this case is a thing that both he and we all are bound to understand and seriously beleeve and not only that but Gods ordination and dispensation to such an end as the manifestation of his honour and glory But why such playing with a thing so sacred As here 's nothing to provoke his spleen to indignation from an horrible decree of absolute necessitating and damning so neither can I see any thing that should move it to laughter or levity the Apostle himself defines what affection it is that should hence be raised We joy in God through our Lord Iesus Christ ver. 11. and well we may since the sufferance or entrance of Sin is here referred to the gracious purpose of Reconciling attoning and saving Is this the way of vindicating the glory of the Divine Attributes to make no more but a light jest at Christs honour in this kind still I say Wisdom is justified of all her Children Luk. 7. 34 39. this he himself spake when men imputed to him a carnal Dispensation with our actual Sins and so much may we say when any man will deprive him of that honour is due unto him from his spiritual dispensation in our Originals Neither let him say to us That the honour of our blessed Saviour does no way depend upon our imaginations and weak Propositions we will say so too and peradventure might say so more justly against him only we let him know right inferences are no imaginations neither are strong deductions weak propositions And if what I have drawn hence be not directly from the Text let him but be pleased to take the illative along with him and then inferr what he can otherwise or to the contrary I confess I would not in any wise have this illation thought redundant for that were to make the Scripture either impure and corrupt or or else idle and superfluous yet should I not have excepted at all if any following my Siriack Transletion had omitted it upon this consideration That it is a hard matter especially in a comparison betwixt Adam and Christ to define a cause or give a reason for Original Sins entrance into the world or descent upon posterity But then this should be observed withall if such a thing be hardly rendred it should not be rashly inquired into because our inquisitiveness in this case tends more to the dishonour than all our Resolution can to the honour of the Divine Attributes As by one Man Whom we may not amiss understand in an unity of name order person nature sex action and Type 1. Of name Adam which appellation comprehends also both the person the sex and the kind 2. Of Order sc. the first man Adam 1 Cor. 15. 45. and so the very Hebraism or Grecism of the cardinal for the ordinal would give it if need were 3. Of Person sc. in the individual in number singularly and precisely taken and so Original Sin properly derived from the prime and not from the proximate Parents or according to their pluralities 4. Of sex the male and not the female who though she was first in the transgression yet some will have him to be solely understood in this propagation But for my part I confesse I can see no cause for such an exception but that they may be understood one Flesh one in the Image one in the praevarication and so one in the Propagation 5. Of Nature as one not only in individuo but in specie one comprehending and representing the whole root and stock and seed and generation and nature and condition of Mankind so Adam is taken for the whole species of Men and the Beast singularly for the whole species of Beasts 6. Of Act namely one in the Dis-obedience or Offence For it was not the simple or meer nature that was the means of such a derivation but the offending and disobedient Nature by which causally and instrumentally this privation and depravatiou this stain and guilt descended upon all yea not only the Offence of one but one offence for it was his first Act that was imputed to us and none of the rest 7. Of Type for Adam is here said to be the Figure or Type of Christ under this notion of one as much as in any thing else he whole Comparison throughout Sin No great matter how many and various soever be the acceptions of Sin in the Scriptures since in this place it is defined by the Apostle to be Sin in the singular and not said plurally Sins as if he would precisely determine it of that one root of Sin distinct from those many following fruits Yea it may be thus rendred the Sin very Emphatically and is understood by almost all from antient to modern for no other but Original Sin simply so accepted as the only Sin which came by one Man singularly and entred into all the world universally whereas actual sins are by many men neither enter they into all the world in general but rather into these and those particulars therein yea it is Sin simply absolutely properly formally For as himself grants this Sin had its beginning by the disobedience of Adam and disobedience is a transgression of a Law and that 's the very formality of Sin and that law was the law of the Image or of perfect Nature Now see Sir I beseech you what is here but in the least shew whereby to collect this sin to be Metonymically so called or what kind of Metonymie would he have it is it a Metonymie of the cause put for the effect So it seems he would have it because it is the effect of one sin Surely that one sin was a proper and real cause how strange is it then That it should beget an effect like to it in no thing but in a Tropical or Tralatitious an equivocal and abusive name if by the cause for the effect be meant Sin but for the Punishment how contrary is that to St. Pauls express words Sin entred into the world and death by Sin so far is he from confounding them that in most express manner he distinguishes between them both in name and signification For should his words be made to signifie thus Death that is the punishment entered by Sin that is the punishment Death the punishment of the punishment I beseech you what sense were this yet we grant though it is not so to be argued from the word in this place Original Sin is both a Sin and a punishment too A sin from the humane injustice perverting a punishment from the Divine Justice deserting Or will he have it a Metonymie of the Effect put for the Cause for so his other words intimate because it is the cause of many sins and those many sins without doubt he means properly so called then seems it so much the more strange and almost prodigious that so many real effects should proceed from a poorly equivocal and transnominated cause Rhetoricians observe that such kind of Metonymies are usual in external causes
