so as that it is confined to a temporal death If this be not the summary drift let the whole book speak but if this make to the Title now give me leave to speak How invective is this Vindicator of the Divine Attributes against the Sublapsarians and yet this I 'll say for them they doe not they dare not include any under the severe Decree of the Divine Justice till they have considered all as born under the lapse and guilt and defection and infection of Original sin Whereas he himself will not have Original sin so much as properly so called neither will he have any to be so considered undeâ— the lapse as really under the guilt or fault yet notwithstanding he will have the Divine Imputation or Decree to descend even upon all for matter of Temporal infliction Now judge whether of these two Sentences or Executions can more prejudice or impeach the Divine attributes of Justice Wisdom Goodness c. viz. That of Gods imputing the whole and utter punishment unto some together with the real imputation of the sin or that of Gods imputing but part of the punishment even unto All and that without any real imputaon of the sin at all Certainly the Divine Justice is made to labour more under this charge for punishing all though but Temporally where he takes none to be faulty than it can under that for punishing but some although eternally where it finds all guilty Thus forcing at his own aim and yet forgetting the mark prefixed he miserably impinges upon the same Rock himself which he would insimulate others for to dash upon Would he verily and indeed have vindicated the glory of the Divine attributes in the question of Original sin he should not have proposed to do it only against the Presbyterian way of understanding it who had they no more disturbed the wholsom Discipline of the Church of England than they have of late directly publiquely and with one consent opposed her in her sound Doctrine she had never been thus widowed to such disorder and distress but might have sat still a Queen of Reformed Churches flourishing in her Peace and Truth Neither will they all yield that their way of understanding it should ever be pointed out for a way a part or singular from the Church of England and other Reformed Churches but he should rather have taken such a kind of Vindication in hand against the Pelagian the Manichaean the Samosatenean the Socinian the Pontifician the Pighian the Flaccian the Arminian the Supralapsarian yea the Judaical the Philosophical the Scholastical the Synergistical and the Anabaptistical way of understanding it all which Hereticks and Sectaries have here would a man goe about to make an exact Catalogue or Computation in more than sixteen times sixteen famous that is infamous questions opinions errors trench'd too palpably and grosly upon the glory of the Divine attributes indeed As be pleased to take here a taste What but their own way of understanding it caused the Jews to run into some error about Orignal sin as that some are born in sin and others not again that some are wholly so born and others but in part else how is it they say Thou wast altogether born in sin Ioh. 9. 34. objecting this scornfully to another in an Exemption of and difference to themselves and again That a Typical a legal or an external Covenant was sufficient to free them from it without the truth of Christ and his Gospel of Grace otherwise why said they within themselves We have Abraham to our Father Mat. 3. 9. and boasted before others We be Abrahams seed we be not born of Fornication Ioh. 8. 33 41. and why doth Christ in convincing them bring them to the Original of sin Ye are of your Father the Devil and the lusts of your Father ye will doe for he was a Murtherer from the beginning c. v. 44. if Original sin was not here intended What but their way of understanding it induced the Heathen Philosophers some to extol Nature as a noble Mother and simply vertuous some to depress her as an obscure step-dame and absolutely vitious Some to lament at the immerited evils of birth some to laugh that it should be thought a man could be born with any vice or crime about him for this was part of that which unto the Greeks seemed foolishness 1 Corinth 1. 23. That one should be saved by another mans merits that one should be just with another mans righteousness that one should suffer and satisfie for another mans offences and that one should be accounted wicked for another mans sins And in very deed the Greeks seeking after wisdom or men curiously Philosophizing and labouring in the Objections and answers of natural reason hath been the main thing that hath invented and maintained all the opinions and errors about Original sin Neither in truth is this natural reasoning of men any other than every mans own way of understanding it But let us goe on to take further notice of what notorious errors or heresies rather that have been not only broached but stifly maintained thereby scilicet that Original sin name and thing is nothing That no sin from Adam passes upon Men either at their conception or at their birth neither so much as imputed to posterity that Adams sin hurt none but himself and that Infants are born in the same state Adam was in before his praevarication That no man is lyable to damnation because of Adams sin That Adams sin passes no other way upon his Posterity but by example or imitation only That Original sin is not remitted to Infants by Baptism because there is no such thing in them so the Pelagians and Coelestians That sins both Original and actual were created by an evil Principle that is an evil God That no sin is caused by Free will but by the evil Principle aforesaid That sin is the very nature and substance of Man That some were so born in sin that Christ could not save them so the Manichees That Original sin is in no sort to be ascribed unto Man but either to God or else to the Devil so the Hermogenians and Valentinians That Original sin is the least of all sins That it is in the Body and not in the Soul or that it is in the inferiour faculties of the Soul only and not in the superiour That Original sin is called sin equivocally abusively figuratively or by a Metonymie either as the Cause of sin or as caused by sin That after Baptism it is no real viciosity but only a penalty That the whole and all of it is not only not imputed and remitted but quite taken away and blotted out by Baptism That Concupiscence remaining in the regenerate is no sin That there is no Law against the loss of Original righteousness That notwithstanding the worst of Original sin there will remain in us much both moral civil pious and Spiritual good That it is only a guilt binding over to
