proposition the discovery of which in truth will not make recompence for the pratling of disagreeing Persons Truth and Peace make an excellent yoke but the truth of God is alwayes to be preferred before the Peace of men and therefore our Blessed Saviour came not to send Peace but a sword That is he knew his doctrine would cause great devisions of heart but yet he came to perswade us to Peace and Unity Indeed if the truth be cleare and yet of no great effect in the lives of men in government or in the honour of God then it ought not to break the Peace That is it may not run out of its retirement to disquiet them to whom their rest is better then that knowledge But if it be brought out already it must not be deserted positively though peace goes away in its stead So that peace is rather to be deserted then any truth should be renounced or denied but Peace is rather to be procured or continued then some truth offer'd This is my sence Madam when the case is otherwise then I suppose it to be at present For as for the present case there must be two when there is a falling out or a peace broken and therefore I will secure it now for let any man dissent from me in this Article I will not be troubled at him he may doe it with liberty and with my charity If any man is of my opinion I confesse I love him the better but if he refutes it I will not love him lesse after then I did before but he that dissents and reviles me must expect from me no other kindness but that I forgive him and pray for him and offer to reclaim him and that I resolve nothing shall ever make me either hate him or reproach him and that still in the greatest of his difference I refuse not to give him the communion of a Brother I believe I shall be chidden by some or other for my easinesse and want of fierceness which they call Zeal but it is a fault of my nature a part of my Original sin Vnicuique dedit vitium Natura Creato Mî Natura aliquid semper amare dedit Propert. Some weaknesse to each man by birth descends To me too great a kindnesse Nature lends But if the Peace can be broken no more then thus I suppose the truth which I publish will do more then make recompence for the noise that in Clubs and Conventicles is made over and above So long as I am thus resolved there may be injury done to me but there can be no duell or losse of Peace abroad For a single anger or a displeasure on one side is not a breach of peace on both and a Warre cannot be made by fewer then a bargain can in which alwaies there must be two at least Object 3. But as to the thing If it be inquired 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what profit what use what edification is there what good to souls what honour to God by this new explication of the Article I answer that the usuall Doctrines of Originall sinne are made the great foundation of the horrible proposition concerning absolute Reprobation the consequences of it◠reproach God with injustice they charge God foolishly and deny his Goodness and his Wisdom in many instances and whatsoever can upon the account of the Divine Attributes be objected against the fierce way of Absolute Decrees all that can be brought for the reproof of their usuall Propositions concerning Originall sinne For the consequences are plaine and by them the necessity of my Doctrine and its usefulnesse may be understood For 1. If God decrees us to be born sinners Then he makes us to be sinners and then where is his goodnesse 2. If God does damne any for that he damnes us for what we could not help and for what himself did and then where is his Justice 3. If God sentence us to that Damnation which he cannot in justice inflict where is his Wisdome 4. If God for the sinne of Adam brings upon us a necessity of sinning where is our liberty where is our Nature what is become of all Lawes and of all Vertue and vice How can men be distinguish'd from Beasts or the Vertuous from the vitious 5. If by the fall of Adam we are so wholly ruined in our faculties that we cannot do any good but must do evill how shall any man take care of his wayes or how can it be supposed he should strive against all vice when he can excuse so much upon his Nature or indeed how shall he strive at all for if all actual sins are derived from the Originall and then is unavoidable and yet an Unresistable cause then no man can take care to avoid any actuall sinne whose cause is naturall and not to be declined And then where is his providence and Government 6. If God does cast Infants into Hell for the sinne of others and yet did not condemne Devills but for their owne sinne where is his love to mankind 7. If God chooseth the death of so many Millions of Persons who are no sinners upon their own stock and yet sweares that he does not love the death of a sinner viz. sinning with his owne choice how can that be credible he should love to kill Innocents and yet should love to spare the Criminall where then is his Mercie and where is his Truth 8. If God hath given us a Nature by derivation which is wholly corrupted then how can it be that all which God made is good for though Adam corrupted himself yet in propriety of speaking we did not but this was the Decree of God and then where is the excellency of his providence and Power where is the glory of the Creation Because therefore that God is all goodness and justice and wisedome and love and that he governs all things and all men wisely and holily and according to the capacities of their natures and Persons that he gives us a wise law and binds that law on us by promises and threatnings I had reason to assert these glories of the Divine Majestie and remove the hindrances of a good life since every thing can hinder us from living well but scar cely can all the Arguments of God and man and all the Powers of heaven and hell perswade us to strictnesse and severity Qui serere ingenuum volet agrum Liberet arva priùs sruticibus Falce rubos silicemque resecet Ut novâ fruge gravis Ceres eat He that will sow his field with hopefull seed Must every bramble every thistle weed And when each hindrance to the graine is gone A fruitfull crop shall rise of corn alone When therefore there were so many wayes made to the Devill I was willing amongst many others to stop this also and I dare say few Questions in Christendome can say half so much in justification of their owne usefulnesse and necessity I know Madam that they