verse only there was the Disparity and excess betwixt the Sin and the Grace here betwixt the Gift and the person sinning There it was said to be more plentifully abounding here more powerfully effecting There by what Authors here to what Ends There the Free gift was opposed to the Sin but here to the Judgement For the Iudgement was by one to condemnation By the Judgement we understand not only the Decree on God's part but also the desert on our own In as much as the word in Scripture notes both the Act and the power of Judgement as likewise the cause and thing judged And if we did but truly consider this then durst we not be so bold in questioning the Divine Attributes in regard we are taught to apprehend it as a thing not only of his severity but of our own impiety also So by Condemnation we understand both the Sentence and Execution the threatning against as well as the inflicting on likewise we take the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in the Neuter as wee doe the {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in the Masculine yea and from the diverse preposition we note some distinction namely of the matter and subject as well as of the cause and instrument and thereupon we doe not confound them as he doth by One Man sinning one sin but somewhat more distinctly by one sinning or that sinned we understand the Act with relation to Adams person but by the one sin we understand the thing it self with relation to our whole Nature even Original sin it self to note that one sin original sin in us is under the same judgement unto condemnation as was that one sinning in Adam and that in the very Act of his sinning we sinned as he seems to grant veâ—y much And moreover to that sinned which he grants not as bad as he that not only because of the likeness of Nature and of sin as he says but because of the very identity and sameness thereof in the main substance though not according to every circumstance For we Descendents from Adam were perfectly like him in nature his own real natural production and so we sinned as himself says well and now if he himself thinks there is so great a parity of reason that the evil he means this judgement unto condemnation should descend upon us then in all reason he ought to yeeld not only a likeness but also a parity of Sin Yet whereas he says the evil was threatned to Adam and not to his Children Then was it not judgement unto condemnation for judgement implies the Sentence and Commination as Condemnation does the Execution or effect But what not threatned and yet descending will the Lord strike before he warns I say no more but for Gods sake what kind of Vindication call you that to urge the evil or punishment so oft and admit so little of the fault or sin is I think verily the wrong way to a Vindication of the Divine Attributes But the Free gift is of many offences unto justification To prevent all our murmuring and censuring that judgement should be to condemnation by one man or person the Apostle bids us construe him rightly and says he means it by one Sin or offence for we shall never think Gods ways equal in this case till we can look upon it with a right Eye not only as the Sin of one man and so the Sin of another But as one sin of all men and so our own But the Sin of one and one Sin if this satisfie not yet this makes amends for all abundantly that the Free gift is of many offeuces unto justification For mark how it answers to every opposite the Free gift to the offence many to one and justification to condemnation The first shews how benignly the next how bountifully the last how beneficially the recompense is vouchsafed as it is the Free gift to the offence so it signs Grace in us not to be natural as the sin is As it is many to one so it betokens a liberal condonation of many actuals as well as that one Original As it is Iustification against condemnation so it signifies a making holy as well as happy against both the sin and the punishment Since then what God in Christ hath here done is to justifie let God in Christ be justified by all and in all Verse 14. For if by one mans offence Death reigned by one much more they who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of Righteousness shall reign in life by one Iesus Christ FOr if by one Man's offence Death reigned by one It is of no small note that a mutual construction is here to be made of one Mans offence and one offence The diverse reading shews a coincidence and however the repetition seems as the note upon their narrow conjunction nothing has done more prejudice to the truth of this point and to the Divine Attributes as they are therein concerned than a dividing separating or over-severe and too nice distinguishing between the one man and the one offence For though the natural corruption may be distinguishd from the personal Act according to some circumstances yet in substance they are to be considered as one and the same because it was for the main substance the same sin that Adam committed that entred into the world by him and well might the same sin passe from the whole or head into all the parts members though not in the particular Act yet in the universal guilt so that in his very sin we might not amiss be said to sin originally although not actually The Apostle more than once expresly intimates it to be translated indifferently either the Sin and offence of one man or one sin and offence We should do well therefore to accept it so equally as he hath been pleased to expresse it But we look askew upon it in the personal Act only as that one mans sin and no more and so we ascribe and impute all to him most presumptuously and seek in like manner to shake it off from our selves Strange it is we dare not deny that God imputes it to us and yet we dare be bold to impute it solely to him For so the Paraphrast seems to do The Sin of Adam alone whereas in truth we ought humbly to conceive and consider it as one Sin both in him and us one Sin in our Nature one Sin in our kind and so coming to be but one Sin even in the persons of us all They that goe the first way are quite out of the way to vindicate the Divine Attributes For how is it possible to make it anothers sin alone and not our own in any proper respect and yet not give occasion to murmurers and repiners at the imputation to any purpose whatsoever Whereas if instead of imposing it altogether upon another we would be convinc'd and content to take what is our own unto our selves That heavy yoak which
places besides For as life and death go all along the Antithesis throughout for the express reward and punishment so doe Sin and Righteousnesse the offence and the Free gift distinctly as the vile anomie or obliquity or as the holy vertue or efficacy 3. The word Condemnation is by the Apnstle himself limited to signifie Temporal death no such matter by his favour for most certain it is condemnation is here opposed by him to the Iustification of life and that signifies life both spiritual and eternal and to take away the extent on either part is rather to make the Apostle limit the excess on the best part He must mean Temporal death for eternal death did not passe upon all men Yes that it did even passe upon all men from the just sentence though as he knows who said it did not invade all men to an uttermost Execution And if he means eternal death he must not mean that it came from Adams sin but in as much as all have sinned c. well corrected of himself but ill restrained by him Yea indeed but he must and very well he may not only in as much as but in whom all have sinned Even originally in his loyns although not actually in themselves If all have sinned in him an eternal death is little enough But if not even a Temporal death is too much 4. The Apostle here speaks of sin imputed therefore not of sin inherent why not one as well as the other imputed and inherent though they may be of some diverse consideration yet are they not of such contrariety that they may consist together and that in every kind of sin As actual sin is inherent and yet nevertheless is imputed so original