensoever thy heart is carried out to lusts to any wickedness What is this but to exalt thy will and to depress the will of God Hath God said Be not proud thou wilt be proud Hath God said Swear not thou wilt swear Thus all sinne is nothing but a mans own will lifted up against the will of God No wonder then if one said Cesset voluntas propria non ardebit gâ—henna Let there be no longer our own will and there will be no longer any hell It 's this proper private will of ours that was the cause of hell Adam and Eve they preferred their will before Gods will and that brought in death and demnation Therefore regeneration is the writing of Gods Law in our hearts whereby we come to say as Christ I come to do thy will O God and Paul immediately upon his conversion saith Lord what wilt thou have me do he giveth up his will as a blanck on which God may write his will O Lord there shall not be any longer my will to persecute my will to oppose thy Church I will break this will of mine renounce this will of mine Thus as a vessel melted in the fire may be put into any forme or fashion the artificer pleaseth so was it with Paul's will This proper private will of thine likewise maketh all the trouble and misery thou meetest with it is thy own will that maketh thee to walk so heavily and discontentedly for were thy will resigned up into Gods were thou able to say in all things the will of the Lord be done I have no will but what God would have me to exercise this would keep thee in a quiet calm frame all the day long whereas now all the dispute and contention is whether thy will or Gods will must give place to each other Oh vain and wretched man how long shall this self-will of thine be thy ruine Is it not reason that the will of the creature should give place to the will of the Creator as the starres do not appear when the Sunne beginneth to arise ¶ 5. The Pride and Haughtiness of the Will THirdly The great and notable pollution of the Will Is the pride and haughtiness of it not only refusing subjection to the Will of God and to be under that as hath been shewed but in some remarkable particulars The first whereof is an affectation of equality with God himself Thus the will of a poor weak wretch that cannot turn a white hair into black whose breath is in his nostrils that hath the same originals for his body as a worm hath yet the aspireth after a Deity and would be like God himself As 1. in attempting to make gods and then to worship them What pride and vanity is in man to take upon him to make what he intends to worship so that what man pleaseth shall be a god and what pleaseth him not shall be none Deus non erit Deus nisi homini placuerit Thus whereas God at first made man after his image now man maketh God after his image Besides the horrible blindness that is upon the mind in this thing there is also pride and arrogancy of the will what is this but to assume superiority over their own gods which yet they worship and adore But 2. This pride of the will is more conspicuously manifested In affecting to be like the true God not to endure him to be a superior above us While our first parents had not any internal pollution at all upon them yet this sinne did presently insinuate them whereby they aspired after a Deity therefore the Devil tempted them with this sutable bait Ye shall be like Gods knowing good and evil That sinne of Adam hath still a more peculiar impression upon mankind Whence came that abominable and blasphemous custome into the world of deifying men which they called Daimons but from that inbred pride of the will desiring to be like God Ezek. 28. 2. Thus it was with that Prince of Tyrus he lifted up himself and said I am a god I sit in the seat of God thou hast ser thine heart as the heart of God What detestable and loath some arroganacy is here Oh the patience of God that doth not immediately consume such a wretch as he did Herod who sinned not so highly for he did not proclaim he was God only the people by way of flattering cryed out the voice of God and not of man which because he did not disclaim but secretly owned therefore was such a remarkable punishment inflicted upon him We see from these instances what pride lurketh in mans will there is the cockatrice egg which may quickly prove to be a flying Serpent This pride is thought also to be the sinne of the Devil whereby he was not contented with the station God had put him but was ambitious of a divine nature as if he with Christ might think it no robbery to be equal with God This unspeakable arrogancy did shew it self notoriously in some great Potentates of the world Caius Caesar especially for which cause Grotius though absurdly maketh him to be the Antichrist that did exalt himself above all that is called God This madness of pride was as visible in Alexander who though sometimes through the consciousness of humane imbecillity as when he was wounded and saw bloud fall from him would refuse such a thought yet at other times he did industriously affect to be related among the number of the Gods and to have divine worship performed to him and as the sonne of Jupiter Hammon would be pictured with hornes and Jupiters Preist meeting of him instead of that form 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 did purposely mistake saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
to act therein And 3. Of cruelty that God who is so ready to forgive us our own sinnes yet should impute to us Adam's But these are fig leaves only and cannot cover the Objectors nakedness SECT II. FOr First We do not say That the Nature of man as it was created first had this imbred pollution in it No it came out of Gods hands pure and clean Eccles 7. ult God made man upright It was after Gods own Image that he made him he had no experimental knowledge of any evil within him But as it was with the earth after mans fall it brought forth bryars and thorns being cursed which as it is thought it would not have done so before Thus upon Adams transgression then and not till then was his soul cursed spiritually to bring forth nothing but bryars and thorns such lusts as were fit combustible matter for hell fire Therefore every Infant almost may understand this That the maintaining of this Truth doth not at all redound to Gods dishonour for we see the like in the Devils Are not they become wicked spirits Is there not an utter impossibility in a Devil to do any thing that is good Are they not called the spiritual wickednesses in high places Ephes 6. 12. as if they were nothing but all over wickedness yet the Devil though so vile and abominable was made a glorious creature None of this poison was at first infused into him but the Apostle Jude ver 6 layeth it wholly upon themselves That they kept not their first estate but left their own habitation The Devils then though so full of wickedness yet are not a reproach to God their Maker but it was through their own wilfulness they became such Apostates Hence in the second place Adam when he first transgressed that command of God and thereby involved all mankind in darkness and misery did it from a voluntary free principle within there was no internal or external necessity compelling him to sinne for he was made with the image of God in him and that matter wherein he did transgress he might easily have attained from God giving him liberty to eat of all other trees so that it was meerly and solely from Adams own will that he undid himself and all his posterity It is true God if he had pleased could have prevented his sinning he could have confirmed him in such grace as we see he did the other Angels that fell not whereby he would certainly have been preserved from all sinne but God is the supreme Sovereign and is not tied up as men are to inferiour Laws It is true he is an eternal Law of Righteousness to himself whereby he cannot do any thing but what is just and righteous yet he hath also an absolute Dominion over all things and may dispose of his creatures as he pleaseth and from this it was that he created man with power to fall as well as to stand making him mutable and changeable whereas the glorified Saints in Heaven shall be delivered from such mutability and there shall not be in them a posse peccare a power to sinne so greatly shall their souls be perfected in Heaven So that still you see God is freed and mans destruction is of himself Hence also in the third place when Adam sinned at first it was not after the same manner as we sinne for when we sinne this floweth from a corrupted nature within Jam. 1. 17. Every one is tempted and drawn aside with the lust that is within him But in Adam there was no such vicious principle It is therefore a false and dangerous position of the Socinians That we sinne in the same manner that he did That we have no more corrupted Nature in us then he had but as he had a free-will by which he chose either good or evil so it is with us But this speaketh open defiance against the Scripture For was Adam by nature the child of wrath Were the imaginations of his thoughts only evil and that continually Could Adam say He found a Law of sinne in his Members warring against the Law of his mind Adam's sinne therefore came from the meer mutability and changeableness that was in his will there being no antecedent corruption in him Insomuch that it hath greatly exercised learned Divines to shew how Adam could sinne and wherein the imperfection did first break forth he being made after the Image of God but in us our sinfulness ariseth from a necessity contracted by the first voluntary transgression and so have a corrupt nature which inclineth to all corrupt actions Adam was in some sense a good Tree and yet did bring forth bad Fruit a sweet Fountain and yet did send forth bitter Streams Here we might say a Vine brought sorth Thorns and a Fig Thistles but we are bad Trees poisoned Fountains Briars and Thorns only from the paralleling of our selves with Adam we may conclude our incurableness as also the danger we are in by every temptation For if Adam though without any corrupt principle within him though without the least spark of any lust was yet so easily inflamed by a temptation What may we expect who have the seed of all evil within us If the green Ivy shall take fire so soon what will the dry Tree do Oh take heed of coming near any occasion of sinne As our Saviour said Remember Lots wife so do thou Adams wife yea and Adam himself These though created holy though without any lustful inclination yet did presently yeeld to the temptations of sinne What then wilt not thou do If Samson with his strength cannot resist the Philistims much less when that is gone can he withstand them But of this difference between Adam and us in sinning more in its time In the fourth place God is to be justified though we be born full of sinne because we are to distinguish between nature it self and the corruption cleaving to it We say our Nature our Essence and Substance our Souls and Bodies in respect of their natural Being are the work of God and we are with David to admire the curious workmanship of God in respect of our Bodies The excellent composition of all the bodily parts did convince even Galen though otherwise an Heathen God therefore as a Creator is to be praised and glorified by us only as Austin of old we must not so praise Deum Creatorem as to make Superfluum Servatorem We must not so celebrate the name of God as a Creator that thereby we should make a Saviour superfluous and unnecessary Sub laudibus naturae latent inimici gratiae under the praises of Nature the enemies of Grace hide themselves and so under the praises of God as a Creator the enemies of Christ as a Saviour shelter themselves Nature then we say is good our Substance and Being is of God onely the defilement annexed inseparably thereunto is of man Even as in our bodies the substance of them is of God but God did not
check and bitter reluctancy sometimes so that they can say sometimes I do the things I allow not yea I hate When the Apostle Rom. Chap. 1. and Chap. 2. speaketh of some Heathens that had their consciences accusing of them and that they detained the truth in unrighteousnesse he supposeth That those who yet never tasted of the power of the Gospel may have such truth and light in their consciences that it shall suggest what is to be done yet love to their lusts will hurry them the contrary way but as in time is to be shewed the combate between reason and the sensitive appetite is a farre different thing from the conflict between the flesh and the spirit in the godly Neither secondly must you understand Paul speaking of gross and foul sins as if when he said The evil he would not that he doth were to be understood of scandalous and wicked enormities No but it is to be interpreted of those motions to sinne and constant infirmities which cleave to the most holy Let not therefore any prophane person that customarily walloweth in his impieties excuse himself with this It is true I am such a beast I do such soul things sometimes but I may say with Paul The things that I allow not yea that I hate those I do This is to turn honey into poyson This is to make the Scripture an incentive to thy impiety No Paul and such as thou art differ as much as the Sunne and a dunghill Paul did not mean the drunkenness the uncleanness that he would not do that he did but he meaneth such corruptions and infirmities that immediately flow from the polluted nature within us from which we are never throughly cleansed in this life Thirdly Neither when the Apostle saith The good he would that he doth not and the evil he would not that he doth Is thus to be so understood as if it were perpetual and in every particular act as if sinne had alwayes the better and grace the worse as if in no action he did grace did conquer sinne for in other places the godly are said to have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts thereof As also That sinne shall not have dominion over them but sometimes in some temptations they are captivated against their wils Fourthly Neither may you thus understand Paul when he saith He would do good but evil stops him as if he had only the sluggards will and wish who would eat but doth not labour who would be rich but yet lets his field be full of briars and thorns such velleities and incompleat wishes many formal Christians have so that such lazy and sluggish desires without efficacious operations are not to shroud themselves under Paul's expression Lastly Therefore Paul's meaning is That the good which he would do be cannot do it perfectly he cannot do it with that alacrity and fervency as he would do Though the flesh do not wholly conquer the spirit yet it doth stop and hinder it Therefore Nazianzen calls it the Echineips the fish that stops the ship that it doth not go so speedily though it doth not drown it SECT II. In what sense those words It is not I but sinne that dwels in me are to be understood THis premised we may take notice of an inference or conclusion that the Apostle draweth from this Now then it 's no more I that do it but sinne that dwels in me which he speaketh not as excusing or putting off the blame from himself but to difference and to distinguish these two principles that are within him the regenerate and unregenerate So farre as he is regenerate he doth not do these things neither are they to be charged upon him he speaks it to distinguish not excuse which is the rather to be observed because of those Carpocrations of old and Libertines of late who excuse all their impieties saying It is not they that do such things but the flesh within them and so make a mock of all sinne yea some of late have arrived to such horrid blasphemy as to say It 's not they that do such and such evil actions but God in them Neither doth the Apostle lay the fault upon the Devil it was not his but the Devil as many are apt to do but upon that fountain and root of all the bitterness in his heart and life which is original corruption here described to be the sinne dwelling in him From whence observe That original sinne is an inherent in-dwelling sinne in us It is the sinne that sticketh fast to our Natures and dwels in us Some will confess That there is original imputed sin but not inherent where doth the Scripture call it so say they But first They grant original imputed sinne yet Where doth the Scripture call it imputed sinne And secondly we say The Scripture cals it inherent in this Text The sinne that dwelleth in us that is the same in sense with the sinne inherent in us So then original sinne is the sinne that dwelleth inheretit and abideth in us To open thus First Take notice That there are three kinds of sinnes as to our purpose Original Habitual and Actual Actual sinnes are all such which are a transgression of Gods Law whether by thought word or deed for the sinnes of the mind and the heart are actual sinnes though never committed bodily and externally Now these actual sinnes they cannot be called sinnes that dwell in us for they are transient and when committed they are passed away onely the guilt remaineth viz. An obligation to eternal wrath Neither doth the Apostle so much complain in this Chapter of the actings of sinne though that be part as the Law of sinne in his members which is the fountain of all In the next place There are Habitual sinnes such as are acquired by frequent acts and daily commissions of sinne and these indeed must be confessed to be in-dwelling and fixed sinnes in us and these habits of sinne do much intend and strengthen our original corruption making it more vigorous and if so be that custom be a second nature how miserable is an unfegerate man who hath as it were a two-fold nature inclining him to sinne Original corruption which is like an innate habit and custome in sinne which is like an acquired So that as the Scripture speaks of some who are twice dead so we may say These are twice alive in respect of their vigorous propensity to sinne Therefore the Scripture speaks sometimes of men that have these double chains of wickedness upon them Thus when the Apostle Rom. 3. 10 11 12 c. doth from several places in the Old Testament apply those things which are spoken of men in an high nature flagitious to every one by nature that doth comprehend both their innate and acquired impiety and therefore might well by the Apostle be applied to all because all by nature would be carried out to such enormous rebellions The Psalmist because of original and habitual sinne
Is it not because sin doth all in thee and flesh will not fight against flesh Vse 2. Why is it that even the most holy are to walk humbly to go out of themselves to lay fast hold on Christ and his righteousness is it not because they have such a treacherous enemy within that hindereth them in every holy duty Why also is there such a necessity of watching praying of holy fear and trembling Is not all this because of that secret deceitfull adversary within our own brests CHAP. IV. Of the Epithete Evil is present with us given to Original Sinne. SECT I. ROM 7. 21. I finde then a Law that when I would doe good Evil is present with me I Shall not for the present say any more in the general the may relate to the Explication of this Chapter especially of that conflict and combate mentioned therein as also in whose person he describeth it for all will be fully considered when we come to speak of the fruit and immediate effects of original sinne To come therefore immediately to the Text You may easily perceive that it is part of that paroxysme and spiritual agony Paul is in between the principles of good and evil working in him therefore he saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I find that is by experience As for Grotius who makes this no more than the combat of conscience with corruption which may be in natural men alledging places out of the Poets and Epictetus where some have said in the like manner they knew it was evil they did and they do not allow it but yet their frail flesh compelleth them to do it so that they do not what they would and what they would not that they do As also bringing in a Pagan out of Lactantius saying That he sinneth Non quia velo sed quia cogor the flesh being so strong in him These are but low and philosophical notions arguing the ignorance of the work of Gods Spirit in a man and the repugnancy thereunto by the unregenerate part But of this more in its time It is enough for the present to take notice that Paul saith of himself That he findeth this in him In the next place There is the object matter of this experimental discovery which in the Greek is something intricate and hath so tormented Interpreters that there are eight Expositions given to make the grammatical connexion Yea Erasmus is so bold that unless we receive the supply of that Ellipsis or defect he thinketh in Paul's speech which he giveth that we must confess Paulum balbituri but as Beza well saith Erasmus doth ineptire in saying so our Translators render it smooth enough I find a Law and then followeth the specifical description of it for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is taken many times 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is this That when I would do any good I cannot do it so fully so perfectly so freely because evil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is present with me it 's adjacent and pressing upon me it doth not signifie a meer presence of sense but the activity and vigorous motions of it Beza thinketh it an allusion to that which was spoken to Cain Gen. 4. 7. Sinne lieth at the door it is at hand upon all occasions in the punishment thereof to lay hold on a sinner howsoever if the simple word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth not signifie a bare simple nearness but that which is a burdensom destructive approximation as when it 's said Matth. 3. 10. The ax is laid to the root of the tree 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Original and so also some expound that 1 Tim. 1. 9. The Law is not made for the righteous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a burden imposed upon him by constraint for he hath a voluntary principle within If I say the simple word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be used so then much more the compound 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are called ' Diabolicae praepositiones because they do so intend the signification Paul then finds sinne alwayes at hand when his heart is ready to do any good to pull him back to press him down and so he is like the bird tied in a string which assaying to flie up to heaven immediately is plucked back again Now this sinne thus present is not actual habitual or an accustomed sinne Though Gratius relateth it to the custom of sinne even as he doth Lib. 2. de Jure belli cap. 12. 26. expound that of the Apostle By nature the children of wrath making nature to be custom saying The Apostle doth not so much speak of his own person as of the Romans amongst whom he then lived For Regeneration delivers from the custom of sinne but it is that original sinne that corrupt nature which doth alwayes cleave to us as the shadow doth the body or rather as the Ivy the Tree secretly consuming it From whence observe That original sinne is the adjacent sinne or the sinne that is alwayes troublesomly present with as So that whereas we may go from one company to another from one place to another yet we can never go from this original sinne but we carry it about with us at all times in all places in all duties and that even the most holy do whereby it is that they are kept so low and humble in themselves Why is it that when we are regenerated we should not be like Saints in Heaven without any spot or blemish Why should we not delight in God and heavenly things more than in earthly Why should there he the least difficulty and unwillingness in us to any thing that is good Is not all this because this sinne is thus readily present with us it lieth not at the door but in the very heart of us all But let us explain What is comprehended in this Epithete given original sinne That it is present with us SECT II. What is implied in that Epithete FIrst It implieth That this sinne putteth it self forth first in the soul The motions and thoughts of sinne arise first in us before grace can prevent them The Schoolmen speak of the motus primò primi the very immediate and first stirrings of the Soul before the will gives any consent or the mind hath any deliberation and these are sinnes because contrary to the Image of God But whence come they Even from this womb of original corruption So that it is like a furnace alwayes sending forth sparks The Scripture expresseth it notably Gen. 6. 5. where every imagination of the thought of the heart is said to be only evil and that continually Valentia Analysis Dis de peccato originali and other Papists complain That we aggravate originall sinne too much we speak too tragically about it and indeed the Subject is very distastfull to every man how unwilling is he to bear that he is all over thus sinfull This is to make them like Devils and
strengthen and inable it to be more vigorous and operative we may put more wood to this fire and so make it more dreadfull Even as these Pharisees though they were by nature the Serpents seed yet because of their voluntary and contracted malicious disposition in them superadded to the former our Saviour calleth them Generation of vipers Now although the Pharisees had this two-fold evil heart naturally and voluntarily yet I shall of the former onely and so handle it not as relating to the Pharisees but as it is a general Truth to be affirmed of every one till renewed by grace that he hath an evil treasure an evil heart within him And from thence observe That original sinne is the evil treasure that is in a mans heart Sometimes the heart it self is said to be evil to be desperately wicked but then it 's not taken physically as it 's a corpulent substance in a man but morally or theologically as it is the seat and principle of all evil For as the Sea hath all the Rivers in it from which they come and to which they return again so the heart is the fountain of all evil and all evil is seated in it coming from the heart and going back again to it But let us open this treasure which is not like the opening of that Alablaster Box which perfumed the whole house but like the opening of a noisom Sepulchre or dunghil from whence cometh only what is loathsome Therefore it 's not called a treasure in a good sense as commonly the word is used for we do not use to treasure up vile and loathsom things but because in a treasure there is plenty and fulness therefore is this evil heart this original pollution called a treasure and that very properly for these resemblances SECT II. How Original Sinne resembles a Treasure FIrst A treasure hath fulness and abundance A poor man that hath only money enough to discharge his daily expences is not said to have a treasure for that denoteth abundance more than enough Thus is original sinne deservedly called a treasure because it 's a fulness of wickedness As in Christ the treasures of wisdom are said to be in him Col. 2. 3. So in every man there is a treasure of folly and wickedness so that every man is rich enough to sinne let him be never so poor never so straitned not a morsel of meat to eat not a farthing to buy any thing with yet he hath a rich heart a full heart to sinne he is never destitute of plenty and power to do that which consideration should greatly humble thee to think in stead of that good treasure which God once put into my heart being throughly furnished with every grace now there is a treasure of evil now darkness is where all that light was evil and nothing but evil where all that good was Though thou art a rich man and a great man glorying in thy treasures of wealth yet the treasures of evil in thy heart may make thee fear and tremble Secondly Here is denoted in this expression That all sinne is potentially and seminally in our hearts For it 's not said to be an evil heart in some respect and as to some actings but indefinitely and generally an evil treasure of the heart Hence Rom. 3. 14 15. There are in man by nature crimson actual sins of the greatest guilt viz. The poison of Asps is under their tongues their mouth is full of cursing their feet are swift to shed blood c. These sins which some few of mankind only and those the worst of men do ordinarily commit yet they are attributed to every man by nature And why because there is the treasure of these in his heart you cannot name the vilest actions that are though for the present like Hazael thou wouldst defie such things saying Am I a dog a devil that I should do them yet did not God bind up this treasure of evil in thee as he doth the clouds that are his treasures of rain thou wouldst quickly be overwhelmed with them what trembling should this make in a mans heart when he shall consider there is not the vilest and most prophane atheistical man breathing but thy heart would carry thee out to do the like did not God say to this sea of corruption within thee Hitherto thou shalt go and no further It is because of this that David and other eminent godly men have fallen into such gross and loathsom sins that you would have thought they had not been in the least danger of that they were as farre from as the East from the West yet how quickly could these materials for sinne in their hearts ripen and break out into a flame How quickly did even the green Tree burn What then would the dry Tree do Look then upon thy self as the vilest sinner in the world in respect of thy principles and propencity to all sin Say it is not because I have a better nature I have less original sin in me but because God is pleased to put a restraint upon me Certainly if this will not make us like Job abhorre our selves as it were upon the dunghill what will Thirdly In that original sinne is compared to a treasure there is denoted the inexhausted nature of it though we sinne never so much yet the stock of sin is not quite spent As God because he hath a treasure of mercy and therefore said to be rich in grace though he sheweth never so much mercy and vouchsafeth never so much grace yet his treasure is not impoverished thereby he is as fully able to bestow fresh grace and new mercy to thee as if this were the first time that ever he began to be mercifull Thus though with great disproportion it is with a man that hath this evil treasure in his heart Though he sinne all the day long though from this abundance his mind thinketh his tongue speaketh his hand acteth that which is evil yet still his corruption is not abated yea it is the more strenghned and increased As it is with poisonous creatures though they vent never so much poison yet they cannot cast out the root and cause of it as long as they live So though a natural man be all the day long sending forth nothing but sinne and folly yet his heart is as full as ever this fountain is not dried up Therefore although it may fall out that many bodily sinnes cannot be any longer committed because the body groweth old and infirm yet this original sin is never weakned while a man is unregenerated but in a natural man though an hundred years old yet it is as vigorous and active as in youthfull sins It is reported of a liberal Emperour who was much in free munificence that he would say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Draw from me as from the River Nilus meaning that he would never be weary that he was like a fountain of which all travellers might drink yet he be as
trepidations of conscience about God arise from this because there is a secret perswasion thou and God art at a distance yea a contrariety one with another SECT VIII A Third particular is The losse of that love to God above all things which was implanted in Adam 's heart The moral Law being cograven in Adam he loved God with all his soul and might and that above all creatures yea above himself for seeing the debt and obligation upon Adam was to prefer God above all creatures yea Gods will and Gods glory above his own will and glory it stood not with that integrity God made him in to be defective in any of these but through Adam's apostasie now all is changed upside down Self-love is that which predominateth in every man a mans own will own good own pleasure and honour is the chiefest end aimed at so that now Gods will and honour is trampled under foot and all to set up our own selves insomuch that this self-love may almost be called the original sin in a man SECT IX FOurthly Another particular which is lost is That joy and delight which Adam had in God for as he loved God above all things so enjoying of him he did infinitely delight and rejoyce in him Though God made the creatures for Adam's delight Paradise was a place of delight yet these were but drops God was the Ocean Adam did then perfectly say which David did with some imperfection Whom have I in Heaven but thee And whom in earth in comparison of thee God was all things unto him But where is this divine delight Doth any natural man find any sweetness in holy things Is not all our joy a carnal a worldly a creature joy Certainly our joy and delights do as much discover the losse of Gods Images as any thing else whereas Adam would have daily rejoyced in God and in the honour and glory of God that he was magnified and exalted we naturally are not affected with these things CHAP. XI A further Consideration of Original Righteousness proving the thing and answering Objections against it SECT I. THe Privative Part of Original Corruption as it is the loss of Gods Image hath been treated of both in the general and the particulars Now that still we may the more throughly possess our souls with this unspeakable loss it is necessary to say something of Gods Image which man at first was created in For although I said that I would not enter into a large Tractate of it yet something must be necessarily spoken to it for if there be no such thing as original righteousnesse then there is no such thing as original sinne if there be no such thing as light there cannot be any such thing as darkness The Privation doth necessarily suppose an habit Hence the Socinians as they wholly deny this original sin we are treating of so do they also reject this original righteousness calling it as was said Faetida fabula an old stinking Fable an Idea feigned in mens brains of which there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not the least Title in the Scripture Vide Pertium Harmon It behoveth us therefore the more diligently to search into this truth For if Adam never had such glory and holiness put upon him then we his posterity could not lose it To inform our selves then herein Let us consider First That what Adam 's state of integrity was we cannot any wayes know but by the Scripture We have now no experience of it nor can any Philosophy or humane reason give us any direction therein Now there are two Rocks upon which the Adversaries of this Truth do split themselves The one is Judging of original righteousness or of man in his Creation according to the principles of moral Philosophy As if we were not to read Moses and Paul concerning this righteousnesse of Adam but Plato and Aristotle for humane Philosophers as they were wholly ignorant of original sinne supposing the soul to come into the world as an abrasa fabula a meer blank ready to receive good or evil yet inclining rather to good as Aristotle saith so they were wholly ignorant either of mans creation or if that were acknowledged of any imitation or change made upon man by his Apostasie Now this principle in effect the Socinian imbibeth For he saith There is no righteousness to be conceived in Adam but what was actual that there was no habitual infused into him but that he was created in a neutral and indifferent estate neither good or bad but to be made either of these as his free-will should put it self forth into action Thus you see how truly Tertullian of old said Philosophers were the Patriarchs of Heretiques for both Papists and Secintans judge of Adams first estate by principles of moral Philosophy The second Rock upon which the erroneous party in this great Truth destroyeth themselves at is The judging of man in his first Creation according to that which we feel in our selves now as if we should judge what wine is by the vinegar it 's degenerated into as if we should determine of a living body according to what we see in a dead carkass And truly we may say that from hence ariseth all Pelagianism Popery and Socinianism We passe a sentence upon the state we were created in by what we now feel in our selves as if God had not or could not make us otherwise As for instance because we now in our selves find the inferiour appetitive part rebel in it's motions against the rational therefore they conclude That this was at first in Adams Creation That this repugnancy is planted in our very constitution Yea a Remonstrant is not afraid to say It was in Christ himself because a man and why not then in the glorified Saints to all eternity seeing they shall after the Resurrection consist of soul and body also In this Position both Socinian Remonstrant and Papist do positively agree viz. That the repugnancy and rebellion which is between the rational and sensitive part doth arise from the very constitution of man It ariseth saith Bellarmine not from God but è conditione materiae from the condition of that matter of which God made him but doth not this arise because we see such a repugnancy is now in every man because there is none that can live now upon the earth without this rebellion therefore we conclude it was not alwayes so If then we would sail by these Rocks if we would be guided into this Divine Truth let us go out of our selves and out of all the traditions which Ethical Philosophy hath delivered unto us for that speaks only of what is acquired not of any thing infused or concreated with our natures but rather think this Image of God is so glorious a thing that we know not how to speak of it or to think of it we never had the actual enjoyment or working of it It is not with us as with men who hold a rich and plentifull
estate but are now fallen into extream poverty such can tell you by experience what a plentifull life they once lived Job could tell us what honour once he had and the abundance he enjoyed even when he sate scraping himself upon the dunghill he could experimentally compare his former estate and that together but so cannot we Indeed those common 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or dictates of nature whereby our consciences have some light to discern between good and evil may serve for some kind of conviction that once God did create us in a more knowing and holy estate but what it was and fully to conceive of it that we cannot do Hence In the second place It 's a very necessary thing in all men to be often meditating upon these two states and conditions of man his created state and his fallen estate his primitive condition and his present condition To compare the light men with his darknesse now his holinesse then with his impurity now his immortality then with his mortality now his Communion with God then and his estrangement or contrariety now for hereby his heart will be the more deeply humbled under his present miserable condition Those that make them both alike or assign a very little difference they neither duly consider what a glorious thing Gods Image was we were created in nor how deep and universal our pollution is Oh how dishonourable and dblasphemous is it to think we come out of Gods hands as we are now that at the first we had inclinations to sinne that there was a rebellion in us to what is good What is this but to say God made us at first the children of his wrath Oh pray that the scales may fall from thy eyes that thou beest not delivered up to this dangerous errour which is the broad way to perdition In the third place To understand the nature of that Image of God man was created in you must take heed of the Socinian Position who say God made man meerly an innocent even as a young child that he had not in his creation any holinesse infused into him but he was in a neutral and indifferent disposition to be actually good or wicked as his free-will did determine But this is to diminish the goodnesse of God who made man in such a distinguishing character to all other creatures except Angels for Angels and men they only were created after the Image of God That Adam was not created in such a negative frame of soul appeareth in that the Image of God is expresly said by Paul to consist in righteousnesse and true holinesse Now righteousnesse is more than a not being evil it denoteth an inherent positive perfection in the soul Hence Eccl 7. 30 God is there said To make man righteous The word Jashar is generally used to signifie as much as holy clean and pure It is not therefore for us to contradict so plain Texts of Scripture Hence the Psalmist Psal 8. 5. doth admire the goodnesse of God and his works to man especially in this That he hath made him but a little lower than Angels Oh then admire that glorious excellency God did at first put us into We were at first made but a little lower than those glorious Angels of God Therefore Chrysostem called Adam an earthly Angel Now compare thy present estate with this of Adams Art thou like an Angel Have Angels such blindnesse of mind such aversnesse to what is good such rebellious and unmortified thoughts in them as thou hast Nay Art thou not rather a Devil for pride for malice for opposition to what is good Was it thus with us from the beginning They therefore do most unthankfully rob God of all that glory and honour which is due to him that will affirm That God made him in such an indifferent neutral state neither righteous or unrighteous Surely then God could not have looked upon all the things that were made with that approbation They were exceeding god For though other creatures might be good in their kind with a natural goodnesse yet Adam was in his kind with a moral goodnesse Neither will the Socinian evasion help That by good there is meant convenient beautifull and proper for its end For let no more be granted but that it 's enough If Adam was not created with holinesse in his soul he was not made good in their sense that is not sutable and sit for his end For being created to know and love God and thereby to have a comfortable enjoyment of him How could he do this without wisdom in his mind and holinesse in his will And certainly we may not think that God gave every creature a goodnesse in its kind to obtain its particular end and not adorn man the noblest of visible creatures for his peculiar end The Scripture then is clear That man was at first made such an holy and blessed creature Let us consider what Reasons are objected against it by the Socinian party And First say they Adam could not be holy till he had done some actual holiness how could he be denominated righteous say they till he had acted something that was righteous But this argueth great ignorance as if there were no righteousnesse but what is acquired as if there were no infused habits of holinesse which denominate a man so before he doth that which is holy Were not the Angels made holy in their Creation before they acted what was holinesse Is not Christ himself Luke 1. called the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the holy thing before he did actually that which was holy yea the contrary is true therefore did Adam that which was actually holy because he was habitually holy As the Tree is first good and then the fruit good Adam then before his fall had both original and actual holinesse but the latter was an effect of the former and therefore he did one because he had the other Secondly It is objected by them That if Adam was made in the Image of God like him holy as he is holy then Adam could not sinne he would be impeceable even as God is But this is a weak cavil For though man be made holy as God is yet that is not by equality but proportion onely Were not the Angels made holy and yet for all that they sinned He then that is essentially and infinitely holy cannot sinne yea a creature when confirmed in holinesse by God cannot sinne as the elect Angels and glorified Saints but Adam though he was made holy yet was in a mutable and changeable estate and therefore he might sinne Quest But you will say Why did not this original Righteousnesse so farre defend him that he did not withstand the Devil more strongly he seemed to have little or no grace that was so easily ensnared by Satan and that in such a little matter when he enjoyed so much outward felicity Answ But to this we may answer That Adam and Eve they did not at
