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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93868	Vindiciæ fundamenti: or A threefold defence of the doctrine of original sin: together with some other fundamentals of salvation the first against the exceptions of Mr. Robert Everard in his book entituled, The creation and the fall of man. The second against the examiners of the late assemblies confession of faith. The third against the allegations of Dr. Jeremy Taylor, in his Unum necessarium, and two letter treatises of his. By Nathaniel Stephens minister of Fenny-Drayton in Leicestershire.	Stephens, Nathaniel, 1606?-1678.	1658 (1658)	Wing S5452; Thomason E940_1; ESTC R207546	207,183	256

VINDICIAE FVNDAMENTI Or a threefold defence of the DOCTRINE OF Original Sin Together with some other fundamentals of Salvation The first against the exceptions of Mr. Robert Everard in his book entituled The Creation and the Fall of man The second against the Examiners of the late Assemblies Confession of Faith The third against the Allegations of Dr. Jeremy Taylor in his Unum Necessarium and two lesser Treatises of his By NATHANIEL STEPHENS Minister of Fenny-Drayton in Leicestershire LONDON Printed by T. R. and E. M. for Edmund Paxton in Pauls Chain right over against the Castle-Tavern near Doctors Commons 1658. THE PREFACE TO THE Reader Shewing the Reasons of publishing the present Treatise in these times ALthough we are fallen into an age where books of all sorts do abound yet in two cases as long as the Lord hath a Church upon the earth there will be still need of writing more The first when many divine mysteries do remain still inclosed and sealed up in the Scriptures no man will doubt upon such a supposal but it is the duty of those that read according to ability to bring the truth to light I did in order to this publish a Tract concerning the Beast his name mark and the number of his name c. Here if any will say shall we be wiser than our fore-fathers to endeavour the discovery of that which they could never finde out The answer is cleare truth is the Daughter of Time A Pigmy upon a Gyants shoulder may see farther than the Gyant himself Even so we standing upon the shoulders and enjoying the labours of those that have gone before may see as farre as they did and by wading into further depths may go further than they Upon this account it doth more peculiarly belong to us to continue the 〈◊〉 where they left it to adde to the stock of knowledge to be clear where 〈◊〉 were confused to turne into the way where they went 〈◊〉 and to bring those things to light that have been either totally or in part obscured from them Some are of the judgment that we are come to the very Zenith and top of all kinde of learning and that we know already all that we need know But an hundred and a thousand ensamples may be shewed to the contrary We are dark in many of those things that are reserved for the industry and diligence of the latter times If men would convert the course of their studies this way as they would make a better return of their labours so they would be lesse prejudicial to the writings of former times At least all must acknowledge that there will be just occasion of printing 〈◊〉 books as long as new matter remains to be published to the world A second case of new writing is when the plain fundamenal common truths of God are made dark by the new fangled opinious and brangling queres of each age In such a case a necessity doth lie upon us and woe is unto us if we do not plead for the truth when it is notably and eminently endangered by others In the present case I have not to do so much with that which is darke and abstruse in its own nature but with that which is made so by the devises and subtilties of men The doctrine of original sin and the natural servitude of the will at least to any spiritual good is plainly enough set forth in the Scriptures yet there are more than too many in these times who endeavour with all their might to draw a cloud over this cleerenesse I cannot see but as a Minister is to preach and to live according to the truth so it is his office and duty also to clear the same truth from the errours and intanglements of his own age As evil manners occasion good Laws so evil opinions and evil interpretations of Scripture specially where gain-saying spirits do endeavour to puddle the stream should make us more skilfull in the mystery of salvation Whatsoever the reason is many of the friends and followers of the separation with us do not rest satisfi'd with the denyal of Infant Baptism but they proceed also to deny al infants to be born in original sin The confession of the faith of the thirty separate Congregations hath not as farre as I can perceive any one word of the sin of the nature Some do more apparently deny the thing and others are more close in what they hold But Master Everard in his Book entituled the Creation and the fall of man containes the substance of all their arguments Which Tract of his seeing it is spread farre and neare to the deceiving of many poore soules and to the troubling of others I have thought it necessary to examine all the material passages and to detect the subtilties and fallacies thereof The chief points he doth insist on are these whether had Adam the Spirit or was he a spiritual man before his fall Secondly how farre do obedient actions proceed from the operation of the Spirit and how farre are they a mans own act Thirdly he treats concerning the contrariety of the two wills the secret and the revealed will of God Lastly he cometh to the maine point to assert the innocency and the purity of the natural birth And for this he seemes to himselfe and others of that way to have some coulourable reassons When I had done with him there came to my hand the Examen of the late Assemblies Confession of Faith I am uncertain whether one or more are the Authours Some circumstances do not obscurely insinuate it to be the act of