sin may be imputed and yet inherent nevertheless will the imputation which is in respect of a Law take away the inhaesion of the fact or crime which is with respect to the person Neither doth the Apostle speak here directly of Sin imputed but of Sin not imputed And he knows that hath been construed by many for man's not so reputing it through want of knowledge or conscience of a law although it was never so much inherent 5. The Apostle says by the disobedience of one man many were made Sinnere so that it appears that in this we have no sin of our own neither is it at all our own formally inherently Whatsoever the appearance may be to us yet this is of no consequence from the words Because Adam is here often called one and one man not so much to distinguish or to divide him from us but to compare and parallel him with Christ And though it be called one man's disobedience in regard of the individual and circumstantial Act yet in regard of the specifical Act of the Common Nature the common union comprehension representation it was indeed all our act For so all have sinned and are made Sinners sc. inherently The Formality of Sin whether original or actual is anomie and obliquity to the Law of God and so it is imputed but with all it is ataxie and deformity of our nature and so it is inherent Neither was Adams Sin efficiently his persons only but his natures also and so it was ours And for Original Sin Adam's person was but the External efficient but the internal efficient was that law of corrupted Nature whereby a corrupt thing deserted did beget a corrupt thing like it self so that that which is born of flesh is flesh But for him to make it effectively ours as to some purposes of imputation Alas this is to bring God into the business whose wisdom and justice no doubt was efficient to some sad effects of punishment but then to say That it could not be a Sin in us formally and notwithstanding the Divine Justice both imputing and effecting such fearfull purposes as the dreadfull and direfull effects of Adam's and our Original Sin oh Divine Attributes What 's now become of your Vinditation I have heard of deputation to punishment but not of imputation without the crime or fault And if it be so that the sin ran in no sence be properly ours how stands this with the Divine Justice that the punishment should be ours in any sense whatsoever since even we our selves such is our natural and humane Justice kill or destroy not poysonous Serpents noisom vermin savage Beasts ravenous Birds or pestilent weeds but for some natural vitiosity seminally innately hereditarily intrinsecally inherently formally and properly in them 6. To his sixth saying I have spoken before particularly and say now moreover in summe That it is not our punishment that can redound to Adam but the guilt of his sin rather that redounds upon us That in actual external and particular Sins it may be just to afflict the relatives not only to punish the cause but for terrors sake to prevent the example but in this original internal natural and universal Sin it cannot be for terror or prevention to any since all are guilty all are punished That in our relation to Adam we are not only descendants from him in our persons but participants with him in our Natures and so may be formally denominated Sinners as well as he And if there be no more contradiction in it than for every man to say thus if I am formally by him a Sinner then I did really doe his action that may be easily said and not so easie to be contradicted For what hinders but that a man may say nay that he ought to say I did really doe his action though not in the personal and external circumstance yet in the natural and internal substance of doing I did really doe his action in his loyns and as a member of of the whole body of Nature Now if the Member of a mans body may formally be denominated sinfull from the sin of the whole man why then may not every man be so denominated here being an included Member of the whole body of Mankind 7. He says there is nothing in the design or purpose of the Apostle that can or ought to enforce any other thing than what than that we sinned lesse than Adam and therefore sinned not in him and that God imputed this sin less to us than to him I confesse I can see no such purpose in the Apostle and doubtlesse his design throughout the whole contraposition is not to lessen our sin to Adams but to lessen both Adams sinne and the sinne of us all to Christs righteousnesse yea and to lessen the Death which both he and we deserved to the life that Christ had merited for us and so indeed to heighten his Acts and Attributes in all But thus he argues If we have sinned less then we did not sin in him To which it may be thus answered the hand sins less than the mind did it not therefore sin in the body but we see no reason why we should not still say we sinned in him naturally though not personally and as
words of the Article and then his own words in the Antithesis And so leave it to himself according to his own promised temper and measure to reconcile them Neither wil I so much as once imagine that he hath less zeal for our Church than my self that so I may spare him the labour of a fruitlesse vow in being all his life confuting me Let him but shew how his own sayings are conformable or not repugnant to what the Article saith which to me and many others seem so contrary and we two have done nay are as we were in Faith and love of Christians one But if he goe otherwise to work I must take the confidence to tell him he may be all his life confuting and not confute Article Original Sin standeth not in the following of Adam as the Pelagians do vainly talk Antithesis All actual Sins doe not proceed from this Sin of Adam pag. 47. liberty and not Adams Sin is the cause of all our actual pag. 49. From the first Adam nothing descended to us but an evil example page 80. not direct Sins to us in their natural abode but principles of Sin to us in their emanation pag. 81. who by imitation of his Transgression on the stock of their own natural choice did sin against God Article But it is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is ingendred of the off-spring of Adam Antithesis The guilt of this Sin being imputed the same is conveyed to all their Posterity by ordinary generation this heap of errors pag. 29 30. Naturally it cannot be pag. 32. not that we bring it upon our shoulders into the world with us pag. 78. if God hath given us a Nature by derivation which is wholly corrupted c. pag. 96. that Adams Sin is ours Metonymically and impropeâ—rly pag. 127. Article Whereby man is very far gon from Original righteousness and is of his own nature inclined to evil so that the Flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit Antithesis The evil did so descend upon us that we were left in powers and capacities to serve and glorifie God pag. 16. That by this Sin our first Parents fell from their Original righteousness c. this heap of errors c. pag. 29 30. I can by no means approve that by this we are disabled and made opposite to all good and wholly inclined to all evil pag. 39. his nature was not spoiled by that Sin he was not wholly inclined to all evil pag. 40 46 47. Article And therefore in every person born into this world it deserveth Gods wrath