secure them If they be guilty and not innocents then it is but vain to run to Gods goodnesse which in this particular is not revealed when it is against his justice which is revealed and to hope God will save them whom he hates who are gone from him in Adam who are born heires of his wrath slaves of the Devil servants of sin for these Epithetes are given to all the children of Adam by the opponents in this Question is to hope for that against which his justice visibly is ingaged and for which I hope there is no ground unlesse this instance of Divine goodnesse were expressed in revelation For so even wicked persons on their death-bed are bidden to hope without rule and without reason or sufficient grounds of trust But besides that we hope in Gods goodnesse in this case is not ill but I ask is it against Gods goodnesse that any one should perish for Original sin if it be against Gods goodnesse it is also against his justice for nothing is just that is not also good Gods goodnesse may cause his justice to forbear a sentence but whatsoever is against Gods goodnesse is against God and therefore against his justice also because every attribute in God is God himself For it is one thing to say This is against Gods goodnesse and the contrary is agreeable to Gods goodnesse Whatsoever is against the goodnesse of God is essentially evil But a thing may be agreeable to Gods goodnesse and yet the other part not be against it For example It is against the goodnesse of God to hate fools and ideots and therefore he can never hate them But it is agreeable to Gods goodnesse to give heaven to them and the joyes beatifical and if he does not give them so much yet if he does no evil to them hereafter it is also agreeable to his goodnesse To give them Heaven or not to give them Heaven though they be contradictories yet are both agreeable to his goodnesse But in contraries the case is otherwise For though not to give them heaven is consistent with the Divine goodnesse yet to end them to hell is not The reason of the difference is this Because to do contrary things must come from contrary principles and whatsoever is contrary to the Divine goodnesse is essentially evil But to do or not to do supposes but one positive principle and the other negative not having a contrary cause may be wholy innocent as proceeding from a negative but to speak more plain Is it against Gods goodnese that Infants should be damned for Original sin then it could never have been done it was essentially evil and therefore could never have been decreed or sentenced But if it be not against Gods goodness that they should perish in hell then it may consist with Gods goodness and then to hope that Gods goodness will rescue them from his justice when the thing may agree with both is to hope without ground God may be good though they perish for Adams sin and if so and that he can be just too upon the account of what attribute shal these innocents be rescued and we hope for mercy for them 6. If Adams posterity be onely liable to damnation but shall never be damned for Adams sin then all the children of Heathens dying in their infancy shall escape as well as baptized Christian children which if any of my disagreeing Brethren shall affirm he will indeed seem to magnifie Gods goodness but he must fall out with some great Doctors of the Church whom he would pretend to follow and besides he will be hard put to it to tell what advantage Christian children have over Heathens supposing them all to die young for being bred up in the Christian Religion is accidental and may happen to the children of unbelievers or may not happen to the children of believers and if Baptisme addes nothing to their present state there is no reason infants should be baptized but if it does add to their present capacity as most certainly it does very much then that Heathen infants should be in a condition of being rescued from the wrath of God as well as Christian Infants is a strange unlookt for affirmative and can no way be justified or made probable but by affirming it to be against the justice of God to condemn any for Adams sin Indeed if it be unjust as I have proved it is then it will follow that none shall suffer damnation by it But if the hopes of the salvation of Heathen infants be to be derived onely from Gods goodnesse though Gods goodnesse cannot fail yet our argument may fail for it will not follow because God is good therefore Heathen infants shall be saved for it might as well follow God is good therefore Heathens shal be no heathens but all turn Christians These things do not follow affirmatively But negatively they do For if it were against Gods Goodnesse that they should be reckoned in Adam unto eternal death then it is also against his Justice and against God all the way and then either we should finde some revelation of Gods honour in Scripture or at least there would be no principle such as is this pretence of being guilty of