put forth those acts from the habits of faith and repentance he was created in as some have said but the whole Image of God being lost every gracious habit or act was then supernatural to him which before was natural Yet Suarez in his Disputations concerning the Creation of man saith That even the habits of repentance and mercy were in the state of integrity reducible into some acts though not into all as if I should sin I would abhorre it and bewail it if there were any miserable I would relieve him which saith he are not meer conditional acts in the understanding but presuppose a purpose in the will Again saith he Adam from those habits had a complacency in his mind and an approbation of such acts when they could be performed by him in a sutable state But I presse not these things Now although the habit of justifying Faith and Repentance were in Adam yet we cannot say They were in the Angels or in Christ because these were in a condition that did repugne the very habit of such acts as well as the acts themselves Thus by these Rules we see there is no kinde of grace imaginable but Adam's soul was adorned with it one way or other Oh then take up bitter lamentation and like Rachel refuse to be comforted because our loss is unspeakably greater than hers There remaineth not one grace of those glorious ones mentioned now in us and in stead of a power to any thing that was good we have an utter impotency thereunto and a proneness unto evil But you may ask How can original six be said to consist in this privation of original righteousnesse seeing that seemeth to be Gods act to deprive us of it and not ours To this the Answer is That we are not to conceive of God taking away this righteousnesse from us as if one man should spoil another of his garments but man by sinning did exclude and shut it out from his soul and having thus provoked God then God doth not continue and vouchsafe that grace to him which Adam had thus repelled so that God is not as an efficient infusing wickednesse into Adam's heart but he denieth that holinesse to him which by sinne was repelled as if a man should shut out the light from him and keep himself in the dark But I have spoken more fully already to this Objection CHAP. XIII Reason to prove That the Privation of Original Righteousnesse is truly and properly a Sinne in us SECT I. I Shall adde that there are four Reasons why this Privation of Original Righteousnesse is truly and properly a sinne in us And First Because the soul is a Subject fit and prepared for to receive this Righteousnesse This rectitude you heard was a moral perfection necessarily required in man The soul of a man cannot be in a neutral condition it must either have holiness or sinne in it As the air doth necessarily receive either light or darkness The body is either sick or well if then the soul be such a fit and capable subject of holiness when it is deprived of it it wants that which is sutable and connatural to it Insomuch that for the soul to be without this holiness it 's against the nature of it Why should such a spot and a blemish be in so glorious a creature How came spots in this Sunne As Idolaters are condemned because they turned the glory of God into the Image of a beast that eateth hay No lesse is done by Adam's Apostasie upon us all for we who were made Gods Image are now become like beast without understanding and yet this consideration will not debase and humble us Secondly This Privation is a sinne Because it is against the Law of God which requireth habitual holinesse in us It requireth the continuance in that state which God created us in This Definition of original sinne that it is a Privation of that rectitude which ought to be in us was first assigned by Anselme and Occham thought it insufficient unlesse there was added 〈◊〉 the Description a Privation arising from the sinne of another Because saith he Adam upon his sinne lost this Righteousnesse which ought to be in him yet we cannot say he had original sinne because it did not arise from a sinne of another but from his own transgression This is a needlesse subtilty for it was original sinne in Adam yea and in Eve though they did not derive it from one another because they did actively communicate this unto all their Posterity This Privation then of all glorious holinesse being against the Law of God as we have formerly shewed therefore it makes a man truly sinfull Thirdly It is a sinne Because Adam our Head and common Trustes once had this Righteousnesse So that it is a Righteousnesse which we were once actually possessed of in our Head God did not only say Let us make man after our Image but he did put it into execution he did make him after his image So that it 's a righteousnesse that we once had which now we have lost Lastly It is a sinne Because by Adam our Head we were deprived of it The Apostle saith positively Rom. 5 That by one sinne came upon all inasmuch as all have sinned viz. in him and by him Hence it is That his losing of this Image is our losing of it as really as if we had actually and personally deprived our selves of it And thus much shall suffice for the Doctrinal part of it but because it 's good to have our affections wrought upon as well as our judgements informed The next work shall be to give the Aggravations of this losse that so we may make a full improvement of this Truth CHAP. XIV The Aggravations of our Losse of GODS Image SECT I. I Shall conclude this Text with that particular Observation about it that relateth to the privative part in original corruption for we have abbreviated that vast and large Subject of original righteousnesse into a little compasse briefly informing concerning the Nature of it For howsoever Epiphanius as Pererius and Suarez say thought that it was impossible for any to determine wherein the Image of God doth consist yet Paul doth sufficiently explain Moses in this particular So that we need not run to those forced expositions of some who will have man in respect of his bodily constitution to bear the Image of God Therefore some say God did assume an humane shape and in that did make man whereby man in a bodily manner was made after his Image Others That it was so said Let us make man after our own Image in reference to the Incarnation of Christ who was in time to be made man For we have already heard that it was righteousnesse and holinesse in the soul which made man to be after Gods Image So that the Image of God was not in the body but as in signe a sign and demonstration of that Image in the soul It is true Christ
Pharisee to boast saying He was not a prophane grosse sinner like a Publican he did not wallow in bodily sinnes of the flesh for he was dangerously diseased with soul sinnes The flesh there made him abominable in the eyes of God for that which they did so highly exalt it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 before God What an heavy and sad deceit will this prove when thou shalâ— find that wherein thou blessest thy self and applaudest thy self in will be thy condemnation as Christ told the Pharisees Moses in whom ye trust he will condemn you Oh that this Truth might be like a sword piercing into the secrets of your heart How wilt thou be overwhelmed when that which thou hopest will save thee that will damn thee There is a carnal Religion there is a fleshly devotion in which men putting their confidence may thereby be condemned as well as by grosse prophanenesse Certainly this confidence in what religious duties we perform as some at the last day will plead Have not we prophesied and wrought miracles in thy Name doth insensibly and incurably damn the greatest part of formal Christians and it is very hard to make them discern or judge themselves carnal in this To trust in the arm of flesh they will acknowledge quickly to be a sinne but to trust and rest in the holy duties they have performed out of this sinne no sonnes of Boanerges can awaken them Fourthly A man is naturally carnal in all his religious performances Because when he dâ—h them it is not out of any love to God to exalt and honour him but out of love to himself thinking thereby to aveiâ— some judgement or other It is true we deny not but it's lawfull to serve God to be humbled for sinne with respect to our own good that we may escape temporal evil but yet we are not to do it principally and chiefly for this we are not to uti Deo and frui Creaturis to enjoy the creatures for themselves as the utmost end and make use of God only for our outward help as John 6. 26. our Saviour told the multitude that followed him That they did seek him only because they did eat of the loaves and were siled This is a fundamental principle of flesh in every man by nature not to love himself subordinately to God but God subordinately to himself which is a sinne of a very high nature and immediately opposing the great majesty of God They worship God upon no other reason then what some Heathens did sacrifice to the Devils Tantùm ne noceant That they might do them no hurt I 〈◊〉 not then out of any love to God or desire to magnifie him but wholly for their own ends and hence it is that they alter and change the worship and wayes of God as they please and as it serveth for any political interest as you see in Jeroboam and other wicked Kings Whence is all this but because they make themselves the Alpha and Omega Et Deus non erit Dens nisi homini placuerit How could men thus break the statutes and ordinances of God but because they make their own advantages the supreme Law as if God were for them and they not for him Hence it is also that the Scripture complaineth so much of men Walking in their own Imaginations And Jeroboam 1 King 12. 33. is branded for this that he set up such a worship and Ministry that he had devised of his own heart This then is a sure demonstration of our fleshly minds that in our worship and duties we regard not divine Institutions and Gods Rule but attend only to what is subservient to our purpose Now the foundation of all this is because we do not look upon God as supreme to whom all our senses should bow but referre him and his glory to our selves The Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 16. speaketh of knowing Christ after the flesh and so there is also a knowing of God after the flesh which is when we doe not things purely and sincerely out of respect to his Name but for our own profit and benefit Take heed then of this fleshly frame in thy approaches to God Fifthly The fleshly mind of a man is seen in his spiritual transactions between God and himself In that he doth wholly conceive and imagine such a God and Christ not as the Scripture represents but as he would have and doth most suit with his carnal disposition This is greatly to be observed for because of this though they hear never so much of God and Christ yet because they think them to be such as they would have a God of their own making a Christ of their own making therefore they never truly repent or turn unto God for concerning God they conceive him as altogether mercifull They never think he is a just and holy God They attend not to the sury and vengeance which the Scripture saith is in him against obstinate and impenitent sinners but apprehend him to be one that loveth them and will save them though they go on in all rebellious wayes against him The Psalmist doth notably speak to this purpose Psal 50. 21. where having spoken of such hypocrites that will come and worship God though they retain their old lusts and live in all impurity he addeth Thou thoughtest I was altogether such an one as thy self They thought God was not provoked with such abominations they thought God would not be angry with them as if he were like themselves And doth not this still continue true in most prophane men Why is it that they do not tremble under the name and thoughts of God Why is it that they roar not out with fear lest God should damn them Is it not because they make a God like themselves They love themselves and acquit themselves they easily think well of themselvs and therefore they think God will do so also and thus they do likewise with Christ They represent him to be a Saviour and a Saviour only They consider not that he died to conquer the Devil to make us a peculiar people zealous of good works They attend not to the purifying and cleansing power of Christs death from the strength and power of lusts within as well as from the guilt and damnation by it which being so they can trust in Christ and put their whole hope in Christ although they live in all disobedience at the same time and therefore whereas we might wonder how prophane men can live as they do Where are their thoughts of God and Christ Why are they not stricken with astonishment when they hear of them Alas you may cease to wonder for the Scripture God the Scripture-Christ in the Scripture-way they do not think of but a God and a Christ which is a meer Idol in their own hearts set up by themselves Sixthly The fleshly mind of a man is seen in running into extreams and so never submitting themselves to Gods word which is alwayes the same So
powers of the soul must necessarily move sinfully and inordinately The soul of a man is alwayes working one way or other if then it hath lost original righteousnesse it cannot but be hurried on to what is evil as if you take away the pillar on which a stone liethh presently that will fall to the ground If you spoil the strings of musical instruments immediately they make a jarre and ingratefull noise upon every moving of them The soul of a man is a subject immediately susceptible of righteousnesse or corruption and if it lose its righteousnesse then by natural necessity corruption cometh in the room of it and so when the understanding acts it acteth sinfully when the will moveth it moveth sinfully So that we may well say with Austin to the Pelagian demanding How this corruption could come into us for God was good and nature good Quid quaeris latentem rimum cum habes apertam jannam Not a cranny but a gate or door is open for this corruption to seize upon us SECT IV. Application BEfore we come to answer the Objections Let us affect our hearts with it and labour to be humbled under the consideration of this positivenesse and efficacy of it For first Hereby we see that if it be not restrained and stopped by God we know not where we should stay in any sinne What Cain's what Judas's would we not prove Who can say Hitherto I will goe in sinne and no further for there is a fountain within thee that would quickly overflow all This active root of bitternesse this four leaven within thee would quickly make thy life like Job's body full of ulcers and noisome sores If thou art not plunged in the same mire and filth as others are doe not say Thou hast lesse of this corruption than they Thou art borne more innocent than they onely God stops thee as he did Balaam from doing such wickednesse as thy heart is forward enough unto No Serpent is fuller of poyson no Toad of venome than thou art of sinne which thou wouldst be constantly committing were not some stop put in the way Secondly In that sinne is thus positive and inclining thee thou art the more to admire the grace of God if that work a contrary inclination and propensity in thee If thou art brought with Paul To delight in the Law of God in the inward man If thy heart pants after God as the Hart after the waters which once delighted in sinne which once longed after nothing but the satisfying of the flesh Oh admire this gracious miraculous work of God upon thy soul who hath made thee to differ thus from thy selfe The time was once when thou rejoycedst in those sinnes that are now matter of shame and trembling to thee The time was when thy heart was affected with no other good than that of the creature Thou didst know no other desire no other but that but now God hath made iron to swimme he hath made the Blackmoor white Oh blesse God for the least desires and affections which thou hast at any time for that which is good for this cometh not from thee it is put into thee by the grace of God Lastly Consider that this positivenesse of sinne in thee doth not onely manifest it self in an impetuous inclination to all evil but also a violent resistance of whatsoever is good The Apostle Rom. 8. calleth it Enmity against God and Rom. 7. he complaineth of it as warring and fighting against the Law of his minde And certainly this is a very great aggravation not onely to be without what is good but to be a desperate enemy and a violent opposer of it both in others as also to that which the Spirit of God by the Word would worke in our own hearts not onely without the remedy but full of enmity against it Doth not this make our condition unspeakably wretched Certainly this is the highest aggravation in original sinne that we are not onely unable to what is good but we are with anger and rage carried out against it as if good were the onely evil and sweetnesse the onely bitternesse CHAP. XVII Objections against the Positive Part of Original Sinne answered SECT I. Cautions Premised THere remain only some Objections against this Truth but before we answer them take notice First That although we say original sinne is more than a privation of that Righteousnesse which ought to be in man yet We do not make it to be like some infecting corporeal quality in the body that hereby should vitiate the soul and as it were poison that Lombard and some others especially Ariminensis Distinct 30. They seem to deliver their opinion so as rejecting Anselm's definition of original sinne making it to be want of that original righteousnesse which ought to be in us and do declare it to be a morbida qualitas some kinde of pestilential and infecting quality abiding in the body and thereby affecting the soul As when the body is in some phrenetical and mad distempers the soul is thereby disturbed in all its operations so that these make the want of original righteousness to be the effect of original sinne not the nature of it saying upon Adam's sinne Man becoming thus defiled God refused to continue this righteousness to him any longer But if these Schoolmen be further questioned How such a diseased pestilential quality should be in the body Some say it was from the forbidden fruit that that had such a noxious effect with it but that is rejected because that was made of God and all was exceeding good Arimineâ—sis therefore following as he thinketh Austin maketh this venemous quality in a mans body to have its original from the hissing and breath as it were of the Serpent he conceiveth that by their discourse with the Serpent there came from it such an infectious air as might contaminate the whole body and he saith Austin speaks of some who from the very hissing and air from Serpents have been poisoned But the Protestants they do not hold it any positive quality in this sense for this is to make the body the first and chiefest subject of original sinne and so to convey it to the soul whereas indeed the soul is primarily and principally the seat of original sinne We therefore reject this as coming too near Manicheism as if there were some evil and infectious qualities in the very nature and substance of a man Secondly It must be remembred what hath been said before That when we come to give a particular reason why the understanding or will are propense to any evil We can assign only a privative cause viz. Because it wants that rectitude which would regulate it as if a ship it's Anselm's comparison were without Pilot and Governour of tacklings let loose into the whole Ocean it would be violently hurried up and down till it be destroyed Thus man without this Image of God would be tossed up and down by every lust never resting till he had
thus it is no wonder if original sinne which doth so tenaciously and inwardly adhere to all natures be transmitted to every one born in a natural way The last Objection is That there is no necessity of supposing such an habitual vitiosity in a man It 's enough say they that a man be deprived of the Image of God and when that is lost of it 's own self man's nature is prone to evil It needs no habitual inclination to weigh him down as if a wild beast be tied in cords and chains lose him unty him and of himself he will runne into wild and untamed actions But to answer this First The Papists they cannot consequentially to their principles say thus For they hold That if this Image of God be removed he doth continue in his pure naturals there is no sinne inhering in him upon the meer losse of that For they confesse That although by acting from his pure naturals he could not deserve Heaven or love God as a supernatural end yet in an inferiour way as the ultimate natural end so he might love God and that above all other things But secondly That is granted This positive inclination to all evil followeth necessarily from the removal of this Image of God from us If the Sunne be removed then necessarily darknesse doth cover the face of the soul If the loco-motive faculty be interrupted then there is nothing but halting and lamenesse Disturb the harmony and good temperament of the humours and then immediately diseases and pains do surprize the whole man It cannot therefore be avoided that when this disorder is come upon the soul but that our lusts break out as at a flood-gate and we are in a spiritual deluge all over covered with the waters of sin but then here is a positive as well as a privative Besides It is not for us to be curious in giving a reason of such positive corruption in a man by nature it is enough that Gods word is so clear and full in the discovery of it that he must needs wilfully shut his eyes that will not be convinced by the light of Gods word herein And this may suffice to dispel that darknesse which some would have covered this Truth with and as for what knowledge about this positivenesse of original corruption is further necessary We shall then take notice of it when we speak of original sinne as it is called lust or concupiscence SECT III. LEt therefore the Use from the former Doctrine delivered be To affectus and wound us at the very heart that we are thus all over covered with sin that we have not an understanding but to sin a will but to sin an heart but to sin May not this be like a two edged sword within thee What will fire thee out of all thy self-confidence thy self-righteousnesse if this doe not What delight what comfort canst thou take by beholding thy self by looking on thy self thus corrupted and depraved And the rather let this consideration go to the very bottom of thy soul Because First Thy propensity and inclination is to that onely which God onely hateth which God onely loatheth and hath decreed to punish with his utmost wrath to all eternity Consider that sinne is the greatest evil All the temporal evils in the world are but the effect of it that is the cause Now can it ever humble thee enough to think that the whole bent and constant tendency of thy soul is unto that which is the most abominable in the eyes of God Thou canst not do that which is more destructive to thy own soul and more dishonouring unto God then by committing sinne and yet thou canst do nothing else thou delightest in nothing else Thy heart will not let thee do any thing else Look over thy whole life take notice how many years thou hast lived and yet if not regenerated and delivered in some measure from the power of original corruption thou hast done nothing but sinned Every thought hath been a sinne every motion a sinne within thee and yet sinne is the greatest evil and that alone which God hateth Secondly If yet thy heart be hard and nothing will enter take a second naile or wedge to drive into thee and that is being thus all over carried out to sinne not the least good able to rise in thy heart that hereby the very plain Image of the Devil is drawn over thee Hence it is that wicked men are said to be of their Father the Devil and he is said to rule in the hearts of the children of disobedience Ephes 2. What a wofull change is this to be turned from a Sonne of God to become a Devil While Adam retained the Image of God God abode with him and in him there was a near union with God but upon his Apostasie the Devil taketh possession of all and so now man is in a near union with the Devil Every mans soul is now the Devils Castle his proper habitation The Spirit of God is chaced away and now thy heart is made an habitation for these Satyrs Thy soul is become like an howling wildernesse wherein lodge all beastly lusts whatsoever Thou that wouldst account it horrible injury to be called beast and Devil yet thy original sinne maketh thee no lesse Thirdly This further may break thy heart if it be not yet broken enough that hereby thou art utterly impotent and unable to help thy self out of this lost condition For how can a dead man help himselfe to live again How can thy crooked heart be ever made straight unlesse a greater power than that subdue it If thou didst judge thy condition an hopelesse one as to all humane considerations then thou wouldest tremble and have no rest in thy selfe till God had delivered thee out of it Lastly Let this also further work to thy Humiliation that being thus positively inclined to all evil not onely proper and sutable temptations draw out thy sinnes but even all holy and godly remedies appointed by God they do increase this corruption the more And is not that man miserable whose very remedies make him more miserable Doth not the Apostle complain sadly of that Law of sinne in him even in this respect that by this means the Law wrought in him all evil The more holy and spiritual the Law was the more carnal and sinfull was he thereby occasioned to be Oh then What wilt thou do when good things make thee evil spiritual things make thee more carnal CHAP. XVIII A second Text to prove Original Sinne to be Positive opened and vindicated SECT I. ROM 7. 7. For I had not known lust except the Law had said Thou shalt not covet WE are discovering the Nature of original sinne in the Positive part of it For although Corvinus the Remonstrant cavilleth at the Division of original sinne into two parts therein gratifying the Papists as it were yet we see the Scripture speaking of it fully as having these two parts And whereas
very usefull to name them for hereby God is wholly cleared although he created man and fore-knew he would fall yea permitted him to fall yet he was no cause of his fall neither did God make Adam that he might sinne as some would calumniate the Orthodox Doctrine with such consequences Even as Austin's adversaries said he did Sub nomine gratiae asserere fatum because we do not make God an idle Spectator as it were of Adam's fall or make it wholly uncertain and casual as it were to God but acknowledge his permission and ordination of Adam's evil to a better good than his evil could be evil therefore it is that some do so paratragediate Take we heed then that in the acknowledging of this Doctrine we have no froward or foolish though â—s rising against God Adam's destruction and of all his posterity was of and through himself The next thing considerable in the Description is the propagating and communicating of it to all his posterity that naturally descend from our first Parents This also is very material to open the nature of this sinne that it 's by propagation Adam's sinne was not personal as ours are but common to the whole nature Therefore the Apostle Rom. 5. putteth it upon one sinne or offence and that by one man The Pelagians were vehement opposers of this and therefore called the Orthodox Traduciani because they hold the traduction of this original sinne Adam being a common person and he as our Head being in Covenant with God when he became a Covenant-breaker then we all forfeited all in and by him So that it 's the Covenant of God that is the foundation of communicating original sinne as farre as sinne can be communicated to all mankind yet natural generation is the medium or way of conveying it But of this more in it's time It followeth in the Description That this original sinne as it is by propagation so to all and every one of mankind who were in his loins for Christ was not properly in Adam 's loins and so his sinne could not be imputed to Christ because Adam was not in Covenant for him otherwise not the Virgin Mary or any other is exempted from this universal pollution So that here we have the Subjectum praedicationis as formerly inhaesonis that subject of whom this sinne may be predicated and that is every Infant new born as soon as he hath a being so soon doth he become thus all over stained and abominable and this should make Parents have sad and serious thoughts about their children there is that corruption planted in their souls which no instruction no discipline can eradicate nay the grace of God sanctifying doth not wholly expel in this life Although the grace of God in some Obed-Edoms and Timothies appear in them from the youth yet these were by nature dead in sinne and children of wrath onely Gods grace was very wonderfully conveyed unto them in their youth or infancy Do not therefore think that because thou hast a more ingenuous civil and moral nature that therefore original sinne is not in thee yea many times the actings and workings of it are more mortiferous and pestilential than in grosse sinners But let us proceed to the parts as it were essential and intrinsecally constituent of this depravation and that is said to be the losse of Gods glorious Image and thereby a proneness to all evil we need not say more to explicate these particulars As in hell there is a privative part the losse of the enjoying of God and then a positive punishment through the torments of hell fire Thus in original sinne we are without the Image of God There is not that light or holiness he created us in and withall an impetuous inclination to whatsoever is evil So that now all the powers of the soul they move inordinately and with great precipitancy as Seneca saith of old men because of their feebleness Dum ambulare volunt currunt they do not walk but runne Thus our affections our will they do not so much go as tumble headlong to their objects Hence Tanrellus Tryumphus Philos pag. 18. maketh original sinne to be nothing but impotentia naturam cohibendi that we cannot stop nature in the impetuous motions thereof to sinne no more than we can the violent torrents and streams of water in excessive floods In these two things then lieth the whole venom and poison of this natural filthiness we are without all good and under the dominion of all evil and this is to speak all the misery that possibly a man can be capable of In the last part we adde in the description a two-fold effect of this natural defilement which although they are to be treated of in a more large manner with all the particular effects of this sinne or some of them at least yet in the general something is to be said that we may affect our souls with them And First Hereby we are made obnoxious to the curse and wrath of God Even before any actual sin is ever committed for this Infants dying immediately upon their birth may justly be damned to all eternity This is that which carnal reason strometh at This is that which the nature of man will hardly yeeld to Therefore the position of many have been That there is nothing damnable in Infants And although some would not admit them into the Kingdom of Heaven yet freed them from the place of the damned but we must submit our humane reason and our humane affections to the Scripture if so be that Gods word saith We are by nature children of wrath If Jesus Christ be a Saviour to Infants as well as to men if he came to redeem them as well as actual sinners then of themselves their condition was damnable for Christ came to seek that which was lost and the whole need not the Physitian but the sick Oh then let us all humble our selves under this sentence of condemnation passed upon us God might say of every Infant In the day thou art born thou shalt be damned and it is the meer gracious favour of God that deferreth the execution of this sentence for till a man be in Christ he is not freed from this curse only God in much patience doth put off the execution The second effect is To be under the power and dominion of the Devil Eph. 2. The Devil is said to rule in the hearts of men and is therefore called The Prince of this world regeneration is not only subduing of corruption in us not only repairing the glorious Image of God which we have lost but also a dispossessing of the devil who had a throne in every mans soul By nature therefore because thus polluted we are vassals and bondslaves to Satan we are of him we do his works The bodily possessed by Satan were not more miserably agitated by him then our souls are spiritually by him what he tempts us to we obey what he suggests to us we
not onely teach us there is such a sin but that it was so hainous and abominable in the eyes of God that no sin hath ever been punished like this SECT III. THirdly Those reliques of the Image of God and some implanted dictates and notions with a natural conscience accusing and excusing These do demonstrate that there was a glorious Image of God in us but we have lost it There is something in all men by nature whereby they are convinced of a God have remorse upon sinne and tremble much when they are dying Now what are all these but the rubbidge and obscure remnants of that holy estate we were created in So that as when any famous building or great City are brought to ruine yet commonly there remain some fragments or others that witness there was such a famous place once Thus those implanted Dictates of conscience those natural apprehensions about a God though they are very confused and cannot be a star to guide us to Christ yet they remain as monuments of that spiritual excellent building It is true Illyricus out of his vehement desire to aggravate original sin in us denieth that those common notions about God or good and evil are naturally in us but that they are de novo infused into us by God and manifested wherein also he hath some followers but if such natural dictates remain in the Devils which is plain because otherwise they could not be so tormented for their wickedness as they are why should it be denied to man The Socinian also denieth any implanted notion about a God and that the knowledge of him comes by observation of the creatures and also by education and tradition but experience as well as Scripture confuteth this in which respect Tertullian said O animan naturaliter Christianum It 's true some more orthodox dispute Whether the faculty of the understanding in its operations only continueth or that there are habitual principles inhering in it It is enough that there remaineth a conscience in man which like Job's messenger can inform us though very obscurely of that sad loss which hath befallen us SECT IV. FOurthly This may evidently convince us of our original pollution That it is farre worse with man now in respect of the end he was created unto and the nature he was constituted in then with any other creatures This plainly argueth mans apostasie from God for all creatures in their kind live proportionably and obtain their end which is usefulness and serviceableness to man only man neither liveth according to his nature rightly considered and withall doth miserably fall short of that glorious end for which God made him If you consider man in his nature he is a reasonable creature and so ought to walk according to the principles of reason to do nothing against the rules thereof now all men are by original corruption become like bruit beasts that have no understanding Hence the Scripture doth so often compare them to beasts yea prefer beasts before them The sluggard is commanded to go to the Ant Israel is said to be worse than the Stork that knoweth her season and the Ox or Ass that know their masters crib Why doth the Scripture speak thus but to shew that beasts do in their kind surpass man in his kind Every wicked man is called a fool and a simple one because when he sinneth he goeth against the dictates of true reason and this is the condition of all men till regenerated by grace they do not consider what God made them for or why they have immortal and rational soules Take the Drunkard is not he worse then a beast doth the beast drink any more then will suffice nature insomuch that we may truly say all by nature are become spiritual monsters for as a monster in nature is when nature is deficient or redundant in her operations and so worketh not regularly Thus also when a man doth not keep the rules of reason and live as one who hath a rational soul he becomes like a monster and so ought to abhor himself Oh then loath thy self and say every creature liveth like its kind The horse doth as an horse should do the ox as the ox should do but I miserable and wretched sinner do nothing that a man should do Again The beasts and so all creatures although they are subject to vanity and groan under a curse because of mans sin yet they do not fall short of the end they were intended for God he made man to serve him and all the creaturs to serve man and thus they do still though a great part of this dominion man bath by his sin justly deprived himself of yet the Sun giveth light to him The earth brings forth her fruit for him some living creatures are daily slain for his food and cloathing what shoals of fish and flocks of birds do at some seasons of the year present themselves as if they should say here we appear to serve you and this is the utmost perfection they were made for But come to man he was made to serve the Lord therefore did God furnish him with all these mercies that he might the more willingly and diligently obey him but instead of God he serveth Gods enemies he serves sin in the Insts thereof he serveth the devil in his desires Thus of all the creatures God made next to the devils man is in the most bitter and undone estate So that this must needs stop thy mouth against all cavils if there be no original sin Why is man worst in his kind than any other creature in their kind Yea see the most savage beasts agree well enough with one another one Wolf with another one Tyger with another yet one man is a Wolf and a Devil to another When did you ever hear of a company of Bears going out to fight with another company of Bears Yet what is more ordinary than to hear of one army of men going out to kill and slaughter another Can we say God made man thus vile and sinfull What intollerable blasphemy would it be Oh then let us roll our selves in the dust Let us say we are not worthy the name of men we are become beasts yea worse than beasts Say not This is to vilifie and to debase man too much No this is the only way to perform that duty which not only Scripture but even Heathens have admired as revealed from Heaven Noscâ— teipsum Know thy self Doth not that expression in Job abundantly confirm this Chap. 11. 12. Vain man would be wise though man be born like a wild asses colt A colt the asses-colt and a wild asses-colt such a stupid senssess thing is man though he would be wise SECT V. 5. MAn is originally defiled Because that which is the most noble and excellent part in him is captivated and inslaved to what is inferiour unto it This was so greatly considered of by the Platonists as you heard that therefore they thought the souls
by the power of God detained here on earth that the glory of Christ might be exalted he doth unite this soul though with pollution to the body Now Gods uniting of the sinfull soul to the body did not make him the cause of any sinne therein Because he united it as part of that man who yet was not wholly purged from sinne Now the reason why the soul is created not as a perfect substance in it self is Because it 's the forme of man not an assisting forme and therefore is not in the body as when an Angel did assume bodies or as a man in his house or as a Musician useth an Instrument but a form informing whereby it is made an intrinsecal essential part of a man The truth of this will give much light to our point in hand the soul is created by God The informing forme of a man and so hath no other consideration but as an essential part of him and therefore seeing the man is in Adam whose soul this is that is thereby exposed to all the sinne of Adam Hence it is that there is some difference between the creation of Angles and the Chaos at first which were made absolutely of nothing and of the soul For the soul though it be created of nothing yet because a form hath an essential respect to its matter for which cause Contarenus as Zanchy saith affirmed The soul had a middle way of being between Creation and Generation and therefore is that distinction of some learned men that though the soul be not ex materiâ yet it is in materiâ God did not create it but in the body though not of the body and thus farre it may be said to be of man as that he is the cause though not of the being of the soul yet of the being of it n this body The third Proposition The soul being thus created an essential part of a man and the form informing of him Hence it is That we must not conceive the soul to be first created as it were of it self subsisting and then infused into the body but when the materials are sufficiently prepared then as the Schoolmen expresse it well Infundendo creatur and creando infuditur it 's infused by the creating of it and created by infusing So that the soul is made in the body organized not without it so the Scripture Zech. 12. 1. Who formeth the spirit of man with him and because of the souls unon to the body when thus disposed Hence it is that man may truly and univocally be said to beget a man though his soul be created for seeing man who is the compositum is the Terminus generationis Hence it is that man begets man as well as a beast though the soul of a beast be from the matter as we see in Christ the Virgin Mary is truly said to be the mother of Christ though she was not the mother of his Divine Nature nor of his soul Thus man doth properly beget another man though the soul be by Creation as the matter also according to Philosophy is ingenerable because the soul is united to the body prepared and disposed for it by man from which union resulteth the whole person or compositum consisting of soul and body So that although man be not the cause of his childs souls being yet that it hath a being in this body and thereby such a person produced he is the cause of it and by this if well understood you may see original sinne communicated to every one though the soul be created In that way which the humane nature is communicated to every one So that if we truly know how a man is made a man from his parents we may also know how sin is thereby also communicated The fourth Proposition is Although God doth daily create new souls yet his Decree and Purpose to do so was from all eternity And therefore in this respect we may say all men consisting of souls and bodies were present to God in Adam in respect of Gods Decree and also his Covenant with Adam so that although there be a new Creation yet there is no new institution or ordination on Gods part Whereas therefore it 's thought hard that because Adam was so many thousand years ago the soul created now should partake of his sinne The Answer is That in respect of Gods Decree and Covenant we were all present to God in Adam There is no man hath his being De Novo but unto God he was present from eternity so that though the things in time have a succession of being yet to God all are present in eternity Not that we can say they were actually sinners or actually justified but in respect of Gods purpose all were present and this will help much to facilitate this difficulty we are as present to God in respect of his Decree and knowledge as if we had been then actually in Adam in which sense it 's said Omnes fuerunt ille unus homo and Act. 15. 18. Known to God are all his works from the beginning The fifth Proposition Hence it is that the just and wise God is not to alter and change that course of nature because man hath sinned It is vain to say Why will God unite this soul to the body when thereby both shall be polluted For though man hath by his sinne deserved that this should be yet God is not therefore to cease of the continuing and multiplying of mankind God doth keep to the fixed course of nature notwithstanding mans sinne And therefore we see that even to those who are begot in fornication and whoredome yet even to such in that unlawfull act God giveth souls because he will not interrupt the course of nature The sixth Proposition Adam by his first transgression did deserve that all who should be of him should be deprived of the Image of God and the privation of that doth necessarily inferre the presence of all sinne in a subject susceptible As take away light from the air and it must be dark so that this Proposition answereth the whole difficulty Adam deserved by his transgression that all his posterity should become dead in sinne and as he had thus deserved it so God had ordained it and appointed it The soul then of every one being made part of that man who is thus cursed in Adam it becomes deprived of the Image of God and so full of sinne So that although God create the soul naturally good yet because part of man condemned by his sentence he denieth it that original righteousnesse it once had God doth not infuse any evil into the soul nor is the Author of any sinne therein but as a just Judge denieth that righteousnesse which otherwise the soul might have had So that you must not look for an efficient cause of original sinne in the soul but a deficient and a meritorious cause So that the Summe is this If you ask How cometh the soul defiled if created of