and Damnation Antithesis Original Sin doth in its own Nature bring guilt upon the Sinner whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God c. this heap of Errors pag. 30. It cannot be just for God to damn us for being in a state of calamity to which state we entred no way but by his constitution and decree pag. 38. if it be intollerable to damn Children for the Sin of Adam then it is intollerable to say it is damnable pag. 59. Is it against Gods goodness that Infants should be damn'd for Original Sin c. pag. 67. It is against Gods Justice to damn us for the fault of another pag. 63. Children born in Christ and not in Adam c. pag. 74. born beloved and quitted from wrath c. pag. 75. born in the accounts of the Divine favour pag. 77. if God decrees us to be born Sinners c. if God does damn any for that c. pag. 94. if God does cast Infants into Hell for the Sin of others c. pag. 96. It is impossible that the greatest part of mankind should be left in the eternal bonds of Hell by Adam pag. 125. The Judgement which for Adams Sin came into the condemnation of the world was nothing but temporal death pag. 126. Article And this infection of Nature doth remain yea in them that are regenerated whereby the lust of the flesh c. Antithesis The corruption of nature remains in the regenerate c. this heap of errors pag. 29 30. I can by no means approve that our natural corruption in the regenerate still remains and is still properly a Sin pag. 39. That our natural corruption in the regenerate still remains and is still a Sin and properly a Sin I have I confesse heartily opposed it c. pag. 49. 52. Article And although there is no condemnation for them that believe and are baptized yet the Apostle doth confesse that concupiscence and lust hath of it self the nature of Sin Antithesis This will follow that Adam's Sinne hath done some mischief that the grace of Christ can never cure though it be pardoned and mortified yet still remains and is still a Sin is perfect Non-sense pag. 51. we are rescued from Adam before we were born else Adam's Sin prevailed really in some periods and by some effects for which God in Christ had provided no remedy pag. 74. It is a Sin Metonymically and just so in Baptism it is taken away pag. 103. Qui Ecclesiae renititur et restitit in Ecclesià se esse confidit Cyprian de simp. Praelat SIR BE pleased to know that all the errors which have been about Original Sin have risen chiefly through want of a perfect Definition or compleat Description of it some and they not the least Hereticks have contended against all definition others have been so various in defining and so incompleat in describing that they have administred but matter unto more contention I am perswaded that out of this place in the 5 to the Romans a perfect Definition or very compleat Description might be made and that such as might comprehend both the name and nature and subject and derivation and cause and effects and remedy My short time and shorter abilities will not now suffer me to venture upon it I have done my Task and I hope in some part answered my Title and your expectation such as I couâ—d or could so suddenly make it I send it humbly to your hands and through them if you think meet to the world All that I will now say of this Author is this That he hath erred learnedly far unlike the many senselesse and scurrilous Hereticks and Schismaticks of this our exulcerated age And I hope his own learning will let him see his Error Otherwise he must think others are not so unlearned as for him to impose upon them Rather than so I could most heartily wish one more learned in the Truth than my self may yet more particularly undertake him To you Sir I need say nothing you are known And for my self I need say as little to you you know Sir Your Minister Friend and Servant JOHN GAULE FINIS
Sapientia Iustificata OR A Vindication of the fifth Chapter to the ROMANS And therein of the Glory of the Divine Attributes and that in the Question or Case of Original Sin against any way of Erroneous understanding it whether old or new More especially an Answer to Dr. Ieremy Taylors DEUS IUSTIFICATUS By Iohn Gaule Minister of great Staughton in the County of Huntingdon LONDON Printed for N. Paris and Tho. Dring and are to be sold at the George in Little Brittain and at the George in Fleetstreet near St. Dunstans Church 1657. DIcitis nos asserendo Peccatum original◠Deum crimine iniquitatis arguere Nos ergo dicimus nec iniquus est Deus cum peccatis sive originalibus sive propriis digna retribuit magisque aut iniquus aut infirmus ostenditur si jugum grave super filios Adam à die sicut scriptum est nativitatis eorum usque in diem sepulturae in matre omnium sub quo jugo Imago eju atteritur aut ipse nullo originali vel pro prio precedente peccato aut quilibet aliu ipso imponit invito Deus autem justus s◠tanta parvulis mala quanta nunc dicere non sufficio nihil peccati trahentibus irrogerat magis appareret injustus Aug◠cont. Julian Pelagian lib. X. To his much honoured and most worthy Friend IOHN BALDVVIN Esquire Noble Sir HOw oft how much in our serious discourses upon more than one of this Authors works have we honoured him for his learning affected him for his piety admired him for his industry applauded him for his eloquence and condoling him pitied his sufferings among many other godly and learned men his like and thereupon it was that we studiously laboured not so much to reconcile within our selves many a particular phrase and passage dispersed here and there seeming not only to be borrowed from but as bordering too much upon the expressions if not opinions of the Inorthodox but rather to salve them up to others understandings who began to take more scandal at them than we our selves did and this we endeavoured in a candid interpretation of his intention as one who meant only to make use of the Adversaries manner of speaking to no other purpose but to cause I say not his but their forms and affectations to speak as near as possibly could be to the tenor of the Orthodox Truth and Faith in general and to that of the Church of England in more especial But truly Sir this little piece of his which you were lately pleased to send me puts me utterly to a loss and sets me so quite beyond the seeking for an excuse that it forces me altogether to fall upon a dissent I could heartily have wish'd that instead of answering his Friends learned Friends objection he would rather have sate down by their advice For were the thing that he principally aims at true yet was it not so necessary to be brought to light especially not under the notion of a charge or challenge For he may well assure himself all the reformed Divines men Orthodox and moderate both for Doctrine and Discipline cannot chose but take themselves stricken at through the Presbyterians sides And therefore notwithstanding he entitles it Deus justificatus against them only yet I am much afraid he will not therein prove Homo justificandus neither in their judgement nor of many others and they his friends and fellow workers and fellow-sufferers too whether more or less made known unto him And now judicious Sir though your own judgement both in Divinity and for other good learning be such as come short to few of your quality and so well known as I need not speak to the Gentlemen