more than one man and therefore in the ensuing Discourse I do speak of them in the plural number Because in the points of free will and original sinne they do concord with Master Everard and the Antipedobaptists of our Vicinity I have taken them into the Company to which they do belong Now this last year considering the State of our Affairs when certain friends of mine Ministers as well as others did desire me to publish what I had written At the same time did Doctor Jeremy Taylor set forth his Vnum Necessarium In that Book of his Chap. six as also in two other small Treatises the answer to the Bishops letter and The Further Explication doth the Authour fall upon our differences alleadging the same things in effect which our Antagonists for certaine yeares past have alleadged against us Onely this difference is to be made he doth ascribe much to the Testimonies of the Fathers and other Ancient Authours They do slight all such kindes of authority He doth owne for ought as I could ever hear the Baptisme of infants They more securely to deny infant Baptisme do seeme also upon the same reason to deny all Infants to be borne in original sinne His Writings are like to have a free passage in all the parts of the Land Theirs for ought as I can heare are received more chiefly in their own society His

a new spirit I will give them Ezek. 36.26 The Psalmist prayed create in me a cleane heart O God and renew within me a right Spirit Psal 51.10 All these places of Scripture do abundantly prove that the inward act of the will is under the decree of God as well as under laws and that the certainty of the decree doth not overturne the liberty of the will but both do go together Next he tells us That Augustine in his zeale against a certaine errour of the Pelagians made him take in auxiliaries from an uncertaine and lesse discerned errour and caused him to say many things which all antiquity disavowed and which the following ages took up upon his account Answ The following ages specially since the times of Luther have adhered to the doctrine of Augustine But that the Sager sort have done this meerly upon his account we cannot easily admit They have followed him so far as his interpretations have come nearer to the natural and genuine sence of Scripture What hard speeches he hath concerning original sin the natural servitude of the will the spirituality of the law and the imperfection of man the rigour and austerity of them will be well allayed by comparing them with other sweet sayings of his concerning the fulnesse of Christ and the freenesse of the promises His scope is no way to hinder the endeavour of man but to ground and settle it upon such principles that are more solid and divine And whereas our Author in his Vnum Necessarium and his further explication doth commend the Fathers before the times of Auguistine for their temperate speeches concerning free-will Here many things are to be observed First who will assures us that he may not do the same with their authorities about free-will as he doth with the doctrine of the Church of England and the sence of the Article in the point of Original sin If he will pervert the plaine sence of that which is open in the view of all men what may he not do with the testimonies of the Ancients Besides what he alleadgeth for free-will out of Justin Martyr Cyril Hierome and others those speeches may admit of a benigne interpretation All Divines do agree that a man hath free-will he hath a power to understand to choose to refuse to act by counsell he were not a man if he could not do this The speeches of the Fathers may be taken in such an absolute sence in relation also to a particular state Adam had free-will in innocency and the Saints have free-will to that which is spiritually good in the state of grace Further suppose some things have escaped from them that have been lesse authentick let us consider that many of them came new out of the Schooles of the Philosophers and therefore together with the truth they might mingle some errours of Philosophy Their conflicts also were with the Philosophers and the Maniches and therefore it was necessary that they should speak something more than ordinary for the liberty of the will But enough of this matter which is so largely spoken and so plentifully by others FINIS A Catalogue of some books printed for and sould by Edmund Paxton over against the Castle Taverne near to the Doctors Commons THe holy Arbor containing the body of Divinity or the summe and substance of Christian Religion for the benefit and delight of such as thirst after righteousnesse wherein also are fully resolved the questions of whatsoever point of moment have been or are now controverted in Divinity By John Godolphin J. C. D. fol. The holy Lymbeck or A Semicentury of spiritual extractions wherein the Spirit is extracted from the letter of certaine eminent places in the holy Scriptures By John Godolphin J. C. D. 12. The Temple measured or a brief survey of the Temple mystical which is in the instituted Church of Christ wherein is solidly and modestly discussed most of the material questions touching the constitution and Government of the visible Church-militant here on earth c. By James Noyes of New England 4. Lawes and Ordinances of War in 4. Englands compleat law-Judge and Lawyer by Charles George Cock The method of grace in the justification of sinners being a reply to a book written by Mr. William Eyre of Salisbury by Benjamin Woodbridge Minister of Newberry