superiority and preheminency the mind is now debased and this light is put now not under a bushel but a dunghill God indowed man with understanding that it might be like a Queen in the soul directing and ordering all actions to true happiness Though the will be chief in power and efficacy yet the understanding is in direction and counsel Insomuch That the will is called caeca potentia a blind power of the soul being essentially subordinated to follow the dictates of the understanding and if the will be thus subordinate that is called a rational power participativè though not formaliter no wonder then if the sensitive and affectionate part of a man his love his grief his anger these were not to rise or stirre but as the understanding did give orders to them Thus was the understanding of a man placed in him as the Sunne in the Firmament to give light to all the powers of the soul but now by original corruption it 's dethroned it 's ejected out of its power and is made a servant to every lust that reigneth in the will and the affections hence it cometh about That whatsoever a mans corrupt heart carryeth him unto presently the mind of man being like a bribed advocate pleadeth for the lawfullness and the necessity of it It is true indeed we have a rule in Divinity Nemâ— potest credere quia vult No man can believe a thing to be true meerly because he will but yet the will and affections can so divert the understanding or put mists and pretences before it that now it 's become like the Sunne in a foggy misty day that cannot put forth its light so that if you do ask What is the true original cause of all heretical opinions and corrupt practises you may say It 's because the mind doth not keep up its primitive power As the reason given in the Judges why so much Idolatry and other wickednesse was committed was because there was no King no Governour in Israel every one did that which was right in his own eyes Thus if you aske Whence is that confusion in a mans opinion in a mans practices It 's because the mind of a man is degraded the will is carried out to what it listeth every sinfull affection and passion doth what it pleaseth So that whereas all our affections and actions should have their first rise from the guidance of the minde Now our lusts and affections doe first move and then the understanding is imployed to defend and excuse the lawfulnesse of them Oh then bewail this sad desolation come upon thee Thy minde and judgement are become slaves and vassals to every unlawfull way to plead for that to defend that to excuse that Thus as the Scripture when it speaketh of a civil desolation making a confusion upon the Governours thereof saith The heavens are turned into blacknesse or The Sunne and Moon into blood so it is now upon the face of a mans soul if reason and judgement were strong enough to doe their office there would not be that insolency of the affections and rebellion in our wils which doth now wholly overpour us The second thing in this particular is The subordination of it to God and to his Rule The mind of a man did then wholly follow the Rule God had prescribed it To believe to think to judge as the Rule was but now it 's become heretical It 's prone to choose an opinion of its own a Doctrine of its own Although the word Heresie in it self signifie neither good or evil and therefore in Eusebius Constantine applieth it to the Christian Religion calling it heresie as Tertullian doth the Christian Religion Secta a Sect yet in Ecclesiastical Writers if not constantly in the Scripture it is used in an ill sense and signifieth an election or adhering to a way of our own devising and not that which is commanded by God Tertullian cals Adam's sinne heresin because committed of his own choice against Gods will Insomuch that though there may be many particular causes of heresies as ignorance pride discontent covetousness and such carnal principles yet the main is that proneness in the mind to lift up it self against God and his Rule having lost its primitive subordination to God This want of subordination to God and the Scriptures is notably seen in Heretiques who when they perceive Scripture against them rather then submit they will be guilty of Scripture-slaughter as Tertullian called it Marcion saith he cometh not with Stilo sed Machara draweth his sword and detruncateth a great part of Scripture Others though not so audacious yet because they will not submit do not Materiam ad Scripturas but Scripturas and Materiam accommodare not submit their opinions to the Scripture but the Scripture to their opinions Valentinus openly professed He did amend the Gospel Seventhly Herein is original corruption greatly depriving the mind of a man In that it maketh a man proâ—e to deceive and cosen himself so that sinne is presented as sweet or profitable and good to be imbraced holy things are presented as difficult and irksom Especially this self-deceiving is seen in the judging of our selves good and right when indeed we are abominable and loathing to God Whence is it that every mans ways are clean in his own eyes Whence is it that every man is a Pagmalion in love with himself or rather a Pharisee to justifie himself Yea as it is Psal 50. 21. They judge of God like themselves loving what they love pleased with what they please As the Ethiopians though Christians yet worshipping the Virgin Mary paint her like a Blackmore because they are black Now what a fearfull pollution is this to deceive our selves about God about sin about godliness our own souls So that when we can have a pretence or a colour to justifie our selves then we rejoyce This self-deceiving is often taken notice of by the Scripture 2. Pet. 2. 13. Gal. 6. 3. 1 Cor. 6. 9. Jam. 1. 22. it's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deceiving your own selves putting a fallacy or a false syllogisme upon our selves And indeed it might be easily shewed how many false syllogismes a man imposeth upon himself Doth not Presumption argue à divisis ad conjuncta from the means divided yet to obtain the end Yea in every prayer in every religious duty the natural man taketh Non causam pro causâ because he performeth these duties he thinketh he serveth God whereas it is not an holy principle or gracious motive putteth him upon them but formality customarinesse or some other inferiour motive Thus every natural man deceiveth himself by false causes he thinketh he repents he loveth God he hath a good heart he shall be saved when alas all this while thou art deceived and deceiving of thy self Mourne then under this native-pollution that thou art so deceived in all things about thy self about the work of grace about what is flesh and what is spirit that thou art
deluded in all things and takest counterfeit for that which is true and genuine Under this head we may comprehend all that craft and subtilty in men as in the Jesuites to maintain Idolatry or Heresie For the Devil as at first so still he delights to use Serpents because they are more crafty then others The craft also in man naturally to do mischief for which they are compared in Scripture to Foxes doth declare how original sinne hath all over infected the mind Eighthly The great pollution of original sinne upon our minds is seen In the pronenesse to vain idle sinfull and â—oving thoughts so that these do discover an unclean fountain of the heart more then any thing Whence do these sparks arise but from that furnace of sinne within thee The Air is not fuller of Flies Aegypt was not fuller of Frogs then every mans heart is naturally of idle vain foolish and impertinent thoughts Thoughts they are the immediate product and issue of original sinne The first born they are streams that come immediately from the fountain Now certainly if a man had by nature an holy sanctified mind he would also have holy and sanctified thoughts Think you that Adam in integrity or the good Angels are troubled with thoughts as we are For all the while a man is natural he never had a good thought in him he might have a thought of good but not a good thought For as every Cogitatio mali is not Cogitatio malâ We may think of evil to abhorre and detest and this thought of evil is good So in a natural man though he may have a thought about good yet it is not in a good manner and therefore evil though the object matter be good What then will prostrate thee and make thee lie grovelling upon the ground loathing thy self if this do not Amongst the millions and millions of thoughts which thou hast there is not one but it is either vain proud idle or impertinent yea our thoughts are not in our own power no more then the birds that flie in the air but they arise antecedently to our own will and deliberation And certainly if vain thoughts be such a burden to a regenerate man if they do captivate and inthrall him which made one cry out Libenter Domine bonus esse vellem sed cogitationes meae non patiuntur I would gladly be good but my thoughts will not suffer me No wonder if to the natural man who is under the power of original sinne that sinfull thoughts hurry him away without any resistance Ninthly Original pollution doth greatly defile the mind of a man in the mutability and instability of it Insomuch that the judgement of every natural man destitute of true light and faith which doth onely consolidate the soul is like a reed shaken with every wind he is mutable and various ready every day or every year to have a new Faith and a new Religion This maketh the Apostle inform us That one end of the Ministry Ephes 4. 14. is That we be not carried away with every wind of Doctrine Such empty straws and feathers are we that any new opinion doth presently seduce us and therefore the Scripture doth press a sound mind and an heart established with grace which is the special preservative against such instability Aquinas maketh this the reason of the good Angels confirmation in grace and that they cannot now sinne because such is the perfection and immutability of their natures that what their understanding doth once adhere unto they cannot change Indeed it is thus with God that his knowledge is unchangeable but there is no reason to attribute this to Angels and therefore their confirmation in good is not so much to be attributed to any intrinsecal cause in themselves as to the grace of God establishing them But how farre short was man newly created of such immutability How much more then man fallen From this pollution it is that we have so many apostates that there are Seekers that there are so many Neutrals that there are so many who think any in any Religion may be saved It is true there may be a just cause of changing our minds in Religion as when educated in Popery or when we have received any heretical opinions but I speak here of that instability which is naturally in the mind of a man that though he be in the truth yet there is a proneness to desert it and to discover much lenity in the matters of Religion The Remonstrants go too farre this way commending this sinfulnesse under the name of modesty and humility and therefore though in Fundamentals they will grant we may say This our faith is This we doe believe yet in other points which though not fundamentals yet the errors about them may greatly derogate from the glory of Christ and his grace as also much prejudice the consolations of those who truly fear God as their opinions do They commend those expressions Ita nobis videtur and Salvo meliorum judicio It is our sententia not our fides Now if this were said only in some points disputed amongst the Orthodox that are at a great distance from Fundamentals it might be received but they extend this further if not to the foundation-stones yet to those that immediately joyn to them and so do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 remove such things that will in time endanger the whole structure of Christianity and so from Remonstrantisme proceed to Socinianisme which is adificari and ruinam as Tertullian expresseth it De praesc Such an edification many unsetled spirits meet with Tenthly Original sinne doth pollute the mind of a man with pride and vain-glory so that he is easily puffed up with his own conceits and altogether ignorant of his ignorance The Apostle Col. 2. 18. saith of some Vainly puffed up with a fleshly mind This Tumor this Tympany in the mind hath been the cause of most heresies in the Church The Gnosticks boasted in their knowledge and had their name from it The Eunomians did vainly and blasphemously brag That they knew God as well as he knew himself And some in these later dayes have not been afraid to compare themselves above the Apostles for gifts and illuminations So that whereas every one should with wise Augur say humbly I have not the understanding of a man I am more bruitish then any man Or with Austin when one admiring his learning used this expression Nihil te latet he answered again Nihil tristius legi because he knew the falshood of it because of his ignorance even in innumerable places of Scripture They equalize themselves to Angels yea to God himself This pride this self-conceit is a worm bred in the rose and the more parts men have the more doth this disease increase Matthew Paris relateth of a great Scholar much admired for his learning who in his Lectures once in the Schools proving the Divine Nature and also Incarnation of Christ with mighty applause did
extraordinary officer an Evangelist is not here to be disputed Paul writeth this Epistle to him concerning his end why he left him there and also exciteth him to a lively performance of his office especially in a sharp and severe rebuking of them because of their doting still about Jewish fables and ceremonies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 clearly without ambiguities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Varinus or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so Hesychius or cuttingly as it were to go to the bottom of the putrified sore that no unsound core be left behind so Illyricus And to evidence the crime of the Cretians the more he brings a testimony from Epimenides whom he cals their Prophet by way of conception for they esteemed him so sacrificing to him for he pretended in furious fits to be like one acted with a divine spirit and rapture Now this famous brand he stigmatizeth the Cretians with That they were alwayes liars c. And although Epemenides being a Cretian it might be retorted that he lied in saying The Cretians were lyars yet the speech is to be understood not of every one but of the general part and therefore the Apostle saith This witnesse is true From whence Aquinas gathereth That wheresoever there is any truth a Doctor in the Church may make his use of it because all truth is of God The use here is not so much for confirmation as conviction if you ask Why must these Cretians be so sharply rebuked for their Doctrine about Jewish Ceremonies seeing Rom. 14. The Apostle doth there prescribe another deportment to such viz. of for bearance and condescension The Answer is Those that are there spoken of were such as did erre out of infirmity and weaknesse but these in Crete were such as did obstinately and pertinaciously defend these false Doctrines therefore they must be severely dealt with yet the end of this censure is medicinal That they may be sound in the faith all errour is a sicknesse and a disease The Apostle having thus informed about Titus his duty he proceedeth to some Doctrinal Instruction about those erroneous opinions instancing in one which was greatly controverted in the Infancy of the Church and that is about the choice of meats and abstinence from them To obviate any corrupt Doctrine herein he layeth down this weighty Proposition To the pure all things are pure that is to such who are sanctified by the Christan saith and are righly instructed in Christian liberty all things viz. of this kind not adultery fornication or such sinnes are pure to them they may lawfully use them Every creature as the Apostle elswhere being sanctified by the Word of God and prayer This Truth he amplifieth by the contrary Proposition To the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure this is more then if he had said All things are unclean for that might have been limited as in the former to things of this kind but saying that nothing is pure to them is signified hereby that all is pitch as it were that the touch That like a Leper even good things do not purifie them but they defile them And then you have the cause and fountain of this Even their mind and conscience is defiled No wonder the streams are polluted when the fountains are By mind is meant the speculative part of our understanding by conscience the practical part and therefore having spoken of the pollution of the former we now proceed to the later This Text is deservedly brought by Protestant Authors to prove that all the actions of unregenerate persons and much more of Infidels are altogether sinne that there is not one truly-good action to be found amongst them and that because the mind and coscience is thus all over polluted The Popish Interpreters because they are for the Negative yea some going so farre as to plead for the salvation of Infidels though without the knowledge of Christ do limit the Text too much as if it were onely to be understood of those whose minds were not informed with true knowledge nor their consciences rightly guided in those Disputes about Judaical Ceremonies as if to such only all things were unclean but although these persons gave the occasion yet the Apostle maketh an universal Proposition and therefore he doth not onely say the defiled but unbehevers which comprehends all those that have no true knowledge of Christ and the reason is univocally belonging to every one for every mans mind and conscience without saith is polluted and cannot please God The Fountain thus cleared this streame of Doctrine floweth from it viz. That the consciences of all men by nature are polluted and defiled Even their mind and constience saith the Text signifying by that expression that there remaineth no hope as it were for them when the foundations are thus removed To this defiled conscience in Scripture is opposite 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a good conscience 1 Pet. 3. 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 3. 9 a pure or clean and that by the bloud of Christ Heb. 9. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 13. 18 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 24. 16. And this kind of conscience onely those that are regenerate have But an evil conscience is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as here in the Text 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Heb. 9. 22. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 4. 2. There is also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a weak conscience but that the godly may have The conscience were are to treat upon is the defiled one and that not so much as made more impure and sinfull by voluntary impieties as what it is by nature in evey one And before we come to demonstrate the pollution of it it is good to take notice of the nature of it The New Testament useth the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 about thirty times and that for conscience In the Old Testament the Hebrew word Madani is once rendred Eccles 10. by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but most commonly that which in the New Testament is called conscience in the old is called Leb the heart of a man So Davia's heart is said to smite him apponere ad cor and redire and cor are nothing but the acts of conscience and thus sometimes in the New Testament 1 John 3. 20. If our heart condemn us It 's observed that the first signification of the word Leb is a conspersion or meal sprinkled with water Thus the heart of a man is a lump as it were watered and sprinkled with some common principles and apprehensions about God and what is good and evil As for the nature of conscience it self it is not good to be too nice in Scholastical Disputes about it remembring that of Bernard There was Multum seientiae but param conscientiae in the world It 's disputed Whether conscience be a power or an habit or an act onely that it is not a power Aquinas proveth because that can never be removed or laid aside or changed whereas conscience may
Some say therefore it 's an habit others as Aquinas and Dr Ames answering Mr Perkins his Objection Why it cannot be an act that it is an act But certainly as scientia is sometimes taken for that which is by way of a principle or habit in man and sometimes for that which is by way of act So also it is with conscience it taketh into its nature both that practical habit called by Aristotle Intellectus or the habit of first principles and also the actual application of them for if conscience were not habitual as well as in act There were no conscience in men when they are asleep which yet cannot be denied unto regenerate persons So that as in Scripture saith and love are taken sometimes for the habit of those graces sometimes for the acts of them so also conscience is taken both for the principle and the act it self For to the acting of conscience there is required as all observe a practical Syllogisme Thus Whosoever is a fornicator a drunkard a curser cannot inherit the kingdom of God But I am such a sinner Therefore I cannot inherit the kingdom of God Or on the contrary To him that believeth and is of a broken contrite heart pardon of sinne is promised But I believe and am of a broken heart Therefore to me pardon of sinne is promised Thus conscience is well called the practical understanding for whereas the speculative hath for its object that which is meerly true this looketh upon it as ordinable to action as such a truth is to be brought into particular application To every acting then of conscience compleatly there is required a Syllogisme either interpretative or formal And as Dr. Ames saith well Conscience in the major Proposition is Lex in the Assumption it is Testis in the Conclusion it is Judex In the first Proposition there it is by way of a Law dictating such a thing to be true In the Minor it is a Witnesse bearing witness either against or for our selves And lastly it is a Judge passing sentence according to the premisses And in that it is called conscience it doth relate to another a knowledge with another that is either our selves so that conscience in its actings is conceived as a person as it were distinct from us and so that witnesseth with our hearts what we are and what we have done Hence if a mans conscience lay a sinne to his charge though all the world free him yet he beareth guilt and terrour about with him Quid proderit tibi non habere conscium habenti conscientiam or else which is more probable it is called conscience or knowledge with in respect of God So that in the actings of conscience there is a sense and apprehension of the knowledge of God and his presence Therefore conscience doth alwayes bear some aspect to God this God will see this God will punish this God hath forbidden and therefore let me betime take heed how I do it So that while conscience hath any stirrings and vigorous actings there is some hope in a man Although it be thus generally received by all that conscience belongs to the understanding yet Durand makes it something probable Lib. 2. Distinct 39. Quast 4. That if it be not the will yet the will is necessarily included in the workings of conscience so that conscience doth denote understanding and will also For that act of conscience which is called remordere to bite and sting a man to make him grieve and be sad upon the committing of sinne must flow from the will Secondly Although man hath lost the Image of God and be thus all over polluted Yet he hath not lest neither his soul or the faculties thereof with some imbred principles both speculative and practical which can no more be separated from the soul then the beams from the Sunne Hence that habit of practical principles such as that there is a God that he is to be worshipped that Parents are to be honoured is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 à conservando because these are kept and preserved still or rather as Martinius in his Lexicon out of Hierom because these do instigate and incline to keep us from sinne in our actions The Scholmen commonly call it Synderisis and say It is as much as con-electio but this is because of their ignorance of the Greek tongue These Reliques of Gods Image are lest in us still even as after some great fire of a stately Pallace there remain some sparks long after or in the demolishing of glorious Towns there will some rudera some remnants appear of such a building It is true This is questioned by some Illyricus out of his vehement desire to aggravate sinne denieth there is any sense or knowledge of a God left in a man more then in a bruit and endeavoureth to answer those places of Scripture which are brought to prove those common principles or implanted knowledge in a man by nature The Socinians also though plowing with another heifer do deny any implanted knowledge by a God but that it comes by same and tradition On the other side Pelagians Arminians and some Papists fall into another extream for they hold such principles about God and what is good that they may be light enough to guide us to salvation It is not my work now to examine either of these for the truth is between these two There are some implanted practical notions in us about God and what is good agaist those that erre in the defect and yet they are no wayes able to conduct to eternal happiness against those that erre in the excesse To prove this will be to anticipate my self in the protract of this Discourse about original sinne Therefore here only we take it for granted That there are such principles as also a conscience to discern between good and evil which though it be greatly polluted Yet this candle of the Lord as it is called Prov 20. 27. searching the inward things of a man is not quite extinct Whether these common principles are naturally propagated as the body is as the Lutherans say who hold the Traduction of souls from parents or whether they are De Novo created in the creation of the soul as the dissentient party from that opinion must hold is not here to be debated we may conclude That the soul hath a natural testimony in it self about God and therefore in sudden calamities doth immediately cry out to him which made Tortullian say O anima naturaliter Christiana Thirdly Because conscience doth thus witnes with God and as it were in Gods stead Hence it is That is hath such a command and power over a man that we must not go against conscience We may go against our wils against our affection but we must not go against our consciences no not when they are erroneous and though they dictate sinne as Rom. 14. ult Whatsoever is not of faith is sinne and be that doubteth is condemned conscience is but an
inferior Judge God and the Scripture are superior to it so that when conscience prescribeth any thing and we come to know it is against Gods Word then we are to reject it as the inferior Magistrates command is made void when the superior doth countermand but while the practical dictate of conscience doth abide and we know not that God doth forbid it then we must not go against it and the reason is because it witnesseth to our apprehension with God and therefore to go against it though it may not be materially a sinne because in an error and in a delusion yet formally it is because we contemne God and his Authority over us The very Heathen could say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conscience is a God to every man It is true that Atheistical Writer lib de Cive As he doth most prophanely determine That it is a seditious opinion to hold faith and holiness are supernaturally infused and inspired so also to hold that to discern between good and bad just and unjust is a duty belonging to the conscience of private men in what they are to act What is this but to reach men Atheism by art and precepts As Logick and Philosophy are taught and doth it not condemne the whole Doctrine of the Gospel as being incompatible with obedience to Magistrates Seeing then that conscience is thus left in a man with so great power and authority seeing by it good is to be done and sinne avoided the pollution of it will be the more dreadfull and lamentable what hope is there of mans power to convert himself to God when the conscience is thus wasted by sinne If the watchman be blind if the witness be dumb if the judge be corrupted How can any saying reformation be upon us If the falt be unsavoury which is to season other things what is it good for but to be cast away this shipwrack of a good conscience which all made in Adam will undo us for ever were not grace interposing SECT II. A more particular Discovery of the Pollution of every Mans Conscience by Original Sinne. THe work next in order is to discover the pollution of every mans conscience by original sinne And First There is naturally a blindness and a veil upon it whereby it horribly misjudgeth and so deserveth the Prophets woe calling evil good and good evil light darkness and darkness light Take the conscience of an Heathen not inlightned by Gods Word and what darkness covereth the face of it how inthralled to Idols as if they were a god that could either damne of save yea the consciences of some Hereticks have had such Aegyptian darkness upon them that they have thought they have served God by doing most abominable and unnatural things Insomuch that had not some of the Ancients worthy of credit delivered such things about them we could never have believed that the conscience of a man could be so farre blinded as to think such things lawful much less a worship of God The Gnosticks taught That fornications and uncleaness were frequently to be exercised so as to avoid all conception and if a child did follow they would draw it from the womb beat it in a â—â—rter season it with honey and pepper and so eat it saying That in this manner they did celebrate the great Passover The Carpocratians also affirmed That every one was bound to commit sinne and that the soules were put into the bodies till they did fullfill the measure of their iniquities applying that in the parable to this purpose Thou shalt not go out till thou hast paid the last farthing So the Montonists made a sacrifice of the bloud of an infant a year old which they did with needles in a most cruel manner prick to death These also said That it was as great a sinne to pull a leaf off the tree as to kill a man The Donatists would throw themselves from steep mountaines and drown themselves in waters to make themselves Martyrs what horrid blindness was here upon their consciences It is true indeed these were not suddenly made thus abominable Therefore here was a voluntary contracted blindness upon their conscience and a judicial one inflicted upon them God giving them up to blindness yet had there not been such imbred error upon the conscience such natural blindness upon it it could never be improved to such height of impiety Oh then groan under this blindness that is naturally upon thy conscience That which should be the Pilot to guid the ship of thy soul and body to an eternal haven that knoweth no Compass beholdeth no Starre but being practically blinded carryeth thee to hell while thou art thinking thou art failing to heaven That which should be the rule to thy actions is all over crooked and perverted Thus every mans conscience is naturally in the dark and maketh us fall into every ditch because the blind leadeth us so that while the foundation is thus destroyed there is no hope either of conversion or salvation Thou that wallowest in thy sinnes thou that art upon the brinks of hell and yet rejoycest and makest thy self blessed Oh that thy conscience were inlightened Oh that the Lords candle within thee did give any light what a terrour and an amazement wouldst thou be to thy self thou art no better then a bruit till this conscience in thee is able to informe and direct thee Secondly Conscience is naturally polluted not only by the blindness but also by the senselessness and stupidity that is upon it This is the evil polluted conscience lying in every mans breast fast asleep so that though one sinne be committed after another Though lusts as so many thieves come to steal thy soul away yet this dog doth not so much as give one bark Doth not experience abundantly confirme this see you not most men going on in all evil and wickedness so that you would think they dare neither eat or drink or sleep lest so many Devils should come and carry them quick to hell yet they have a stupified conscience it never giveth them one blow or a check for it how cometh this serpent in thy breast to be thus benummed that it doth not give one hiss The expression you heard of an evil conscience was a feared one That is as some expound it a senseless hardened one like any part of the body that by burning is made insensible Others say That as a putrified part of the member of the body by incision is cut off so they say it 's a conscience cut off from a man that he hath none at all Others they allude thus it 's a conscience that is branded and noted by all whereby he is made infamous and a reproach where he liveth All these explications may well be taken in and although the Apostle speaketh there of some enormous wicked men more vile then ordinary yet as Paul Rom. 3. doth apply to all men by nature what the Psalmist had spoken of some
mercies to his Church all the severe judgements of God upon those that hate him should be kept in constant remembrance from generation to generation But who seeth not the sinfulnesse of our memory in this particular What liar remembreth Ananias and Saphira's judgement What unclean person Zimri and Cosbi What drunkard Belshazzar's hand-writing on the wall SECT IX Inferiour Objects of Memory WE are discovering the particulars Wherein the memory of man is so greatly polluted we have instanced in the Object of it which is God and the things immediately relating to God These things we constantly forget though God gave us a memory chiefly for these things In the next place there are Objects in the inferiour region as it were which the Scripture commendeth to our memory and about that also we shall finde our minds never exercised therein That I may not be infinite I shall select some few of those Inferiour Objects And First It is a duty often urged in Scripture To exercise cur memory about our sins past to bring them to mind and accordingly to humble our selves and repent But is not every mans memory naturally polluted herein How many sinnes are there committed many years ago How many youth sinnes which thou never hast a bitter remembrance of It is not wormwood and gall to thee to think of thy former vanities Thus the memory well exercised is the introduction to repentance A man can never repent that doth not first remember Can he humble himself for that which he hath forgotten Ezek. 16. 61 63 God there makes a gracious Covenant and promise of pardon and forgivenesse to the Israelites and then he sheweth that this fire of his love shall melt and thaw their hearts though like iron they shall be ashamed and confounded but how is all this done by remembring Then thou shalt remember thy waies and be ashamed so that it is impossible to set upon the work of repentance and conversion to God unlesse first thy memory be excited up unlesse thou look upon thy former life and remember this have I done and thus I have lived such sinnes and follies come into my mind yea in true repentance thy sinnes will alwayes be in thy memory when eating or drinking or walking thou wilt be thinking Oh the wretch that I have been Oh the beast and fool that I was in such and such impieties Thus Joh and David remembred the sinnes of their youth Psa 51. 3. David acknowledging that murder and adultery which he had committed a year before yet he saith My sinne is ever before me Thus you see in repentance the memory is wonderfully quickned bringeth those sinnes to mind that have been committed many years ago and therefore you have the expression 1 King 8. 47. of a people repenting If they shall bring back to their heart so it is in the original we render it If they shall bethink themselves By this we see that in true conversion there is a bringing back again of our sinnes to our hearts that whereas we had forgot this and that sinne which might be charged upon us Now we begin to arraign our selves and bring in a severe indictment against our own souls for such and such transgressions Oh then mourn bitterly for thy evil and wicked memory herein How many sinnes how many iniquities even like the sand on the sea-shore might come into thy mind and amaze thee giving thee no rest till thou hadst obtained the pardon of them But thou art so farre from this that rather thou strivest and labourest to put them out of thy memory If thy sinnes come to thy mind presently thou divertest thy thoughts turnest thy memory to other things and thus as the noise of the Cart-wheel because nearer to us maketh us not bear the noise of thunder at that time so other things more delightsome and pleasing being next in our memory we wholly forget what might turn to our salvation Hence it is that natural men love no good conference no reproof no powerfull preaching that may bring their sinnes to remembrance but say as the woman to Elisha 1 King 17. 18. What have I to do with thee O thou man of God Art thou come unto me to call my sinne to remembrance So that herein our desperate pollution is seen that we bring not our sinnes to our remembrance yea we voluntarily forget them use all the means we can that we may never have them in our minds Secondly The bad or good examples of others we should remember and accordingly imitate or avoid them All the examples of wicked and godly men should be so many Monuments so many Memorials to us The Inscription upon Senacherib his Tomb was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whosoever looks on me let him be godly by remembring the wrath of God upon me for my evil wayes Our Saviour Luke 17. 32. commands us to Remember Lot's wife In her we have such an instance of Gods wrath that it ought never to be forgotten and therefore saith Austin turned into a pillar of falt that she might season us God had delivered her out of Sodom from the fire and brimstone ready to have consumed her and withall he chargeth her not to look back but she either out of curiosity or out of a worldly affection and desire to her goods that were left behind looketh back upon which God doth immediately punish her in this wonderfull and unheard manner Now our Saviour applieth this to every one who taketh upon him the profession of Christ leaveth off his former conversation but afterwards returneth to it again And is not this the condition of too many that do not onely with Lot's wife look back to Sodome but even go back into Sodome again How terrible will the later end of such be Remember this dreadfull instance you who for a while give over your prophanenesse and impiety but afterwards fall to it again such are not fit for the Kingdom of Heaven Thus also we should take notice of all the good examples we meet with in the holy Scripture what good men there were how they lived and how God blessed them Our memories should be a good treasury whereby we should be abundantly furnished to do the good and avoid the evil Lege Historiam ne fias Historia but rather remember Histories and examples lest God make thee an example Thus Heb. 13. 7. they are commanded to remember such who had been guides to them and to follow their faith considering the end of their conversation How holy blessed and comfortable it was the godly Ministers and holy Pastors God hath given to his Church you should diligently remember taking notice how God was with them in their Doctrine in their lives in their deaths This would much prevent that Apostasle of many into errors and following after heretical persons Do but remember how wonderfully God was in the spirits and lives of many holy Pastors in the Church who did bear witness against such errors as
be destroyed how can the building be established Let then your attention your thoughts and affections be greatly quickned while we anatomize all the evil of the will This is the most grievous and most dreadfull instance of all the pollution original sinne infecteth us with In the 7th place When we speak of the pollution of the will The wera will may be take ambigously for sometimes therby is denoted the power to will someomes again the very act of willing and somtimes the object that we do will is often called our will Thus when the Scripture speaketh of Gods will it doth sometimes mean the object willed and this is often called Gods will sometimes the act of willing thus if God will and sometimes that power whereby he doth will not that there is Potenis volendi properly in God for all power is Perfectibilis per actum whereas every thing in God is actum purus only we speak so of God according to our capacity Some indeed have questioned Whether we may porperly attribute the word will to God or metaphorically only but seeing that simply to will is Perfectio simpliciter simplex and absolute and most simple perfection therefore it is not to be denied to God for as the Psalmist saith He that maketh man know shall not be know Thus he that maketh man will shall not he will only will is not in God as it is in man for mans will is carried out to a good desired or not enjoyed In our will there is convenientia and indigentia First A convenience or sutebleness between the faculty and the object and therefore we will it And then there is an indigency or want of it Now Gods will being the same with his Essence is absolutely perfect and sufficient but the created will in man is otherwise and this will since mans fall whether taken for the power to will or the act of willing or the object willâ—d is altogether a corrupt and a diseased will there is nothing found or good in it Although our purpose is to speak of the will as a power in the soul yet prone to put it self immediately into actings In the eighth place The will having this great dominion over the whole soul and being the universal appetite of a man therefore it is that in it is seated obedience or disobedience to God Obedience or disobedience to God is not properly at least not primarily or radically in any part but in the will It is true all the other parts of the soul in regeneration are made holy and sanctified and thereby in their way conformable to the will of God yet obedience and disobedience are primarily acts of the will so that as the will is qualified so is a man said to be obedient to God A good will is the good tree that maketh the fruit good and a bad will is the bad tree that maketh the fruit bad As then all the evil or good of a tree cometh from the root so doth all the evil or good of a man come from his will For till this be sanctified till this be renewed nothing can be good in a man Therefore if you examine what is the cause of all the impiety and all the wickedness that most commit it is because their wills are corrupt their wils are rebellious Their minds their consciences many times tell them they ought to do otherwise only their wils are slubborn and contumacious Joh. 5. 40. Ye will not come unto me that ye may have life So in the Parable Mat. 21. 29. when the sonne was commanded to go and work in the vineyard he saith I will not It is then the will of man that is the desperate and implacable enemy to all the things of God men may delude themselves with reasons and fair glosses but it is their will and only their unsanctified will that maketh them continue in such opposition to God now the will is therefore the root of all obedience of disobedience in a man because that is like the Centurion in a mans soul whatsoever it biddeth this or that power of the soul do it doth what it bids the mind think it thinketh what it bids love to love it loveth what it bids the hand move to it moveth to for there are two acts of the will wherein it demonstrateth its dominion The Elicite acts and the Imperate Elicite are those which the will doth immediately produce as election intention consent c. and herein it hath full power yet so as that it 's in subordination to God The Imperate acts are those which are produced by other parts of a man yet from the command of the will so when we move our hands or our feet these are imperate acts of the will Thus when we turn our mind from one object and place it upon another this is an imperate act of the will The affections also they are in some measure under the command of the will but not so absolutely as the body and the motions thereof are By which you see that all things in a man are reduced to his will and therefore the more active and universal this is the greater is the defilement thereof In the ninth place The will in regard of its constitution at first hath for its object that which is good And in the state of integrity it was alwaies a true real good but in this state of revolt from God the will cannot indeed be carried out to any thing but what is good only it 's but an apparent good a disguised good it is a true and real evil As the object of the understanding is truth and it cannot give its assent to that which doth appear to be false so the object of the will is good neither can the will have any motion or tendency to any object which hath not the colour at least of some good As the Devil appeared in Samuel's cloaths and so was believed to be Samuel Thus doth all the evil in the world which doth at any time seduce and draw the will aside it hath the mantle and covering of good It being impossible that the will should desire evil as it is evil It is true some deny that bonnus is the object adiquate and general of the will but they say good is the object of the will as it is prosequntiva prosecuting and desiring but maluâ—â— is the object of the will as it is persequntiva and aversiva as it doth repel and dislike so evil is the object of the will For displicency and hatred are acts of the will and the objects of these is evil But we speak of the will now as it is a rational desiring appetite satisfying it self with love of some object and if this be not good either real or apparent the will can no more tend to it then the eye to musick or the car to colours onely by original sinne herein ariseth our unspeakable miserey that the good which the will doth now imbrace is