of your Countrey and others yet forasmuch as I am your Minister I know you expect my mind for therefore I received it at your hand And verily I shall by Gods Grace dissemble it neither with him nor you yet I would have both him and you think I dare not presume to propound any thing here upon my own mind alone but as I am enabled to goe along with the Scriptures and the Church of God Because it is a hard matter in such a hard point as this of Original Sin for a man to goe alone and not to erre Neverthelesse I know through the gift of God a man may be enabled and enlarged to speak newer and clearer but then he must be sure that his ground for the Point be old and good For it is a Fanaticism for any man to conceit that God concealed such a main Principle of his Truth from his whole Church till now that he revealed it to himself alone A VINDICATION OF THE Fifth Chapter TO THE ROMANS FIrst let me begin with his Title and his Scope compare them both together that so we may see how answerable they are each to other For let me tell you Sir and you shall observe it in all the ridiculous sensless fanatical factious heretical and blasphemous Pamphlets of these our evil days that fair Titles are taken up only to palliate false and foul intents neither is there any shorter or surer way of refuting an Error than in searching directly how all the intended scribbling agrees little or nothing with the pretended superscription For let truths be spoken yet they are not so there unless they be according to the main purpose to which they are intituled This Authors Title or superscription is Deus justificatus now I pray God it prove so the whole work throughout For I greatly suspect that the main intention of this discourse will but work to frustrate the title that is given to it because I perceive his principal Scope and Conclusion is to make Original sin to be a sin so called by a Metonymie only for he very often denies it to be a sin properly really formally and inherently and contends mainly to have it no more but a Metonymical Imputation to certain purposes which are very involved words and are so studiously covert as if he were afraid or ashamed to speak plainly outright But this is as much as to say That where Original sin is called sin it is not so literally and properly but only is called so by a figurative form of locution by a Metonymie of the cause for the effect namely sin put only for the punishment of sin and the imputation of this sin by God is no more but the infliction of the punishment And this punishment is with limitation to certain purposes and those purposes are no further but to Temporal misery and Death Gather all these together and you shall so come to plain speaking viz. That Original sin is no such thing but hath only the name or appellation of sin in a translated sense but directly it is either no sin or anothers and not ours And therefore the Divine imputation is not of the guilt and corruption to us but all is an infliction only of the punishment and suffering on us yet
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
and effects only that an internal cause then should be put for an external effect must needs be most unusual Entred into the World We may understand this Entrance of Sin in divers senses and that very Orthodoxally 1. Sin was not in the beginning for it had no being before the Entring and therefore was no eternal evil principle but only the issue of some inordinate and irregular Act. 2. It entered not as a creature or substance that had some existence in it self but as a vicious accident that could not subsist without a Subject in which it must inhere And therefore though it entred into our Nature and substance yet our nature and Substance it was not 3. It entered not of it self but by means by one man by a second cause Therefore himself grants Sin had its beginning and thence let the fault and guilt be fetcht causally what need is there to seek further than the beginning why then is there such prying into the first cause such disputing such labouring to entitle hereunto his Decreeing his ordaining and permitting disposing dispensing c. For so indeed the most we do is bus to disparage and dishonour him in his glorious Titles and Attribut It is enough for us to beleeve him to be just wise good c. in all things because he cannot possibly be otherwise although in some dispensations it is not possible for us to comprehend him 4 If entred into Loe the Apostle speaks plainly of an ingression not as of an accession of a thing inward and not outward only doubtless then it must needs be something inherent and not imputed only 5. It entred into the World {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} it came into even the reduplicated praeposition is a note of more intimate and peculiar manner of introduction namely by way of Generation and Propagation not by Temptation nor by Imitation not by Temptation for so it came from the Devil to Eve not by Imitation for so it came from Eve to Adam but by Propagation for so it came from Adam to us all Had it been otherwise than so Sin could not in any adaptness or propriety have been said to have Entred into the world but the world must then have caused it and called it and sought it and brought it and taught it to it self And death by Sin that is to say by the same Sin which came into the world by one Man namely the Original So then death it is that cannot be denied But now men must be Judges and take upon them to determine what kind of death albeit the Apostle speak it never so indefinitely He must mean temporal death says he well and thus he may inferr it because St. Paul speaks of such a Death as entred into this world and that 's but temporal But then he ought to observe withall that St. Paul speaks here not only of Deaths first Entrance but of Deaths through passage now such a passage is out of the world and beyond it and so must be eternal But he objects eternal death did not pass upon all men That 's easie to be answered from some of his own words The Sentence did though the Execution did not in the one was the Divine Justice to be magnified and his Mercy in the other Thus the Divine Attributes know how to save and to exalt themselves on either side if men would not seek to make them seem to clash by humbling those high things to their low and weak apprehensions And so Death passed upon all men sc. Death entred by Sin and so by Sin Death passed So that whether we consider the terminus a quo or ad quem we may directly hence collect that Death even the coporal as well as the eternal was not the sequel or necessity of Nature but even the penalty and wages of Sin because death is a separation quite contrary to the natural union especially to that of Nature in her integrity and original perfection But say that because of a composition and that of contrary Elements there might be nevertheless some kind of mutation migration melioration yet this was far from separation dissolution confusion and that dolorous and ignominious execrable and damnable This makes me I cannot so well brook or digest those passages of his His Sin left him to his Nature we returned to the state of meer nature of our prime creation thrust back to the form of Nature was remanded to his mortal natural State means he to a corrupt state of