damnation in Adam to contest against it 7. But to come yet closer to the Question some Good Men and wise suppose that the Sublapsarian Presbyterians can be confuted in their pretended grounds of absolute reprobation although we grant that Adams sinne is damnable to his posterity provided we say that though it was damnable yet it shall never damne us Now though I wish it could be done that they and I might not differ so much as in a circumstance yet first it is certain that the men they speake of can never be confuted upon the stock of Gods Justice because as the one saies it is just that God should actually damn all for the sin of Adam So the other saies it is just that God should actually sentence all to damnation and so there the case is equall Secondly they cannot be confuted upon the stock of Gods goodnesse because the emanations of that being wholly arbitrary and though there are negative measures of it as there is of Gods Infinity and we know Gods goodness to be inconsistent with some things yet there are no positive measures of this goodnesse and no man can tell how much it will do for us and therefore without a revelation things may be sometimes hoped which yet may not be presumed and therefore here also they are not to be confuted and as for the particular Scriptures unlesse we have the advantage of essentiall reason taken from the divine Attributes they will oppose Scripture to Scripture and have as much advantage to expound the opposite places as the Jewes have in their Questions of the Messias and therefore si meos ipse corymbos necterem if I might make mine own arguments in their society and with their leave I would upon that very
who are of the other side doe and will disavow most of these consequences and so doe all the World all the evils which their adversaries say do follow from their opinions but yet all the World of men that perceive such evills to follow from a proposition think themselves bound to stop the progression of such opinions from whence they beleeve such evils may arise If the Church of Rome did believe that all those horrid things were chargable upon Transubstantiation and upon worshipping of Images which we charge upon the Doctrines I doe not doubt but they would as much disowne the Proposition as now they doe the consequents and yet I doe as little doubt but that we do well to disown the first because we espy the latter and though the Man be not yet the doctrines are highly chargable with the evils that follow it may be the men espy them not yet from the doctrines they do certainly follow and there are not it the World many men who owne that is evil in the pretence but many doe such as are dangerous in the effect and this doctrine which I have reproved I take to be one of them Object 4. But if Originall sinne be not a sinne properly why are children baptized and what benefit comes to them by baptisme I Answer as much as they need and are capable of and it may as well be asked Why were all the sons of Abraham circumcised when in that Covenant there was no remission of sins at all for little things and legal impurities and irregularities there were but there being no sacrifice there but of beasts whose blood could not take away sinne it is certaine and plainly taught us in Scripture that no Rite of Moses was expiatory of sinnes But secondly This Objection can presse nothing at all for why was Christ baptized who knew no sinne But yet so it behoved him to fulfill all Righteousnesse 3. Baptisme is called regeneration or the new birth and therefore since in Adam Children are borne onely to a naturall life and a Naturall death and by this they can never arrive at Heaven therefore Infants are baptized because untill they be borne anew they can never have title to the Promises of Jesus Christ or be heirs of heaven and coheir's of Jesus 4. By Baptisme Children are made partakers of the holy Ghost and of the grace of God which I desire to be observed in opposition to the Pelagian Heresy who did suppose Nature to be so perfect that the Grace of God was not necessary and that by Nature alone they could go to heaven which because I affirm to be impossible and that Baptisme is therfore necessary because nature is insufficient and Baptisme is the great chanel of grace there ought to be no envious and ignorant load laid upon my Doctrine as if it complied with the Pelagian against which it is so essentially and so mainly opposed in the main difference of his Doctrine 5. Children are therefore Baptized because if they live they will sinne and though their sins are not pardoned before hand yet in Baptisme they are admitted to that state of favour that they are within the Covenant of repentance and Pardon and this is expresly the Doctrine of St. Austin lib. 1. de nupt concup cap. 26. cap. 33. tract 124. in Johan But of this I have already given larger accounts in my Discourse of Baptisme part 2 p. 194. in the great Exemplar 6. Children are baptized for the Pardon even of Originall sin this may be affirmed truly but yet improperly for so far as it is imputed so farr also it is remissible for the evill that is done by Adam is also taken away in Christ and it is imputed to us to very evill purposes as I have already explicated but as it was among the Jewes who believed then the sinne to be taken away when the evill of punishment is taken off so is Originall sinne taken away in Baptisme for though the Material part of the evill is not taken away yet the curse in all the sons of God is turn'd into a blessing and is made an occasion of reward or an entrance to it Now in all this I affirme all that is true and all that is probable for in the same sense as