answer to it that Adam was the author of the descent of his sinne upon me not God for to be the Author of sinne is to be a deficient culpable cause thereof and it is impossible that God should be defective in a culpable manner and that our doctrine of originall finne maketh him to be such you may boldly affirme but can never prove 3. Bishop Davenant in the doctrine of originall sinne is one of our party and he speaks that which will abundantly satisfy your demands in his animadversions upon Hord pag. 323.224 It was not sayes he God's absolute decree of Preterition but Adam's voluntary act of rebellion which brought sinne and the guilt of sinne upon himselfe and all his posterity God having justly decreed that Adam's children should participate with him in his state of righteousnesse did as justly decree that they should also participate in the state of sinne If this Author deny the propagation of sinne from Adam he must acknowledge himselfe a Pelagian c. His whole discourse concerning originall sinne and the propagating thereof unto all mankind is erroneous in that he falsely presumeth that the divine decree must needs be effective or causative of all the events decreed whereas if the events be actions sinfull God's decrees are permissive and ordinative not decrees of causing much esse necessitating such evill actions as bath been often told him 4. I have seene your little discourse called Deus justificatus and must say of it as Florus did of the Ligurians lib. 2 cap. 3. Major aliquanto labor erat invenire quam vincere The Rhetorick of it is so rank as that it will be a very hard matter to find out the Logick and reason that is in it If you please to put your arguments into forme you then may command me to consider them but otherwise I shall be very loath to adventure upon any thing of yours for I find by this present debate about two or three lines that I shall not without great difficulty search out what is your meaning 5. I wonder why you say that by this discourse I shall find your question not to be answered by me why pray Sr could I answer it before you propounded it but your meaning is I suppose that I shall find that your question cannot be answr'd by me but the event will try that 6. That which you meane in Mr Calvin and Dr Twisse are I thinke those places which you quote pag. 32 of that your discourse and then unto the place in Calvin you have an answer in Dr Twisse vind gra lib. 2. dig 2. cap. 3. pag. 42. where he cleares it from the crimination of Bellarmine And then for the place in Dr Twisse you may gather an answer from that he saith unto Mr Hord pag. 149.150 who makes the like objections against him from another place 7. You are the unmeetest man in the world to upbraid me with the Bigots of my party for the rigid Zelots of your party in your doctrine of originall sin are such whom you may be ashamed to name Indeed in this point there are very few of your party save the Pelagians of old and now the worthy Divines of the Racovian denne and their followers unto whom the best and the most learned of Protestants will hardly vouchsafe the name of Christians The Arch-Bishop of Armagh termed them in a sermon of his that I heard a company of baptized Turkes and indeed Turkes and Infidels can hardly be greater enemies unto the divine person and nature of Christ unto his offices and unto his great and glorious worke of redemption and satisfaction than these wretched miscreants are Dr Taylor Your second charge of blaspemy is that my reason does by implication involve Christ in the guilt of sinne because whatsoever is essentiall he had but then If you remember that I say not that sinne is essentiall and that I bring the reverse of this very argument against your party and opinion in some of my late discourses you have reason to shake the fire out of your own bosome not to tell me that I burne for if inclination to sinne be a sinne naturally and derived from our Parents I demaund whether or no had not Christ all naturall desires if he had not he was not a perfect man If he had then all naturall desires are not naturall sinnes for if you say they be you are the blasphemer by the consequence of your affirmative not I but God forbid that either of us should Jeanes First here is no retortion of my argument for none of my party or opinion hold that inclination unto evill is essentiall unto man Flaccius Illyricus maintaines that originall sinne was the essence or substance of the soule but I never heard that his followers were considerable he hath I am sure both Papists and Protestants Calvinists and Lutherans for his opponents but perhaps you confound naturall with essentiall and make them all one if you doe your reason will be nothing but petitio principii 2. I believe you here play with the equivocation of the word naturall a thing though it may be tollerated in a Sophister altogether unworthy of a Theolegue Inclination to sinne may be said to be naturall either consequutivè or connexivè That inclination to evill is naturall consequâ—tivè that it flowes and results Physically and necessarily from our nature I flatly deny and if you can direct me unto any place in your bookes where you prove it to be naturall in this sense I shall take it into consideration Indeed to say that it is in this sense naturall is to throw a reproach upon God the Author of nature But it is naturall connexivè together with our nature derived unto us from our first Parents and yet not in Christ who had not his nature from Adam in an ordinary way of Generation but was miraculously conceived by the holy Ghost and sanctified in the wombe of the Virgin Mary This inclination unto evill is a sinful blemish of our nature because it is a cause of sinne qualis causa talis est effectus A good tree saith our Saviour cannot bring forth evill fruit Matth. 7.18 This inclination to evill bringeth forth much evill fruit and therefore it cannot be good and consequently it is bad and sinfull and therefore could not be in Christ who even as man was the most holy one of God Indeed if Christ had wanted any propriety of man's nature he had not then been a perfect man but that inclination to evill is a propriety of our nature sc proprium 4 to modo you are never able to make good But Sir in good earnest doe you thinke that Christ was inclined unto evill if you doe not your discourse of Christ is impertinent if you doe I shall conclude your opinion to be blasphemous and unto it shall oppose this following argument He in whom dwelled an all-fullnesse of the Godhead bodily he in whom dwelled an all-fullnesse of habituall grace he
