is not begotten but with the soul nor would the semen inanimatum come to be an embrio 5. We are sure that semen in corpore animatur anima illius cujus est corpus 6. The conceit of two or three souls which is the last refuge and that the rational only is created is at large confuted by many and it feigneth man not to procreate his kind when bruits do theirs nor to beget children indeed but something else that is irrational And yet even this way supposing God to have at the creation by a decree annexed his creating act of the rational soul to mans procreating of the sensitive the propagation of original sin might be defended Obj. But by this doctrine still God is made the cause of the sin for you say he is the total cause of the soul even as much as if man were no cause Answ God causeth it two waies 1. At the first creation of man he put a virtue into the souls of our first Parents to propagate their like on supposition of his requisite universal influx to bring that cause or virtue into act 2. As an universal cause he effectually procureth second causes to do their part and draweth forth their virtue and communicateth on his part all that belongeth to the universal cause to communicate Now if God be the Author of Original sin it must be by one of these two acts viz. by Creation or by his universal Causation and influence but it is by neither of these Not by creation giving the generative specifying virtue to man for he made man upright and commanded him to continue so and so it was an upright nature that he should have propagated if he himself had not depraved it by sin Not by his universal concourse or causality for that causeth only the soul as such and not as defective or corrupted as the Sun causeth the life of a toad as well as of a lion and of a stinking weed as well as of a flower of the greatest beauty and sweetness but is no cause of the ugly venemous nature of the toad or of the stinking nature of the weed save only by accident nor is it any fault in the Sun that such creatures are generated by it so though God is the cause of generation by his universal influx yet is he not the cause of Original sin for the universal cause supposing the specifying virtue in the seed doth work on all things according to their natures and though God was and is the specifying cause by creating the procreating force in man yea and by his constant creative emanation yet he created not the vice and go is not the cause of that Obj. But a lame man doth not beget a lame child nor a blind man a blind child Why then should a sinner beget a sinner and corrupted Parents have a corrupted issue Answ The eye and leg are not the soul which hath the generative power nor yet essential parts of the body But let any of the essentials of the body as the brain or heart be depraved and it will appear in the issue especially if it be so with both the Parents much more when the soul is depraved by whose power the body it self is formed and which is most essential to the man the pravity must needs be communicated Lameness and blindness in the Parents alter not the procreating seed but consist with its integrity But none can communicate that which he hath lost and hath not either actually or virtually himself Obj. Righteousness and holiness were not communicable by natural generation if Adam had not fallen go by generation we have no privation of them Answ 1. The antecedent is false they would have been propagated to posterity as health and beauty to the body as I proved in the beginning 2. If generation as such had not conveyed them yet if God had affixed by a standing law his supernatural gifts to natural procreation it would have proved against the consequent that we are sinfully defective in being without them Obj. Learning and wisdom are not now derived to posterity Answ Nor any thing that is acquired and not natural Obj. Godliness is not now conveyed by nature go it should not have been so then Answ I deny the consequence 1. Because that holiness that was natural then is supernatural now You may propagate eye-sight to your children because it is natural but you can neither restore your own nor theirs when it is put out without a supernatural power 2. Because though Adam was our natural head and root and so had power to hold or lose the grace which he had received for himself and us yet when it came to the work of our restoration he being utterly insufficient to recover himself or us the work is put into another hand and Jesus Christ the second Adam is now our Root and Head and as he purchased all so all our mercies are at his disposal and he giveth them out as he seeth meet and go as he gave Adam pardon and holiness for himself so will he give to all his members for themselves himself being still the treasury of his Church and keeping the keys of life in his own hands 3. Sanctification is imperfect in this life and go leaving some corruption no wonder if that be propagated by the best 4. But yet as Adam should have conveyed an innocent holy nature to his children if he had not lost it even a legal righteousness such as he had himself so now though generation do it not yet Christ in his Gospel Covenant hath made over a Gospel Righteousness to the infants of the sanctified who devote themselves and their children unto God in the Baptismal Covenant so that as posterity is unhappy through their first Parents sin so children may recover happiness from Christ by means of their Parents faith and holiness and dedicating them to God in Christ Obj. Foolish Parents beget wise children go wicked Parents may beget godly children Answ 1. I grant that God may graciously sanctifie the seed of the ungodly but that is not by their procreation 2. I deny the consequence because that foolishness comes from the distemper of the organs and the bodies ineptitude to serve the soul and no alteration may be made by it upon the seed of generation But when the soul is depraved by sin there is no virtue left in nature to rectify that by generation and hinder the propagation of the pravity 3. And still as to guilt all these objections say nothing No man can convey the innocency which he had not Obj. Adam when he was pardoned had no guilt go he could not convey what he had not Answ 1. There is a threefold guilt 1. Reatus facti 2. Reatus culpae 3. Reatus ad poenam To be guilty of the fact is to be truly one that did commit it or participated therein To be guilty of the fault is to be truly culpable by reason of that fact it being really