Originall staine is a sinne so does Baptisme bring the Pardon It is a sinne metonymically that is because it is the effect of one sinne and the cause of many and just so in baptisme it is taken away that it is now the matter of a grace and the opportunity of glory and upon these Accounts the Church Baptizes all her Children Object 5. But to deny Originall sinne to be a sinne properly and inherently is expressly against the words of S. Paul in the 5. Chapter to the Romanes If it bee I have done but that it is not I have these things to say 1. If the words be capable of any interpretation and can be permitted to signifie otherwise then is vulgarly pretended I suppose my self to have given reasons sufficient why they ought to be For any interpretation that does violence to right Reason to Religion to Holinesse of life and the Divine Attributes of God is therefore to be rejected and another chosen For in all Scriptures all good and all wise men doe it 2. The words in question sin and sinner and condemnation are frequently used in Scripture in the lesser sense and sin is taken for the punishment of sin and sin is taken for him who bore the evil of the sinne and sin is taken for legal impurity and for him who could not be guilty even for Christ himself as I have proved already and in the like manner sinners is used by the rule of Conjugates and denominatives but it is so also in the case of Bathsheba the Mother of Solomon 3. For the word condemnation it is by the Apostle himself limited to signifie his temporal death for when the Apostle sayes Death passed upon all men in as much as all men have sinned he must mean temporal death for eternal death did not passe upon all men and if he means eternal death he must not mean that it came for Adams sin but in as much as all men have sinned that is upon all those upon whom eternal death did come it came because they also have sinned 4. The Apostle here speaks of sin imputed therefore not of sin inherent and if imputed onely to such purposes as he here speaks of viz. to temporal death then it is neither a sin properly nor yet imputable to Eternal death so far as is or can be inplyed by the Apostles words 5. The Apostles sayes by the disobedience of one many were made sinners so that it appears that we in this have no sin of our own neither is it at all our own formally and inherently for though efficiently it was his and effectively ours as to certain purposes of imputation yet it could not be a sin to
they die without Baptism But if it be a horrible affirmative to say that the poor babes shall be made Devils or enter into their portion if they want that ceremony which is the only gate the only way of salvation that stands open then the word Damnation in the 9. Article must mean something less then what we usually understand by it or else the Article must be salved by expounding some other word to an allay and lessening of the horrible sentence and particularly the word Deserves of which I shall afterwards give account Both these waies I follow The first is the way of the Schoolmen For they suppose the state of unbaptized Infants to be a poena damni and they are confident enough to say that this may be well suppos'd without inferring their suffering the pains of hell But this sentence of theirs I admit and explicate with some little difference of expression For so far I admit this pain of loss or rather a deficiency from going to Heaven to be the consequence of Adam's sin that by it we being left in meris Naturalibus could never by these strengths alone have gone to Heaven Now whereas your Lordship in behalf of those whom you suppose may be captious is pleas'd to argue That as loss of sight or eyes infers a state of darkness or blindness so the losse of Heaven infers Hell and if Infants go not to heaven in that state whither can they go but to hell and that 's Damnation in the greatest sense I grant it that if in the event of things they do not go to Heaven as things are now ordered it is but too likely that they go to Hell but I adde that as all darkness does not infer horror and distraction of minde or fearful apparitions and phantasms so neither does all Hell or states in Hell infer all those torments which the Schoolmen signifie by a poena sensus for I speak now in pursuance of their way So that there is no necessity of a third place but it concludes only that in the state of separation from Gods presence there is a great variety of degrees and kinds of evil and every one is not the extreme and yet by the way let me observe that Gregory Nazianzen and Nicetas taught that there is a third place for Infants and Heathens and Irenaeus affirm'd that the evils of Hell were not eternal to all but to the Devils only and the greater criminals But neither they nor we nor any man else can tell whether Hell be a place or no. It is a state of evil but whether all the damned be in one or in twenty places we cannot tell But I have no need to make use of any of this For when I affirm that Infants being by Adam reduc'd and left to their meer natural state fall short of Heaven I do not say they cannot go to Heaven at all but they cannot go thither by their naturall powers they cannot without a new grace and favour go to heaven But then it cannot presently be inferred that therefore they go to hell but this ought to be infer'd which indeed was the real consequent of it therefore it is necessary that Gods Grace should supply this defect if God intends Heaven to them at all and because Nature cannot God sent a Saviour by whom it was effected But if it be asked what if this grace had not come and that it be said that without Gods grace they must have gone