punishment but no fault of sin properly defiling so the Pontificians and especially their Scholasticks That it is neither defection depravation corruption nor truly and properly a Sin but only an affliction or punishment descending upon posterity through the guilt of Adams transgression like as to be born a Slave or a Bastard is his shame only and not his sin That nothing was born in us and with us which was not good and the very work of God That Adams disobedience was in no wise ours neither were we therefore in any wise obnoxious to eternal death so the Pighians and the Catharinians That we become infected by Original sin not by way of Generation or Propagation but only by way of imitation and outward occasion That the death of the body is the sequel of Nature and no punishment for sin whether original or actual so the Socinians and Racovians That Original sin is not a vicious accident or adjunct but is become our very Nature Essence and Substance the very heart and flesh and body and soul so the Flaccians and Substantialists That a mans meer pure naturals notwithstanding the Fall are good and perfect That Original sin is but like a little spot upon the skin or light wound for all which there remain still in a man his natural capacities dispositions powers and forces to Good That Men from their Mothers womb are as fully endowed with Liberty and Freewill as Adam was before his fall That Original sin to a man's Freewill is but like Garlick to a Loadstone easily wipt off and so it falls to work as fresh as at the first That the Adamical will or will from Adams fall hath it self not merely passive in the act of Conversion but is thereunto actively cooperating together with God so the Erasmians the Sunergicts and Arminians That Original sin was but St. Augustins dream and Puppet That Infants under the New Testament are not born in Original sin That there 's no necessity to baptize Infants with respect to any benefit they thus can have against it That Original sin and all other is to be remedied only by revelations and raptures of the Spirit without any use either of Word or Sacraments so the Swenckfeldians the Enthousiasts Anabaptists Fanaticks and Familists That Original sin is not properly a sin but a Disease or a Condition or else figurative form of speaking viz. by a Metonymie may be so called so Zwinglius and some of the Zwinglians That God reprobates God damns men absolutely because it is his will and pleasure without any respect or condition whether of Original or Actual sin so the Supralapsarians Thus you see Sir what a crowd of Errors have obtruded only through mens leaning to their own understandings amongst which more than once this Author may find his own which to me at first view seems so like to diverse of the aforesaid Errors that taken up in strict syllables I begin to suspect it would not only appear so but appear so and much more But I look not upon him in a likenesse to them but in some unlikenesse to the Holy Scriptures and the Church of England taking his way of understanding it to be another both to what the first teaches to understand and in what the last would be understood And let him not think I speak this as one that would revile him but as one that according to his understanding must dissent from him using my liberty which I wish may be mutual but keeping my Charity nevertheless my understanding I doe faithfully and in all humility submit to those two witnesses neither will I oppose him in any thing but what I receive from them they that will undertake him in other passages that fall not directly within this compass let them do it as they shall find themselves concerned in it or called to it This I take to be the safest way to begin and if he will keep his own word the readiest way to make an end For taking the 5 Chapter to the Romans to be objected against him If it be so saies he I have done if it be not so say I I have nothing to do Let me be beleeved both by him and you in this I have look'd again and again upon his Paraphrase with a single eye only to find out truth and proper truth if there explained hoping he will doe likewise with this Exposition when it shall come to his sight In which I make his own words mine if I use any violence I can easily be reproved For the Scripture Rom. 5. 12. Wherefore as by one Man Sin entred into the World and Death by Sin and so Death passed upon all Men for that all have sinned {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Wherefore therefore for this cause I begin with the search and examination of the letter for it is the Grammatical sifting that must render the plain Construction and then the Rhetorical glossing may come in to adorn with a certain circumlocution and therefore a broad Paraphrase if it be not unsuitable yet it is untimely when it shall presume in place before a narrower Exposition have done its part For this canse so I am bold to render it because I find it mostly so rendred in this Epistle to the Romans chap. 1. 26. and 13. 6. and 15. 9. which very inference serves to shew plainly the principal reason or cause why it pleased God to permit the Entrance and Passage of Original Sin viz. For this cause even for the reconciliation and attonements sake immediately before spoken of vers 10. and 11. Therefore God suffered this sin to enter into the world The Enmity or hainous aversion the wrath or dreadfull desert of Original Sin can never be more truly and fully considered and measured than in and by Christs death and satisfaction which who so contends to lessen either for Fault or Guilt such endeavours to extenuate the vertue and merits of Christs reconciling and attoning Gods great end in the Fall was to manifest and magnifie the infinite perfection of his own Son who then would not labour earnestly that Wisdom might principally be justified in the point Doth not God herein commend his love towards us vers. 8. How then can we imagin there should be the least prejudice upon the Divine Attributes in such an Ordination or Permission upon such a motive or intention But was this inferential motive heedlesly escaped or not rather purposely pretermitted to usurp a more uncontrouled licence in the wanton daliances of words that I may not call them petulancies of prophanation It is no reputation to a Phisician to say he hath cured us of an Evil which we never had and shall we accuse the Father of mercies to have wounded us for no other reason but that his Son may have the honour to have cured us I understand not that he that makes a necessity that he may find a remedy is like c. The sufficiency and excellency of our Saviour in