onely a counterfeit specious guilded good no true real good They are but seeming goods and real evils Like the Glow-worm that shineth in the night and is nothing but an earthly worm Like a rotten Post or Tree that in the night seemeth to be glorious but in the day we know what it is Thus if we could take off the visor the painting from those objects we place our wils upon we shall see nothing but damnable guilt and real abominable evils which will at last damne our souls Per falsa mala itur ad vera bona per falsa bona itur ad vera mala by that which is speciously good we come indeed to that which is truely evil and by that which is apparently evil we come to what is substantially good Lastly In the will according to those that are exercised in School-Divinity We are to conceive in it sutable and proportionable affections to those we call passions in the sensitive part Thus in the will as it is a rational appetite there are love joy desire fear and hatred This is plain because in Angels there are such affections so also in the soul separated there is love and joy earnest desire for the coming of Christ and its reunion to the body by which it appeareth evidently that besides those passions in a man which work by a corporal transmutation there are these spiritual and immaterial affections or rather actions and operations of the will So that the will loveth the will rejoyceth the will desireth c. This is the more to be attended unto because hereby this pollution of original sinne will appear the more extensive and diffusive The love of the will the desire of the will the joy of the will are become abominable SECT III. ¶ 1. The Corruption of the Will in all its several Operations THese Doctrinal introductions thus substracted Let us proceed to open this noisom Sepulchre this dead and defiled will which hath been spiritually dead not as Lazarus four dayes but ever since Adam's fall and therefore must needs be stinking and unsavoury to a spiritual discerning And let us First Take notice of its defilement in all its several operations which the will aboundeth with And we find them out of the Schoolmen thus marshalled The will say they may be carried out to good simply and absolutely as good and then it is only a bare volition which is either inefficacious and conditional called velleity or efficacious and absolute then it is volition in the general or else it may be carried out to good relatively as it is finis an end and then either this end is enjoyed and possessed which maketh the act of the will called fruition or else it is desired and purposed to be obtained which maketh another act of the will called intention In the next place The will may be considered as it operates about the means to its intended end And 1. There is a yeelding unto and imbracing of such a mean propounded to that end and this act in the will is called consent for the understanding that doth properly assent and the will consent This act of the will to consent unto a thing is of great importance in Casnistical Divinity for there may be suggestions and fiery injections of diabolical temptations but if the will doth not consent as you see Christs holy will did not in his combate with the Devil they do not become our sins Of this consent more in its time 2. If there be several means conducible to such an end then cometh another act of the will called Election or a choosing of one thing rather than another that which consulation is in the understanding Election is in the will Lastly When the Will hath thus intended the end and chosen efficaciously its means then is there the last act of the will which is called usus the use or the application of all the other powers of the soul to bring this end about It useth the understanding it useth the affections it useth the whole body to accomplish it Thus you see what are the several operations of the will It is now necessary to take all these singly by themselves to shew how grosly the will is disordered and by that you will be convinced that the corruption of the will is indeed the corruption of the whole man which made Austin frequently define sinne by a mala volunt as and that which is good by a bona volunt as because of the dominion the will hath in the whole man ¶ 2. The Corruption of the Will in its general Act which is called Volition FIrst therefore Let us begin with the general act which is called Volition the bare willing of a thing which you heard was either conditional and imperfect or efficacious for the former kind How much corruption is there in the will and that both about sin and also about good About sinne What secret wishes and wouldings are there in a man naturally that sinne were not sinne Vtinaâ—n hoc non esset peccare said he that thy pleasures were not sinnes that thy unlawfull profits were not sinnes there is this secret corruption in the will whereby it would have the nature of things changed vice to be virtue and virtue to be vice Some indeed dispute Whether there be any such actings of the will as may be called velleities and not volitions But experience teacheth there are so the Apostle Rom 9. 3. I could wish my self accursed there is an incompleat act of the will When the Psalmist saith The fool hath said in his heart there is no God Psa 14. 4. that is in his wish in his incompleat will for absolutely a man cannot will that which is impossible If then we do but observe the motions of the will in this respect we shall find the number of these sinnes to be like the sand upon the sea shore Oh the many secret ungodly wishes that do by swarms rise up in thy will which though thou takest no notice of yet God doth and will accordingly judge thee As thus the will is sinfull in one way by its incompeat acts so also when it cometh to what is good when it should in a powerful lively and efficacious manner be carried out to it it is very remiss and languid insomuch that they are but velleities they are the sluggards wishes that desireth and yet starveth himself because he never putteth out his hands to work Is not this half and faint willing of the things that are good the root and cause of most mens destruction Preach to them presse them about repentance about conversion to God and they promise you they will do it and God give us his grace to do it and no more is done whereas thou shouldst will what is good with all thy might and strength above gold and silver above life it self These wishers and woulders in Religion never make true converts But of this more in its time ¶ 3. The Corruption of the
of Salvation but not as a place of Gods glory they desire Salvation as it freeth from Hell torments but not as it is a perfect sanctification of the whole man for the enjoyment of God Here thy intention is sinfull and incompleat when thou intendest Heaven and happiness thou art to desire all of it not some parts of it Again Our intenton is much more corrupted in making the meanes to be the end we make a perfect period and stop at a Comma or a Colon and truly this is the general and universal corruption of every mans natural intention he shooteth his arrow too short he intends no further then an happy pleasant and merry life in this world one intends honours another intends wealth another intends pleasures There is no natural man can intend any higher good then some creature or other That as the bruit beasts have a kind of improper intention as they have of reason whereby they are carried out to those things only that are obvious to sense Thus it is with man in his natural estate destitute of regeneration a worme can as soon fly like a Lark towards Heaven as this man intend any thing that is spiritually good for the natural man hath neither a mind or an heart for such holy things and so is like an Archer that hath neither eyes or hands and thereby can never reach the mark Secondly The intention of the will is corrupted in its error and mistake about its object it shooteth at a wrong mark It 's really and indeed evil which he intendeth though it be apparently good it is in truth poison though it be guilded It is true the rule is Nemo intendens malum operatur No man intendeth evil as evil but it is propounded under the notion of good and that even in those who sinne against the light and dictates of their own conscience But yet the Scripture speaketh constantly of wicked men as those that love evil and will evil and hate good because it is evil which their wills are carried out unto though it hath the outward bait and colour of what is good Herein then we have cause with bitterness of heart to bewail our sinfull intentions thou dost but cosen and delude thy own self Though thou hast many glosses many colours and pretences to deceive thy self with yet that which in deed and truth doth alure and bewitch thy soul is evil in the appearance as it were of some real good a strumpet in Matrones cloaths Thirdly The intention of the will is herein also greatly defiled that when it doth any holy and spiritual duties the true motive and proper reason of their intention is not regarded but false and carnal ones Finis operis and Finis operantis are not the same as they ought to be This is the wickedness of man so great that no heads though fountaines of waters can weep enough because of it The Pharisees they were very constant and busie in prayers in giving of almes but what was their intention all the while It was to be seen of man and therefore in the just judgement of God they had that reward This intention of the will is thought by some to be the eye our Saviour speaketh of If that be darke the whole body is darke Matth. 6. 22. Jebus did many things in a glorious manner as if none were so zealous as he but like the Kite though he soared high yet still his eye was to see what prey lay on the ground that he might devour it it was a kingdome not Gods glory he intended Thus Judas intended a bag and riches in all that seeming love and service he professed to Christ Oh take heed of the intention of thy will in every holy duty This maketh or marreth all To what hath been said may be further added First That we foolishly labour to justify our bad and sinfull actions by our good intentions as if they were able to turne evil unto good and black into white Is not this a continuall plea among natural people that though what they do be unlawfull yet they mean no hurt in it they have good hearts and good intentions Hence it is that when they have done evil in the eyes of God then they study to defend themselves by some intended good or other Thus Judas when he muttered about the ointment powred on our Saviour yet he pretends to good intentions That the ointment might have been sold and given to the poor Saul when he had rebelliously spared the best of the Cattel yet he carrieth it as if his intention had been to keep them for a Sacrifice to the Lord Yea the Pharisees in all their malicious and devilish designs against Christ would be thought that their high and pure intentions for the glory of God did carry them forward in all they did By such instances we see how prone every man is to put a good intention upon a bad action and thereby think to wash himself clean from all guilt but it is against the principles of Divinity that a good intention should justifie that which is a bad action It is true a bad intention will corrupt a good action so vain glory or to do any religious duty to be seen of men This is a worme which will devour the best rose This is a dead Flie in a box of ointment But it doth not hold true on the contrary That a good intention will change the nature of an evil action The reason whereof is that known Rule Malum est è quolibet defectu bonum non est nisi ex integris causis Even as in a Picture one defect is enough to make it uncomely but the beauty of it is not unless every thing be concurrent So in musick any one jarre is enough to spoil the harmony but to make sweet musick there must be the consent of all Do not therefore flie to thy good heart to thy good meanings thou intendest no hurt for if thy action cannot be warranted by the Word if it have not a good and lawfull superscription upon it this will never endure the fiery trial The Apostle maketh all such conclusions full of horrour and blasphemy as it were that argue Let us do evil that good may come of it Rom. 3. 8. Austin said It was not lawfull to lie though it were to save a world Consider then the sinfulnesse of thy will and be more affected with it then hitherto thou hast been When thou art overtaken with any sinne Doest thou not excuse thy selfe with a good intention Doest thou not plead some good or other though aimest at in all such unlawfull wayes But though man cannot judge thee yet the All-seeing eye of God doth pierce into all thy intentions and he knoweth thee better then thou knowest thy self Secondly The intention of the will is greatly corrupted in this particular also That it will adde to the worship of God and accumulate precepts and means of grace as they think in
and fading things before that which is eternal and will continue ever And wherein can the wils sinfulness be proclaimed more then in this Is it not a rule commended by all wise men Tene certum demitte incertum Hold that which is certain and let go that which is uncertain All men have such a will in worldly things they would chuse a certain estate rather then what is meer arbitrary and may be lost the next day but if we bring these men unto spiritual objects and temporal objects lay one in the one side and the other on the other side yet they will chuse the temporals and let go the spirituals Though the temporals are transitory and fleeing away whereas spiritual things would be eternal they would continue thine for ever Oh foolish and unwise men who make such a choice And yet this is the state of every unregenerate man What doth he say Give me the good things of this world though I lose Heaven and eternal Glory Let me have a day pleasure a moments profit though I have an eternity of loss and torments Consider then with thy self what a foolish choise thy will doth make all the day long Thou chusest that which will leave thee which is here to day and like the grass to morrow is thrown into the Oven and in the mean while there is that good which will abide though Heaven and Earth should fall and this thou art willing to pass by Was not Dives called a fool upon this account This night thy soul shall be taken away and then whose shall all these things be The sinfulnesse of thy will herein will never be enough lamented till with Dives thy eyes be opened in Hell and then thou behold what a choice thou hast made Christ giveth Mary this commendation That she had chosen the better part Luke 10. 42. and that should never be taken from her Oh that this also could be said of thee truly thou hast chosen the good part Though the wicked and ungodly of the world think it is the worse part and they would never take it yet it is the good part and that because it will never be taken from thee Thy grace thy good workes will never leave thee but they will goe to the grave with thee to Heaven with thee Thirdly This sinfulness of thy Will in chusing is seen when thou hadst rather sinne then become afflicted and yet this is naturally adhering to every one he will rather chuse to wound conscience to goe against light rather than be brought into trouble Doth not every man naturally judge this the best and so chuse it Hence he never mattereth what God requireth what may damn his soul hereafter only he is resolved he will not put himself upon any hardship for Christ but will launch no further in this deep then he can safely retire back again Every man would naturally get an Ark to save himself in when any publick water do overflow so they escape danger they regard not Gods glory or the Churches good Job's friends did fasten this upon him but falsly Job 36. 21. Take heed regard not iniquity for this hast thou chosen rather then affliction They thought Job desired to sinne and would chuse that rather then to be afflicted by God though Job being sanctified was free from this charge yet it is too true of every man by nature Oh what power of grace is necessary to make a man chuse to do his duty rather then have all the advantages of the world It was Anselm's expression That if sinne were on one side and hell flames on the other he would chuse rather to go through them rather then sinne Even Aristotle could say A virtuous man would die rather then do any dishonest thing But the Scripture giveth an admirable commendation of Moses worthy all our imitation Heb. 11. 25. Chusing rather to suffer for Christ then the pleasures of Aegypt Moses that might have had all the pleasure and honours of Aegypt yet because he could not have them without sinne he rather chuseth the poor and despised estate that his brethren were in So that Moses doth in this case something like Hiram 1 King 9. 13. to whom Solomon gave many Cities but Hiram did not like them and called that place Cabul that is displeasing or dirty Thus Moses called Pharaoh's Court and all his honours Cabul in respect of Christs favour and his love Did not all the holy Martyrs likewise do the same things Were not many of them offered life liberty yea great places of honour if they would renounce Christ if they would forsake his way But they did not stand deliberating and doubting what they should do they immediately chuse to be imprisoned burnt at the stake rather then not confess Christ and his way but the will naturally cannot make such a choice ¶ 7. The Wils loss of that Aptitude and readiness it should have to follow the deliberation and advise of the Understanding THe sinfulnesse of the Will in its noble and famous operation of Election or chusing hath been in a great measure considered I shall adde two particulars more and what is further to be taken notice of in this point will seasonably come in when we are to treat of the Will in its freedome or rather servitude The first of these two to be mentioned is The losse of that aptitude and readinesse it should have to follow the deliberation and prudent advise of the understanding For this is the privitive Institution and nature of the soul in its operations The understanding when the end is pitched upon doth consult and deliberate in a prudential way about the means which may conduce to that end and when prudence doth direct about those things which are to be done then the will is to imbrace and elect that medium rather then any other which reason doth thus wisely suggest Thus it ought to be now the will being wholly corrupt doth not chuse according to the dictates of prudence but the suggestions of sense and the carnal affections within us So that naturally a man chuseth an object not because reason or prudence saith This is good this is according to Gods will but because sense or affection saith this is pleasant and delightfull This sad perverting of the order of the will in its operations if rightly considered would throw us upon the ground and make us with great amazement and astonishment cry out of our selves For what can be more absurd and grievous then the will which is so essentially subordinated in its chusing to the guidance of the understanding should now be so debased that like Samson without eyes it is made to grind in evey mill that any carnal affection shall command we may see the good method and rule the will should walk by in its choice by that which Moses said Deut. 30. 15. 19. See I have set before thee this day life and death good and evil I call heaven and earth to
not be convinced because the will applieth to other objects But of this more in its time SECT IV. The Defilement of the Will in its Affections and Properties or the sinfull Adjuncts inseparably cleaving unto it ROM 9. 16. So then it is not of him that willeth or of him that runneth but of God that sheweth mercy HItherto we have been declaring the native pollution of the noble faculty of the Will in the several operations thereof but we have not as yet manifested the least of all that filthiness which adhereth to it You have seen but a drop in respect of the Ocean We proceed therefore to a further discovery of the original contagion thereof and that in its Affections and Properties The sinfull Adjuncts inseparably cleaving to it proclaim it to be a defiled subject ¶ 1. This Scripture opened vindicated and improved against the Doctrine of Free-will THis truth cannot be superstructed better then upon this foundation in the Text which is a noble ingredient into that famous portion of Scripture wherein the Doctrine of those sublime mysteries about Election and Reprobation are professedly handled and those Objections which the presumption of humane reason is ready to produce are fully answered So that whereas in other places that Doctrine is only occasionally or incidentially handled here the Apostle doth industriously treat of the nature of it Thus it hath of old been interpreted and of late by the Orthodox Onely Arminius following Suecanus in part and the Remonstrants after Arminius they have excogitated a new Analysis of this Chapter full of absurdity and impertinencies for they would not have the Apostle at all to treat of Election and Reprobation of persons they turn themselves and the Scripture into all shapes and forms to evade that but they interpret it of a two-fold Purpose or Decree of God The one whereof they say is That whosoever doth believe shall obtain Justification Adoption and Salvation The other That whosoever seek for righteousnesse by the works of the Law shall be rejected from all these This they say is the scope of the Apostle But who seeth not what forcing and wresting this is of Scripture So that we may wonder how such an interpretation could come into their mind for the Apostle doth not speak of Conditions but of Persons his scope is not to shew that they are believers who are received and workers who are rejected The Apostle had abundantly confirmed this in the fourth Chapter but he intends to shew the Dominion and Sovereignty of God in the eternal disposing of mens persons and that upon the occasion of Gods rejecting the Jews and calling in the Gentiles Therefore he saith To whom he will he sheweth mercy and whom he will he hardeneth whom he will He puts the discrimination upon Gods will not upon any internal qualification in the subject Also he instanceth in Esau and Jacob before they had done good or evil whereas if Jacob were considered as a believer then God did look upon him as having good in him Further he bringeth in Pharaoh for an example how that God did reject him and whether the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vers 17. be rendred I have raised thee up or I have kept thee alive in those judgments and not destroyed thee as the Remonstrants and others vehemently contend yea some Orthodox do yeeld it will all come to the sense that he was an object on whom God would demonstrate his power and justice or kept by God for a while as some Anatomists do a dead body before they bury it to gather profitable observations for the good of others not that God infused any evil in Pharaoh's heart though the Scripture useth three words concerning Pharaoh the one is to confirm or corroborate his heart and that is ascribed to God seven times The other is to harden and that is once though we render the word to corroborate to harden The last is To aggravate or make heavy which is once likewise ascribed to God which is also rendered by our Interpreters to harden not I say that this expression denoteth God did put any sinfull frame into Pharaoh's heart nor yet on the other side is it to be understood of a meer bare permission of God as if he did no more then suffer him by his patience to be hardened but God as a just Judge did for Pharaoh's sinne antecedent justly deny him any molifying grace leaving him to his lusts which in such occasions as he had did break out into a more violent flame So that the whole blame lay upon Pharaoh himself not on God Hence it is that he is so often said To harden his own heart Now this example of Pharaoh could not make at all to Paul's purpose if his intent was to prove that God would reject all such who seek for righteousness by the works of the Law for Pharaoh was an Heathen he was ignorant of Gods Law and could not seek for Justification by the works thereof Besides if the Apostle did not intend to shew Gods purpose absolutely and inconditionately in a well explained sense about persons but only his Decree about their qualifications what occasion was there for Paul to make such an Objection Is there unrighteousnesse with God And then first to objurgate the Objector Who art thou O man that disputest against God And then returneth a full answer to the Objection from the lesse to the greater from the Potter who hath power over the same clay to make a vessel of honour or dishonour These Objections and Answers could have no place in the Remonstrantical Analysis and Interpretation For who would argue it injustice in God to reject such who did not believe in Christ but sought for Justification by the Law If the Apostle did prove only two such Decrees about the wayes to salvation and damnation here was no such mystery transcending humane expectation This is certain the Remonstrants commend their way of common Election making the determinate event to be by man himself in a most plausible and colourable manner as being most agreeable to humane reason and equity There is no man would dispute against God in this whereas the other exposition strongly pursued by Austin and for the dreadfulness of it to flesh and bloud which is ready to call God to an account for his administrations was greatly disliked by many and a scandal to them Even as at this day it still meeteth with the same unkind entertainment from Lutherans Socinians and Arminians who make an Universal Conditional Election whereby they say God would have all to be saved even the Calvinists themselves as they are pleased to instance by derision Well if this part of Scripture will not convince I know not what light will and they must needs be prepossessed who can let their judgements assent to such a remote and forced explication Not to adde that the Decree which they make about Gods rejection of such who seek for Justification by works is
false for did not many Jews following the righteousness of the Law at last believe in Christ Was not Paul once zealous for the works of the Law Yet afterwards an affectionate admirer of the righteousness by faith But we leave these bold Interpreters who do assume more to themselves in turning the sense of these words this way and that way then do allow God in the disposing of mankind as if the Text were like the Potters clay that they might make a sense of honour and a sense of dishonour Come we therefore more particularly to the words in hand and as appeareth by the illation So then they are an inference from Paul's preceding Discourse As for those though men of great Antiquity who suppose these words spoken not by Paul himself as in his own person but in the person of some opponent it is so weak that it is not worth the resuting For the Apostle in the beginning of the Chapter useth great asseveration and atteslation even with a solemn oath concerning his great affection to the Jews and their salvation to whom also he attributeth great Church priviledges and spiritual prerogatives and this he doth because he was to deliver most dreadfull matter which would be exceeding displeasing to that Nation and which might seem to come from hatred to them But this Preface is to mollifie them And whereas it might be objected If a greater part of the Jews who were once Gods people and to whom the promises did belong were rejected how could Gods word be true The Apostle dishtinguisheth of the Israelites and sheweth that the promise in regard of the spiritual efficacy did belong only to Abraham's seed after the promise or who were the children of Abraham in a supernatural way imitaâ—ing him and walking in his slept The other were Abraham's sonnes after the flesh not but that they were children of the promise also in respect of the Covenant externally administred they were circumcised as well as the other and called Act. 3. The children of the promise and if this were not so the Apostle should in the same breath almost have contradicted himself for he said of the Nation in the general That to them did belong the Covenants and the Promises Hence that whole Nation is sometimes called his sonne yea his siest born and sonne of delights But though Abraham's children thus after the flesh and in some sense of the promise also yet not in that sense as the Apostle meaneth here so as to be the blessed seed and elected by God in Christ Hence Paul sheweth That the promises in respect of the efficacy and gracious benefits flewing from them did belong onely to the elect And this he proveth first from Ishmael and Isaac And whereas it might be said Ishmael for his actual impiety deriding of and persecuting Isaac was rejected and also that he was born of Hagar a bond-woman then he further exemplifieth in Esau and Jacob born both of the same father and of the same mother and at the same time and yet before they had done good or evil The one even the younger was loved of God and the Elder to whom the birth-right did belong was hated Whether these instances be propounded as types only so that for all this both Ishmael and Esau might be elected as some have charitably thought of Elau that he repented of his cruel intentions to his brother changing his mind to him and so as they think dying a converted man or whether they be propounded as Examples also as well as Types viz. as those persons whom God had excluded from grace and therefore the Scripture giveth this Character of Esau that he was a profane man is not much material This is enough that the Discourse of Paul is carried on with great strength And whereas it might be objected That God was unrighteous in making such a difference between those that were equal the Apostle answereth from a Text of Scripture Exod. 33. 19. where Moses desiring to see the glory of God God grants his request giving this reason I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and mercifull to whom I will be mercifull Thus even Moses hath that great glory put upon him even to speak to God face to face and that not for any worth or dignity in himself but the meer gracious will of God Therefore there is no unrighteousnesse in this act whereby God receiveth one and leaveth another because this Assumption is an act of grace and savour and in things of favour and liberality there is no injustice If I meet two poor men equally indigent and I relieve one passing by the other there is no injustice in not relieving of him Now from this expression of God to Moses the Apostle maketh this inference in my Text removing all causes and merits of the grace of God from man and attributing it wholly to God In the negation we have a distribution It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth It is not Here is much dispute what is meant by that But the Context maketh it evident that election is not nor the blessed effects of Election Conversion Justification and Salvation Some also adde The act of volition It is not of him that willeth to will for God worketh in us to will So that all is to be given to God for Voluntas bons is one of Gods good gifts to us Nelentem pravenit ut velit volentem subsequitur ne finstra velit A good will cannot precede Gods gifts seeing that it selfe is one of Gods gifts Not of him that willeth Here we see plainly the will of man so importent yea so polluted by sinne that it cannot put it self forth to any good Again It is not of him that runneth The Remonstrants limit this too much as if it were an allusion to Esau who neither by running when he wearied himself in hunting for venision nor by willing when with tears he so earnestly desired the blessing could obtain it for the Scripture doth usually compare Christianity to a race and our conversation to a running So that it is neither our inward willing or outward performing of duties though with much industry that make us obtain this grace from God Not that we are to sit still and to be idle but we are to wait on the means onely it 's Gods grace not our wils which do make us holy and happy Therefore you have the positive cause of all But it is of God that sheweth mercy It is then the meer mercy and compassion of God which maketh a diffrence between men lying in the same sin and misery he speaketh not of justifying mercy adopting mercy but of electing mercy converting and calling mercy This discriminating power and grace of God doth evidently appear every where there being two in a family one taken the other left Two hearing a Sermon one humbled and converted the other remaining blind and obdurate If to this it be replied that the meaning
that is the cause of all thy bad fruit A regenerated will a sanctified will would make thee prepared for every good work It is for want of this that all preaching is in vain all Gods mercies and all judgements are in vain Why should not the hammer of Gods word break it Why should not the fire of it melt it but because the stubbornness of the will is so great that it will not receive any impression 't is called therefore a stony heart not an iron heart for iron by the fire may be mollified and put into any shape but a stone will never melt it will sooner break into many pieces and flie in the face Thus the will of a man hath naturally that horrible hardness and refractoriness that in stead of loving and imbracing the holy things of God it doth rather rage and hate with all abomination such things ¶ 7. The Enmity and Contrariety of the Will to Gods Will. IN the second place That imbred sinfull propriety of the will which accompanieth it as heat doth fire is The enmity and contrariety of the will to Gods will There is not onely a privative incapacity but a positive contrariety even as between fire and water Gods will is an holy will thine is unholy Gods will is pure thine is impure Gods will is carried out to will his own glory honour and greatness thine is carried out to will the dishonour and reproach of God Thus as Gods will is infinitely good and the cause of all good so in some sense thy will is infinitely evil and the cause of all that evil thou art plunged into Therefore when the Apostle saith That the carnal mind is enmity against God Rom. 8. 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comprehends the actings of the will and the affections as well as of the mind It is enmity in the very abstract so that it is neither subject to God nor can be Oh that God would set this truth more powerfully upon our hearts for what tongue can express the misery of this that thy will should naturally have such irreconcilable opposition and implacable enmity to the Law of God that it should be diametrially opposite to Gods will which at first was made so amicable and compliant with Gods will that there was the Idem velle and Idem nolle Besides many other considerations there are two especially that may break and exceedingly humble our souls herein For 1. Gods will and his law which is his will objectively taken are absolutely in themselvs very good and therefore the proper object of thy will So that if thy will be carried out to any thing in the world it should be carried out to Gods Law above any thing This is to be willed above any created good what soever How is it that thou canst will pleasures profits and such created good things and art not more ravished and drawn out in thy desires after the chiefest good but to be in a state of opposition to this chiefest good to contradict and withstand it this is the hainous aggravation Could there be a Summum malum it would be in the will because of its direct opposition to the Summum bonum Herein mans will and the Devils will do both agree that they are with hatred and contrariety carried out against Gods will If therefore thou wert to live a thousand and thousands of years upon the earth and thou hadst no other work to do but to consider and meditate about the sinfulness and wretchedness of the will in this particular thou wouldst even then take up but drops in respect of the Ocean and little crums in respect of the sand upon the sea-shore But Secondly This contrariety of thy will is not only against that which absolutely in it self is the chiefest good but relatively it would be so to thee and therefore thy contrariety to it is the more unjustifiable What to be carried out with unspeakable hatred to that which would be thy blessedness and happiness who can bewail this enough To have a delight and a connaturality with those things that will be thy eternal damnation with much readiness and joy to will them and then to be horrible averse and contrapugnant to those things which if willed and imbraced would make thee happy to all eternity Oh miserable and wretched man thy condition is farre more lamentable then that of the beasts for they have a natural instinct to preserve themselves and to desire such things as are wholsom to them but thou art naturally inclining to will and imbrace all those things which will be thy eternal woe and misery What is the cause that thy will cannot imbrace the Law of God Why art thou so contrary to it Alas there is no just reason can be given but original sinne is like an occult quality in thy will making an Antipathy in it against the same so that thou doest not love what is holy neither art thou able to say Why only thou dost not love it yea there is the greatest reason in the world and all the word of God requireth it likewise that thy will should be subordinate and commensurated unto it but there is no other cause of this evil will then the evil of it It is evil and therefore cannot abide that which is good ¶ 8. The Rebellion of the Will against the light of the mind and 〈◊〉 slavery of it to the sensitive part in a man THirdly The original pollution of the will is seen in the rebellion of it against the light of the mind and the slavery of it to the sensitive part in a man to the carnal and sinfull affections therein Both which do sadly proclaim how the will is by nature out of all holy order and fallen from its primitive integrity For in the former respect therefore did God give us reason that by the light and guidance thereof the will should proceed to its operations So that for the will to move it self before it hath direction from the mind is like the servant that would set upon business before his master commands him like an unnatured dog that runneth before his master do set him on To will a thing first and afterwards to exercise the mind about it is to set the earth where Heaven should be But oh the unspeakable desolation that is brought upon the soul in this very particular The will staieth for no guidance expecteth no direction but willeth because it will what is suteable and agreeable to the corrupt nature thereof that it imbraceth be it never so destructive and damning God made the mind at first that it could say like the Centurion I bid the will go and it goeth the affections move and they move but now the inferior souldier biddeth the Centurion go and he goeth This then is the great condemnation of the will that though light come in upon it yet it loveth not the light but rebelleth against it and this sinfulness of the will is more palpably
for fifteen hundred yeares It is Bellarmine that saith so but our Divines had detected this falshood long before Jansenius Howsoever Austin may use the word yet the Scripture expresseth that which we call the will by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A second word to express liberty is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 liberty yet this is not so much applied to the liberty of the will as to the liberty of a man as here in the Text the sonne shall make you free your persons not your wils but because there is an universal bondage in all the powers of the soul to sinne blindness in the mind contumacy in the will for Quid est libertas sine gratiâ nisi contumacia What is liberty in the will without grace but contumacy against God and a wilfull delight in evil wayes Inordinacy in the affections therefore the person is said to be made free not but that the will is principally included in this only the will is not all that is made free 2 Cor 3. 17 where the spirit of the Lord is thereby is liberty It 's from the Spirit of God we obtain liberty from sinne and also from servile slavish feares The Jesuites would have this liberty nothing to the purpose in the controversie de libero arbirio for say they this is a spiritual mistical liberty libertas à peccate and they are treating of libertas naturae which they make to consist in an indifferency to good or evil but by their favour this is a proper liberty and it is this that the Pelagians did most controvert about and still the proper dispute between the orthodox and their adversaries is in this particular Whether there be any liberty or freedome in a mans will without grace to shake off the deminion of sinne so that they keep most properly to the state of the question who are diligent in the opening of the nature of this liberty Another word which the Scripture useth to express this free-will by is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 5. 2 Phil. 1. 4 and this is very proper and full when we do a thing not by constraint or by a natural necessity then we do it freely therein we shew our liberty so that liberty doth oppose coaction and natural necessity It is impossible the will should in its immediate elicite acts be compelled for then it should be voluntas and noluntas at the same time then velle would be nolle which is an high contradiction Therefore liberty doth necessarly oppose constraint but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth also oppose a natural necessity I say a natural necessity for there are other necessities that liberty doth consist with yea and the more necessary the more free as in time is to be shewed Thus though the stone hath an inclination to descend downwards yet because the stones motion is from a natural necessary principle therefore it is not free Beasts likewise though they exceed the inanimate creatures yet they do not agere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 voluntarily They do act spontaneously but not voluntary because a natural principle of sence doth determine them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indeed Heb. 10. 26 is translated wilfully If we sinne wilfully after we have known the truth but there it signifieth an high degree of the obstinacy of the will and a confirmation in evil against great light and knowledge but commonly it signifieth doing a thing so as not to be constrained to it Platonical Philosophers call free-will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too proud a word to be given to a creature and therefore the ancient Greek Fathers being many of them Platonists did greatly obscure the glory of grace by receiving Platonical words of which this is one Indeed they gave to God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is too much for a creature which hath a necessity of subordination to God and dependency on him The Stoicks they express free-will by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is in our own power The Aristotelians express it by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the Scripture expression likewise Though the Scripture and Aristotelians differ as much as light and darkness about the nature of liberty As the Ancients by following Platonical Philosophy so the Neotericks especially the Jesuites by following Aristotle have greatly prejudiced the Doctrine of free-grace setting up free-will in the room thereof There is one expression more and the Scripture hath it but once which is the most emphatical in describing of this liberty and that is 1 Cor. 7. 37. Having power over a mans own will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for liberty lieth in some kinds of some dominion to have our own will hence in liberty we may conceive something Negative and something Positive Negative and that is not to be compelled not to be constrained not to be inslaved Positive and that is to have some power and dominion over the actions of our will as the Apostle instanceth in him who had decreed to keep his virgin from marriage This man is said to have power over his own will By these Scripture words we may come to understand in a great measure what liberty and freedome of will is ¶ 5. Some Observations concerning the Promoters of the Doctrine of Free-Will how Unpleasing the contrary Doctrine is to flesh and blood with some advice about it SEcondly take notice That it is the great purpose and design of some to go contrary to the plain intent of the Scripture For many in all ages of the Church have with all their learning and parts endeavoured to set up this Idol of Free-will whereas the great drift of the Scripture is to advance and set up the free grace and free gift of God The Apostles they write to debase man and to exalt the grace of God Erronious persons they dispute and write to exalt the will of man and to take off from the grace of God What a loud trumpet is Paul in his Epistles to sound forth the praises of free grace not only free grace in justification but free grace also in sanctification It 's the grace of God that doth not only pardon the guilt of sinne but conquer the power of it Consider then whether it be better to set up Dagon or the Ark the free-will of man or the free gift and grace of God Truly it is a very uncomfortable task to be disputing against that grace which yet we must wholly rely upon when we come to die It is one thing what men write while they are in health what cobweb-distinctions they please themselves with in their voluminous writings and another thing when they are in the agonies of death and are to appear at the tribunal of a righteous God It was that which that famous Champion for the grace of God Bradwardine comforted himself with when he undertook the cause of God against Pelagians That he could pray for the grace of God to help him