to Hell because without it they could not go to Heaven I answer That we know how it is now that God in his goodness hath made provisions for them but if he had not made such provisions what would have been we know not any more then we know what would have followed if Adam had not sinned where he should have liv'd and how long and in what circumstances the posterity should have been provided for in all their possible contingencies But yet this I know that it followes not that if without this Grace we could not have gone to Heaven that therefore we must have gone to Hel. For although the first was ordinarily impossible yet the second was absolutely unjust and against Gods goodness and therefore more impossible But because the first could not be done by nature God was pleased to promise and to give his grace that he might bring us to that state whither he had design'd us that is to a supernatural felicity If Adam had not fallen yet Heaven had not been a natural consequent of his obedience but a Gracious it had been a gift still and of Adam though he had persisted in innocence it is true to say that without Gods Grace that is by the meer force of Nature he could never have arriv'd to a Supernatural state that is to the joyes of Heaven and yet it does not follow that if he had remain'd in Innocence he must have gone to Hell Just so it is in Infants Hell was not made for man but for Devils and therefore it must be something besides meer Nature that can bear any man thither meer Nature goes neither to Heaven nor Hell So that when I say Infants naturally cannot go to Heaven and that this is a punishment of Adam's sin he being for it punished with a loss of his gracious condition and devolv'd to the state of Nature and we by him left so my meaning is that this Damnation which is of our Nature is but negative that is as a consequent of our Patriarchs sin our Nature is left imperfect and deficient in order to a supernatural end which the Schoolmen call a poena damni but improperly they indeed think it may be a real event and final condition of persons as well as things but I affirm it was an evil effect of Adam's sin but in the event of things it became to the persons the way to a new grace and hath no other event as to Heaven and Hell directly and immediately In the same sense and to the same purpose I understand the word Damnation in the 9. Article But the word Damnation may very well truly and sufficiently signifie all the purposes of the Article if it be taken only for the effect of that sentence which was inflicted upon Adam and descended on his posterity that is for condemnation to Death and the evils of mortality So the word is used by S. Paul 1 Cor. 11. 29. He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh Damnation to himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word but that it did particularly signifie temporal death and evils appears by the instances of probation in the next words For for this cause some are weak amongst you some are sick and some are fallen asleep This also in the Article Original Sin deserves damnation that is it justly brought in the angry sentence of God upon Man it brought him to death and deserv'd it it brought it upon us and deserv'd it too I do not say that we
he was permitted to the power of his enemy that betray'd him and put under the power of his body whose appetites would govern him and when they would grow irregular could not be mastered by any thing that was about him or born with him so that his case was miserable and naked and his state of things was imperfect and would be disordered But now Madam things being thus bad are made worse by the superinduced Doctrines of men which when I have represented to your Ladiship and told upon what accounts I reprove them your Honour will finde that I have reason There are one sort of Calvins Scholars whom we for distinctions sake call Supralapsarians who are so fierce in their sentences of predestination and reprobation that they say God look'd upon mankinde onely as his Creation and his slaves over whom he having absolute power was very gracious that he was pleased to take some few and save them absolutely and to the other greater part he did no wrong though he was pleased to damn them eternally onely because he pleased for they were his own and Qui jure suo utitur nemini facit injuriam saies the law of reason every one may do what he please with his own But this bloody and horrible opinion is held but by a few as tending directly to the dishonour of God charging on Him alone that He is the cause of mens sins on Earth and of mens eternal torments in Hell it makes God to be powerfull but his power not to be good it makes him more cruel to men then good men can be to Dogs and sheep it makes him give the final sentence of Hell without any pretence or colour of justice it represents him to be that which all the World must naturally fear and naturally hate as being a God delighting in the death of innocents for so they are when he resolves to damn them and then most tyrannically cruel and unreasonable for it saies that to make a postnate pretence of justice it decrees that men inevitably shall sin that they may inevitably but justly be damned like the Roman Lictors who because they could not put to death Sejanus daughters as being Virgins defloured them after sentence that by that barbarity they might be capable of the utmost Cruelty it makes God to be all that thing that can be hated for it makes him neither to be good nor just nor reasonable but a mighty enemy to the biggest part of mankinde it makes him to hate what himself hath made and to punish that in another which in himself