want of necessary grace to innocent nature as the adversaries think is plain for necessary grace hath some sufficiency to its ends and go it it is called sufficient grace by the adversaries commonly But that which never attaineth its end in any one person in the World in their own judgment is not sufficient It is their common and last argument against our doctrine of special effectual grace given to all the elect as distinct from that sufficient grace which say the Dominicans is given to others that the grace is not sufficient that never proveth effectual in any We may much more confidently say so here when we speak of the whole World that the grace is not sufficient that never is was or will be effectual in any If it suffice to make the event naturally possible yet not to remove the moral impossibility 3. And that God is the Author of the Law that forbiddeth sin and of innocent nature is granted and past doubt The certainty of this universal event cannot come from a contingent cause as such The will is naturally free that chooseth but it is not morally free or else the World would not choose evil So that it is certain that if there be no original sin the cause of this universal event that all men sin must be resolved to be somewhat in nature or something in providence of which God is the cause If God have so framed pure nature and so order the affairs of the World that no man on earth shall eventually escape the sin which he so much prohibiteth and abhorreth it must needs follow that he is the moral reputative cause at least And yet it is one of the pretences against the doctrine of original sin that it maketh God the Author of it in infants when it 's they that make him the Author of it in all Seeing therefore that sin hath so overspread the World that all men sin in all Countries in all Ages except Christ this must proceed either from mans natural principles and so be chargeable upon God his Maker or it is the fruit of original sin and to be charged on our first Parents and our selves Arg. 19. If infants have in their corrupted natures a virtual enmity to God and Holiness then have they original sin but such an enmity they have I mean in disposition seed or habit go they have original sin The antecedent or minor I prove 1. From the common experience of the World that manifest such an enmity as soon as they come to the use of reason and that maintain it so obstinately till renewing grace do overcome it How early do they shew an aversness to the work and ends for which they were created How little do the precepts of Parents or Teachers and all the means of grace themselves to conquer it in the most And where it is most conquered even in the godly it is most confessed because there is a troublesome remnant of it still so that there is no man in the World that hath not more or less of it in him the wicked being under the power of it and the godly under the trouble of these remainders 2. From Gen. 3. 15. Joh. 3. 5 6. Rom. 8. 3 5 6 7 8 9. Rom. 7. 21 23 24 25 compared In Joh. 3. 6. we find that flesh begets but flesh That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that go a new birth by the spirit is necessary to make us spiritual of which before In Rom. 8. we find that it was through the flesh that the Law was weak and that God sending his son in the likeness of sinful flesh not as sinful but as flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh Where it is undeniable that by flesh is not meant sin it self for then it had not been called sinful nor the subject of sin nor Christ said to have taken the likeness of it and go the word flesh here is taken in no worse a sense than in Joh. 3. 6. We find here also that all flesh is universally called sinful which Christ took the likeness of And Christ took the likeness of infants and that first only growing up to the likeness of the adult infants go have sinful flesh And ver 5 6. This flesh as the principle that prevaileth in some is opposed to the spirit which prevaileth in others and their fruits opposed the one sort mind fleshly things the other spiritual things and death belongs to one and life and peace to the other And ver 7. The carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be And ver 8. They that are in the flesh cannot please God that is they that have not the spirit to subdue and mortify the flesh as it is explained ver 9. And if any man have not the spirit of Christ he is none of his So that flesh without spirit which is now mans natural estate is a principle of enmity and rebellion and proves men none of Christ's and in a state of death And many Expositors judge that in Gen. 3. 15. such being none of Christ's till they have the spirit are annumerated to the serpents seed that hath the enmity against the spiritual seed which so sheweth it self when they come to age that as Cain by Abel and Ishmael by Isaack so still He that is born after the flesh persecuteth him that is born after the spirit if not restrained Gal. 4. 29. And Rom. 7. 18. I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing that is in Paul so far as he was without the spirit And as this innate universal enmity is thus proved so it is proved to be sin 1. By the Law of nature which tells us that an habitual enmity of the rational creature against God and Holiness is sin if any thing be sin It is an inclination or disposition contrary to the primitive nature and moral image of God in man and contrary to what our relation to God importeth and as it is commonly said of actual hatred of God it may as truly if not much more evidently be said of this dispositive virtual enmity that it is an evil that cannot become good and so naturally sin that it can be no other 2. It 's proved to be sin by the express assertion of the Text. Rom. 8. 3. 10. it is sinful flesh and the subject of sin till the spirit come Ver. 9. it proves them none of Christ ' s. Rom. 7. 14. 17. 20. 24 25. it is called in-dwelling sin and a Law of sin and to be carnal is to be sold under sin 3. From the effects which nothing can produce but sin They cannot be subject to the Law of God They please not God To be carnally minded is death c. Rom. 8. So 1 Cor. 2. 14. The natural meerly animal man now in his corrupt estate receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness
as that is which shall subject us to eternal death for nothing And this is commonly confessed Well then the esse corruptionis is in order before the culpability of it That esse is truly poena a punishment though not as caused by God for God causeth it not yet as permitted by God and as the consequent of his just desertion And omnis poena est peccati poena punishment is essentially related to a fault deserving it This fault was meerly our Parents or by participation and derivation ours If meerly theirs then our corruption is meerly their punishment For God will not punish one for anothers fault when there is no ground of imputation of it to themselves But it 's certainly our punishment or else it could not make us inherently sinful and so damnable therefore as the penalty is ours some antecedent fault must be ours which can be nothing but a derived guilt of Parents sins Chamiers Reasons also I shall briefly dissolve I mean those passages against Salmeron and Pigbius Paustrat Vol. 3. l. 1. c. 7 8. in which his strength lieth C. 8. sect 9. Dico nullum peccatum unum numero posse esse commune omnibus hominibus Actiones sunt suppositorum Itaque nego peccatum illud Adami esse peccatum originale Resp 1. In the instant of committing it we were not persons distinct from Adam and so had not a distinct sin but we were seminally in him having our essence after from his essence and so far as we were in him we were guilty of that act in him And when we become persons from him we becom guilty persons of that act that is not reputed to have done it as distinct persons but justly reputed odious and punishable as being then seminally in him and as having our essence from him and therefore such as his essence was as to the guilt so that now we have numerically as many original sins as we are persons that is individual guilty natures and persons from that one sin besides qualitative pravity The same he hath oft sect 11 12 c. Sect. 17. He saith Resp Constitui nos peccatores formaliter vel causaliter And he saith that formally it is that which in nobis ipsis inest tanquam qualitas peccatrix ut albus paries per albedinem But by Adam's act only causaliter Answ 1. Why is causaliter distinguished from formaliter as if forma non esset causa 2. If by causaliter he mean efficienter only he should tell us what sort of efficient it is 3. If there be such a thing as actual sin how doth that act make us sinners Is it formaliter Then we are sinners but in the instant of act for our own acts are presently gone and nothing as well as Adam's If it be causaliter then Adam's act is confessed to make us sinners as our own acts do when they are past 4. The plain truth is whether learned Chamier saw it or not both acts and habits make us sinners in the same kind of cause and so may Adam's viz. as the fundamentum relationis and the reatus culpae is that relation or the formalis ratio peccati though the reatus poenae be but a consequent And therefore Pet. Martyr on Rom. 5. doth ill to deny that reatus is sin it self cont Pighium Now men call the fundamentum relationis in these morals by the name both of causa meritoria efficiens materialis Meritorious acts or qualities are called causa efficiens quoad ipsam relationem inde resultantem causa materialis constitutiva as the whole essence of sin is made up of them as meritorious matter and of the relation together If we will be Logical we must be accurate or we cheat men by words Reader in conclusion lament with me the common partiality of the best Disputers How little did this opinion dishonour great Chamier Pet. Martyr c. And why Because it was against Pighius and Salmeron that they wrote it opposition to whom I think verily drew them also to it But when Placaeus said the like or less with what a heap of authority doth Rivet well overwhelm him For then it was not the Papists that were concerned in the dispute I shall next speak to those objections which are made only against the participation of guilt of the sins of neerer Parents by those that confess our guilt of Adam's sin Supposing that of Ezek. 18. and consequently Deut. 24. 16. answered before And they are these following Obj. 1. If we are thus guilty of our neerest Parents sins then have we two sorts of original sin when as we have hitherto acknowledged but one Answ It is but one subjective in each person and but one terminative that is it is but one and the same punishment that one and the same person is obliged to but it is manifold fundamentaliter as arising from the desert of many sins But 2. if you take the word Original not as signifying all that adhereth to us ab origine but as signifying only that sin which was the original or first in-let of all our misery then as there can be but one first so is there but one original sin even Adam's 3. As our natures are further polluted by some neerer Parents sin so may they be further guilty by them I think I proved before that the children of some ungodly Parents have an additional pravity in their natures at least as to the inclination to she creature the terminus ad quem of their apostacy more than the generality of mankind have as meerly from Adam's first sin Obj. 2. If we are guilty of the sins of our neerer Parents then this Generation should be many hundred fold more guilty than the first was and so the last man or age should be the most sinful Answ So they are fundamentaliter but not terminative They have forfeited but the same felicity which one sin may forfeit for there is no more to lose But it is on a manifold desert or ground that they have forfeited that one felicity and so incurred that one penalty 2. But this I say but on supposition that the Parents are none of them pardoned For if the Parents be pardoned themselves it is the judgment of very learned and judicious Divines that by the same Covenant all their infants are pardoned with them as soon as they have their being And also that pardoned Parents cannot convey that guilt to their children which they have not on themselves And consequently that by the remedy an interruption is made in the process of guilt 3. But then it is still confessed that the reatus simplex as some call it that is the meer natural merit antecedent to the persons obligation which some call reatus redundens in personam is not taken off by pardon from the Parent and therefore not from posterity But a great difficulty here ariseth in the way How then can the guilt of Adam's sin be conveyed to any of us