is by the grace of God that we come to acknowledge the grace of God Error in mind is part of our bondage as well as lust in our heart It is therefore by th◠grace of God that we are delivered from both these thraldoms we have a freed mind from ignorance and a freed will from concupiscence It is the Spirit of God that leadeth us into all truth called therefore the Spirit of truth John 14. 17. It is by the grace of God that thou fallest not in this errour of advancing free-will It 's by the grace of God that thou art no Pelagian or Arminian It is this that maketh thee to differ from them Thy judgment thy heart would be self-confident herein did not the Spirit of God teach thee Lastly Consider that the grace of God is necessary to guide us in this point Because this Question hath alwayes seemed very difficult Austin acknowledged it so Hence he saith That when grace is defended we are thought to destroy free-will and when a free-will is acknowledged though in some sense onely we are thought to deny free-grace Indeed the Truth is not so difficult viz. that we have no spiritual liberty to what is good or that grace onely maketh the will free but how to reconcile this with the natural liberty of the will that it shall not be as a stock or stone that hath seemed to some even insoluble and therefore they advise to captivate our understandings in this point as we doe in the Doctrine of the Trinity however whether soluble or insoluble the difficulty argueth the necessity of Gods assistance while we preach and you hear about it ¶ 6. The first Demonstration of the slavery of the Will is from the Necessity of sinning that every man is plunged into SEveral particulars being premised as introductory to our intended matter our next work is to shew Wherein this servitude slavery of the will doth consist Not that you are to conceive of the will as some prisoner who is chained up in a dungeon that hath power to walk and run only those external impediments do hinder him which is Bellarmine's similitude about the inability of a natural man to supernatural good So the will hath some inward power and ability to do that which is holy onely there are lusts which are vincentes and vincientes as Austin expresseth conquering and binding this will that it cannot actually perform what internally it hath a power to do here is no such thing for we must conceive of this habitual depravation and defilement of the will in its state and condition more inward and deeply rooted in it First therefore That the will of man is destitute of any freedome to what is good appeareth In the Necessity of sinning that every man is plunged into that he cannot but sinne in all that he doth That as the Angels and Saints in Heaven have Beata Necessitas a blessed necessity of loving of God and delighting in him so that no temptation in the world can draw them off Thus every man by nature is in an unhappy and wretched necessity of sinning Dura Necessitas as Austin called it Insomuch that though the Scripture doth represent the things of Heaven in a most glorious manner to affect us yet we cannot be taken off from our sinne to love that Hence it is that every man till regenerated is compared to an evil tree and Tit. 1. they are said to be unclean and every thing made unclean to them The person being not accepted neither can any duties be This is our sad and miserable condition by nature But whose heart is throughly affected with it Thy eating thy drinking thy buying and selling yea thy praying and all other duties as they come from a man not sanctified by grace are sinnes in the eyes of God Think then to what an infinite aggravation they will arise and whether thou mayest not truly complain they are more then the sands upon the Sea-shore so that as the Toad and Serpent do necessarily vent what is poison and can never do that which is sweet and wholsom Thus no man in his natural estate can ever do any thing but be sinning and so damning of himself all the day long Onely when we say it is thus naturally necessary to a man to sinne in all things he doth you must know that we do not herein make him absolutely like a bruit beast which is not capable either of vice or virtue for this necessity is voluntarily brought by man upon himself he did wilfully strip himself of all power and ability to do that which is good and so having shut out the light from himself he doth necessarily remain in the dark having chaced away the Spirit and presence of God from his soul which is the life thereof he becometh spiritually dead and so in a necessity of sinning But it is not thus with Serpents and Toads for whether they were at first created solely with such a poisonous nature or whether upon Adam's fall it was inflicted upon those creatures as a curse it is plain that these creatures could not with any will or consent bring themselves into this estate but man did voluntarily at first having no seed of evil or inward propensity to sinne transgress the Commandment whereupon his soul became more shamefully naked then his body This necessity therefore whereby he is determined onely to sinne ariseth from his own free and voluntary impiety As a man that hath wilfully put out his own eyes must blame himself for ever if he cannot see If then this bondage be upon thee that in all things thou sinnest whatsoever thou undertakest evil is presently over ruling of thee blame not God or any providence of his no nor the Devil neither for though he doth tempt yet he doth not necessitate to sinne but thy own self for from thy own bowels this destruction doth arise ¶ 7. That a Necessary Determination may arise several wayes some whereof are very consistent with Liberty yea the more necessary the more free IT is good to observe and it may clear many difficulties in this point That a necessary determination may arise several wayes some whereof are very consistent with liberty yea the more necessary the more free Thus God himself doth necessarily will that which is good and yet freely also And if you ask Whence doth it arise that God is thus determined to what is good I answer It is from the infinite and absolute perfection of his holinesse whereby he is not nor cannot be a God that willeth iniquity Arminius indeed maketh it little lesse than blasphemy to say God is liberè bonus but that is because he cannot part with his Helena or Dalilah viz. That liberty consists in an indifferency to good and evil and in this sense to say God doth so freely will good that he can as freely will evil would be blasphemy but to will evil is no part at all of freedome it is a defect in
a mutable creature as is to be shewed Such a determination to good only was in Christ also from his perfection and is likewise in the Angels confirmed and Saints glorified here is no power to sinne yet have they liberty in an eminent degree though determined to good onely On the contrary the Devils and damned men they are necessarily determined to that which is evil they cannot but hate God they are not able to have one good thought or one good desire to all eternity yet all this is done freely by them Now as the determination to good did arise from perfection from the strong principles of holinesse within so in these their necessary determination to evil doth arise from that power of iniquity and sinne they are delivered up unto In this necessity of sinning are all natural men till regenerated absolutely plunged into and that from the dominion which sinne hath over them Onely herein they differ from the Devils and damned men they are in their termino in their journeys end and so are not in a capacity of being ever freed from this necessity and thraldome to sinne There will never be a converted Devil or a converted man in hell their state is unchangeable and they can never be recovered but with wicked men in this life God hath dealt in many plentifull wayes of mercy so that though for the present determined only to evil all the day long though for the present under the chains and bonds of sinne Yet the grace of God may deliver them out of this prison and set them at liberty but till this be they are as the Devils carried out necessarily in all hatred unto God and this determination to one is from imperfection Lastly There is a determination to one from principles of Nature without reason and judgement and where such is there cannot be any liberty for reason and judgement is the root of liberty though it be formally in the will By this then you see That this necessity of sinning doth not take away the natural freedome that is in the will so that a man and a beast should be both alike Luther De Servo Arbit indeed wished that the word Necessity might be laid aside Neither doth Bradwardine like that expression Necessitas immutabilitatis as applied to man but in the sense all that are Orthodox do agree ¶ 8. The second Argument of the Servitude of the Will is its being carried out unto sinne voluntarily and with delight SEcondly This necessity of sinning doth not at all take off from the voluntarinesse and delight therein but every natural man is carried out so voluntarily and readily unto every sinne suggesting it self as if there were no necessity at all Hence man by nature is said To swallow down iniquity like water Job 15. 16 Even as the feavorish or Hydropical man is never satiated with water Therefore the necessity of sinning is never to be opposed to his willingness and freedom for though a man hath no freedom to good yet he hath to evil Eoque magis libera quo magis Ancilla the more he is subject to sinne the more enslaved to it by his delight therein the freer he is to act it We must not then imagine such a necessity of sinning in a man as if that did compel and force a man against his inclination and desire You must not think that it is thus with a man as if he could say O Lord my will is set against sinne I utterly abhorre and detect it but I am necessitated to do it for the will being corrupted doth with all propensity and delight rejoyce in the accomplishing of that which is evil ¶ 9. 3. The Bondage of the Will is evident by its utter impotency to any thing that is Spiritual And wherein that inability consists THirdly This bondage of the will to sinne is evidently manifested in its utter impotency and inability to any thing that is spiritual It 's like Samson that hath lost its strength God made man right whereby he had an ability to do any thing that was holy there could not be an instance in any duty though in the highest degree which Adam had not a power to do and now he is so greatly polluted that there is not the greatest sinne possibly to be committed by the vilest of men but every man hath the seed and root thereof within him for this reason man by nature is not onely compared to the blind and deaf but also to such who are wholly dead in sinne So that as the dead man hath no power to raise himself so neither hath a man who is spiritually dead in his sinnes That this Truth may greatly humble us Let us consider wherein this absolute impotency to what is holy is in every man for this is a great part of the demonstration of our spiritual bondage to sinne and Satan And First Such is the thraldom of the will That a man by nature cannot resist the least temptation to sinne much lesse the greatest without the special grace of God helping at that time We matter not those Pelagian Doctors who hold a man by his own power may resist lesse temptations yea more grievous ones though not continually for when our Saviour teacheth us to pray That we may not be lead into temptation doth not that imply whatsoever is a temptation whether it be small or great if the Lord leave us thereunto we presently are overcome by it Certainly if Adam while retaining his integrity in a temptation and that about so small a matter comparatively for want of actual corroborating grace was overtaken by it Is it any wonder that we who have no inward spiritual principle of holiness within us but are filled with all evil and corruption that we are reeds shaken with every wind The rotten Apple must fall at every blast Know then that it is either sanctifying or restraining grace that keeps thee from every snare of sinne thou meetest with Thou wouldst every hour fall into the mire did not that uphold These Dalilahs would make thee sleep in their laps and then as Jael to Sicera so would they do to thee Herein is our bondage discovered Secondly Our thraldome is manifested In that we are not able of our selves to have one good thought in reference to our eternal salvation But if any serious apprehension if any godly meditation be in thy soul it is the grace of God that doth breath it into thee The wilderness of thy heart cannot bring forth such roses Thus the Apostle We are not able of our selves 2 Cor. 3. 5. to think any thing as of our selves Though the Apostle speaketh it occasionally in his ministerial imployment yet it holdeth generally true of every one of thy self then thy heart is like a noisome dung-hill nothing but unsavoury thoughts doe arise from it but if at any time any good motion any sad and serious thought stirreth within thee know this cometh from without it is put into thee as
by their own strength reformed their lives and have abounded in justice fortitude and chastity even to admiration Is not that instance of Polemon famous who though a drunkard yet coming to hear Xenocrates his Lecture about temperance was so immediately perswaded thereby that he presently forsook that beastly sinne In this Argument Julian the Pelagian did often triumph But Austin's answer was good and justifiable by Scripture That when they left one sinne they fell into another they did cure one lust by another lust a carnal one by a spiritual one for when they did abstain from such sinnes it was not in reference to God and from faith in Christ but it was either from vain glory or to be sure a sinfull confidence and resting upon themselves and therefore even the Stoicks who pretended the highest viz. That we were to do virtuous actions for virtues sake yet they came too short of the right mark for virtue is not to be loved ultimately for virtues sake but that thereby we might draw nearer to God and be made happy in enjoying of him Therefore the Stoicks opinion did teach a man nothing but self-confidence and self fulness which sinnes are forbidden by the Word of God as well as Epicurean and grosse sinnes Oh then the unspeakable bondage of the will to sinne That as the bird in a net the more she striveth to get out the more she intangleth her self Thus it is with the natural man the more he striveth of himself to come out of this mire the faster he sticketh in Thou then who art a natural man though such a sinne and such a sinne be left yet see if when the Devil was cast out a worse did not come in the room thereof See if it be not with thee as in that representation to the Prophet Thou hast broken a woodden yoke and an iron one is made in stead thereof Thou hast cured a carnal sinne by a spiritual one For you must know That not onely grace doth expell sinne but sometimes one lust may expel another as the Pharisees spiritual pride and self-righteousness did make them abhorre the Publicans sinnes so that even then the natural man cannot but sinne while he is casting off sinne Therefore though unregenerate persons may do that which is materially good and for the substance of the act yet they can never do that which is formally so or as Austin expressed it of old we must distinguish between the Officium the Duty it self and Finis the end of the Duty Now the end of all till regenerated can never be right or pure it never ascends high enough even to God himself because they want faith So that though Aristides was just yet he was not the Scriptures just man that liveth by faith None of the renowned Heathens were chaste by faith charitable by faith temperate by faith and therefore their glorious actions were only splendid glistering sinnes they had a pompous appearance but were indeed real vices which were so farre from profiting them as to eternal happiness that they were an hinderance to them for hereby they trusted in themselves The Epicurean he said It is good for me frui carne To enjoy the body The Stoick he said It was good for me frui mente But David he said It was good for him to draw nigh to God ¶ 13. The more Means of Grace to free us the more our Slavery appears FIfthly Herein is our miserable bondage to sinne manifested That the more we have the means of grace to set us at liberty the more doth our slavery discover it self So that whatsoever good and holy thing we meet with it draweth out our corruption the more This the Apostle complaineth of as part of that captivity he groaned under Rom 7. That the Law which was for good wrought in him all manner of evil Thus the Gospel yea Christ preached is the occasion of more wickedness and impiety in unregenerate men then otherwise they would be guilty of And if this be so though our heads were fountains of water yet we could not weep enough for the guilt and wretchedness we are in by this means for our remedies make our diseases greater light increaseth our darkness life causeth death Insomuch that did not God work by his own power mightily in the use of these means they might be no longer the means of grace but of anger and judgement and the preaching of the Gospel because of the sad effects which it hath through the wilfull indisposition of many who hear it might be as much trouble to us as the presence of the Ark was to the Philistims Therefore the clearer light the more powerfull means of salvation a people do enjoy the more is the impiety and wickedness of such whom grace doth not convert daily increased insomuch that the Gospel shining upon such men is like the Sunne shining upon a noisome dunghill which maketh it the more loathsome How then can there be free-will in a man to good when if left to himself all helps are an hindrance to him and all remedies are more destructive Hence the Scripture calleth it making of the heart fat Isa 6. an allusion to beasts which are prepared to destruction by their best pastures ¶ 14. The Necessity of a Redeemer demonstrates our thraldome to sinne LAstly That the will is inthralled irrecoverably unto sinne appeareth In the necessity of Grace and of Christ as a Redeemer if we were not in bondage what need we have a Redeemer Let not then the common expression in the Schooles be liberum arbitrium but liberatum which is a phrase we seldome meet within them It is good to know the full latitude of that glorious title of our Saviour viz. a Redeemer he is so called not only because he redeemeth us from the curse of the law and the guilt of sinne but also because we were under the power and dominion of sinne and Satan daily fulfilling the works of the flesh so that his death was not only to obtain remission of sinnes but to make us a peculiar people zealous of good works Tit. 1. 14. And hence also he is said to offer himself a sacrifice that he might present to God a Church without spot or wrinckle Eph. 5. 27 which will be compleatly perfected in heaven To set up free-will then is to pull down our Redeemer as much as we give to that we deny to Christ we make him but a half-Saviour and an half-Redeemer while we maintain that we set our selves at liberty from the power of Satan Oh then let the name of a Redeemer for ever make thee blush and ashamed to speak of a free-will ¶ 15. An Examination of the Descriptions and Definitions of Freedome or Liberty of Will which many give it Shewing that none of them are any wayes competent to the Will unsanctified WE proceed therefore to make a further discovery of the bondage of the will to sinne and that it hath no liberty no power or
ability to do any thing that is truly godly If we take notice of all those wayes wherein learned men do place liberty or freedome of will we shall find evidently that none of these descriptions or definitions are any wayes competent to the will while it is unsanctified For First if that opinion be received which Bellarmine and others follow That liberty is radically in the understanding though formally in the will that is the reason of the wils liberty is from the understanding which doth propound several objects and thereupon the will is indeterminate whereas in beasts their appetite is plainly limited because they want reason as it is arbitrium so they say it is in intellectu as liberum so in voluntate Now I say let this be received for I do not dispute the truth of it then we must say The will hath no liberty to what is good because it faileth in the root The streame cannot runne when the spring is dried up for if we take the understanding in respect of spiritual and heavenly things so it is altogether darkened and blinded Therefore there is the grace of illumination required that it may know and believe the things of God without which men love and delight in darkness rather then light The things of God are said to be foolishness to a natural man so that all the while a man hath no more then nature in him he is like those birds that can see in the night but are blind in the day They have quick and sharp apprehensions in worldly and earthly matters but are altogether stupid and sensless in regard of heavenly How then can the will be free when the mind is altogether dark for God in conversion when he will set the will and affections at liberty from sinne begins first in the understanding light in the mind is first created there are holy thoughts and spiritual convictions wrought in the soul and by this light the other parts of the soul they come to be sanctified now then if there be not so much as this antecedaneous work upon the mind the will is as yet very farre from the Kingdom of heaven Wonder not then if ye see unregenerate men walking and stumbling in the dark that you see them so captivated unto every lust you may as soon remove a mountain out of its place as take them off from their iniquities For how can it be otherwise while the will hath no guid to lead it none to informe it concerning the evil and danger of those wayes it is going in If there be no light in the mind there is no liberty in the will so that hereby both horse and rider are as it were thrown into the sea Secondly If to be that liberty doth consist in an active indifferency to good or evil then the will is not free because the former part of this description upon Scripture-grounds can no wayes be accommodated to the will This description is generally received and applauded by Arminians and Jesuites as the best though Gibieus saith it is the worst making the very formal nature of liberty to consist herein that when all requisites to an action are supposed yet the will can do or not do and this they extend even to spiritual objects to that great work of conversion affirming when grace doth assist and help all it can so that Ex parte Dei all things are ready that do concurre to our conversion yet the will because it is free retaineth an active indifferency either to accept of this grace offered or to reject it This description we do no wayes acknowledge as that which depriveth God Christ and the glorified Saints from liberty and besides liberty being perfection and so in the most perfect manner in the most perfect subjects this doth debase it making a defect part of this perfection It is wholly absurd to make a power to sinne part of liberty Indeed this was a concomitant of Adam's liberty but not because liberty but because his will was mutable and changeable so that if he had been corroborated and confirmed in grace he had not put forth any such experience of his liberty well though we cannot assent to it yet let it be supposed to be true The Scripture is very clear and pregnant That a man hath no such indifferent power in him to good or evil Indeed to evil that he is carried out unto with all delight he can of himself kill himself but he cannot of himself give life to himself But as for the other part to be able to love what is good to believe and to turn himself unto God this is above his power for the order of nature and of grace differ as much as the order of sense and reason so that as the sensitive faculty cannot put forth acts of reason the eie cannot discourse and reason so neither can the rational faculties put forth the acts of grace which come from a divine nature and that which is borne from above All these places which describe man in a spiritual sense to be blind in mind deaf in eares and hardned in understanding yea which say he is dead in sinne and therefore the work of conversion is compared to regeneration and to a resurrection all these do plainly declare that the will hath no activity at all as to the first beginnings of grace It is true indeed there are commands to repent to be converted yea we are bid to choose life and death but there are none of these duties commanded which in other places are not made the gracious gifts of God so that to repent to be converted they are promised by God as the workings of his grace whereby they are both duties and gifts Although the Arminian thinketh that impossible They are duties because we are the people who do believe and do repent and are commanded thereunto They are also gifts because it is the grace of God alone that doth enable thereunto when therefore you read of such commands you must not think that they imply our power and ability for then grace would be wholly excluded seeing these Texts speak absolutely as if a good work were wholly done by our own power whereas the Arminian and Papist will not wholly exclude grace and so these Texts would prove more then they contend for But such commands are still imposed upon us by God to shew what doth belong to him what he may justly expect from us for seeing he created man with full power and ability to keep these commands if man wilfully cast himself into an utter impotency God hath not thereby lost the right of commanding though we have the power of obeying Besides by these Commands as we are to know our duty so thereby also we are provoked to be deeply humbled under our great inability seeing our selves treasuring up wrath every day and preparing more torments for our selves unlesse the grace of God doth deliver us Yea by these commands God doth work grace they are
Not on things on the earth By these some mean those humane and superstitious Ordinances that the Apostle mentioned before for these were not of the Fathers heavenly planting and indeed it is true the more a man is made spiritual and hath had the experience of that wonderfull resurrection of his soul from the state of sinne in which it was dead the more doth he nauseate and reject all superstition and humane wayes of devotion rejoycing in the purity and simplicity of Christs Institutions as those alone by which he can obtain any spiritual proficiency But the Context seemeth to extend this Object further to all sinfull objects yea and to lawfull objects that we are not in an immoderate and inordinate manner to let our hearts runne out upon them So then we have in the Text a most divine Injunction imposed on us To set our affections upon things above alwayes to put in practice that Exhortation Sursum corda but such is the horrible corruption of these affections by nature that they can no more ascend up to them then a worm can flie upwards like a Lark Therefore the Apostle supposeth that ere this be done there must be the foundation laid of a spiritual Resurrection If ye be risen with Christ seek those things that be above Our spiritual Regeneration and Resurrection is both a cause of our heavenly affections and also it is a motive and obligation it being contrary to the nature of such things that ascend upwards that they should descend downwards How can fire fall like a stone to the center From the Text then we may observe That such is the corruption of the affections of man by nature that till the grace of regeneration come they are placed only on earthly objects and cannot move towards heavenly SECT II. Of the Nature of the Affections BEfore we come to anatomize their evil and sinfulness let us take notice a little of The Nature of these Affections And First You must know that in man besides his understanding and will which are either the same with the rational soul or powers seated in it there is also a sensitive appetite placed in the body from whence arise those motions of the soul which we call affections and passions such as anger love joy fear and sorrow c. It is true indeed many learned men place affections in the will also they say The will hath these affections of joy and sorrow and so Angels also have onely they say these are spiritual and incorporeal and this must necessarily be acknowledged But then in men besides those affections in the will there are also material ones seated in the sensitive appetite for man being compounded of soul and body hereupon it is that as in his rational part he doth agree with Angels so in his sensitive part with the bruits Therefore in man there are three principles of actions that are internal his Vnderstanding Will and Affections these later are implanted in us only to be servants and helps but through our corruption they are become tryants and usurpers over the more noble powers of the soul so that man is not now as reason much lesse as grace but as affections do predominate The Scripture you heard calleth these affections by the name of the heart though sometime that comprehendeth the mind and will also The common Greek word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is rendered passions and they are so called because of the effect of them for when put forth they make a corporeal transmutation and change in a man Some make this difference between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word that Quintilian saith there is no proper Latine expression for Vide Voss de institut Orat. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they make passions to be when in a mild and moderate motion of the soul without any violence or excess and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when they are turbulent and troublesome but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth rather signifie the manners of men then their affections These passions have several names sometimes they are called perturbations but that is most properly when they have cast off the dominion of reason Sometimes the motions and commotions of the soul sometimes passions which expression is disliked by some That which seemeth to be most proper and full is to call them affections because the soul of a man is affected in the exercise of them So that by these we mean no more then that whereby a man about good or evil is carried out with some affection and commotion of his soul onely you must know that when we call them passions it is not to be understood formally but causally In their nature they are not passions but motions and actings of the soul onely they cause a passion and suffering by some alteration in the body Secondly These affections in the soul are of a various nature yet by Philosophers they are reduced into two heads according to the subject they are seated viz. The appetite concupiscible and the appetite irascible not that this is a two-fold distinct appetite onely the same appetite is distinguished according to its diversity of objects The appetite concupiscible doth contain those affections that relate to good or evil absolutely considered For if it be good that is propounded then there is first the affection of love if this good be not enjoyed then there is the affection of desire if it be obtained and enjoyed then it is the affection of joy if it be evil that is presented then there is the affection of hatred whereby we distast it and hereupon we flie from it This is called Fuga or abomination but if we cannot escape it then there is the affection of sorrow Thus there are six affections in the concupiscible part The object of the irasible appetite is good as difficult or evil as hardly to be avoided good if it be possible to be obtained then there followeth the affection of hope if it be not possible then of despair and as for the evil that is difficulty overcome if we can master it then there ariseth the affection of boldness or confidence if we cannot then of fear if the evil presse us hard that we cannot obtain what we would have then ariseth the affection of anger Thus there are five affections in the irascible appetite so that in all there are eleven passions although from these come many other affections of the soul that we may call mixt ones as Errour Zeal Pity c. in which many and several affections are ingredient If then there be so great a number of these in man and they all corrupted yea predominating over a man what sea is more troubled and tossed up and down with storms and tempests then the heart of a man What a miserable wretched creature is man who hath every one of these passions tyrannizing over him if God leave thee to an inordinate love of any thing What unspeakable bondage doth it put thee into if
part as it were flowing from the essence of God and this they acknowledge immortal but the soul and the body they say are mortal And the ancient Heretiques the Apollinarists might runne to this refuge who denied Christ to have any rational soul but his Divine Nature and his sensitive soul and body do make upon Christ The Manichees also affirmed two souls in men the one rational that was good and of God The other evil and the fountain of evil the sensitive soul coming from the Devil Yea Cerda upon Tertul. de anima lib. 3. saith not only Dydimus but others of the ancients did incline to this opinion that the Spirit was a distinct part in a man from soul and body which opinion Austin opposed Thus this Text hath favoured as some think that opinion of two souls in a man his rational and sensitive not in the Manichean way but in a Philosophical way and some learned men indeed have thought by holding two distinct souls many inconveniences would be avoided which are maintained in Philosophy and also the conflict and combate that is between the flesh and the spirit would be better explicated But certainly the Scripture speaketh constantly of man as having but one soul What will it profit a man to winne the whole world and lose his soul not his souls which Chrysostome used as an argument to make man watchfull to the salvation of it saying If thou hast lost one eye thou hast another to help thee if one arm another to support thee but if thou losest thy only soul thou hast not another to be saved Others therefore that they may avoid this inconvenience of holding three parts in a man do by spirit understand the work of grace in a man Thus the Greek Interpreters of old and some learned men of late but this doth not appear any wayes probable nor will the Context runn smoothly to make grace as it were a part of a man neither is it coherent to pray that God would preserve our grace our soul and body but rather grace in them Therefore we take spirit and soul for the same real substance in a man onely diversified by its several operations Lactantius cals it an inextrieable Question Whether animus and anima be the same thing in man meaning by anima that whereby the body is enlivened by animus that whereby we reason and understand but there seemeth to be no such difficulty therein the Scripture promiscuously calling it sometimes a soul and sometimes a spirit It 's called the spirit in regard of the understanding and reason as Ephes 4. 23. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind and soul because of the affectionate part therein so that the Apostle doth not mean two distinct parts in a man but two distinct powers and offices in the same soul You have a parallel expression Heb. 4. 12. where the word of God is said To divide between soul and spirit which afterwards is expressed by discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart Thus when Mary said Luke 1. 46 47. My soul doth magnifie the Lord and my spirit hath rejoyced in God she meaneth the same part within her only giveth it divers names This being explained whereas we see the Apostle praying for the sanctification of the body as well as the soul it is plain That it is unclean and sinfull as well as the soul else it did not need Sanctification From whence observe That the body of a man naturally is defiled and sinfull Sanctification extendeth adequately to our pollution Seeing then it is required of man that his body be holy and he is to glorifie God in that as well as in his soul and this cannot be without the sanctification of it it remaineth that our bodies are not only mortal but sinfull And indeed under the corruptibility of them we do readily groan and mourn under the diseases pains and aches of the body but spiritual life is required to be humbled for the sins of the body Object And if you say How can there be sinne in the body seeing that is not reasonable all sinne supposeth reason now the body being void of that it should seem that it is no more capable of sinne then bruit beasts are Answ To this it is answered That the body is called sinfull not because sinne is formally in it for so it is in the soul but because by it as an instrument sinne is accomplished The subjectum quod or of denomination of sinne is the person man himself The Principium quo formale is the soul the mind and will The medium or instrumentum quo is the body not that the body is only an instrument to the soul for it is an essential part of man with the soul as is further to be shewed Thus we truly call them sinfull eyes sinfull tongues because they do instrumentally accomplish the sinfulness of the heart when the Apostle prayeth That they might be sanctified wholly in spirit soul and body he prayeth for the reparation of Gods Image again Now when that was perfect in Adam the spirit was immediately subject to God the soul to the spirit the body to the soul So that what the spirit thought the soul affected and the body accomplished but now this excellent harmony being dissolved as the spirit is disobedient to God the affections to the spirit so also in the body to both and thereby it becometh a co-partner with the soul in sinne and therefore must be joyned with it in eternal torments SECT III. Scripture Proof of the sinfull pollution of the Body THat the very body of a man is sinfull and needeth sanctification is plain from these Texts 2 Cor. 7. 1. Having these promises let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit perfecting holinesse This is spoken to those also that are regenerated none is perfect they must be perfecting As Apelles when he drew his line would write faciebat in the Imperfect tense not fecit as if he had finished it he would be still making it more exact so should we be in our best holy duties Amabam not amavi credebane not credidi there remaineth a further complement and fulness to be added to our best graces Now this perfection is by cleansing of the flesh and spirit that is the body and the soul It is a great errour among some Papists that they hold the spirit and mind of a man free from original contagion and therefore confine it only to the inferiour bodily parts but that hath sufficiently been confuted yet we deny not but the bodily part of man is likewise greatly contaminated and like an impure vessel defileth whatsoever cometh into it The uncleanness of the body appeareth also from that command Rom. 12. 1. where the Apostle enjoyneth that we should present our bodies a living Sacrifice holy and acceptable So that whatsoever we do by our body it is to be holy and acceptable unto God Now this exhortation was needless if we did
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there alwayes it signifieth the holy Ghost I rather therefore think that by the sinne of the world is meant all sinne any sinne committed and repented of for Christ did not only come to take away original sinne as some would have it but all actual sinne as well So that the expression is here used in the Singular number for the greater emphasis Hence Divines have two Rules first Nomen terminatione singulare saepe significatione est plurale a word that hath a singular termination may have a Plural signification as sinne in the Text signifieth all sinne The other Rule is Quando Scriptura sacra singulari numere utitur pro plurali tum saepe plus singularitate significat quam pluralitate when the holy Scripture useth a singular number for the plural then it often signifieth more in the singular number then if it had used the plural as Exod. 15. 22. He hath cast the horse and rider into the sea that is the great company of Pharaoh's hoast we do not then exclude original sin from this place only we say actual sin is also comprehended in this propitiatory Sacrifice of Christ Propos 3. By this then it appeareth That seeing every one hath his proper peculiar original sinne that the Infants sinne is distinct from the parents original defilement and so our inherent pollution doth differ from Adam 's sinfulnesse inherent in him For you must know that the sinne which is original in us was personal in him he did by his own voluntary transgression offend God and so deprived himself of all that spiritual honour and glory God had crowned him with Immediately upon the deprivation of Gods Image there was an habitual inclination unto all manner of evil and this pollution is transfused from Adam to all his posterity not that the same sinne numerically in Adam is communicated to every one descending from him but the same in kind Therefore that Argument which the Pelagians gloried in in their conflict with Austin fetched out of Aristotle That accidens non migrat de subjecto in subjectem is foolish and absurd For we grant that the same numerical sinne which was in Adam is not propagated to us no more then the same personal humane subsistency but as we have an humane being distinct from his so also an original pollution is in every man distinct from that sinfulness in Adam It 's true some learned men have doubted whether we are to conceive original sinne inherent in us as having a distinct guilt from Adam's transgression they think it more consonant to truth if we say that his sinne and our native pollution do make up the formal guilt of it But as we have heretofore shewed that cannot be therefore though we are alwayes to judge of this original pollution with this respect to Adam's sinne that being the original efficient sinne and this the original formal one yet in it self considered there is a damnable guilt and therefore by it alone we are said to be children of wrath Lastly Although original sinne be but one in every man yet we may call it many in respect of the efficacy of it and the innumerable issue that cometh from it So that we may say it is one and many in several respects for all the sinnes of the world have their rise mediately and immediately from it all these springs come from that Ocean Thus Aquinas and the Schoolmen answer that place Psal 51. 5. Although the proper answer to that place is that in the Hebrew it is in the singular number the plural is only according to the Vulgar Translation and if you say How can all these actual sins which are of a contrary nature come from this one spring How can one sin dispose to many contrary sinnes We answered this before and shall adde one thing more to clear it viz. That though one sinne may not dispose directly and per se to all sinne yet per accidens it may by removing that which did keep off all sinne for original righteousness did incline to all duties and thereby preserved from all sinne now original sinne excluding this thereby all sins are committed as temptations and occasions do intervene Even as if a musical instrument be marred every string maketh a different jarre according to the nature of it or as when a mixed body is dissolved every element goeth to his proper place which is Aquinas his similitude of which when we shall shew how original sinne is equal and inequal in all SECT IV. That Original Sinne which is in every man doth vent it selfe betimes WE proceed to the second part in the Doctrine which is That this original sinne which is in every man doth vent it self betimes his Imagination is evil from his childhood We told you the Papists offer violence to the Text when they limit it to a mans youth excluding his childhood as if that were innocent The Rabbins they say as Mercer relateth this evil figment is in a mans heart till he be thirteen year old and afterwards a good figment cometh into a man It is greatly disputed with the Schoolmen When is the time that a child cometh to discern between good and evil for till then they say the Law of God doth not bind and so he is not capable of actual sinnes Some limit the time of actual sinnes to four or six years of age But certainly here cannot be any fixed or uniform Rule given neither may we deny children to be guilty of actual sins before they come to years of discretion Certainly Austin speaketh of his observation of the envy which one child hath while another sucketh the same breast and therefore although we cannot say with the Lutherans That Infants have either actual sinnes or actual graces yet no doubt but actual sins do very early proceed from them neither is the time of their sinning to be limited to the time of their use of reason in a formal and deliberate manner It is true our Saviour took a little child setting him in the midst of the company saying Vnlesse a man become like this child he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven Mat. 18. 4. not that such a little child had not both original and actual sins in him but because comparatively to grown persons they are innocent having not the pride and other sins as men of age have therefore it is that we are to be converted and become like little children yea there is no parent that desireth the salvation of his children but he may observe that from the very childhood there is a great aversness to what is holy and a natural inclination to evil Insomuch that all do betimes give a discovery of that imbred and sinfull pollution that is in them Solomon saith That folly is bound up in the heart of a child prov 22. 15. And in Job 11. 12 Man is said to be born like a wild Asses-Colt because of the stupidity and unteachableness that is