consequent and contracted necessity But our inclination to evil is accidental Therefore it is not a necessary sin in respect of a consequent and contracted necessity The second Syllogism Every thing that is necessary in respect of a consequent and contracted necessity is intrinsecal and essential But inclination to evil is not intrinsecal and essential Therefore it is not necessary in regard of a consequent and contracted necessity The major in both Syllogisms is evidently false as will appear when you attempt the proof of them and I am very confident you never will own them if you can any other way shift off my objections In the next place we have a strange Paradox of yours which I understand not I shall propound it and briefly consider it Dr. Taylor If it be in our nature it must be naturally inseparable it must be at first it must be in all persons that have our nature Jeanes I shall not peremptorily charge this Proposition with falshood until I know how you explicate it and yet I will tell you what reason I have to suspect it to be very false divers accidents are in our nature properly and strictly inherent in our nature which yet are naturally separable from our nature which were not at first which are not now in all persons that have our nature I might instance in several acquired habits and immanent acts of the rational soul which are neither adequate unto nor coeval with nor naturally inseparable from it But I look for some strange Ellipsis a Rhetorical Scheme it seems you are much delighted with but if you use it too often it will prove rather a Weed then a Flower in your Rhetorick you expect it seems I should pay such reverence unto your Writings as great Criticks do unto the Ancients in whose words when they cannot make sense they suppose some Chasma to fill up with which they torture their brains but I have something else to do then to trouble my self with Divinations at your meaning when you vouchsafe to acquaint us what it is I shall then examine it But having seen how ill you have sped in new shaping your conclusion let us see next whether your success be better in the qualification of your second reason for it Dr. Taylor And this is my meaning and that you may not be troubled at the word Essential I mean it not in the strict Physical but in the moral sense that which is not after our nature but together with it in real being and explicate it by extrinsecal and I oppose it to accidental in this reason and to superinduc'd in the next Jeanes But first pray who could tell that you thus meant it until you now tell me Is this a usual and received sense of the word and if it be direct me unto those moral Philosophers and Divines that thus take it if it be not my ignorance of it is purae negationis not pravae dispositionis not privative and blameable Analogum per se positum stat pro famosiori Analogato and therefore I appeal unto your own ingenuity whether I have injured you by supposing that you took Essential in the accustomed acception thereof 2. I shall beseech you to set down the difference that you make betwixt natural in your conclusion and essential in your second reason for it and when you have done this I am very confident to make it appear that your Argument is either a meer tautology or an utter impertinency but of this before Next you refer me unto your former Letter unto Mr. C. Dr. Taylor Sir I did give an account unto Mr. C. in a Letter to him which I know was sufficient and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jeanes The vanity of this brag you will soon acknowledge when you shall compare that Letter with this unto me for in this you apply the second reason unto the latter cause as a congruent proof it it is an effect or condition of nature but no sin properly And this you point out to be your meaning and say That I could easily have understood it But in your Letter to Mr. C. you aver that this second reason is appliable onely unto the first clause That every man is inclined to evil some more some less c. and not at all unto the second nay that it is not appliable unto it without a mistake of not onely the second but the four other reasons also and of this too you say that it must be your meaning and that 't is clear enough and easie in the expression and you wonder that Mr. Jeanes if he be the man that he would be thought could mistake it Here you propound inconsistent and contrary meanings and it seems you intend to tie me unto such hard meat as that I must finde out each to be your meaning but this is a task that my understanding cannot perform and therefore I shall beg assistance from the light and learning of yours and until you afford this I shall offer unto your consideration this common rule in Logick That contrary propositions cannot be both true but one of them must needs be false But these two propositions this second reason is referred unto the second clause as a competent proof and this second reason is not referred unto the second clause are contrary propositions the opposition betwixt singular propositions being as Scheiblâ—r well sheweth de prop cap. 11. num 18. most aptly reducible unto contrariety and yet both these propositions are yours the first in this letter the latter in your former letter and therefore one of them must needs be false you are not then so much 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 extra teli factum out of Gun-shot but that my poor trifling Logick is able to reach you if you should deny the matter of Fact that both these propositions are yours your letters will convince you of untruth and I shall need no more then to transcribe your own words The first Proposition you have in these words of this Letter To be inclined to evil is an effect or condition of nature but no sin properly viz. of nature c. a sin natural and necessary now that it is not this I do suppose that reason which you so misconstrued is competent c. The second in several passages of your former Letter as for the other clause it is an effect or condition of nature but no sin properly that was the less principal part of the Proposition and to it onely the first reason was apportioned and again afterward none of the other reasons the first onely excepted relate to the latter part of the Proposition But let us hear your reason for the sufficiency of your Letter unto Mr. C. Dr. Taylor For cujus est loqui ejus est interpretari Jeanes I shall willingly grant you all fair liberty of interpreting your self so you do it logically and rationally but that which you expect is rather a licentiousness then a true liberty of interpretation