his two sinnes of murder and adultery David when he had committed those sinnes did look to the fountain of his misery as it did lye in the pollution of the natural birth I was shapen in iniquity and in sinne did my mother conceive me Hereupon he did pray unto the Lord that he would create in him a new heart Even so Adam after his fall was able to see his miserie when his eyes were opened but he was not as you suggest like a burned child able of himself to take heed of the fire All the ability that he had was by looking to the promise and the same ability we now have to help us out of our natural corruption Our Saviour told the Jewes if the Sonne will make you free ye shall be free indeed Joh. 8.36 By freedome we are to understand not such a civil immunity as Emperors and Kings do give but a freedome from the bondage and vassalage of corruption And therefore when the Jewes made him this answer that they were Abrahams children and never in bondage to any man his reply was he that committeth sin is the servant of sin v. 33 34. The slavery of sin is the bondage that is here meant and there is no other way to be freed but by Christ onely Further you say we cannot prove that Adam did subject himself to any temptation after the fall pag. 143. What if we do not read in so many letters and syllables that he did subject himself to temptation can you therefore probably collect that he was free from all sinne and that he did resist all temptations Again suppose that after his fall he did resist many temptations yet as the strongest Christian may fall when God doth leave him and the weakest may stand when the Lord will uphold him with his supporting grace Even so Adam being without all original sinne being left to himself to try what free-will could do might fall in a state of natural purity And being supported by the Spirit to shew what grace could do might be able to stand in a state of natural corruption Therefore all that you have said doth not any way inforce an equality of the states or that a mans ability was as great after as it was before the fall Now let us go to the third Scripture and were by nature the children of wrath as well as others Ephes 2 3. Here to support the purity of nature and to avoid the force of this text you have many evasions and shifts let us hear them as they come in their order There are say you natural men that discern not the things of God neither can do for a man cannot go East and West at one and the same time neither serve two Masters to be true to them both page 145. I confesse it is true that a man cannot go East and West at one and the same time but our question is whether any natural man meerely as natural without the inspiration of the Spirit can go any other way but that which is meerely enmity against God The Apostle saith the natural man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God because they are foolishnesse to him neither can he perceive them because they are spiritually to be discerned 1 Cor. 2.14 He speaketh this of the Philosophers and other Grecians who had improved nature to the highest To these the preaching of the Crosse was foolishnesse They could discern the wisedome of Plato and the depth of Aristotle but the wisedome of Christ they were not able to discern Hereupon in the three first Chapters of the Epistle the Apostle doth largely dispute that the knowledge of these things doth meerely come by the inward teaching and revelation of the Spirit And then he shutteth up the dispute with this coronis If any man seem to be wise in this world let him become a fool that he may be wise A fool is one that hath no wit he is not able to speak for himself or to help himself The way then to know Christ is not by the advancement of natural abilities but rather by the true sight of inability and the lost condition we are fallen into Aristotle was a Philosopher of great name amongst the Grecians yet of all the books that he wrote of all the speeches that he spake in none of them all he came nearer to God than in that speech which he is reported for to speak O ens entium miserere mei O thou being of beings have mercy upon me The first step to salvation doth beginne with the sight of misery and the next is to looke after the free grace and mercie of God But you go on and tell us nature simply so considered as it is created of God cannot oppose any spiritual light but comply with those things which God holds forth unto it page 146. Here we desire you to keep to the state of the question we are not upon the debate of nature in its purity but of nature as it is since the fall If you speak of nature created in the beginning nature is good nature cannot oppose any spiritual light and it is serviceable to those ends for which God made it But as strictly as both you and the Examiners stand for such a natural purity I would entreat you to shew the man in all Asia Africa Europe or America that hath this purity this integrity of nature But if you speak of nature vitiated and corrupted the Scriptures do every where make mention of such a nature that it is enmity against God that it is not subject to the Law of God nor can be And therefore when the Examiners in the Chapter of free wil do plead so strongly that there are some good things in natural men as in Herod and Balaam and that all natural men are not equally corrupt what of all this this doth not prove the goodnesse of nature For that some natural men have some inward workings in them it is from the convictions of the Spirit and that some are lesse evil then others it is from the bar of restraining grace Otherwise take a natural man as meerly natural he is not subject to the Law of God nor can be Rom. 8.7 As it may be seen in this familiar instance When men are enemies to the State and will not have them to reign over them all the money horses armour Cities Castles that they can get into their power are employed to set up another Law and to supplant the power that is over them So all the endeavours of a natural man all his principles and his reasonings are to pluck down Christ and to set up his own excellency And therefore the natural mind is enmity against God Next you cite two Scriptures concerning sins against nature Backbiters haters of God despitefull proud boasters inventors of evil things disobedient to parents without understanding Covenant-breakers without natural affection Rom. 1.30 31. 2 Tim. 3.3 From hence you draw this conclusion to be