Nature that was not the former or from the prime Creation or means he by the form of Nature that of Natures first forming why that was after the Divine Image and similitude or means he by meer Nature those they call Pure Naturals which indeed are nothing because Nature cannot be so abstractly considered but either in the state of Integrity or in the state of Corruption a third state before between of after those two never was and therefore is not to be imagined Ever since the Fall and Original Sin we aptly conceive that there is a difference still to be made betwixt the substance of Nature and the corruption of Nature But that this Nature and this corruption was ever separated in any Christ only excepted we beleeve not or that there shall be a State of pure Naturals again till the Resurrection of the Dead We all know and beleeve Adam by his disobedience defected and fell from what he was before sc. from the Image and Original Righteousness but that by his Sin he fell into a Nature or state which he had before or without original righteousness that we understand not not yet of any remanding obtruding or returning thither Indeed we read God said Dust thou art and to Dust thou shalt return Gen. 3. 19. but that noted only some materials in part but no certain state neither had that dust returned to the dust but that the Image and righteousness was forfeited and lost For we see it was so not by a natural propensity so much as by a provoked Commination Besides this methinks he says something to oppose himself in this part when he says our Nature is of Gods making and consequently is good or Nature is almost the same c. What good and yet punished nay and we remanded to it for a punishment What almost the same in goodness and yet nothing the same in immortality and the blessing Thus here again Gods Justice is brought upon the Stage nay and upon the rack too especially by our scanning betwixt the two Terms of Death entring by one man and Death passing upon all men For we cry why the punishment and how of all for one so forth Mean while it is not considered by us Nay not believed how we were all in the lump loyns of that one which remains hereafter to be demonstrated only thus much is now to be said That while the Divine Attributes are pretended for saved harmless by us either
we our selves doe it or else give occasion for others to quarrel at them For that all have sinned This clause thus translated was greedily snatch'd at of old to extenuate and excuse the severity of Deaths universal passing and not only so but to alter and divert the cause and guilt from the Original Sin to the Actual For this cause the Antients did either reject this Translation or did not so wel accept it But I am to speak of this our Paraphrast whose words by reason of this Translation are imposing on the Apostle 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 and again in passing on us For that all have sinned that is the sin was reckoned to all not to make them guilty like Adam but Adams Sin pas'd upon all imprinting this real calamity on us all but yet death descended also upon Adam's posterity for their own Sins for since all did Sin all should die His also once and again seems to admit of original sin for her share in this reckoning but his in asmuch quite thrusts it out brings in actual sin in its stead Actual sin I say is obtruded and Original sin excluded at least for propriety for guilt for imputation for likeness for equality Yet I shall not therefore reject this Translation because I see our Church hath accepted it and shall hope to make it stand good in this sense For that all have sinned that is sinned Originally although not Actually sinned naturally in Adams Sin although as yet not personally or in their own and am confident he is not ignorant I can find Abettors for this exposition amongst the reformed and Orthodox Expositors far before him But Sir if you will be pleased to look upon the Margin which I suppose he winked at know it is pointed at by our Church as a note of equal indifferency and authority and there you find in whom all have sinned this speaks plainly of sinning not actually in our selves but originally in Adam and this Translation is every whit as much and rather more congruous to the Original Text for my part I rather embrace this latter Translation with most Translaters or Interpreters old or late And with them conceive it to be the safer as not giving such way to the Errors of the Pelagians old or new Nay I hold it to be the sounder and more consonant to the very Letter for why should {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} be translated so flatly in the Neuter Gender when 't is found so Emphatically in the Masculine being it may with so close and so apt Concotd be referred to the One Man spoken of before for construe it in the Masculine and the Relative fairly agrees with the proximate and eminent Antecedent but take it in the Neuter and then the Relative is without any Antecedent at all or else must be turned into some obscurer and less significant part of speech Erasmus who labours like a Critick to draw it this other way would not allow of St. Augustines referring it to Sin because of the different gender though he confesses it to be the same in sense to say in which Man or in which Sin As for Erasmus whom all have occasion to honour from the Cradle to the Crown of learning him this Author recommends to us more precisely to be reckoned amongst the greatest and the best Expositors of Scripture that any age since the Apostles and their immediate Successors hath brought forth as for the learned Grotius whom he reckons with him I only say thus much As he was a most eminent Adversary to the Socinian so he was sometimes a not approved Advocate of the Arminian both which are reproved for their opinions about Original sin But on Gods name let him add all he can to Erasmus yet I would not have him detract any thing from St. Augustin which thing was sometime charged upon Erasmus himself both are to be mentioned with honour as the Worthies of their Ages And therefore all he hath said had it been more should have past for me without exception had he spoken it at another time and upon another place For upon on this place he cannot but know That Erasmus hath not only been suspected but taxed even by learned men of his own time and religion for more than I now think fit to express only as to the clause nay and whole verse in hand Erasmus is much contending for a Tropologie and peradventure hence it was that he hinted his Metonymie But for all his Rhetorick he turns Grammarian and plaies the Critick betwixt {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and will hardly be perswaded of {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} for {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in the Dative Case yet at length acknowledges Because the use of Greek Prepositions are so various I dare not affirm that {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} is no where joyned with a Dative Case where one thing is declared to be in another like as the Tree is in the seed A most apt similitude to illustrate our being in Adam and our sinning in him too Were it not for this his confession places of such construction were easie to be produced but I spare them