would not have been any privation of such light as was necessary but it would have been meer nesciency and so no sinne and therefore such a nesciency was in Christs humane nature while and Infant Luk. 2. 52. He encreased in wisdome and stature as also Isa 7. 15. Butter and honey shall be eat that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good that is he should eat on childrens usuall food till he did encrease in knowledge but all this was without sinne This Proposition may satisfie that Infants cannot have any actual sinne while meerly so because the want of use of reason in them is no sinfull imperfection neither are they under the commands of God to beleive and know him as also to love him with all their soul Therefore it is absurd in the Lutherans to say that these commands of actual knowledge fear or love do bind them while thus under a natural nesciency that floweth from their very nature as nature not as vitiated and defiled Prop. 3. The reason why Infants have not the actual use of reason as soon as they are born ariseth not from their soult but the constitution of their bodies As in natural fools mad men or men in sleep there is no defect in their souls but in the body which is the organical instrument of the soul Therefore when Infants die as soon as ever their souls are seperated from the body they have perfect knowledge and reason but the want of the use of reason ariseth from the abundance and overflowing of humours whereby the sensitive powers of the soul are make indisposed for their operations Prop. 4. Seeing therefore that the soul cometh to work rationally by the successive alteration of the complexion of the body as the organs are disposed which in some is sooner in some later it is impossible to give not only the metaphysical indivisible instant but even the moral time wherein a child doth first begin to have an actual sinne As we cannot observe it in our selves when we first had any use of reason so neither can we in another and therefore the limiting of the works of understanding to the fourth sixth or seven years is altogether uncertain only we are to conclude That children sinne long before they know what sinne is or can understand what it is to offend God for those peevish 〈◊〉 vexations which are in little ones even while sucking are not to be freed 〈◊〉 some kind of guilt for such things would not have been in the state of innocent◠And if you say Why should we think those are sins seeing they do not flew from the use of reason and free-will Therefore The fifth Proposition is That contrariety to the Law of God is of the essence of a sinne not voluntariness in actu secundo as they say as if immediately elicited by the will For habitual sins are not voluntary in that but because they are the effect produced by voluntary acts of sinning that did precede therefore they have as much voluntariness as is required to make an habitual sinne and thus original sinne with the immediate effects that flow thence have as much voluntarness as is required to make them sinnes for as habitual sinnes are therefore sins because contracted by our own personal will so original sinne is voluntary because descending upon as by his will who was our Head both quoad esse naturale and morale as it is in time more to be explained Therefore that Position of Socinians and others That nothing can be a sinne which is not committed by the voluntary consent of our own personal will is to be rejected as that false foundation upon which they build so many erroneous Doctrines The sixth Proposition is That even young children very early have imperfect workings of understanding and will So that those obscure actings of a rational soul begin farre sooner to put themselves forth then many do think Hence it is that they know and love those that give them suck we must then consider that there are imperfect workings of reason and perfect formed ones These later indeed are not so soon but the former are very early Lapide in Psal 25. speaketh out of Gregory of a child but five year old guilty of blasphemy And certainly Austin in his Confessions doth much bewail his sins while he was a child he was but tantillus puer yet tantus peccator a little boy but a great sinner This truth is very usefull not only to confute Pelagiant and Socinians who make in a child an indifferency to good or evil or with Aristotle a blank table to receive any impression but especially to quicken up Parents to their duty in diligent admonition and institution of them For Solamon wiser than any Pelagian saith Prov. 22. 15. Folly is bound up in the heart of a child The word signifieth is close bound to his soul as if it were with ropes Now if besides this natural folly there be wicked education and evil example this will be such a three-fold cord that will not easily be broken Oh then do not think it is no matter what children do their sins are but sports and jests you will not have them displeased or corrected for this is contrary also to Solomon's counsel Prov. 22. 5. Train up a child in the way he should go c. Some render it dedicate some instruct it cometh all to one sense but who must be thus trained Even a child in the Hebrew it is Gnal pene super es viae which causeth divers Interpretations Some understand it of the very first beginnings of a childs course when he in bivio whether he shall take to virtue or vice Some for the very time that any entrance can be made upon them for children are to learn many things by meer memory before they have understanding neither is that though in holy things a taking of Gods name in vain but a serving of God according to their capacity Some understand it according to the capacity of the child as a vessel with a narrow mouth must have liquour poured into it by degrees all these senses tend to the same purpose viz. that Parents should not put off the instruction of their children or to think because they are children therefore their sins are not to be much regarded for you have Job sharply bewailing these Job 13. 23. What were those iniquities for which God did so severely chastice Job Why did God write such bitter things against him it was because of the sins of his youth the same word in the Text And Psal 25. 7. David in great affection prayeth God would not remember the sins of his youth the same word also in the original as is in my Text And certainly we have a dreadfull example of Gods anger even against the sins of little children 2 King 2. 23. for such came out of the City and mocked the Prophet saying Go up thou bald head and there presently came two she-bears
second place there is the Universality 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is more emphatical then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All things not all men This expression is used to shew that not only all men but all their actions studies endeavours every thing belonging to them as it were is thus sinfull and damnable although Grotius maketh the Substantive understood to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the third place we have the Cause appointing and declaring of this and that is the Scripture It is usual to attribute those things which belong to God unto the Scripture because that is the sentence of God that declareth the will of God Thus Gal. 3. 8. The Scripture fore-seeing that God would justifie the Heathen c. that is God by his Word fore-telling what he would do Thus Rom. 9. 17. The Scripture saith unto Pharaoh For this same purpose have I raised thee up c. that is God by the Scripture manifested his will and purpose concerning Pharaoh So that in this place we are to conceive of God wisely and righteously ordering this way that all mankind shall fall into a stat of sin condemnation that so a way may be made open for the advancement of the grace of the Gospel Not that God did necessitate Adam to sinne or did infuse any evil into him but be falling by his own voluntary transgression and thereby plunging all his posterity into this wretched estate God who could have prevented this fall of Adam did not because not bound to it give him that grace which would actually have confirmed him although he bestowed on him grace sufficient enough to inable him to stand God I say did righteously and wisely permit this fall of his thereby to work out a greater good then the sinne of Adam could be an evil Thus God may be called the cause appointing and ordering of all this evil of mankind partly permissivè by leaving Adam to his own will and partly directivè and ordinativè being not a bare spectator or sufferer of this apostasie but also a righteous director and ordainer of it to blessed and heavenly ends Though therefore God is here said to shut up all mankind into this prison yet he is no more cause of the evil which brought this desolation then a Magistrate is of the wickedness of such a Malefactor whom he throweth into prison Yea Gods ordering of this fall of Adam unto such righteous ends doth therein demonstrate his Mercy and his Justice So that although sinne be evil yet the punishing of this is good as also the working of a better good then the evil is evil is a demonstration of the infinite wisdom of God As God doth it thus as the chief cause so the Scripture is said to shut us up under sinne instrumentally because that declareth the curse of God due unto us And that upon a two-fold account both because of the actual impieties all do commit as also because of that original filthiness and pollution we are born in Now it is my purpose to treat of Gods righteous dispensation towards mankind in this particular only because some do rise up with great zeal for the righteousness honour and glory of God in this point as if the Doctrine delivered by the Orthodox herein were altogether injurious and derogatory to him Hence the late known Adversary to this fundamental Truth about original sinne delivers himself thus Answer to a Letter pag. 23 24 To say that for Adam's sinne it is just in God to condemn Infants to the eternal flames of hell and to say that concupiscence or natural inclinations before they passe unto act could bring eternal condemnation c. are two such horrid propositions that if any Church in the world would expresly affirme them I for my part should think it unlawfull to communicate with her in the defence or profession of either and think it would be the greatest temptation in the world to make men not to love God of whom they speak such horrid things Thus he most horribly Now although these two Propositions are set down by him odiously and captiously not fully expressing the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches yet it is plain that he striketh at those Positions which are for the substance of them maintained by all Protestant Churches and doth thereby publiquely professe his separation from and non-communion with all Protestant Churches and particularly with the Church of England in that 9th Article which he doth so cruelly tear and mangle that it may not appear to be what indeed it is Our work therefore shall be from this Text to declare from Scripture-ground the holiness wisdome and righteousness of God in his proceedings thus with mankind for Adam's sinne For although all grown persons are shut up under actual sins as well as original yet here is comprehended both seeing it doth extend to all that may have salvation by Christ out of which number Infants are not to be excluded Therefore Bellarmine bringeth this Text amongst others to prove that there is an original sinne that all are born in And so we observe That God for righteous and wise ends manifested in the Scripture hath shut up all mankind in a state of sinne and damnation That God who could have preserved Adam in the state of happinesse and continued it to all his posterity so that thereby no sinne or condemnation would have come upon any one man for there would then none have done evil no not one hath ordered the contrary way suffering man to fall and thereby all mankind to be in a state of condemnation whereby also sin is so predominant that now there is none that doth good no not one The Scripture doth in other places with much exactnesse and diligence take notice of the proceeding of God in this way as Rom. 3. 9. The Apostle dividing all mankind into Jews and Gentiles sheweth that though there may be many differences in several respects yet as to a state of sin by nature and so a necessity of justification by Christ all were alike Therefore saith he We have before proved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The word is very emphatical some make it to charge complain and in an heavy manner to accuse So that to be by nature of our selves in a state of wrath not being able without the grace of Christ to avoid this condemnation is the greatest guilt that we can be charged with It ought not to seem a light and contemptible thing that we come thus cursed in the world But because men may be accused falsly and the Pelagians charge us with laying a false curse upon mankind hence the Greek word signifieth more viz. so to charge a thing upon a man as by strong reasons to prove it to shew clearly the causes and grounds of it therefore our Translators render it We have before proved So that the Apostles meaning is We have not only said thus but we have proved A Metaphor say some from those who have cast up
how much more should the command of God and Christ when we can say here Christ hath commanded us to enquire no further It is not therefore with divine truths as it is with philosophical for with the latter though we know Aristotle saith so yet we may enquire into the truth of it but in Theological things if it appear God hath said this then we must not judge but believe so that it is a learned ignorance when we affect not to know above what is written It is a good resolution of Luthers In cup. Genes 6. I follow saith he alwayes this rule that I may avoid those Questions which may draw me up to the throne of Gods supreme Majesty Melius tutius est ad praesepe Christ hominis consistere It is better and safer to stand at the manager of Christ as man For this end we have Elihu and God himself at last humbling Job who had disputed the righteous proceedings of God too presumptuously by the consideration of Gods transcendent greatness to mans capacity yea by these natural things convincing him of his infirmity which we see very day as the rain and thunder c. Now certainly if we cannot behold a starre much less the Sunne if we cannot find out the reason of Gods proceedings in natural things how much more in supernatural Therefore Fourthly This is alwayes to be laid down as a foundation there is no unrighteousness with God whatsoever he doth is very just though many times this is secret and hidden to us Even as David while estuating in his soul and perplexed about Gods dispensations in this world thinking that equality of administrations to those that were not equall was inequallity yet least this sour leaven should imbitter him too much he layeth down as a sure principle and foundation and that in the very beginning Truly God is good to Israel even to such as are of a clean heart Psal 73. 1. And the Apostle in those sublime mysteries about Election and Reprobation doth check the presumptuous Disputations of men Who will contend with God in such cases Rom 9. And Elihu argueth against Job Chap 34. 18. Is it fit to say to a King thou art wicked and to Princes ye are ungodly he meaneth of such whose righteousness and integrity is universally approved of for the Prophets did many times rereprove ungodly Kings and informe them of their impieties though we are to do our duties even to such with acknowlengement of their eminent place Then how much more unsufferable is it concerning God of whom all men have this inbred notion that he is optimus as well as maximus for any if God do thus and thus when yet the Scripture declareth that he doth so to accuse it for unrighteousness Our work then is to shew that such Truths are revealed in Scripture That God taketh such and such wayes in his dealings with mankind and when this is established then let us say God is true and every man is a liar Then let us proclaime the righteousness of God though we cannot satisfie every curious Objection yea our duty were to pass them by with contempt and silence did not the importunity of the Adversaries provokens so that we are to answer a fool in his solly lest he be wise in his own conceit Prov. 26. 5. And indeed excepting one particular there is not any thing scarce of any moment that may make a man so much as doubt about the righteousness of God in this Doctrine of original sinne as it is delivered by Protestant Writers who follow the pattern in the Mount which that it may appear in its harmony and not judge of a piece by it self but in its compleat proportion I shall proceed to adde further Propositions Hence In the fourth place observe God made made man at first perfect both in soul and body as his body was not subject to diseases and death so neither his soul to ignorance and passions God made him right Eccles 7. yea in his own image righteousness and true holiness not as the Socinians say that he was created in a meer innocency that is indifferency to good or evil not being made righteous till man should make himself Man with simplicity in his understanding and childishness as if he differed but a little from an Ideot it is wonder they do not also say he was created blind as Suarez reporteth Disput de statu innocentiae of some who held so because it is said after his fall That their eyes were opened Certainly the Image of God he was created in and with such a peculiar expression which the Scripture taketh notice of Let us make man after our own Image Gen. 1. 26. doth denote nothing but excellency and perfection in him both for natural and spiritual things and shall we think that God who made his body perfect and in full stature would not do the like for his soul The end also for which God made him necessarily presupposeth him indued with all wisdom and holiness for he was made the head of mankind he was made to be the Governour and Lord of the world he imposed names on the beasts which argued both his knowledge and superiority he was made to glorifie and praise God to have constant communion with him and enjoyment of him and who can think God created him for such a sublime end without proportionable ability thereunto and the rather considering how God created every thing in its kind as good yea very good Every creature was made perfect by its natural operations to attain its natural end and shall man only be made imperfect So that we are fully to believe this good and glorious estate that God made Adam in for Pelagian and Socinians begin to erre here This is the first step to all their future abominations Prop. 5. God did not only create man thus with an internal sufficiency of ability to persevere in this holy and blessed estate but did also vouchsafe all other auxiliaries of grace that might inable him to hold out Even Adam in the state of integrity could do no good thing without the help of God and therefore though whole yet he needed the Physician not indeed to heal him or recover him but to preserve him from falling and no wonder Adam needed this grace of God seeing the very Angels likewise did So that the very difference why some did fall and the others stand was the grace of God insomuch that that of Paul may be applied even to Angels as well as men 1 Cor. 4. 7. Who made thee to differ from another and what hast thou that thou hast not received Hence the Scripture maketh their election the cause of their standing being therefore called the elect Angels 1 Tim. 5. 21. Adam then was created thus sufficient within and wanting nothing without either of directing or preserving grace to continue him in this blessed estate and which is the greater aggravation of that full and sufficient estate God created him
in he had nothing within him that might concupiscentially draw away his heart from God It was not with Adam as with us who though we have grace by Christ to help us yet there is within us a repugnant principle thereunto There is a root of rebellion within us to this grace of God but all things in Adam were quiet and harmonious when the Devil did cast in his fiery darts there was not so much as the least prepared materials to receive them as it is with us when the Devil doth tempt without we have something within that is treacherous that is ready like a little thief to let in the great one but in Adam every thing was right all lay in the meer determination of his will if he would stand he might there was nothing within or without that was an impediment to him whereas the great misery that is brought upon man by this original corruption is that though grace doth many times excise and stirre up the will yet we cannot do what we would as Paul doth most sadly complain Rom. 7. Adam while in the state of integrity did resemble God though with infinite disproportion in whom potestas and voluntas are all one Thus in Adam his posse was his velle let him will what was good and he did it there was no innate corruption to make the execution of it difficult but alas man in his lapsed estate doth need that grace which doth not only give the posse but the velle also Hence he is said to work in us both to will and to do Phil. 2. 13. and that of his good pleasure not of our good will and pleasure as some would pervert that Text. SECT III. Objections Answered WE are vindicating the righteousness of God in his proceedings with mankind about original sinne being presumptuously accused by those who harden themselves against this truth I proceed therefore to lay down one Proposition only more thereby answering their particular Objections which will help us to much light in this point that it may seem no new or strange thing that Radix damnata should proferre ramos damnatos a condemned root should bring forth condemned branches or a poisoned fountain invenomed streams The Proposition is this God who made man thus perfect and exactly qualified every way to attain that glorious and for which he was made did not appoint him as a meer single person to stand and fall for himself but as a publique person in whom we were all represented and whose will should be as the will of all mankind and therefore Rom. 5. we are not only said to be made sinners by him which denoteth our inherent corruption but also to sinne in him which supposeth that our persons were represented in him not in this sense as if we had appointed Adam our delegate as it were and so had passed over our wils to him for how could that be when we had no existency or being at all Therefore this was wholly by the appointment of God that it should be so who is the supream Lord over all mankind Even as Christ was Surety for all those who were given him of the Father not as if believers did delegate him as some have absurdly and odiously stated the Question but he was designed to that office by the appointment of God Adam then was made the common Trustee and Treasurer for all mankind though he did prove as it were the Phaeton involving all his posterity in utter destruction so that Adam was the head of mankind two wayes 1. He was the caput naturale the natural head from which his off spring was to descend and so original sinne is communicated unto us because of our natural propagation from him This maketh Austin call it therefore so great a sinne that we are never able to judge enough of the hainousness of it because hereby the whole mass and lump of mankind is soured with it but this is not all Therefore In the second place He was made caput morale God did appoint him to be our moral head covenanting with him that if he perservered the good promised should redound to him and to all his posterity but if he did apostatize then he and all his off-spring shall be plunged into the evil threatned and this Covenant was made known to Adam that so he might be the more carefull to look to his duty Neither was it requisite that God should expect Adam's consent or ours to this agreement seeing God is the absolute Sovereign and Lord of all and herein did consult for our good better then if he had taken any other way as is more to be insisted on But against this Covenant many rise up with open mouth Soto the Papist he derides it the late Writer so often mentioned saith he knoweth of no such thing and which is the greater pity Jausenius more orthodox though a Papist then many who call themselves Protestants in the Pelagian Controversies he following Austin too rigidly calleth it Novum pacti mysterium c. the new mystery of a Covenant founded upon no Scripture Tradition or solid Reason but exeogitated by meer humane Authority De Stat. Nat. lap lib. 1. cap. 16. But though this Covenant with Adam be not expressed yet evident and inseparable consequences from the Scripture will compel us to believe it For was the commination of death only to him as a singular person was he only interessed in the punishment of death if he did disobey The event demonstrateth the clean contrary for do not all die upon his voluntary transgression Is not this then plainly to say that God made a Covenant with him as a publique person And if Austin were not of that mind how could he say Omnes homines fuernnt ille unus homo We were not all that one man physically and naturally therefore morally and by Covenant in Gods estimation per jurisfictionem as they say though we must not think this was a meer fiction or imaginary thing as the Remonstrants call it only a dispensative Covenant not as if God were really angry with mankind for this transgression Again If there were not this Covenant the Apostle could not lay it still upon one man Rom. 5. and 1 Cor. 15. but if it were only because the root is defiled then our parents sins would be accounted to us as well as Adam's which compelled Austin to incline to that opinion also Lastly For I have proved this before Adam is called Rom. 5. 14. The figure of his who was to come that is Christ The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Type that is by way of contrariety that as Christ was the head of all believers to justification and eternal life so Adam was the head of all his posterity to sinne and eternal death Therefore Christ is called the second Adam whereby it is plain That God did appoint these two as two contrary heads and publique persons for two contrary ends which doth necessarily imply a Covenant
and indeed who can deny but that as all the Angels did stand upon their own personal account The other Angels did not sinne in Lucifer as a common head though happily by imitation but they all stood upon their own bottom and so were condemned for their own personal iniquity so God also might have ordered about man that Adam's sinne should not have hurt his posterity what he did should be imputed to his own person only as it is now with parents in respect of their children Thus men might not have been subordinate to him but collateral in respect of a moral consideration though naturally they descended from him for the denying of original righteousness which is the consequent of Adam's sinne was wholly at his free pleasure only supposing the Covenant it doth become necessary to us to be deprived of it and it cannot be rationally thought how original righteousness upon Adam's standing could have been propagated to his posterity without this Covenant of God that it should be so So then if this foundation be surely laid this will abundantly quell all those calumnies whereby Gods proceedings are traduced in this point for whereas it is thought to be unheard of injustice and intollerable that we should not only be made miserable both temporally and eternally by another mans sinne but also sinfull by his sinne which is thought to be the greatest cruelty that can be imagined We are made sinners whether we will or no that we may be damned whether we will or no. This Proposition may serve to compose such distempered apprehensions not indeed but that we must admire in some respects at Gods holy and righteous proceedings which we are not fully to comprehend Austin is affected with the miris modis and occultis judiciis of God in these dispensations And he that will not leave to faith to apprehend where reason cannot comprehend doth deserve both ex congruo condigno to be accounted a Philosopher rather than a Christain and his Religion Reason rather than Faith For what point is there in those mysteries of faith which we believe wherein we are not to cry out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oh the depths Our oyster-shell cannot empty that Ocean as Austin is reported to have a vision of a young man attempting to do so while he was writing his book of the Trinity thereby informing him of humane incapacity to reach comprehensively to such things Again There is none saith that this sinfull condition and so by consequence miserable is brought upon Infants necessarily for although as to them it 's inevitable yet in Adam it was free and voluntary God had abundantly furnished him withall abilities to make mankind happy and none may presume of Adam's posterity that he would have done otherwise Who can say he would have done otherwise then Adam did seeing God did on purpose create man at first in such a furnished and qualified manner that as Austin observeth the world might see what the free-will of man could do that now we may see what the grace of Christ can do Furthermore Which consideration alone is able to overthrow the foundation of all the calumnies cast upon this Doctrine God when he made Adam thus the common trustee for mankind did herein consult our good It was for mans advantage that all this was done for him he intended original righteousness immortality and happinesse should descend from him to his posterity upon his perseverance so that no more evil is now inflicted upon Adam's off-spring then good was designed and provided for him if he had continued in obedience If sinne and misery come upon Infants now before actual knowledge so would original righteousnesse and happinesse have descended upon them before their consent and whereas happily many of Adam's posterity yea all if left to themselves would have revolted from God upon Adam's confirmation all would have been confirmed So that we see God doth not inflict more evil then he had provided good for us Again The known Enemy to the Doctrine of original sinne doth falsly and odiously represent this Doctrine as if Infants were innocents and yet we hold them guilty of eternal damnation and therefore having mustered many reasons together concludeth upon the account of them That it is safe to affirm that God doth not damn any one to hell for the sinne of another Vnum Necess cap. 6. Sect. 1. Now this is to make Chimera's of his own head for no Divine saith That an Infant deserveth hell meerly because Adam sinned nor is he obnoxious to the wrath of God meerly for that but because this corruption of Adams is also propagated to the child and so it is obnoxious to the wrath of God for that inherent derived pollution and the Scripture being as plain and clear in describing of such a natural estate of man by his descent from Adam as may possibly be desired We must not leave such evident Texts because we may subtilly dispute in a cavilling manner about Gods proceedings herein It is good Rule among the Schoolmen That in Philosophicis argumentum facit fidem but in Theologicis-fides facit argumentum In Philosophy the Argument worketh saith or assent but in Divinity saith worketh the argument So that we are to believe that one place if there were no more of David's confession Psal 51. 5. Behold I was shopen in iniquity and in sinne did my mother conceive me then all the curious presumptuous speculations of men who from reason would demolish this truth and as for their evasions and wrestings of that place they are so forced and irrational that a man may justly tremble to see men no more reverentially submit their thoughts to the Scripture Certainly the Psalmist intended that every one should have a special regard to this truth delivered there because of the Behold prefixed which is as I may so say the Asterisce of the holy Ghost or the Bibles nota benè as was formerly said in this Text. If further it be objected That it was not voluntary to Adam's posterity their consents were to be expected To this it is easily answered That seeing God had provided such a way for mankind as was for their good seeing the contrary good and more also to that evil we are now fallen into was intended for us in case of Adam's obedience how silly is it to say mans consent should be expected Not to adde further that the holy wisdom of God ordering it thus is enough to make us never to open our mouths more against this way and as for the involuntarinesse of this sinne we have several times spoken to that It was voluntary as farre as the nature of such a sinne did require even as habitual sinnes are not voluntary as actual are but are as farre as habitual ones do require It was voluntary effectivè This sinne did not arise from the nature or matter of man necessarily as the Materiarii and other Heretiques taught but by the voluntary transgression of Adam It is
is described by the immediate effect from this cursed cause being thus abominable and filthy what doth necessarily flow from hence even to drink iniquity like water This expression sheweth the vehement inclination in man to sinne and that with delight as a man who is greatly thirsty doth earnestly desire to drink that the heat within may be refrigerated Of this expression more in the Doctrine This is enough to shew how it is with man relatively to sinne even as with a feavourish or hydropical person that is continually calling for some drink to cool the heat within Thus this Text sheweth us what is one immediate and inseperable effect of mans nature through original corruption that it doth propend and incline with all greediness to evil and only evil continually Yet although this be so pregnant and clear a place Socinians have laboured to obscure it And 1. They say It is an Hyperbole This is their constant refuge whensoever the Scripture saith any thing to exalt Christ or debaâ—e man they make it an Hyperbole but how can that be accounted an Hyperbole which experience doth confirme And the Adversaries to original sinne grant that mankind is very prone to sinne and all are very ready to offend though they attribute this to other causes rather then original sinne This Answer of theirs hath been fully consuted when we treated on Psal 51. 2. They say Such an impurity is noted to be in man as is in the Angels and the Heavens but they have no original sinne The Answer is That there is more attributed to man how much more abominable is man So that the Argument is taken from the less to the greater 3. They say These words are not to be taken universally or understood of every man but the expression is universal it excludeth or exempteth no man man and born of a woman are universals not particulars 4. They say These are the words of Eliphaz one of Jobs friends and they did not alwayes speak right It is true they did not alwayes rightly apply the Doctrine they spake they mistook about Job but the Doctrine it self in the general was true and therefore we see that quoted in the new Testament as the word of God which Eliphaz spake as that passage 1 Cor. 3. 13. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness is Eliphaz his speech Job 5. 13. but for this particular truth you have heard Job also as well as Eliphaz confirming of it Job 14. 3. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean not one Which is not to be understood of bodily filthiness as the Pelagians of old but spiritual uncleanness as appeareth by the opposite to it in other places which is unrighteousness for it is worth our observing that this natural pollution and sinfulness of man is mentioned four times in this Book of Job with the aggravation of it The first is Chap. 4. 18 19. Behold he put no trust in his servants c. how much less on them that dwell in houses of clay whose foundation is in the dust c. This special truth Eliphaz saith he had in a Vision and by special revelation from God and therefore it was the more to be attended unto if Angels are not able to stand in the presence of God but cover even their very faces the noblest part as conscious of their imperfection comparatively to God then no wonder if sinful mortal man be affected with his distance from yea and contrariety to God In the next place We have this truth witnessed unto by Job and that on purpose to debase himself under God that if God do search into him he cannot find any thing but what is filthy and unclean Chap. 14. 4. of which we have largely treated The third time we meet with is here in my Text where Eliphaz repeateth it again making use thereof to Job that he should acknowledge impurity and uncleanness adhering unto every thing he doth though never so holy And The fourth or last time is Chap 25 45 6. Where Bildad agreeth both with Job and Eliphaz in this truth How can hâ— be clean that is born of a woman The starres are not pure in his sight how much less man that is a worme c. Thus you see in the mouth of three witnesses we have this Doctrine assured to us that man of himself is very abominable and filthy we might think such clear Texts might for ever convince men that they should not speak of such a thing as natural is quaedem sanctitas and probitas a natural kind of holiness and probity no though it were among deaf men the matter is so abominable and grossely repugnant to Scripture-light The last exception put in against this place by the pure Naturalists is That this Text speaketh of actual sinne and therefore it maketh nothing for original To drink down iniquity like water is say they nothing but the 〈◊〉 exercising of impiety But this is readily granted for we bring this Text to declare the immediate issue of original sinne because man is thus abominable by nature therefore he drinketh down iniquity like water he doth not speak here of men who by custom have habituated themselves in an evil way which is become like a second nature to them but of man originally and nakedly in himself till the grace of God make a change upon him So that as to drink though an action doth denote thirst a natural appetite within Thus the acting of iniquity with delight and content doth necessarily suppose a corrupted and perverted principle within from whence all actual evil doth flow Thus the Text being fully explained and vindicated from all exceptions we may observe That man being originally corrupted is therefore prone to all sinne with delight Because he is abominable and filthy therefore he swalloweth down iniquity like water As in every mans body there is a mortal and corruptible principle within which exposeth to diseases and at last death it self So in the soul there is a vehement inclination unto every thing that is evil it 's most sutable and connatural to him As the feavourish man with greedinesse and delight doth swallow down cold liquour thinking he never hath enough Thus it is with man by nature That there is in all mankind a propensity to sinne not onely the Adversaries to original sinne but even Heathens have acknowledged and bewailed and we have the Scripture Rom. 3. at large describing of it Now if it were not by original sinne How and whence should a sinfull inclination be in all men if there were an innocency and neutrality meerly in man to good or evil yea an inclination rather to good because as they say the seeds of vertue are naturally in all How cometh it about that the greater part of mankind is not good rather than evil Why should it not be that to sinne is difficult but to do good is easie But besides experience and many Texts of Scripture that may confound this
are ignorantis and concupiscentia Ignorance and Concupiscence Ignorance by that we know not God the true and chiefest good but every creature yea every lust is represented as good and lovely as in the dark night a white rotten post or a glow-worm will shine and appear something It is the not knowing of God as revealed in the Scripture which maketh us set up so many Idols in our hearts The other daughter is Concupiscence and this may be called Sheol because it is alwayes asking and craving insomuch that a man is insatibly carried out all his life long to one sinne or other he still cryeth Give give Now what a miserable creature is man that is thus greedy of that which is destructive of him If you should hear a man calling importunately for poison he will eat nothing but poison Is not such an one desperate set to ruine himself Thus is with every natural man he can never sinne enough as if he thought he could never damn himself enough How happy are the creatures comparatively herein to man Their appetites are moderated and they desire nothing that is hurtfull but man never stayeth himself in his lusts and withall he is wholly carried out to such things as will inevitably damn him Sixthly A thirsty man drinking down water doth it to refresh himself never attending whether it be wholsom or destructive to him How many have got their mortal bane by drinking to quench their raging heat within The Hydropical man will call for his drink though thereby he is ruined and this doth fitly resemble that cursed appetite in us to sinne though it damnus We look onely to the bait not to the hook to the pleasures of sinne the sweetness of sinne not at all considering what buterness thus will bring at the later end Is not this the miserable estate of man by nature Doth he look any further then to satisfie this corrupt thirst within him Doth he think will thus be for my good will this be in stead of God and Heaven to me Hence also it is that he is carried out to sinne from a voluntary principle within Even as a thirstly man needeth not to be hired or compelled to drink he hath that within him which will instigate him Thus it is in every man by nature though there should be no Devil to tempt him yet that corrupt frame within would provoke him to all evil It is from this that though hell and damnation be threatned though this sword of Gods anger hang over his head yet he will drink of this water Lastly There is denoted in this similitude That a man by committing of sinne is thereby inclined to sinne the more It doth not satisfie but increase the lust more As a man in distempered heat doth not allay it by drinking but enstameth it the more as a little water thrown on the fire intendeth the heat thereof Thus by drinking in of the water of sinne a man becomes more thirstly after it and so to his corrupt inclination there is added also a corrupt custom and these two cords are not easily broken it must be the grace of God alone that can set us at liberty Hence we have that expression concerning a stubborn obstinate man in his way of sinning Deut. 29. 19. That he addeth drunkennesse to thirst And so again Thirst to drunkennesse thus he is alwayes in vehement motions after sinne and the more he swalloweth it down and is inebriated with it the thirstier still he groweth according to that known Rule Quò plus suxt potae plus siâ—iuntur aquae It is true that proverbial expression used by Moses in the Text named is very obscure and is greatly vexed Delrio upon the place giveth fifteen Interpretations and Bonfrerius offereth one of his own Grotius goeth along with those that â—â—â—erstand the abstracts for concretes and so apply it to two different persâ—â—â— ut that of Calvins seemeth most probable which I have mentioned that it denoteth a man by custom in sinne to be more vehemently inclined thereunto Even as drunkennesse doth not quench the thirst but maketh a man more thirsty afterwards and this agreeth wholly with my purpose SECT III. Some Demonstrations proving that there is such an impetuous inclination in man to sin THat there is such an universal propensity in all manking is confirmed by experience and acknowledged by the adversaris to original sinne Let us bring some few demonstrations à posteriori that they may fully prove the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That there is such an impetuous inclination in man to sinne And First The testimony of the Scripture may be instar omnium in this point that doth sufficiently attest the general pollution of all men by their evil doings Not to bring in that fore-mentioned place Psal 14. 2 3. where God is said to look from Heaven upon the children of men and he could not behold one that did good no not one It was not upon Judea only but upon the children of men and he could not find one good We may take in many other places to confirm this How quickly had all mankind corrupted it self as appeareth Gen. 6. 12. God looked upon the earth and behold it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted his way before God Here we see not long after the Creation how all the world was quickly become abominable in his eyes All flesh had corrupted his way every man had defiled himself Yea so great it was that vers 5. Every imagination of man was only evil and that continually Now whence should all this evil arise Must not the fountain needs be bitter from which so many bitter streams flow Could so many thorns grow from men if they were grapes If so be there were the seeds of virtue in men by nature as they say or at least man is by nature indifferent either to good or evil yea more inclining to good How cometh it about that alwayes evil should prevail How is it that good doth not sometimes take place Why is there not an age to be recorded wherein we may say all flesh had made their wayes holy and that every imagination of the thoughts of mans heart was onely good continually Why should not there be some ages wherein God might look from Heaven and see none that did evil no not one The pure Naturalists are never able to answer this satisfactorily for if man be by nature as well without vice or virtue ready and capable to receive either as his will shall carry him Why is it that this will of man doth never prevail universally in some age to make all good Why should sinne alwayes get the upper hand and supplant virtue as it were so as to come out first Neither can that be a refuge in this Text which sometimes they runne unto That long custom in sinning for many ages together and evil examples so long confirmed from age to age dâ— cause such a torrent of impiety For not to speak at this