he decreed should not be avoided it charges the wisdom of God with folly as having no means to glorifie his justice but by doing unjustly by bringing in that which himself hates that he might do what himself loves doing as Tiberius did to Brutus and Nero the Sons of Germanicus Variâ fraude induxit ut concitarentur ad convitia et concitati perderentur provoking them to raise that he might punish their reproachings This opinion reproaches the words and the Spirit of Scripture it charges God with Hypocrisy and want of Mercy making him a Father of Cruelties not of Mercie and is a perfect overthrow of all Religion and all Lawes and all Goverment it destroyes the very being and nature of all Election thrusting a man down to the lowest form of beasts and birds to whom a Spontaneity of doing certain actions is given by God but it is in them so naturall that it is unavoidable Now concerning this horrid opinion I for my part shall say nothing but this that he that sayes there was no such man as Alexander would tell a horrible lie and be injurious to all story and to the memory and fame of that great Prince but he that should say It is true there was such a man as Alexander but he was a Tyrant and a Blood-sucker cruel and injurious false and dissembling an enemy of mankind and for all the reasons of the world to be hated and reproached would certainly dishonour Alexander more and be his greatest enemy So I think in this That the Atheists who deny there is a God do not so impiously against God as they that charge him with foul appellatives or maintain such sentences which if they were true God could not be true But these men Madam have nothing to do in the Question of Originall Sin save onely that they say that God did decree that Adam should fall and all the sins that he sinn'd and all the world after him are no effects of choice but of predestination that is they were the actions of God rather then man But because these men even to their brethren seem to speak evil things of God therefore the more wary and temperat of the Calvinists bring down the order of reprobation lower affirming that God looked upon all mankind in Adam as fallen into his displeasure hated by God truly guilty of his sin liable to Eternal damnation and they being all equally condemned he was pleased to separate some the smaller number far and irresistibly bring them to Heaven but the far greater number he passed over leaving them to be damned for the sin of Adam and so they think they salve Gods Justice and this was the designe and device of the Synod of Dort Now to bring this to passe they teach concerning Original sin 1. That by this sin our first Parents fell from their Original righteousnesse and communion with God and so became dead in sinne and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body 2. That whatsoever death was due to our first Parents for this sin they being the root of all mankinde and the guilt of this sin being imputed the same is conveied to all their posterity by ordinary generation 3. That by this Original corruption we are utterly indisposed disabled and made opposite to all good and wholly inclined to all evill and that from hence proceed all actual trangressions 4. This corruption of nature remaines in the regenerate and although it be through Christ pardoned and mortified yet both it self and all the motions thereof are trulie and properly sin 5. Original sin being a transgression of the righteous Law of God and contrary thereunto doth in its own nature bring guilt upon the sinner whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God and curse of the Law and so made subject to death with all miseries spiritual temporall and eternal These are the sayings of the late Assembly at Westminster Against this heap of errors and dangerous propositions I have made my former discoursings and statings of the Question of Original sin These are the Doctrines of the Presbyterian but as unlike truth as his assemblies are to our Church for concerning him I may say Nemo tam propè proculque nobis He is the likest and the unlikest to a Son of our Church in the world he is neerest to us and furthest from us and to all the world abroad
he calls himself our friend while at home he hates us and destroyes us Now I shall first speak to the thing in general and its designes then I shall make some observations upon the particulars 1. This device of our Presbyterians and of the Synod of Dort is but an artifice to save their proposition harmless to stop the out-cries of Scripture and reason and of all the World against them But this way of stating the article of reprobation is as horrid in effect as the other For 1. Is it by a natural consequent that we are guilty of Adams sin or is it by the decree of God Naturally it cannot be for then the sins of all our forefathers who are to their posterity the same that Adam was to his must be ours and not onely Adams first sin but his others are ours upon the same account But if it be by the Decree of God by his choice and constitution that it should be so as Mr. Calvin and Dr. Twisse that I may name no more for that side do expresly teach it followes that God is the Author of our Sin So that I may use Mr. Calvins words How is it that so many Nations with their Children should be involved in the fall without remedy but because God would have it so and if that be the matter then to God as to the cause must that sin and that damnation be accounted And let it then be considered whether this be not as bad as the worst For the Supralapsarians say God did decree that the greatest part of mankind should perish only because he would The Sublapsarians say That God made