here so insensible we see it may easily come to passe through natural ignorance and ill habits without this diminishing glass of a Metonymical spectacle Conseq. there are some whole Churches which think themselves so little concerned in the matter of Original Sin that they have not a word of it in all their Theologue Inconseq That they have not a word of it their Theologue is defective to them that they think themselves not concerned in it they are defective to their Theologie I could tell him of some Churches that in their Theologie make no mention of the Decalogue do they therefore think themselves but little concerned in it again some Churches think themselves so much concerned in Original Sin that they beleeve Souls as well as Bodies to be propagated from Adam I spake this of the Ethiopians and the Russians no Church but is bound to have such a body of Divinity as may comprehend the whole principles of Faith and Religion yea and to unfold them and confess them so far as they are revealed in the word of God but what is it to object some obscure and confused Churches to the Catholique universal to the most orderly and eminent Churches of the World Conseq. The height of this imagination hath wrought so high in the Church of Rome that when they would doe great honour to the Virgin Mary they were pleased to allow unto her an immaculate conception without any Original Sin Inconseq So far as the Church of Rome seemed to joyn with the Primitive Churches in the point of Original Sin so far also have the Reformed Churches joyned with them as namely That Original Sin is That it is properly and inherently a Sin That it descendeth by natural propagation not by imitation That it hath in both a stain and guilt That it subjected to misery and death in all senses and significations That we are redeemed therefrom by the merits of Christ These are heights indeed but not heights of imagination but sound Doctrine And these she pretended to hold forth against all those who affirmed That Adam lost Original righteousnesse only for himself and not for us his posterity and that by Adams disobedience sin descended not upon Mankind but only a bodily death or punishment Indeed here she hath also some heights of imagination as That Original sin is not only remitted by Baptism but utterly abolished and quite taken away That the concupiscence remaining in the regenerate is no sin That Original Sin is only in the inferiour and not in the superiour faculties That the blessed Virgin was conceived and born free from Original Sin yea and many more heights of imagination they have much disputed on among their Scholasticks so that they owe their errors not to the simple profession of Original Sinne but to their subtle disputation about it As for their opinion of the blessed Virgins immaculate conception it arose from no other height but that oâ— their own superstition which is too notorious in all they can feign or imaginâ— for her say of her or doe to her But I pray God this low imagination oâ— slender and slight conceit of a Metonymical juridical external collateral nay equivocal abusive phantastical imputation serve not to be get a conceit or presumption of an immaculate conception in us all I have read of one that would needs deny the immortality of the Soul with intent to disprove the Popish purgatory but there are other ways to refute this Error of the immaculate conception than by abating the truth or utmost truth of Original Sin One thing more he saith I am to observe before I leave considering the word of the Apostle This one thing is not so much a consequent of what he would say for himself as an argument against all such as would argue against him The ground betwixt both is laid in these last words of the Apostle As by one mans disobedience many were made Sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous Some saith he from hence suppose they argue strongly to the overthrow of all that I have said Thus As by Christ we are made really righteous so by Adam we are made really sinners This we acknowledge not only to be our Argument but our way of Augmentation and if this standing good be sufficient to overthrow all that he hath said then it is easie to be observed to what purpose he hath spoken all this while but to this he hath spoken in his Addresses and to them we can say nothing till we see them But besides saith he I have something very material to reply to the form of the Argument which is a very trick and fallacy Strong reason may be spoken very often without a formal Syllogisme and where the matter cannot be denied to be true and good 't is but a kind of sophistical fallacy to stand too pedantically upon the form But to argue from hence as by Christ we are made really righteous so by Adam we are made really sinners is saith he to invert the purpose of the Apostle The reciprocation or conversion of propositions is no inversion of their purpose where they may truly praedicate either way Neither is the inverting of words in their order always a perverting of them in their intent But the Apostle argues from the lesse to the greater Indeed the Apostle in his comparison proceeds after such a manner as from Adam to Christ from Sin to Grace from Death to Life now Comparates Ianus-like look {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} forwards and backwards and may argue mutually from one to another Nay they must doe it else could they not be Comparates now though the Apostle argue from the lesse to the greater by way of Amplification yet he forbids not to argue from the greater to the lesse for matter of reallity and that is all our Argument But we saith he make it conclude affirmatively from the greater to the lesse in matter of power Will he allow us to doe it negatively why that will serve our turn sufficiently Thus As Christ's righteousnesse was not imputed only so neither was Adams sin or thus As our righteousness by Christ was not a Metonymical righteousnesse so our sin by Adam was not a Metonymical Sin But by his leave we may take liberty to argue affirmatively as before yet offend against no Logical Law or Canon of Comparates nay and the consequence shall be of great force even affirmatively as Thus As Christ did and suffered his Fathers will so ought we to doe and suffer the same As God charged his Angels with Folly how much more may he us mortal men and from the Apostle in this place As the Life was a real life so the Death was a real Death As the Grace was real Grace so the Sin was real Sin But he now assumes the trick or fallacy himself taxing us for concluding affirmatively from the greater to the lesse in matter of power as what a