as likewise his propter unum his pervasit his quatenus peccavimus which also might be of a facile connivence were it not in case of dangerous consequence and contention besides my task is to pursue not his but this Authors paraphrase Verse 13. For until the Law Sin was in the World but sin is not imputed where there is no Law FOr until the Law Sin was in the world That is from the beginning of the world all that time which went before until that very period wherein the Law was externally promulgated Sin was nevertheless even all that while in the world For the Apostle so speaks now with intent to occur to a certain objection an Objection not so much of mens Mervail or Scruple but rather of their Petulancy and Cavillation an objection that indeed hath been always but too much inculcated by the Adversaries of Original Sin Thus Where there is no Law there is no transgression But there is no Law given against Original Sin Ergo This is it which the Apostle here prevents by saying Sin was in the world during all that space of time which went before the giving or promulging of the Law of Moses notwithstanding it was not a Sin without a Law but so it was by vertue of the Law of Nature the rule of original righteousness the dictates of right reason the eternal moral Law the Law written in Mens hearts before it was written in Tables of stone For Original sin was not so much forbidden convinced condemned by
to follow the punishment and not rather the punishment to follow the sin But say his rule stood upon some right foot yet how follows his argument from it The Sin was imputed in proportion to the punishment but the punishment was proper and real not figurative and equivocal and therefore so must the Sin be too else who can tell what 's become of all this proportion Conseq. God was not finally angry with us nor had so much as any designs of eternal displeasure upon that account Inconseq The way to vindicate Gods Attributes is not to pry into them too curiously nor to determine upon them too peremptorily nor to aggravate them too severely nor to extenuate them too indulgently but to believe them and justifie them and magnifie them so as they are revealed God indeed was not finally angry with us his Elect neither upon our original nor upon our actual account And why because his wrath was so appeased by Christ satisfaction But was he not therefore so at the Sin simply and absolutely considered if he had no design of eternal displeasure upon that account then he sent Christ to die in vain For Christ died to prevent not the temporal but the eternal death Nor was that to redeem us from the mortality and condition of our Nature for he suffered it himself and left us to follow him in a conformity but from the depravation and damnation of it Conseq. This anger went no further than the evils of this life and therefore the imputation was not of a proper guilt for that might justly have past beyond our grave if the same had past beyond a Metonymie or a juridical external imputation Inconseq O rare consequent the punishment was but temporally inflicted and therefore the Sin was not properly imputed As if temporal punishments whether from God or men were the arguments of improper Sins only But O wonderfull vertue of a bare Trope or figurative locution to qualifie such a pravity extenuate such a provocation divert such a desert yea to regulate such a Justice or to restrain and limit such a power If his Metonymical imputation be the same with Iuridical and external then me thinks this proportion should be observed in the proceeding That as the Sin is imputed but only as it were in some shadow or resemblance of words so should the punishment be inflicted and not in any deed or substance For he that is found guilty but only in an imaginary Idea or picture ought not to be executed but only in conceit or as it were in effigie But I am forbidden to smile since it is a matter of fighing in regard the Divine Attributes are so stricken at For what provocation can there be for Gods universal and continual anger for such it is against the Fall and original sin without an mputation of a proper and participating guilt where the sin is properly imputed there he grants the punishment may justly goe beyond our Graves that is even to Hell But if there be no such imputation no such propriety no such participation I can see no cause why those evils should passe so far as this present life Eternal death is little enough if sin be properly and particularly imputed but if it be not so I cannot see but that even a temporal death to all mankind must be too much Conseq. That as no man ever imposed penance for it for original Sin so God himself in nature did never for it afflict or affright the Conscience Inconseq By penance surely he understands not private Repentance but publick Discipline or that of the Churches imposing say it were so the Churches power is to impose the penance for publike notorious scandalous and exemplary Crimes and offences it cannot take cognisance as no external Law or administration can of an inward secret unsearchable though worthily suspected Sin such as the Original is Besides whose should be the authority in such a cause or case where all are concluded and confest guilty alike As for the other part I ask of him did not God himself afflict and affright Adams Conscience for it when he was forced to say I heard thy voice in the Garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid my self Gen. 3. 10. And we all feel and must confesse this afflicting this affrighting was not of his person only but in his and our Nature also as woefull experience convinces us all to this very day Conseq. And why the conscience shall be for ever at so much peace for this sin that a man shall never give one groan for his share of guilt in Adams sin unlesse some or other scares him with an impertinent proposition Inconseq What the conscience shall be for ever is hard for him to say And for what it hath been hitherto he knows a Conscience is not always to be argued for pure and free because it is quiet and still But what says he to David did not he groan for it in that Poenitential of his Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin hath my Mother conceived me Psalm 51. 5. And to St. Paul is this no groaning Oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death Rom. 7. 24. Nay shall we not beleeve what he but lately said of himself For my part I cannot but confesse that to be which I feel and groan under and by which all the world is miserable Let him look to his Conscience and see how his words agree first and last I hope he will not now say it was some impertinent proposition that scared him thereunto Conseq. Why the Conscience should not naturally be afflicted for it nor so much as naturally know it I confesse I cannot yet make any reasonable conjecture save this only that it is not properly a Sin but only Metonymically and improperly Inconseq Such a conjecture is not reasonable for if to deny a Sin to be such were sufficient because the Conscience naturally smiles not for it nor yet convinces of it so many actual sins might easily come to be denied A strange conjecture for a figurative appellation to save a Conscience I know the Conscience can Syllogize but I never knew that she could ever so Rhetoricate with her self such a conjecture is so far from being worth the sole preferring that it 's not worth the naming where better reasons are brought forth As namely That Original sin her self has blinded and bedulled the Conscience as touching the true and full apprehension of her self and of Original sin That the law and light of nature is exceedingly obscured to all Consciences since the Fall That most mens Consciences are insensible even of their actual and sensual sins how much more then of the Original and invisible That men have pulled and seared both their own and others Consciences as touching the true sense of Original Sin by dayly hatching and broaching such heresies and errors about it No marvel then that men are