it by his decree necessary that all wee who were born of Adam should be born guilty of Originall Sin and he it was who decreed to damne whom he pleased for that sin in which he decreed they should be born and both these he did for no other consideration but because he would Is it not therefore evident that he absolutely decreed Damnation to these Persons For he that decrees the end and he that decrees the onely necessary and effective meanes to the end and decrees that it shall be the end of that means does decree absolutely alike though by several dispensations And then all the evill consequents which I reckoned before to be the monstrous productions of the first way are all Daughters of the other and if Solomon were here he could not tell which were the truer Mother Now that the case is equall between them some of their own chiefest do confess so Dr. Twisse If God may ordain Men to Hell for Adam's sin which is derived unto them by Gods onely constitution he may as well do it absolutely without any such constitution The same also is affirmed by Maccovius and by Mr. Calvin and the reason is plain for he that does a thing for a reason which himself makes may as well do it without a reason Or he may make his owne Will to be the reason because the thing and the motive of the thing come in both cases equally from the same principle and from that alone Now Madam be pleased to say whether I had not reason and necessity for what I have taught You are a happy Mother of an Honorable Posterity your Children and Nephews are Deare to you as your right eye and yet you cannot love them so well as God loves them and it is possible that a Mother should forget her Children yet God even then will not cannot but if our Father and Mother forsake us God taketh us up Now Madam consider could you have found in your heart when the Nurses and Midwives had bound up the heads of any of your Children when you had born them with pain and joy upon your knees could you have been tempted to give command that murderers should be brought to slay them alive to put them to exquisite tortures and then in the middest of their saddest groans throw any one of them into the flames of a fierce fire for no other reason but because he was born at Latimers or upon a Friday or when the Moon wasin her prime or for what other reason you had made and they could never avoid could you have been delighted in their horrid shrieks and out-cries and taking pleasure in their unavoidable and their intollerable calamity could you have smiled if the hangman had snatched your Eldest Son from his Nurses breasts and dashed his brains out against the pavement and would you not have wondred that any Father or Mother could espie the innocence and prety smiles of your sweet babes and yet tear their limbs in pieces or devise devilish artifices to make them roar with intollerable convulsions could you desire to be thought good and yet have delighted in such cruelty I know I may answer for you you would first have dyed your self And yet say again God loves mankind better then we can love one another and he is essentially just and he is infinitely mercifull and he is all goodness and therefore though we might possibly do evil things yet he cannot and yet this doctrine of the Presbyterian reprobation saies he both can and does things the very apprehension of which hath caused many in despair to drown or hang themselves Now if the Doctrine of absolute Reprobation be so horrid so intolerable a proposition so unjust and blasphemous to God so injurious and cruell to men and that there is no colour or pretence to justifie it but by pretending our guilt of Adams sin and damnation to be the punishment then because from truth nothing but truth can issue that must needs be a lie from which such horrid consequences do proceed For the case in short is this If it be just for God to damne any one of Adam's Posterity for Adam's sin then it is just in him to damne all for all his Children are equally guilty and then if he spares any it is Mercy and the rest who perish have no cause to complain But if all these fearful consequences which Reason and Religion so much abhorr do so certainly follow from such doctrines of Reprobation and these doctrines wholly rely upon this pretence it follows that the pretence is infinitely false and intollerable and that it cannot be just for God to damne us for being in a state of calamity to which state we entred no way but by his constitution and decree You see Madam I had reason to reprove that doctrine which said It was just in God to damne us for the sinne of Adam Though this be the maine error yet there are some other collaterall things which I can by no means approve such is that 1. That by the Sin of Adam our Parents became wholly defiled in all the faculties and Powers of their souls and bodies And 2. That by this we also are disabled and made opposite to all good and wholly inclined to all evill And 3. That from hence proceed all actuall transgressions