First You would have a license of transportation to carry your words where you please you would have the second reason placed betwixt the two Propositions and before the first Reason thus in your Letter to Mr. C. Next You usurp the license of interposition to put in what you please as when in this Letter you adde the Epithets of natural and necessary to sin And thirdly You take up a strange license in exposition of your Terms for if you cannot justifie what you say if such a term in your words be taken in the common and usual sense Then you impose upon me an unusual that I say not a new and unheard of signification thereof Thus you deal with the word Essential And lastly You assume a license of contradiction to contradict your self to say and unsay one while to make this your meaning and another time to make that which is contrary your meaning and you think that I am obliged to take these contrary meanings to be both your meanings Surely Sir if you can get a Patent for these four Licenses you will for matter of Disputation be shot-free and invulnerable your Opponents may throw their caps at you but not an Argument of theirs can touch you Dr. Taylor I told you perfectly what is my meaning it is very plain by the whole design of that that it must be my meaning it is also clear enough and very plain and very easie in the expression and therefore I now appeal to your ingenuity whether you ought to have made such Tragedies with that which common sense would have made plain unto you unless you had received a prejudice Jeanes As for this triumphant appeal which you make in the close here to my ingenuity I need say nothing but refer unto the premises onely I cannot but give one Advertisement unto your Disciples that you sometimes triumph when you have not conquered Dr. Tayler And now Sir to your two Syllogisms be pleased to the subject of the two Majors adde but this qualification natural and try if those horrid consequents will follow which you affixed to your own 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jeanes I have already considered with how little sobriety you have added this Qualification of natural and I believe the impartial Reader will conclude with me that you have foisted it in upon second thoughts onely to avoid those horrid consequents unto which your words in themselves are liable Dr. Taylor But I shall for this once consider the particulars 1. You charge it with non sense but with your favor you prove it most pitisully Your reason is that to say Essential is predicated of sin in either of the two ways dicendi per se is such puâ—ful and prodigious non-sense that you think it not worthy of any serious râ—sutation So that this is your Argument To say that sin is Essential is prodigious and pitiful non-sense therefore it is prodigious and pitiful non-sense Surely a good Argument or thus that which is such non-sense that you think not worthy of refutation is certainly non-sense But to say that sin is Essential is such non-sense that you think not worthy of refutation therefore it is non-sense I do not say your Argument is non-sense but I am sure it is no Argument unless a bold affirmative be a sufficient proof in your Logick But to the thing That sin is Essential is indeed false to say but to say so is not non-sense And whereas you will suppose me to say so you are uncharitable and something unreasonable in it for I was to prove That inclination to sin was not a sin of our nature as was pretended because what was natural is iâ—â—rinsecal and essential as Docâ—bility to a man which because to be inclined to sin is not therefore it is not a sin viz. of nature Jeanes First Here is a gross and egregious falsification of my words and that without any advantage to your cause Your reason is say you That to say Essential is predicated of sin in either of the two ways dicâ—ndi per se is such pitiful and prodigious nonsense that you think it not worthy of any serious refutation Whether these words be justifiable or no I need not inquire for there are no such words in my Paper neither can you with all your wit and learning infer any such matter therefrom Secondly To make sport for your followers you mis-represent my Argument and first clap it into a single Enthymeme and then into one Syllogism both of your own forging in both which you leave out two mediums that are in my Argument which reduced unto form will make up two Syllogisms To convince you of this unfair injurious and dis-ingenuous dealing I shall insert my words at large To say as the Doctor doth by consequence that sin is essential to the nature of man is an assertion guilty of nonsense a thing may be said to be essential to another à priori and then it is predicated of it in primo modo dâ—cendi per se or else à posteriori and then it is predicated of it in secundo modo dicendâ— per se And to say that sin is either of these ways essential to the nature of man is such pitiful and prodigious non-sense as that I cannot think it worthy of any serious refutation The learned Reader will soon perceive how little alliance your Enthymeme and Syllogâ—sm have with my Argument and to him I appeal to judge of the unworthy and unscholarly in jury that you have herein done me but yet for the eternal stopping of your mouth I shall Analyze this my Argument My conclusion was that to say as you do by consequence that sin is essential unto the nature of man is an assertion guilty of nonsense this I prove from a distribution of essential whatsoever is essential is such either à priori or à posteriori But to say that sinne is essential either à priori or à posteriori is non-sense Therefore to say that sin is essential to man is nonsense This Syllogism is grounded upon a known and received Maxime Negatis cunctis partibus subjectis totius universalis de aliquo subjecto negatur ipsum to um universale negatis cunctis membris dividenâ—ibus negatur ipsum divisum The major I presumed none would deny and as for the minor that I proved from a description of both ways of being essential That which is essential to a thing à priori is predicated of it in primo modo dicendi per se that which is essential to a thing à posteriori is predicated of it in secundo modo dicendi per se Now to say that sin is predicated of man in either primo or secundo modo dicendi per se is nonsense Therefore to say that sin is essential to man either à priori or à posteriori is nonsense The major I thought undenyable and as for the minor here indeed I stopped too in the proof thereof as thinking