time of the cause of such evil customs and examples How came they at first Whence did they arise but from polluted originals This will not answer the Text in hand for that speaketh of the first age before the drowning of the world which yet is called the world of the ungodly 2 Pet. 2. 5. It was the world of ungodly in the first age and still in the later ages it is the world of ungodly Yea this is still applied to that remnant of mankind which escaped the deluge when there were but eight persons Gen. 8. It 's there said That the imagination of mans heart was 〈◊〉 his youth It is strange therefore that if good seed was naturally sown in 〈◊〉 that nothing but tares should come up every where in stead thereof But let us take notice of another place of Scripture confirming the universal overslowing of iniquity and that is David's complaint which he so sadly poureth forth calling upon God to help and to redress it Psal 12. 1. Help Lord for the godlyman ceaseth the faithfull fail from among the children of man They speak vanity every one with his neighbour It is true here are some supposed to be godly and faithfull but they are few comparatively to the ungodly as flowers to the weeds as jewels to the sand on the seashore and those that were so it was not from nature but the grace of God that sanctified and prepared them But if you do regard the general the Psalmist is so affectionately moved with the overflowing of evil that he seeth no help but in God himself and this is the more to be aggravated because the people of Israel were the Church of God they had the Prophets of God they had Gods wonderfull presence amongst them and yet for all that this garden so planted and dressed by God did become a wildernesse If then where there are many external and powerfull means to subdue and conquer that innate corruption yet it break out so violently What if man were left to himself How abominable and vile would he prove And was not this the perpetual complaint of all the Prophets successively that every one did turn aside to their evil wayes that they did preach in vain that there was no soundnesse amongst them a sinfull Nation a seed of evil-doers The more they were stricken the more they revolted The whole head was sick and the whole heart faint as Isaiah most affectionately bewalleth it Chap. 1. 4 5. What a strong demonstration then is this of the imbred corruption of mankind that under all the means of grace doth yet overflow in impicties I shall not mention any more Texts for this purpose The whole scope of the Scripture being to declare mans sinfulness and extoll Gods grace Secondly This universal propensity to sinne in all mankind is likewise attested unto even by the very Heathens It 's true they knew nothing of Adams tall nor of the propagation of this hereditary pollution yet the sinfulness it self they perceived and groaned under it Even Grotius himself who would elude the pregnant Texts of Scripture for original sinne by the Rhetoricians trope of Hyperbole yet doth bring in many passages out of the Heathens acknowledging such a depravation of mans nature out of Heriocles the Philosopher Jamblichus that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it 's implanted and ingraffed in us to sinne Comment in Luc. cap. 2. ver 22. as also De Jure botli as paci lib. 2. Yea out of Aristotle who held this indifferency in mans nature he brings that expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is imbred in a man to gain-say reason Thus the very Heathens though they knew not the cause yet could not but confess that vitium ingenita infirmitatis the vitious imbred infirmity that is in every man Yea their Poets have acknowledged better Divinity then some later writers in the Church witness those sayings Quantuns mortalia peceatora coecae noctis habent and another Vitiis neme sine nascitur A third Terras Astraeae reliquit fergning our originals to be of stones Inde genus duri sumus Homines suâ naturâ sunt malis as Plato We might be large also in bringing the witnesses of others Nihil homine miserius superbius said Pliny simul atque ediâ—i sumus and Tully In omni continuò pravitate versamur c. And what is that saying Humanum est errare but according to Divinity Humanum est peccare Thus the light of nature though but like that of the Owl to the Sunne could perceive something in this kind Now this testimony is the more to be regarded because it is so imbred a desire in us to make our selves as lovely as may be and to hide every thing that is deformed Thirdly 〈◊〉 principle also in all Nations to have Magistrates and Laws to have prisonâ—â—â—gibbets whereby punishment may be inflicted upon offenders doth palpably demonstrate what a pronenesse there is in man to sinne For those provisoes do suppose that man doth restrain himself from evil only for fear of punishment If so be that there were such a natural purity in man Why should there be such jealousies such fears of man Homo homini lupus Why are there provided such severe punishments to awe wicked men but that mans nature is out of credit it is supposed to do all the evil it can if it have any impunity Certainly it is not for good that Mastives are tied up that Bears and Lions are kept up in grates This argueth how cruel they would be if let loose Thus also it is with mankind all the severe Laws and punishments which are in all estates established do demonstrate how wild and outragious man is if left alone to himself In his younger yeares he hath the rod when growne up prisons and gallows and in his old age death and hell to awe him against sinne Fourthly The necessary of Education and Chastisement to young children doth also declare that they are prone to vice It cannot be denied but supposing Adam had continued in integrity and procreated children they would have needed instruction and information but then withall it must be granted that this was a meer innocent nesciency in them and therefore as the body had been prepared so the soul without any difficulty would with all aptnesse and readinesse have received all the good seed sown into it whereas now in young ones there is a difficulty to understand holy things they are unteachable and untractable yea there is also a contrariety and an aversnesse to that which is good Now if they were in a meer purity of nature as the Adversaries suggest it they were in such an equal indifferency and capacity of virtue or vice Why should not they need education and Masters to teach them evil as well as good Yea why should they not be more ready to good then evil seeing they say there are igniculi virtutum sparks of virtue lying
hid in the soul which by education and instruction are blown up into a flame So that the Schools which are generally provided for youth do declare That the nature of man of it self will bring forth weeds but there must be much plowing and sowing much cost and labour ere any good seed will grow up That known Text of Scripture will for ever bear record against these patrons of nature Folly is bound up in the heart of a child but the rod of correction will drive it away Prov. 22. 15. No lesse powerfull is that counsel Prov. 23. 13. With-hold not correction from the child if thou beat him with the rod he shall not die if thou beat him c. thou shalt deliver his soul from hell Doth not this proclaim that every child is set to damn it self if left alone It is not more prone to runne into the fire then it is to fall into hell and this maketh chastisement so necessary How necessary is it for parents to consider this either education or hell either chastisement or damnation And whence is all this but because of the impetuous nature in every child unto evil As the horse and mule need the bridle being carried out only by sense Thus doth the child need admonition being unteachable and untamable of himself even like the wild Asses colt Job 11. 12. Let parents then take heed of remisness lest their children roaring in hell do continually curse them for their negligence It 's a known example of a young man carried to the place of execution that cried out Non Praetor sed Mater mea duxit ad furcam It was not the Judge but his mother brought him to that shamefull death There was in the Tabernacle Aarons Rod and the Manna which some would have allegorically to signifie the sweetness and benefit of Discipline Iniquity then breedeth within us all the wisest and severest education can no more free a child from its inherent filthiness then Paracelsus could make himself immortal as he fondly boasted if he had had the first ordering and dieting of his body Hence the duty of parents is set down Ephes 6. 4. To bring up their children in the nature and admonition of the Lord. And Solomon who was so tender and onely beloved in the sight of his mother yet his parents were continually distilling wholsome precepts into him as Prov. 4. 3 4 5 implying thereby that none is without ignorance without a proneness to evil therefore is godly instruction so necessary So that the Doctrine of original sinne should greatly provoke fathers and mothers to their duties Every mother should be a Monica to her Austin that we may say It is not possible that Filius tot lachrymarum pereat a sonne of so many prayers and tears should perish Fifthy The difficulty that is acknowledged by ali to do that which is good and holy doth also manifest our propensity to what is evil We cannot apply the Text to that which is good and say Man drinketh down that like water The very Heathens could say Facilis discensus averni and Virtus in arduo sita est Virtue was placed upon an high mountain it was hard climbing up unto it but it was easie to tumble down it is easie to fall down the hill Sinne then being so easily committed and that which is good so hardly performed Doth not this speak plainly that we are corrupted by nature For certainly if the word of God neither in the threatnings or in the promises of it can make us decline from evil and do good when neither hell can terrifie us nor the glorious joyes of Heaven invite us This argueth we are immovably fixed in a way of sinning Is there any command for holy duties Is there any Law enjoyning us to leave our lusts of which we do not say It is an hard saying who can bear it Hence it is that the wisdome of the flesh is said to be enmity in the very abstract against God Rom. 8. 7. the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whatsoever is either in mind or affections is wholly opposite to the pure Law of God So that this is an evident demonstration of mans vehement inclination to sinne that though God hath set so many fiery flaming swords in the way to stop us from sinne Though Heaven in the glory of it be on one side discovered and hell in all the horrible and dreadfull torments of it on the other side Though many Ministers of God meet thee at the Angel did Balaam to stop thee in the way to sinne yet for all this thou doest despirately and obstinately proceed This maketh it appear that there is a more flagrant appetite to sinne then to any thing else like Rachel crying Give me children else I die so let me have my lusts satisfied else no life no condition is comfortable Sixthly The necessity of Gods grace both for the beginnings progresse and consummation in every good work doth evidently prove our polluted nature We need grace to make us new creatures of spiritually dead to quicken us and enliven us we need grace to breath in the very first desires and groans after any thing that is good Now why is there such a necessity of a Physician if we be not sick Christ is in vain grace is in vain if original sinne with the effects thereof be denied And therefore Austia said Pelagians were but nomine tenus Christiani Christians only in name for they do in effect exclude Christ and evacuate grace Indeed the pure Naturalist Vnam Necessarium Chap 6. pag. 413. affirmeth That the necessity of grace doth not suppose our nature to be originally corrupted for beyond Adam's meer nature something else was necessary and so it is in us This Position is bottomed upon that false and absurd Doctrine invented at first by some Philosophers brought into the Church by Pelagions much insisted upon by Papists That there is a middle state a state of pure nature between sinne and grace That Adam was created in such a condition God superadding the glorious ornaments of grace which upon his fall he was deprived of and so fell into his state of pure nature again and in this middle estate every Infant is now born a state indeed they say of imperfection but not of sinne we need grace to carry us to those sublime and high things which are above nature but otherwise there is no sinne is 〈◊〉 So that it 's the Papists expression That Adam standing and Adam fallen 〈◊〉 only as a man that was cloathed and naked or as the late Author as Moses face while the light did shine upon it and when it was removed As Moses face did remain with its naturals though it had not the super-added lustre Thus say they man is in his state of nature not sinfull neither godly But this is a monstrous figment and he that saith Those who dispute of original sinne do dispute De non ente How much rather may we say that
all those voluminous disputations of this state of pure nature is wholly De non ente there being not the least title in Scripture to establish any such opinion upon it It is true the Author mentioned is often affirming and dictating Magisterially concerning such an estate but never yet hath any Scripture-proof been brought for it some philosophical arguments happily may be Now being this is the foundation upon which many of the Adversaries to original sinne do build I shall in its time and order God assisting raze up this foundation and lay the Axe against the root of the Tree proving that it is both against Scripture and solid reason Lastly That there is such an inclination naturally in a man to sinne and repugnant to what is good a mans own experience may teach him were there no Bible no Orthodox Teachers a mans own heart may convince him of such a perversnesse within him though by natural light he could never discover the spring of it Doth not Paul even while regenerated complain of this Law of sinne within him Rom. 7. Nazianzen maketh sad complaining verses about this constitution of his soul Carmen quartum pag. 69. The conflict with the flesh and spirit which in a most excellent and affectionate manner he doth there bewail And certainly if the Adversaries to this Doctrine find not such a pronenesse in them it is because they are blinded they are benummed within as the Pelagians of old bragged That a man might be without passions and sinfull commotions That they did not pati they felt none of these things but herein they were either horrible hypocrites or stupidly hardened SECT IV. Of the Causes or Fountain of the vehement proneness and inclination to sinne that is in all men by nature and of the false Causes assigned by the Adversaries THus you see this Text hath sufficiently informed us of this Truth That there is in all men by nature a vehement proneness and inclination to sinne To which we have also added many other Demonstrations of this Truth not so much that it is doubtfull and needeth to be proved For the Adversaries do confess it as that thereby we might the more deeply humble our selves under the consideration of it If then there be such constant muddy streames we are to enquire what is the fountain of them And although this Text and many others of the like nature do evidently proclaim it to be that corrupt and unclean heart of a man within that he hath hereditarily and by natural propagation yet because the Adversaries to original sinne will by no meanes assent to this let us consider what are the causes they assign and herein we shall find they do not so much speak falshood as blasphemy against God But before we come to the particular causes specified by them let us in the general consider How many wayes this propensity in mankind may be imagined to proceed for some gave one head or spring to it Others another so that there is not more dispute in Philosophy about the cause of the ebbing and flowing of the sea or about the rise and spring of Nilus that famous river in Egypt then there is about the original of this impetuousness in man to sinne The effect is acknowledged by all but the dispute is about the cause thereof In the first place therefore Some do assign this inclination to sinne to the souls operations before the body was made For they conceit that the soul had a being before the body and according to the evil or good they had they were adjudged to proportionable bodies and thereby it cometh to pass that some have better tempered bodies then others according to that Rule gaudeant bâ—â—è nati They are to rejoyce that have good and kindly constitutions This was the opinion of the Platonists and Origen who was justly called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the monstrous opinions he brought into the Church did proâ—â—â— absurd fancy Yea it is thought that this opinion was amongst the Jewes as seemeth to be implyed in that Question propounded by the Disciples to our Saviour concerning the man born blind Did this man sinne or his parents Joh. 9. 2. as also a passage in the Apocryphal Writer inclineth thereunto Wiâ—â— 8. 20. And being good I came into a body undifiled which Grotius understands of the pre-existency of the soul adding that Synesius though made Bishop yet did not retract this errour But this being so gross a figment it 〈◊〉 not any confutation and the rather because it is a wonder that no such pre-existent soules should behave themselves well for which they should have assigned to them undefiled and immaculate bodies for we believe not the 〈◊〉 mentioned Author in that boast he there maketh A second opinion of the Manichees who feigned two principles of good and evil and this evil principle they made the cause of man whereupon they condemned marriage as unlawfull and made man to be opus Diaboli the work of the Devil This Manicheism the Pelagians have alwayes endeavoured to fasten upon such as do affirme original sinne but it is done maliciously and ignorantly for we say this evil came not into man at first by nature but by the free and voluntary consent of Adam and since man is fallen we do not say sinne is his nature or his substance but that it is a vitious quality adhering thereunto as leprosie to the body 3. There are others who may be reduced to the Manichees and they were Heretiques called Materiaris who feigned an eternall matter that was so evil that the wisdome and power of God could not subdue it but that this malignancy did adhere to it whether God will or no. And this they make the cause of that vicious inclination in man It is say they from the evil matter man is made off which is inseperable from it but this doth grosly contradict the History of the Creation as recorded by Moses Wherein it is said God made every thing exceeding good Gen. 1. 31. Fourthly The Pelagian many Papists and the late Socinian Writers all these attribute it to mans Creation and constitution at first at least in part for they tell us of a state of pure naturals that man hath whereby the appetite doth rebell against the mind for man confisting of a soul and a body hereby say they do necessarily arise contrary inclinations The soul enclineth one way and the body another way and this conflict they are not afraid to say was in Adam himself and therefore God gave him grace as a supernatural and superadded ornament yea and as a remedy to keep the inferior appetite in its order now man being fallen he hath lost those superadditionals but continueth in his meer naturals and these being weak and imperfect are easily carried out to sinne wanting the grace of God to elevate them This is the mystery of their iniquity This is the fountain of all their poisonous impieties and therefore God assisting is
as a truth to stick in our mind alwayes That God will bring every work unto judgement and thus much for his first reason His second reason is no less nocent The cause of iniquity is not because nature is originally corrupted but because Gods Lawes command such things which are a restraint to the indifferent and otherwise lawfull inclinations of nature Idem ibidem pag. 415 so that our unwillingness and averseness cometh by occasion of the law coming cross upon our nature not because our nature is contrary to God but because God was pleased to superinduce some Commandments contrary to our nature if God had commanded as to eat the best meats and drink the richest wines as long as they could please us I suppose original sinne would not be thought to have hindered us from obedience Thus he in a most prophane and unsavoury manner For First Here again God is made the occasion of all the universal impiety in mankind man may plead my nature is good my inclinations are lawfull but God hath superinduced austere commands he maketh those things sinnes which would not have been sinnes Thus this man doth directly teach the world to lay all their wickedness upon God he is an hard master he is too severe otherwise our natures would do well enough But Secondly He betrayeth much ignorance or concealeth his knowledge that he will not distinguish between moral precepts and meer positive ones or as Whitaker out of Hugo Pracepta Naturae and Praecepta Disciplinae De pecato orig lib. 1. cap. 14. commands of Natural Duties and prohibitions of Intrinsecal evils or such as are meerly Positive and for Discipline-sake Some things we grant are indeed meerly evil because prohibited some things are evil and therefore prohibited Although this must be remembred That a man doth never break a positive command but thereby also he doth a moral command likewise Now let this Patron of Nature answer to this Question Why is there in man-kind such inclinations to those sins that are morally and intrinsically evil Is he of that opinion that nothing is good or evil internally But as Mayro the Schoolman saith God might have made a Law that whosoever should praise him should be damned and whosoever should dishonour him should be saved On monstrous Divinity that maketh virtue and vice nothing in it self If God had pleased vices might have been virtues and virtues vices It is from God that maketh such things to be sins that otherwise would be lawfull This symbolizeth with Diagoras the Atheist first called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and afterwards 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for his opinion was That a wise man might as time served give himself to theft or adultery 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hesych de viris illustribus Titulo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for none of such things were in their nature filthy if you take away popular opinions But I will not charge this opinion on the Author only he should not have spoken so confusedly If this be true it is not a vain wish with him who addicted to a sinne cryed out Vtinam hoc non esset peccare Lastly Even those inclinations that are in men to lawfull things are vitiated and corrupted No man desireth to eat to drink no man desireth health or wealth naturally as he ought to do I doubt this Author as all the Pelagians formerly do not attend to the exactnesse of a good work They forget Austin's old Rule grounded upon Scripture That duties are to be esteemed not by the acts but by their ends Is there any man eateth or drinketh or inclineth to do these things for the glory of God as we are commanded 1 Cor. 9. 31. Lastly He runneth to evil examples the similitude of Adams transgression as if that moved those to sinne who happily never heard of him errour false principles c. And from the enumeration of many particulars applieth that of Job Chap. 14. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean which Text might justly have affrighted him in what he delivereth for there Job speaks of one in his very first birth and as is added Ne infans unius diei not an Infant a day old is free from this uncleannesse What can evil examples and wicked customs do to pollute a child new born It is true the Socinians grant That where parents are habituated in evil customs the children may derive from them an inclination also unto sinne But if so then this very thing will puzzle them as much as they endeavour to perplex the Orthodox with difficulties about the transmission of original sinne For How do Parents accustomed to sinne convey this evil disposition either by the soul or by the body And what they would answer themselves in such an asserted propagation the same we may for all mankind in general But 2. This is no sufficient answer for still the Question is not satisfied Men say they are thus inclinded to evil because of wicked customs and examples But how came these customs Cain had no example before him of murder yet he committeth it These evill examples then and wicked customs seeing they must have an original to come from it cannot be any thing else but the depraved nature of mankind And certainly the Apostle James doth attribute all evil committed to that lust which is within a man Jam. 1. 14. So that if there were no other occasion or temptation this is enough to set the whole course of the soul on fire And this is the next particular to be considered which I shall handle as a second Immediate Effect of original sinne CHAP. II. The second Immediate Effect of Original Sinne is the Causality which it hath in respect of all other Sinnes SECT I. The Text explained setting forth the Generation of Sinne. JAM 1. 14. But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed THe next Immediate Effect of Original sinne which cometh under consideration is The Causality that it hath in respect of all other sins This is the dunghill in which the whole serpentine brood of all actual sinnes is conveived and brought forth Insomuch that when you see all the abominable impieties that fill the whole world with irreligion to God and injustice to man If you ask whence ariseth this monster How cometh all this wickedness to be committed The Answer is easie from that original concupiscence that hot Aetna which is in a man that never ceaseth from sending forth such continual flames of iniquity Now this truth will excellently be discovered from the Text in hand for it is the Apostles scope in this and the adjacent verses to take off all men from that wicked way they are so prone unto viz. to lay the blame of their iniquities and to ascribe the cause of them to any yea to God rather than to themselves They will rather make God then themselves the Author of all that evil they do commit We have this from Adam who
there as you see Paul doth Rom. 7. Let it not be thought that thou art freed from all sinne because thou doest withstand them thou doest not own them For although this will keep them from being imputed unto thee yet in themselves they are sinnes they are damnable God might throw thee into hell for the meer having of them God might justly say I sowed good seed in thy soul but how come these tares there These thoughts these motions are none of my planting I created them not Therefore the very having of them in thy soul is a sinne against God though never expressed in action and the reason hereof is from the exact spirituality of the Law of God There is this great difference between God and all political Law-giver these later forbid only the external action they do not prohibit the inward will or desire What Law-giver amongst men was ever so absurd as to say you shall not cover or desire such a thing But if men do outwardly offend then they are obnoxious to punishment But it is otherwise with God in his Laws who is the Father of Spirits and searcheth our hearts therefore his Law doth principally reach to the heart to make that a good treasure to have the tree first good and then to make the fruit answerable thereunto 2. We offend against God not only by having of these motions stirring in us but much more when they delight us when we find a complacency and sweetness in the thinking of them when they affect us so that we roll them like honey under the tongue And truly in this respect the godly soul is even amazed and astonished to see how vile it is and how abominable For what innumerable pleasing delightsome motions do arise in thy soul all the day long either about unlawfull objects or if lawfull in an inordinate and sinfull manner Are not these more then the hairs of thy head in number Now concerning these delightfull pleasing motions of the soul in a sinfull way observe these Rules 1. That a man may be carried out in these delightfull objects either by a meer affection of complacency and pleasure or by an efficacious act and purpose of the will to accomplish such a sinne as in uncleannesse The corrupt heart may delight it self in lascivious apprehensions and defile it self exceedingly in that way but yet have no efficacious will to commit the sinne yea as we told you would not for a world commit it either for shame or for punishment or some other respects For sinne hath then got strong power over us and we are left by God when we are boldly carried on to commit such leudness It is therefore necessary for the spiritual and heart-Christian to observe the former as well as the later Do there not arise contemplative delightsome thoughts about sinfull objects Are they not rolled up and down in thy heart though thou hast no purpose to effect them Oh be ashamed and blush to have such an impure soul Is this soul fit for communion with God Is this the temple of the holy Ghost Rule 2. The object of these delighting pleasing motions may either be the sinnes themselves desired and inclined after or They may be the meer thoughts and apprehensions of them For the soul being a spiritual substance hath power to reflect upon its own acts and operations to know it knoweth to think what it thinketh And therupon because as Aquinas saith Delectatio sequitur operationem Delight followeth operation we may take great pleasure in our thoughts and even be drunken with delight therein This is especially to be seen in heretical and erroneous persons Men who are proud of their opinions their notions their own conceptions and inventions What infinite pleasure and content do such men take in the thoughts about their own thoughts and apprehensions More sometimes then the greatest Monarchs can do in their earthly greatness It behoveth therefore men of parts and gifts men of learning and extraordinary activity of wit to take heed of lust within carrying them out to pride and delight in their own selves Rule 3. These motions of delight and pleasure in the soul are of a large extent We are not to limit them only to bodily lusts or ambitious desires for as large as the command of God is so large is this way of delightsome motions in the soul by contrariety thereunto As the Law of God is divided into two Tables and therein are required all the duties we own to God and man So likewise hereby are forbidden all the pleasing lusts and thoughts of the soul which oppose these duties And if a man be a searcher of his own heart he cannot but take notice how often these sinfull motions of his soul sometimes empty themselves in reference to God and sometimes towards our neighbour Towards God and thus we have delightfull motions in our own self-trusting and confidence in the creature we love and rejoyce in humane comforts to the excluding and shutting out of God himself especially in holy duties in the observance of his own day and Ordinances How many pleasing distracting and wandring motions do then seize upon us so that commonly we never find our selves more molested by them then when we are in a most heavenly and holy manner to approach unto him And for the duties towards our Neighbour there arise many pleasing evil motions of soul to envy at his good to be glad at the evil which befalleth him to have uncharitable and suspitious thoughts towards him Thus where ever any actual sin may be committed either against God or man there may and do pleasing and delightfull thoughts arise before and prepare the way for them Lastly Cajetan giveth a good Rule Summula Tit. Delectatio concerning these motions of delight within us that in them we are to consider the Occasion the Liberty and the Intention about them The occasion Thus if we do put our selves into such companies go to see such sights read such books hear such unsavoury discourse as may stirre up our hearts to these sinfull motions then our sinne is the greater and we shall be found the more guilty before God Such is our corrupt nature that we need not adde oil to that fire within us Even in lawfull and just duties yea in our most holy and heavenly performances these sinfull motions arise to disturb and distract our souls as if mens did come of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Moon as some affirm because of the divers shapes and vicissitude it is often put into We ought therefore to be farre from adding fuel to this fire by going to unlawfull sights to wicked companions thereby to provoke that corruption within us Again We are to consider what Liberty and power we have to subdue them and represse them some rise more suddenly then others and some again appear so that we have time to consider of the danger of them the damnable nature of them Now the more time we have to
deliberate and to consider about the sinfulness and wickedness of them how much God is offended how loathsom and abominable they are in his eyes and yet we suffer them to lodge there the greater is our condemnation Lastly The Intention and end of such thoughts is to be considered for alwayes cogitatio mali is not mala cogitatio the thought of evil is not an evil thought When men think of sinne to repent of it to detest it to reform it sinne is in their mind then but because there are no delightfull motions to it therefore it is not evil So if a Minister preach against adultery or any other sinne he cannot but think of the nature of it and what it is yet because his intention in thinking of it is to make men abhorre and leave it therefore it is good and lawfull So that meer thoughts about sinne are not alwayes sinne but when accompanied with some affections and inclinations thereunto Onely it is good to inform you That such is our deceitfulness of heart that many times we think it lawfull to rejoyce and delight in some profit and emolument that may come by another mans sinne or some evil upon him when indeed we are glad of the sin or evil it self If a man by telling a lie should save thy estate or life How hard is it not to delight in the sinne because thou hast profit by it Thus unnatural children may rejoyce in the death of their parents whereby they come to inherit their estates and yet please themselves that they not rejoyce in their death but the profit that cometh thereby to them There are many practical instances in this case and therefore we must look our hearts do not deceive us therein For it is very difficult to have any advantage by another mans sinne or evil and not to have a secret and tacit will thereof And thus much for the Rules about delightfull motions to sin We proceed to a third particular whereby we may sinne against God by these motions of sinne within us and that is When we are carelesse and negligent about them they trouble us not they grieve us not How many are there that regard the thoughts and motions of their soul no more then the fowls that flie over their heads It argueth an unregenerate heart an heart not acquainted with the power of godliness that doth not mourn and grieve under them How greatly was the Apostle Paul Rom. 7. afflicted by them This made him long for Christ and Heaven where he should be annoyed with them no more This negligence about them is that which maketh thee also careless to repress and conquer them They may lodge whole dayes and nights in thy soul and thou never seekest to expel them out Thus thy heart is like the sluggards field full of bryars and thorns Oh that God would give you seeing eyes and tender hearts then you would find that even an hair hath its shadow even the least motion to sinne hath its sting and bitterness with it and above all sinfull motions look to those that arise in thee because good things are urged and commanded to thee For this is the desperate incurable evil our souls that good things stirre up sinfull lusts within us not indeed properly and directly but occasionally and by accident Thus the Apostle bewaileth the motions of lusts within him from this account Rom. 7. 8. Sinne taking occasion by the commandment wrought all manner of concupiscence within him Thus the good and spiritual Law made him more carnal and sinfull And what is more often then to have powerfull preaching godly and wholsome reproofs stirre up the evil motions of men against them Thus the more remedies are applied to us the more corrupt we grow We might be voluminous in this soul-searching point but we must conclude Let the Use be Seeing that a man is thus tempted from his own lust within him we cannot lay the cause on the Devil himself though he be a Tempter then it 's our duty to look to what is within Those embers within us will quickly set all on fire Say not this or that moved me blame not this or that estate but thy corrupt lust within This is as Luther said in Genes Chap. 13. to be like the fool that stood in the Sunne bowed down and then complained his shadow was crooked It is not thy riches nor thy poverty not thy health or sickness no condition or temptation whatsoever but the true proper cause is this maternal lust which lieth in our bosoms How little is this truth attendeth unto with the Pharisees we more regard to cleanse the outside than the inside Mat. 23. 25. The mistake herein brought those many rigid and ausiere disciplinary wayes in Popery as if from the externals we must cure the heart and not by curing the heart thereby cleanse the outwards The Franciscan will not so much as touch silver The Carthusians will not eat a bit of flesh though their lives depend upon it What folly is this Meat and money are the good creatures of God if we do abuse them they are not to be blamed but our corrupt lusts within If a whorish woman wear gold and precious stones to allure others they are in themselves good though she abuse them to an ill end And thus all the comforts and mercies we enjoy are Gods good gifts and it is not the actual abdication of the use of them but the mortifying of our lust within that will make us please God CHAP. III. Of the Combate between the Flesh and the Spirit as the Effect of Original Sinne so that the Godliest man cannot do any holy Duty perfectly in this life SECT I. The Text explained and vindicated from corrupt Interpretations GAL. 5. 17. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary one to the other so that ye cannot do the things that ye would THe Apostle in the verses before admonished them about the use of their liberty that it should not be turned into licentiousness but that they make love the Rule thereof For though in respect of the right of my Christian liberty my conscience is to regard none but God yet the use and exercise of it must be regulated by love and prudence according as the edification of our brother doth require As a remedy therefore to refrain from all excess therein he giveth us an excellent precept with an emphatical Introduction thereunto This I say then that is This is the summe the main the all in all in these cases Then you have the Antidote it self Walk in the Spirit The only way to prevent all those importunate temptations of the flesh is to give up your selves to the Spirit to obtain the direction and illumination thereof as also the inclination and powerfull operation of it whereby we may be established in that which is good To know what is good and then to be inabled to do it
be an occasion to â—ull men a sleep in their lazinesse that hereby they do not content themselves with incompleat and sluggish wishes in the wayes of holinesse If any do abuse this Doctrine to lukewarmness or indulgence in sinfull wayes saying their estate is like Paul's the evil they would not do they do This is not the fault of the Doctrine but either of the Minister who doth not wisely dispense it or of the hearer who doth wilfully suck poison out of the sweet herb Even as the whole Doctrine of the Gospel and Gods grace may be abused to licentiousness It is true that the proper character of Christianity is That it is an acknowledgement of the truth which is after godlinesse Tit. 1. 1. And certainly there is no point may more quicken up to godliness sâ—ur on the most holy to greater growth in piety then this truth about the imperfection of the graces that are in the best and also that we have a treacherous enemy within us the reliques of original sinne which without daily watching and praying will quickly plunge us into confusion Now the Minister of Christ will so handle this Exposition though of a regenerate person very profitably and advantagiously to the increase of godliness if he adde these qualifications to his Interpretation 1. That the evil which this person is said to do is not to be understood of grosse and enormieus crimes but partly of the very motions to sinne within us and sometimes a consent thereunto and it may fall out so as to be an acting of them in our lives but this is not of grosse sinnes or if of a foul sinne yet not continued in but with repentance and greater hatred recovered out of it Unlesse the Preacher do thus limit his Exposition he leaveth the battlements without rails he doth not fence against the pit wherein some may fall Let no man therefore think that this passage of Pauls is to be extended to grosse sinnes as if many prophane sinners who sinne and their consciences check them and then they sinne again and have remorse again could take any comfort from these places as if they might say with Paul It is not I but sinne that dwelleth in me The evil that I would not that I grieve for in the temptation I do Oh take heed of abusing the holy Word of God to such corrupt ends Austin some where speaketh to this occasion when this part of Paul's Epistle was read I fear saith he left this may be ill understood but let none think as if Paul 's meaning was he would be chaste but he was an adulterer he would be mercifull but he was cruel c. Thus it would be very dangerous to interpret this passage of grosse sinnes and yet it cannot be denied but that men who sinne grosly yet with some remorse and grief of conscience are apt to cover themselves with these fig-leaves and think this is sanctuary safe enough to runne unto that though they do sinne yet it is not with full consent and delight Arminius affirmeth in cap. 7. ad Rom. pag. 753. as he saith Verè sanctè That he had sometimes the experience of this that when some have been admonished that they would take heed of committing such a sin which they knew was forbidden by the Law They would answer with the Apostle To will was present with them but they knew not how to perform what they willed Yea he addeth He had this answer from one not when the sinne was committed but when he was forewarned that he should not commit it But the same Author goeth on and saith he knew both men and women young and old who when he had explained this Chapter in the sense he defendeth did plainly confess to him that they hitherto had been in this opinion that if they committed any sinne with reluctancy of their mind or omitted any duty the same regreeting of them they were not greatly to trouble themselves or grieve in this matter seeing they thought themselves like Paul therein and therefore gave him hearty thanks that he delivered him from that errour by his interpretation But what needeth all this if any read Calvins or other Expositions upon this place might they not have been fully satisfied that such persons offending in that manner viz. sinning having only terrour and contradiction from their conscience against the sinne they commit but their hearts otherwise carry them out to it do no wayes agree with the person here described whose heare and will is said to be against sinne as well as his mind and conscience We must not therefore understand it of gross sins especially of a continual custom therein No doubt but David did commit the adultery and murder he would not have done No doubt when Peter denied Christ he could say the evil that he would not do that he did but this was in suddain temptations This was not often or customary therefore they did recover out of them with bitter tears and sorrow We must therefore understand it chiefly of the motions and lustings of the heart to sinne and oftentimes a consenting thereunto yea and in lesser sinnes an acting thereupon so that it is no more in sense then what the Apostle Jam's saith In many things we offend all Chap. 3. 2. So that howsoever the Jesuites and Arminians would make Austins and the later Expositions to differ as if Austins were more innocent because he understood it only of motions to sinne which the godly man did suffer against his will within him but the later apply it even to actions yet who so diligently compareth them together cannot find any real difference for the summe of their Exposition is That the Law requiring such a perfect and pure holiness that is doth not allow of the least spot or blemish the most godly do find themselves so depressed and weighed down with that remainder of corruption that is within them that they come exceeding short of that excellent and perfect holiness and therefore do abhorre and loath themselves and judge themselves miserable while they carry about with them such a body of sinne Secondly and lastly This Exposition will be advantagiously managed for godliness 〈…〉 also inform That Paul doth not here speak of every particular temptation as if in every conflict he had the worse and the flesh had the better but he speaks of good and evil in the general and that in the whole course of his conversation In the general his heart was set upon the good commanded and against the evil forbidden but yet he could never attain to his fulness of desire though in several combars the spirit might and did conquer the flesh And certainly the Arminians who will hold us to the rigid letter as if this person never had he better no not at any time in any sinne must take heed of that fault they charge upon us viz. that they be not injurious to the grace of God even according to their own