naturally chast and some are abstemious and many are just and friendly and noble and charitable and therefore all actual sins do not proceed from this sin of Adam for if the sin of Adam left us in liberty to sin and that this liberty was before Adams fall then it is not long of Adams fall that we sin by his fall it should rather be that we cannot choose but do this or that and then it is no sin But to say that our actuall sins should any more proceed from Adams fall then Adams fal should proceed from it self is not to be imagined for what made Adam sin when he fell If a fatal decree made him sin then he was nothing to blame Fati ista culpa est Nemo fit fato nocens No guilt upon mankinde can lie For what 's the fault of destiny And Adam might with just reason lay the blame from himself and say as Agamemnon did in Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was not I that sinned but it was fate or a sury it was God and not I it was not my act but the effect of the Divine decree and then the same decree may make us sin and not the sin of Adam be the cause of it But if a liberty of will made Adam sin then this liberty to sin being still left us this liberty and and not Adams sin is the cause of all our actual Concerning the other clause in the Presbyterian article that our natural corruption in the regenerate still remaines and is still a sin and properly a sin I have I confesse heartily opposed it and shall besides my arguments confute it with my blood if God shall call me for it is so great a reproach to the spirit and power of Christ and to the effects of Baptisme to Scripture and to right reason that all good people are bound in Conscience to be zealous against it For when Christ came to reconcile us to his Father he came to take away our sins not onely to pardon them but to destroy them and if the regenerate in whom the spirit of Christ rules and in whom all their habitual sins are dead are still under the servitude and in the stock 's of Original sin then it follows not onely that our guilt of Adams sin is greater then our own actual the sin that we never consented to is of a deeper grain then that which we have chosen and delighted in and God was more angry with Cain that he was born of Adam then that he kill'd his Brother and Judas by descent from the first Adam contracted that sin which he could never be quit of but he might have been quit of his betraying the second Adam if he would not have despaired I say not onely these horrid consequences do follow but this also will follow that Adams sin hath done some mischief that the grace of Christ can never cure and generation staines so much that regeneration cannot wash it clean Besides all this if the natural corruption remaines in the regenerate and be properly a sin then either Gods hates the regenerate or loves the sinner and when he dies he must enter into Heaven with that sin which he cannot lay down but in the grave as the vilest sinner layes down every sin and then an unclean thing can go to Heaven or else no man can and lastly to say that this natural corruption though it be pardoned and mortified yet still remaines and is stil a sin is perfect non-sence for if it be mortified it is not it hath no being if it is pardoned it was indeed but now is no sin for till a man can be guilty of sin without obligation to punishment a sin cannot be a sin that is pardoned that is if the obligation to punishment or the guilt be taken away a man is not guilty Thus far Madam I hope you will think I had reason One thing more I did and do reprove in their Westminster articles and that is that Original sin meaning our sin derived from Adam is contrary to the law of God and doth in its own nature bring guilt upon the sinner binding him over to Gods wrath c. that is that the sin of Adam imputed to us is properly formally and inhaerently a sin If it were properly a sin in us our sin it might indeed be damnable for every transgression of the Divine Commandment is so but because I have proved it cannot bring eternal damnation I can as well argue thus this sin cannot justly bring us to damnation therefore it is not properly a sin as to say this is properly a sin therefore it can bring us to damnation Either of them both follow well but because they cannot prove it to be a sin properly or any other wayes but by a limited imputation to certain purposes they cannot say it infers damnation But because I have proved it cannot infer damnation I can safely conclude it is not formally properly and inherently a sin in us Nec placet ô superi vobis cum vertere cuncta Propositum nostris erroribus addere crimen Nor did it please our God when that our state Was chang'd to adde a crime unto our fate I have now Madam though much to your trouble quitted my self of my Presbyterian opponents so far as I can judge fitting for the present but my friends also take some exceptions and there are some objections made and blows given me as it happened to our Blessed Saviour in domo illorum qui diligebant me in the house of my Mother and in the societies of some of my Dearest Brethren For the case is this They joyn with me in all this that I have said viz. That Original sin is ours onely by imputation that it leaves us still in our natural liberty and though it hath devested us of our supernaturals yet that our nature is almost the same and by the grace of Jesus as capable of Heaven as it could ever be by derivation of Original rightousnesse from Adam In the conduct and in the description of this Question being usually esteemed to be onely Scholastical I confesse they as all men else do usually differ for it was long ago observ'd that there are 16. several famous opinions in this one Question of Original sin But my Brethren are willlng to confesse that for Adams sin alone no man did or shall ever perish And that it is rather to be called a stain then a sin If they were all of one minde and one voice in this article though but thus far I would not move a stone to disturb it but some draw one way and some another and they that are aptest to understand the whole secret do put fetters and bars upon their own understanding by an importune regard to the great names of some dead men who are called masters upon earth and whose authority is as apt to mislead us into some propositions as their learning is usefull to guide