Man can doe a Child can doe What God is able to doe c. the Devil is able to doe c. Whereas our manner of arguing is not in matter of power and prevalency but for matter of being and reallity Now betwixt the greater and the lesse though there may be a disproportionate action yet there must be some proportionate being And what is affirmed of the greater may likewise be affirmed of the lesser and that in the same kind and manner although not according to the same measure or degree yea very Opposites and and Disparates if they come to be compared are accepted as opposite and different only in their proper forms and adjuncts but alike and agreeing in their common Attributes according to which they are compared and without which there could be no ground for comparison And where there is no ground for Collation there can be no cause for prelation as here in the Apostles worlds Take away the reallity of Sin and the Proper being of the offence and in such a comparison with what excesse or excellency can the Grace the Free-gift Iustification and the righteousnesse of Christ be preferred thereunto There 's nothing now remaining but to put it into an Hypothetical Syllogism and so to leave it concluding without all Fallacy according to his own condition viz. If we be made really righteous by Christ then we were made really Sinners by Adam But we are made really righteous by Christ Ergo And thus worthy Sir though I cannot presume my self to be one of those wise persons he speaks of yet this I presume that I am not unwarily perswaded by this way of arguing neither can I out of my simplicity observe that it is this way but rather his own whole way of arguing that appears unconcluding But let it be with your own judgement how we either of us appear to you from what we have said 2. For the Church TO this objection That his Doctrine is against the 9th Article in the Church of England He saith I have already answered it in some additional Papers which are already published I would I might have had the opportunity to have seen them supposing they may contain some kind of Apologie which might have saved me the labour of an Additional in this latter part But for what I here see he must give me leave for to speak as that he may see That in judgement though not in Charity we are Two His zeal for the Church of England seems to be such and so much that he is protesting before hand against all that shall but seem to suspect it But he is indigning him in especial that shall take upon him to tax him for it in the least degree I hope this will not overprovoke his patience only to intreat him First to reconcile his own understanding to his subscription and then his own words to the words of the Article First A faithfull subscription of a dutifull Son of the Church is to submit his understanding and consent simply unto her suffrage And to under-write with hand and heart her Articles and Canons accepted in their plain literal sense And not to bring to them nor yet reserve from them any other understanding or intention of his own Laws we say are to be interpreted and accepted according to the mind of the Law-givers and a promissary Oath ought to be performed according to the intention of him to whom the promise is made Now for him to say I have oftentimes subscribed that Article and I am ready a thousand times to subscribe that Article and yet to say again I doe not understand the words of that Article as most men doe but I understand them as they can be true and as they can very fairly signifie and as they agree with the word of God and right reason What kind of subscription call you this with such a liberty or reservation a man might have without all scruple taken the Protestation the Covenant the Engagement or an Oath of Abjuration But whom means he by those most men certainly not the Adversaries of the Church who refuse to subscribe them But the Sons of the Church his brethren who have subscribed them as well as he The Adversaries though they consent for the most part to the Doctrine yet they refuse to subscribe the Article meerly because it is our Churches But as it is the Churches so we that are Sons and Brethren doe with one understanding simply subscribe it nor doe we make our own conditions by way of exception but we take them all in an undoubted concession For we also understand the words of the Article as they can be true and as they can fairly signifie and that is even in their literal and grammatical sense And likewise as they agree with the Word of God and right reason for so we suppose them in the sense aforesaid And although we confesse with him that the Church used an incomparable wisdom and temper in composing her Articles both with respect to New-reformists and Non-conformists too notwithstanding we believe her Prudence and Piety was such that she intended not so to secure the outward Peace of the Church against either as that the Truth of it in either part might be prejudiced thereby much less that she contrived any thing in such a charitable latitude as to give license to any for passing the rectitude and arctitude of Verity or that any one should presume upon his private and dissentaneous opinion notwithstanding her publique and unanimous Judgement It was discovered by some of themselves that when the Councel of Trent compleated her Canons of Original Sin and many particulars of them appearing so consonant to the Scriptures and to Orthodox Antiquity yet they studied to compile the whole with such Artifice as that notwithstanding they might leave to their own Scholasticks a liberty of disputing and opining what they pleased But I trust the like shall never be said of the Church of England either as touching this or any other of her Articles and for my part I conceive it to be a truer part of a Son of the Church rather to restrain his sense to her words than to strain or enlarge her words to his own sense Secondly As concerning this Article of Original birth or Sin or Birth-Sin in as much as he says if I had cause to dissent from it I would certainly doe it in those just measures which my duty on the one side and the interest of truth on the other would require of me Hereupon I am very willing to beleeve him on his own word as liking exceeding well of his ingenious Confession I have no cause to disagree and not much misliking his resolution I will not suffer my self to be supposed to be of a differing judgement from my dear Mother which is the best Church of the world Wherefore I shall doe no more which is the least that can be done in an appearing difference but set down the