and yet give no discovery that he doth not mean it of himself especially when the Adversaries to this Exposition say That to understand it of Paul is so contumelious to the Spirit of God and so destructive to all godliness Certainly if so the Apostle would have manifested something to remove this stumbling block Although I may adde that even that very Text I have in a figure transferred to my self and Apollo c. doth not necessarily allude to that mention made of thâ—â— 1 Cor. 2. 12. where speaking of their factions some said they were of Paul others of Apollo as if the Apostle did by figure use their names intending thereby the false Apostles for say they The Corinthians made their divisions by occasion of the false Apostles glorying in them and exalting them against those that were faithfull But if so what argument could there be in Paul's words Was Paul crucified for you Were you baptized in the name of Paul If he did mean false Apostles and not himself why should he thank God that he had baptized so few Therefore Pareus acknowledgeth that the common Interpretation of that Text as if Paul by a figure use his name and Apollo for the false Apostles is no wayes agreeable with the scope of the place For how could that be an example to teach them humility as he there enlargeth himself Heinsius also doth not like the translation of the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for such a transmutation of names and persons but maketh it the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but enough of this 2. A second Argument is In that this person is said to hate evil not to will what is evil not to know or approve of it and then he is said to will that which is good Now this is the Description of godliness to love good and to hate evil It is true that in convinced men who yet retain their lusts as also in legal men they would not do the evil that they do but yet they cannot be said to hate it No they love their lusts therefore when any fear doth abate they presently fall unto those sinnes again but this man doth hate sinne So that in this property two things discover a regenerate person 1. That not only his conscience and his judgement is against sinne but his will his heart and affections also whereas in all unregenerate men their judgements and their consciences being enlightned and terrified maketh them afraid to commit sinne but their will then affections 〈◊〉 not against it And then secondly The Apostle speaketh generally of evil and good he doth not say I do this evil I would not or I do not this good that I would but evil and good indefinitely and this is only proper to the regenerate he only hateth all evil be only loveth all good whereas the unregenerate person doth hate only some evil and it is some good only that he would do though if a man truly hate any sinne he hateth all sin because odium is circa genus Thirdly This person must be a regenerate person because there are two distinct principles in him Sinne and He are made two different things vers 17. It is no more I that do it but sinne that dwelleth in me And ver 18. I know that in me that is my flesh dwelleth no good thing Here then are as it were two distinct persons this person hath two selfs which doth necessarily demonstrate that this is a sanctified person For can a man under legal convictions say It is not I but sinne within me Can he that hath only errors upon his soul say It is not I but sinne within me How absurd and false were that for their hearts are set upon evil only the terrours of the Law restrain them Now a man is what his heart is not what his conviction is It is true the Libertines did abuse this Doctrine and would thereby acquit themselves it was not they but the flesh Yea some blasphemously would attribute it to God himself but till a man be regenerated he hath but one self and that is the flesh But saith Arminius those legal preparatory workings by the Law are the good gift of God and are to be reckoned among the works of the Spirit and therefore the Apostle may oppose them and sinne together To this it is answered Though those legal operations are from Gods Spirit yet because the person is not regenerated he is still in the state of the flesh he is still without Christ and therefore cannot distinguish himself from the flesh within him As long as those good gifts of God are not in a subject regenerated the same person and the flesh are all one Yea though those good effects come from Gods Spirit and so are in themselves spiritual yet as they are in a person unregenerated they are improved carnally they are managed only to self-respects and thus temporary believers though they do enjoy the good and common gifts of Gods Spirit yet as they are in them they are carnally improved spiritual things being prostituted to temporal ends It is plain then that onely a godly man may say It is not I but sinne in me and thus Aquinas on the place saith it may be easily understood of a man in the state of grace and of a sinner it can be only interpreted extortè by violence His reason he goeth upon is because that a man is said to do which his reason doth not which his sensitive appetite inclineth unto because homo est id quod est secundum rationem By reason we must understand sanctified reason otherwise a mans reason is corrupted as well as his sensual part Besides there is a further Argument used by the Apostle in this distinction he maketh It is no more I that do it No more that implieth once it was he that did it formerly he could not make such a distinction as now he doth Fourthly The person here spoken of must needs be a regenerate person Because it is said He delighteth in the Law of God after the inward man ver 22. This is one of the places that compelled Austin to change his former opinion Certainly to delight in the Law of God is an inseparable property of a regenerate person David expresseth his holy and heavenly heart thereby yea the Greek word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I delight with Arminius doth well observe the emphasis of the word for he maketh the Preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not redundant but significant So that the meaning is he delighteth in the Law of God that is he delighteth in Gods Law and Gods Law delighteth in him there is a mutual sympathy and delight as it were which maketh the reason the stronger for a regenerate person For can any but he delight in Gods Law and Gods Law as it were delight in him again It is true it is 〈◊〉 in the inward man but that is not a diminution but a specification of the cause
whereby he doth delight in Gods Law I will not say that the inward man doth alwayes signifie the regenerate man and so is the same with a new-creature For although some understand that place so 2 Cor. 4. 16. The outward man perisheth but the inward man is renewed daily yet happily the context may enforce it another way yet here it must be understood of the mind as regenerated because it is opposite to the flesh and so signifieth the same with the hidden man of the heart in which sense a Jew is called one inwardly because of the work of grace upon his soul Fifthly The sad complaint he maketh concerning his thraldom doth evidently shew that it is a regenerate person O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death If we take body for the material body which is mortal and so sinfull or else for that body of sinne which abideth in the godly it cometh much to one point It argueth that the person here spoken of feeling this weight this burden upon him is in sad agonies of soul judgeth himself miserable and wretched in this respect and thereupon doth earnestly groan for a total redemption he longs to be in heaven where no longer will evil be present with him where he shall do all the good and as perfectly as he would It is true a godly man cannot absolutely be called a wretched and miserable man but respectively quoad hoc and comparatively to that perfect holiness we shall have hereafter So we may justly account our selves miserable not so much from external evils as from the motions and stirrings of sinne within us that do press us down and thereby make our lives more disconsolate Hence it is that Austin calleth this Gemitum saactorum c. the sighs and groans of holy persons fighting against concupiscence within them Sixthly The affectionate rejoycing and assured confidence that he hath about the full deliverance of him from this bondage expressed in those words I thank God through Jesus Christ doth greatly establish this exposition also of a regenerate ate person It is true there is variety about reading of this passage however this plainly cometh from an heart affected with assurance of Gods grace to give him a full redemption though for the present he lie in sad conflicts and agonies This is so palpable a conviction that some of the Dissentients will make Paul here to speak in his own person as if he did give God thanks for that freedome which the person spoken before had not obtained Neither is it any wonder to see such a sudden change in Paul from groaning under misery presently to break forth into thanks and praises of God For we may often observe such ebbings and flowings in David's Psalms that we would hardly think the same Psalm made by the same man at the same time one verse speaking dejection and disconsolateness the next it may be strong confidence and rejoycing in God Lastly The conclusion which Paul maketh from this excellent experimental Discourse is fully to our purpose So then I my self serve the Law of God but with the flesh the law of sin To serve God and to serve the Law of God is all one and this none but a godly man doth Yea to serve him with the mind and the spirit is a choice expression of our grace But because this is not perfect and compleat he addeth He serveth also the flesh and the law of sin It is true None can serve God and mammon Christ and sin but yet where there is not a perfect freedom from thraldom to sin there though in the principal and chief manner we are carried out to serve God yet the flesh retardeth and so snatcheth to it some service you heard contraries might be together while they are in fight Neither is our redemption from sin full and total It is to be done successively and by degrees that so we may be the more humbled and grace exalted Besides that expression 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is emphatical this is used when Paul expresseth himself in some remarkable manner I the same and no other man as it is used in other places 2 Cor. 10. 1. Now I Paul my self beseech you c. 2 Cor. 12. 13. except it was because I my self was not burdensom to you Rom. 9. 3. I could wish that myself were accursed c. which is enough to convince such as are not refractory ¶ 3. Objections Answered I Shall now consider what is objected against this Interpretation and shall not attend to the general objections such as that That who are Christs and regenerated have higher things attributed to them They have crucified the flesh they have mortifiedeth old man c. As also this seemeth to be injurious to Gods grace it will encourage men in slothfulness and negligence c. for these shall be answered in the general I shall therefore only pitch upon two objections which the Adversaries insist upon The first is That this person here spoken of is said to be once without the Law which say they is the description of a Gentile in Paul 's language therefore he assumeth some other person then his own for Paul alwayes lived under the Law Austin indeed expounds it thus I did live once without the Law that is saith he when he was a child before he had the use of reason This is too harsh Therefore it is better answered The person here spoken of is not said to be without the Law which is indeed the description of a Gentile but that he was alive without the Law once that is he as all the Pharisees understood the Law of God as forbidding only external sins and Paul living unblameably as to that respect thought to have life and righteousness by the Law but when the commandment came in power to him and he was convinced that it did prohibit not only outward sins but inward lustings of heart then he began to find himself a greater sinner than he was aware of then he found the Law to be death to him so that he lived without the Law because he was not affected with the full and exact obligation therof The second thing much insisted upon is That the person here spoken of is said to be carnal and sold under sinne which they say is made by the Scripture a certain property of a wickedman Thus it is said of Ahab Thou hast sold thy self to do wickedly 1 Kin. 21. 10. yea of all the children of Israel 2 Kin. 17. 13. They caused their children to pass through the fire and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the Lord. But first Calvin doth grant that this is spoken of Paul while unregenerate and therefore beginneth his Exposition at the 15th verse of a sanctified person yet that cannot well be because there the Apostle beginneth to alter the tense There he saith I am carnal I am sold under sinne whereas before he had used the
which would have redounded to the dishonour of God his maker neither could it so well be said By one man or by the Devil death came into the world as by God who is supposed to make man in such a mortal and frail estate But I proceed to a second Argument and that may be drawn from the commination made by God to Adam upon his disobedience compared with the execution of this sentence afterward which might be enough to convince any though never so refractory The threatning to Adam we have recorded Gen. 2. 17. where God prohibiting him to eat of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil confirmeth this Law with a penalty viz. That in the day he did eat thereof he should surely die dying thou shalt die The gemination is to shew the certainty as also the continuance or it So that Socinus and others who would not understand corporal death in this place as being from the natural constitution of a man and so would have been had there not been this commination doth joyn too much with the Devil in this business for his endeavour was to perswade the woman that this threatning was false and that she should not die death should not be the punishment of her transgression But what need we any clearer place then this divine commination Doth not this necessarily suppose that if Adam had not transgressed he should not have died and so by consequence have been immortal it being not possible for death to come in at any other door but that of sinne To threaten a mortal man with mortality had been absurd or to make his natral condition a punishment for then it would have been a punishment to be made a man if made mortal The Socinians therefore to elude this would not understand by death the separation of the soul and body but eternal death or as they say at other times a necessity of dying but a necessary death and eternal death are absurdly made parallel by them For beasts are under a necessity of death yet cannot be said to partake of eternal death especially the godly they cannot but die yet they are absolutely delivered from eternal death We must therefore take death for corporal death not but that the death of the soul by sinne here and eternal separation from God hereafter is to be included herein yet this temporal death is also a great part of the penalty here threatned which may be evinced by these three reasons 1. Moses is relating in an historical manner what was done to man in the beginning Now in an historical Narration we are not to go from the literal meaning unless evident necessity compel much lesse may we do so here when we have the Apostle acted by the same Spirit of God as Moses was in being Penman of the Scripture attributing our corporal death to Adam For no doubt when Paul wrote this Text In Adam we all die he had this historical relation made by Moses in his mind 2. The sentence and execution of it must be understood in the same manner Now it 's plain that in the execution of it mentioned Chap. 3. 19. corporal death is meant because Adam is thus told That dust he was and unto dust he should return 3. It must be meant of temporal death because this alone and not eternal death doth belong to all mankind For although at the day of judgement it is said some shall not die yet that suddain change made then upon them will be equivalent to death Thus you see the threatning made to Adam at first doth abundantly confirm this truth There is one doubt only to be answered If death be meant in that sentence how then is it that Adam did not immediately die How is it that he lived many hundred years afterwards To this some say That the restriction of time viz. the day is not to be made to the time of eating as if at that day he should die but to death as if the sense were thou shalt die one day or other thou shalt be in daily fear of death But if this be disliked then we may understand it of a state of death that day he did eat thereof he became mortal for every day is a diminution of our life As a man that hath received a deadly wound we say he is a dead man because though he did linger it out yet all is in a tendency unto death Now this will appear the more cogent if you take notice of the execution of this sentence mentioned Gen. 3. 17 18 19. where the ground is cursed and man also adjudged to labour and wearness all the dayes of his life even till he return to the ground out of which he was made But here the Socinian thinketh he hath an evasion Death saith he is not here made a curse but only it 's the term how long mans curse shall be upon him It is not poena but terminus saith he for it is said he should be under this labour till he did return to the ground but if we consider the sentence before-mentioned it is plain it is a curse So that in this place it is both a curse and a terme putting an end to all the temporal miseries of this life though to the wicked it is the beginning of eternal torments ¶ 3. THe third Argument for our mortality and also actual death by original sinne is taken from those assertory places which do in expresse words say so Not to mention my sext which hath said enough to this truth already We may take notice of other places affirming this And certainly that passage of Pauls Rom. 5 12. may presently come into every mans mind By one man sin entred into the world and death by sinne and so death passed upon all men in whom all have sinned It is true we told you Calvin maketh the Apostle to speak of spiritual death here as in my Text of temporal death which the coherence also doth confirm but though that be principally intended yet not totally Even temporal death is likewise to be understood as being the beginning and introduction to eternal death if the grace of God doth not prevent We have then the Apostle attributing death not to mans creation at first but to his disobedience Neither is this death upon men because of their actual sinnes but because of Adam's disobedience by whom we are made sinners yea in whom we have sinned That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is diversly translated and much contention about it viz. whether it should be rendred in whom or causally for as much It is true the Preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as learned men observe is used in the New Testament variously sometimes for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 5. 5. sometimes for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 10. 9. sometimes for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Acts 3. 16. and otherwise but for ought I can observe it may very well be understood for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Mark
a metaphysical manner have abstracted thoughts of man neither considering him as good or evil in which sense it is disputed between Junius and Arminius whether man in his meer naturals or in a common consideration as man neither looked upon as good or evil be the object of predestination but if we speak of existency then there never was or will be a man but either must be a good tree or bad for in such a susceptive subject one of the immediate contraryes must needs inexist Secondly The Scripture speaketh of mans condition since Adam's fall as a state of privation not negation When David confessed he was born in sinne Credo saith learned Davenant on Col. cap. 2. 2. hac verba non ferent commentum Jesuiticum in pur is naturalibus conceptus sum c. for the Word of God describeth us as blinded in our mind that we are dead in sinne that we have a stony heart all which argue that we have only impure naturals Thirdly To hold death diseases and soul miseries such as grief ignorance difficulty to do good c. consequentiall of nature is to attribute cruelty and injustice to God This Austin of old urged the Pelagians with How can an Infant new born be exposed to such miseries if there be no sinne deserving of it What God may do to an innocent creature how farre he may afflict him per modum simplicis cruciatus though not poenae by his sovereign dominion is not here to be disputed It is certain all these miseries of mankind are by the Scripture attributed to sinne and shall we have such hard thoughts of God that the world shall be full of miseries before sinne 4. Man as he is a man hath an inward desire to be happy and God onely can be the happiness of a rational soul There is by nature an imbred desire to an ultimate end and therefore that God at first planted in man such an appetite vouchsafed him also a power to obtain this end So that as we cannot conceive a man made at first without an inclination to this happiness so neither without inherent qualifications that would dispose him thereunto and this maketh any such state of pure naturals to be an impossible thing for then God would not be the ultimate end of such a man And whereas the Schoolmen have brought in a distinction of finis naturalis and supernaturalis of amor naturalis and supernaturalis that God is the natural end but not supernatural that he may be loved with a natural love or supernatural These are meer cobwebs and niceties for God is the ultimate end of man from his creation and as the creatures were made for man so man for God neither can man love God but by the help of Gods Spirit even Adam in his integrity was inabled to love God by his grace assisting of him and he that doth not love God upon such motives as the Scripture requireth sinneth and so this amor naturalis is no more than a sinne it is cupiditas not charitas it is not a loving of God as he ought to be loved Lastly This opinion of a third estate of meer naturals between holiness and sinne must necessarily infer a third place after death that is neither heaven or hell For I would ask this Writer whether one dying in his nature doth go to Heaven he cannot for he hath no holiness to hell he cannot because he hath no sin This puzzleth him exceedingly Furth Explic. p. 471. for though he is favourable to that opinion of a third place yet he dare not determine of any such thing To be sure the Scripture is clear enough that there are only two places after a mans death that are our receptacles either heaven or hell This may suffice to inform our judgements herein Let us hear something from this that may affect our hearts for more is to be spoken to this point in the ensuing Discourse Is all mankind thus sentenced to death Are we as so many dead corpse This should humble us and make us low in our eyes though a rich man though a great man yet a mortal man Xerxes that potent King looking from an high hill upon his numerous Army fell a weeping while he thought that within an hundred years there would not be one of them left Oh saith Hicrom in allusion to this that we could get up into some high Tower and behold all the Kingdoms and Nations in the world with every Inhabitant therin and then consider that within a short time there will not be one left Mankind runneth in a torrent one generation passeth away and another succeedeth yet how do these Ants busie themselves upon the earth as if they were immortal As men in a ship whether they sit or stand they are still drawing nigh to the haven Thus it is with us whether eating drinking buying or selling we are hastening to the grave Hence In the second place prepare and provide for death happy is that man upon whom it may be said he doth patienter vivere delectabiliter mori live patiently but die with delight Think every day yea hour that is said to thee which was to Hezekiah Set thy house and much more thy soul in order for thou shalt die and not live for though we die yet our sins nor our good and holy works die not but will go to the grave with us will go to hell or to Heaven with us CHAP. V. Eternal Damnation another Effect of Original Sinne. SECT I. What is meant by Wrath in this Text. EPHES. 2. 3. And were by nature the children of wrath as well as others AS I began this Subject of original sinne with the Text in hand so I shall conclude with it My purpose in re-assuming of it is to treat of the last and most dreadfull effect of our native pollution which is The desert of everlasting damnation From this alone had we no actual sins we are made heirs of Gods wrath as this verse doth fully evince I shall not insist upon the Coherence and Explication of the words that work is done already I shall only adde some observable particulars that were not formerly taken notice of and that will be done in answering of two Questions 1. What is meant by wrath here And 2. What is meant by nature For the first no doubt we are to mean Gods wrath Therefore Tertullian's Exposition of this place is singular and much forced he understands wrath here subjectively as if it were mans wrath making the sense to be We are all by nature subject to passions especially that of anger is predominant When it is said Lib. 3. de anima cap. 16. saith he that we were by nature the children of wrath â—rationale indignativum suggillat c. he reproveth that irrational anger we are subject to which is not nature as it cometh from God but of that which the Devil hath brought in Tertullian affirming these three parts or powers of the
confront the Scripture which attributeth condemnation and 〈…〉 to this sinne because of the intrinsecal evil and hainousness thereof The essence is of one to condemnation saith the Apostle Rom 5. and the Text saith we are by nature the children of wrath Besides this is a ridiculous and absurd 〈◊〉 for original sinne is nothing but the spiritual death of the soul and doth wholly destroy that respect and habitude which the soul had unto God Father this Popish evasion is of no strength with us who hold no venial sinnes in their sense For they say a man may be damned in hell for venial sins not because they of their own nature deserve so but because of the subject sometimes who may die destitute of all grace and then his venial sinnes encrease his condemnation But this Doctrine of a venial sinne in the Popish sence is immediately opposite to Scripture and contrary to the Majesty of the most holy God Conclus 2. In that original sinne is thus meritotious of eternal damnation Those learned men who hold the corrupt Mass of mankind to be that state out of which God chooseth some to eternal life leaving others in this wretched and sinfull condition they have by Adam do thereby affirm nothing injurious to God or any thing that may justly be complained of by sound reason It is not my intent to launch into that vast Ocean of the dispute about the object of election and reprobation no not as it is confined among the orthodox they themselves disputing whether it be Massa para or Massa corrupta from whence ariseth that distinction of Supralapsarians and Sublapsarians It is enough at the present to affirm that if the corrupt Mass of mankind be made the object of election and reprobation the justice of God is abundantly cleared against all Papists Arminians and others in this particular because original sinne doth deserve eternal damnation This was the opinion of Austin and many moderate learned men think this opinion less obnoxious to cavils and more consonant to Scripture then that of those who hold Gods decrees herein to be supposing Massa pura or man considered as man meerly in a common sense Thus God speaketh of hating Esau and loving Jacob in respect of his purpose according to election and that before they had done good or evil Rom 9 11. which relateth to their actual evil Yea this was Calvins opinion as appeareth Lib 1. de eterna Dei predestinatione contra Pighium alledged by Crakanthorpe Defens Eccles Anglic. cap. 37. where Calvin saith when we treat of predestination Vnde exordiendum esse semper docui atque bodie doceo jure in morte relinqui omnes reprobos qui in Adam mortui sunt damnati jure parice qui naturâ sunt filii irae ita nemini causam esse cur de nimio Dei rigore quâ—ratur quando reatum in se omnes inclusum gestant Thus Calvin And how orthodoxly and vehemently doth Crakanthorpe though of the Episcopal judgement defend this Potestne quisquam saith he te Spalâ—to quisquam ex vestris Dei justitiam in damnandis reprobis luenlentiùs asserere In Adamo in massâ perditirei omnes mortis eorum alios ex istâ Massâ per misericordiam liberat alios in eâdem Massâ per justitiam damnandos relinquit For Gods election and reprobation is about Infants as well as Adult persons neither may we think it any cruelty or injustice of God if he leave an Infant in his natural impure estate seeing grace is free if it be grace and God is not bound to adde a new favour where the former is lost and although such an Infant had no voluntary personal acting to this corrupt estate he is born in for which God eternally passeth him by with a negative preterition as some Divines express it yet because sinnes in the Scripture-language are called debts that which is just between man and man may be much more between God and man who cannot be any wayes obliged to shew favour to him and that is amongst men children are liable to their parents debts and what their parents did wickedly and voluntarily contract by their prodigality and luxury that the children stand engaged to pay though they had no influence into those supposed debts Thus all mankind stands engaged for Adam's debt I mean as the consequent corruption of his nature by his voluntary disobedience doth hereditarily descend to all his posterity and the rather because it is both aliena and nstra culpa as Bernard both Adam's debt and our own also No wonder then if mankind lying in this bloud God spake to some to live and leaveth the restin their undone estate but I must not enlarge on this When that mutable Euripus and miserable Ecebolius though not crying out afterwards as he did Culcate me insipidum salem Spalatensis had objected this as a puritanical opinion and also the Doctrine of the Church of England That Infants dying with Baptisme may yet be damned Crakanthorpe defendeth the Church of England herein Defens cap. 40 yet with such assertions that cannot please the late Antagonist of original sin Vbi è Scripturis habes Infantes morientes cum Baptismo non posse damnari saith he An tu à Dei consiliâ—s es ut sine Scripturâ hoc scias ut scias tales omnes Infantes electos esse You see he putteth their salvation upon election that are saved concluding indeed that in the judgement of charity we think such may be saved but as for a judicium certitudinis veritatis he doth leave that to God but you must remember he speaketh not of all Infants though of Infidels SECT VIII A Consideration of their Opinion that hold a Universal Removal of the Guilt of Original Sinne from all mankind by Christs Death Answering their Arguments among which that from the Antithesis or Opposition which the Apostle maketh Rom. 5. between the first Adam and the second Adam THirdly In that original sinne is meritorious of eternal condemnation yea and doth produce this effect actually in some Hence that Doctrine so confidently avouched by some that by Christ the guile of original sinne is wholly taken off stom all mankind and every one by nature is now born in a state of Gods love and reconciliation till by actual sinnes be doth exclude himself from this mercy is also an unsavoury opinion and contrary to the Word of God But because this Doctrine is very plausible and hath had confident avouchers of it let us throughly search into all the recesses of it And First We may take notice that Puccius wrote a book for this purpose to prove that as by Adam we were truly properly and de facto put into a state of sinne and wrath and that antecedently to our knowledge or consent so by the second Adam all mankind in the same latitude is put into a state of savour and reconciliation with God properly actually and de facto and that antecedently to any faith or knowledge
Cor. 11. This is not to eat the Lords Supper yea unworthy receivers eat and drink their own salvation Thus the Scripture when it attends to mens either resting upon them as if they could save or the sinful abuse of them by not attending to the grace signified doth speak in an undervaluing way of them But then at other times when it doth respect the institution of Christ and the effects thereof then glorious and great things are spoken of them yet though the Scripture commends and commandeth them as the institution of Christ for supernatural effects notwithstanding that old Rule is to be received that not the privation but the contempt of Sacraments doth damn so that the after ages of the Church which came to idolize Baptisme and to put so much vertue even in the very external act done can no wayes be justified yea so greatly did superstition grow in this kind that they thought Baptisme did also work some wonderfull temporal effects for whereas there is a traditon though it be justly reckoned among the vulgar errours that the Jewes have by way of punishment an offensive smell or stink inflicted upon their body they instance in Jewes baptized that therby were cleansed from this filthiness The Poet Fortunatus said Sanct. Comment in Jer. 31. 29. Abluitur Judeus odor Baptismate divo Thus absurd did many grow in their thoughts about the efficacy of Baptisme but the truth is That although Baptism be an Ordinance appointed by God for the sealing of the remission of original sinne yet it hath not this effect in all neither is the benefit of Baptisme to be limited to that time only but it extendeth it self to our whole life so that we are daily to make an improvement of it both for duty and comfort And thus much may suffice for the deciding of this Question with sobriety and modesty Now if any shall say upon the hearing of this damnable estate that we are plunged into by sinne as the Disciples in another case It is good not to marry yea that it is good to have no children it is good to be no Parents because our Infants do thus come into the world upon worse terms then the young ones of bruit beasts because they are the children of Gods wrath whereas the creatures are not the creatures of Gods wrath To such as shall thus conclude I shall propound these ensuing particulars First That it is just and righteous with God to continue the propagation of mankind though man hath thus corrupted his nature Because Adam fell and so all his postcrity would be propagated in a damnable estate shall he therefore destroy the whele species of men and raze out every individuum Seeing then its Gods will that men should increase and multiply that there should be parents and children for which end he hath instituted marriage we are to regard the will of God in this way more than the adherent corruption and the rather because this damnable guilt doth adhere to our natures not from Gods primitive Institution but by Adam's voluntary transgression It being then a duty to some to marry it being by God appointed a remedy against sinne for thee to abstain from that way and to desire no children under pretence of original sinne is a meer delusion Secondly You are to know That though children be born in this defiled and cursed estate yet they are in themselves mercies and comforts which mace our Saviour say That a woman because of the joy that a man child is born she forgetteth all her sorrow and pangs that she was in John 16. 21. So that at the same time they may be by nature children of wrath and yet in another respect comforts and mercies in themselves for which end God promiseth children as a mercy and threatneth it as a punishment to be barren and childless Thirdly Thou that art a believing parent and hast thy child dying in its infancy thou hast cause to assure thy self of the mercy of God to thy child because he taketh parents and children into the same promise Oh but I know not that God hath elected him So neither canst thou thy own à priori I you must begin at the lower round of the ladder in Gods Election The effects and fruits thereof And now what greater pledge and argument canst thou have of his salvation then being born under the Covenant of grace You cannot expect actual expressions of regeneration and grace from a dying Infant therefore thou must runne to the Covenant of grace whereby God doth receive such as his members yea thou hast cause to admire the goodness of God to thy child and his mercy when so many thousands and thousands of Pagans children dying have no visible way of salvation we cannot by the Scripture as you heard see any Ark provided for them as God in mercy hath done for thee Fourthly The consideration of Gods just and severe proceedings against Pagans and their children may make thee the more admire the grace of God in saving of thee For how many Heathens perish in hell who it may be never committed such gross and soul sins in their life time as thou hast done To be sure their Infants never committed such actual inquities as thou hast done yet they appear according to Gods ordinary way of proceedings to be left in that lost estate of nature And therefore that is a good quickning meditation which Vedâ—lius 〈◊〉 Hilar. cap 3. pag. 119. To make a godly man thankfull for Gods grace seeing by nature we deserve otherwise Ah quot sunt erunt in inferno miselli infantuli c. Ah how many little Infants are and shall be in hell who never had the knowledge of good and evil and might not God have left thee in the same misery This I say is a pious meditation Though that scoffing Remonstrant prefix this expression amongst others in the front of his Book as if it were no lesse then blasphemy Vedel Rhapsod Fifthly Thou who art a parent exercised with this temptation about thy children it grieveth thee to think thou bringest them forth to be Gods enemies and the Devils children Let not this discourage thee but provoke thee the more earnestly to be much in prayer for them and to be more carefull in their education Let them be the children of thy prayers and tears the children of thy care and godly discipline and thou mayest comfort thy self that such shall not perish however thou hast done thy duty and so art to leave all to the wise and righteous God who is not accountable to man for any of his proceedings That the encouragement and hopes of parents are great in the faithfull discharge of their duties notwithstanding the guilt of original sinne may further appear as to the woman in that famous and noble Text 1 Tim. 2. 14 15. But the woman being deceived was in the transgression Notwithstanding she shall be saved in child-bearing if they continue in the faith c.
sense voluntary 38 When a punishment how from God 42 One Sin may suddenly and formally deprive the subject of all grace yet it doth not so alwayes 58 Three sorts of Sin original habitual and actual 89 The first motions of the heart though never so involuntary and indeliberate are sinfull 94 All Sin is potentially and seminally in every mans heart 103 Every man would commit all Sin if not restrained 147 Sin rightly divided into original and actual 164 Whence it comes to passe that men commit known Sins 227 Why men chuse Sin rather than affliction 283 Every man lieth under a necessity of sinning 311 Sinners To be made a Sinner by Adam is more than to be made subject to death as a curse 31 And more than to be obnoxious to eternal wrath ib. All mad truly and properly Sinners by Adam 31 34 Every man Christ excepted 387 393 Socinians Wherein Socinians do make God the author of sin 66 Socinians and Papists blasphemy 114 Socinians deny both original sin and original righteousnesse 121 The rocks they stumble at ib. 122 Soul The arguments of those that hold the Souls traduction 197 Souls not by eduction or traduction but creation and introduction 191 Soul not generated 189 Souls created 194 Origen and Plato's opinion of the Soul 186 Confuted 187 The Soul cannot be neutral 130 Inclined to earthly objects 175 Souls not created before the bodies 187 Souls come not into the world pure and holy ib. Souls not perfect substances 200 The Soul infused by creating and created by infusing 21 How it comes to be infected 393 T Taylor A Character of Doctor J. Taylor 30 He is answered in these places 62 398 407 409 422 430 449 450 452 461 476 485 518 520 521 522 523 524 525 527 528 534 535 V Vanity OF the natural Vanity of our minds 213 Virgin Virgin Mary born in original sin 398 Uncleanness A three-fold Uncleanness corporal ceremonial and moral 50 Understanding Our Understandings very weak in respect of natural things 179 219 And uncapable of holy and spiritual things 212 Voluntariness Voluntariness not requisite to every sin 39 W Wickedness OF the extream Wickedness of the world 172 Will. Willeth No man Willeth sin and damnation as such 38 Adams Will how ours 39 The Nature of the Will 270 The difference between the Will and understanding 271 Will taken ambiguonsly 272 The Will the seat of obedience and disobedience 273 Good is the proper object of the Will. ib. The several operations of the Will 274 The difference between a wicked mans and a good mans doing what he allows not 88 Free Will how far we are deprived of it 116 The corruption of the Will in volition 275 And in efficacious Willing a thing 276 And in fruition 277 And in its act of intention 279 And in election 282 Whence it is that the Will is backward to to follow the understanding 284 The pollution of the Will in its act of consent 286 The first motions of the Will are evil ib. The pollution of the Will in its affections and properties 289 The degeneracy of the Will 293 The Will wholly perverted about the ultimate end ib. The Will naturally inclineth to be independent on God 295 The contumacy and refractoriness of the Will 297 The enmity and contrariety of the Will to Gods will 298 The rebellion of the Will against the light of the mind and the slavery of it to the sensitive part 299 The mutability and inconstancy of the Will 300 The bondage of the Will and of free will 302 No man before grace hath free will to good 305 The Will impotent to spiritual things 313 Free will how call'd in Scripture 307 Exalted by erroneous persons 308 The different effects of free will and free grace in mens lives 310 The difficulty of the question 311 Demonstrations against it ib. The definitions and descriptions of it 320 Doth not consist in an active indifferency to good or evil 321 FINIS TO THE READER A Digressive Epistle concerning Justification by Faith alone excluding the Conditionality of Works in that Act either begun or continued Tending to a friendly debate between a Reverend Learned and godly Brother and my self in that Point THe Doctrine of Original sinne and Justification by Faith alone are not altogether heterogeneous Yea Stapleton maketh the former the Mother and the latter the Daughter as they are avouched in the Protestant way I shall therefore here take the occasion to lay down severall Propositions that may conduce to the further discovery of the Contents of that amicable collation between my learned Brother and my self in this particular Not that my purpose is to vindicate those Arguments I have formerly in a Treatise of Righteousness produced against conditionality of Works in the Act of Justification from the Exceptions and Answers he hath pleased lately to give in unto them for I shall venture their credit and strength notwithstanding all that he hath said to the contrary with the intelligent and impartiall Readers till I am advised by the judicious and Learned there is a necessity of rescuing them from his assaults The generation of Divines which shall arise that knew Joseph who are aquainted with the Doctrine and Spirit of the first Reformers in this matter they will not take up their perswasions from one or two English Writers in this case It is true Aristole saith lib. 1. Rhetor. cap. 11. that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Contentions are pleasant and Conqest in them sweet But that is true in reference to the Philosophers and Oratours of old who were animals of glory and had a libidinous appetite after applause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Justin Martyr alludeth and the Oratours so insatiable after praise that rather then want it they would hire their Laudicenes to applaud them with a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But in Theologicall contests we ought to have more mortified and sanctified hearts for when we have watched over our souls with the greatest diligence we can yet we have cause to pray that God would forgive us our Book-sins and preserve us from loosing the comfortable sense and enjoyment of Justification while we dispute about it Not therefore from a spirit of contention or opposition to my learned Brother whom I highly honour but love to that precious and antient Truth as I judge it to be which through infirmity is opposed by him happily inclined thereunto by his laudable Zeal against Antinomian dotages I proceed to lay down severall Propositions which when I have done my thoughts are to say Ite missa est The Reformers in their first Conflicts with the Popish Adversaries about Justification among the controversall Points therein judged this none of the least The Meanes or Manner how we are justified Indeed Justification being the heart as it were of Religion a little prick therein is dangerous It being the eye of Christianity a little