deserved it And so you lose your cause Thirdly the Apostle saith Lust when it hath conceived it bringeth forth sinne and sinne when it is finished bringeth forth death Jam. 1.13 14. To avoid the force of this Scripture you tell us That sinne doth not bring forth death as lust doth bring forth sinne sinne is lusts natural seed but death hath no conceptions by any seed of sinne page 94. But Sir I would entreat you to leave all windings and shifts deale plainly with the words of the text The Apostle saith sinne when it is finished bringeth forth death I do here put it upon you to give a down-right answer seeing the words of the Apostle are so plain If sinne doth any way bring forth death then we must needs conclude that sinne is the cause of death and this is the true meaning of the Apostle But seeing you bind so much upon the Lords institution who hath threatned death to the sinner let us come to the original text In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death And here setting the Lords prohibition aside I do willingly yield that there was no evil in the tree of knowledge of good and evil if we go to evil in the intrinsecal nature thereof but the Lord having forbidden it it was evil to go against his Command In this sense I say though death was threatned by God yet Adams own personal sinne was the meritorious cause of death to himself and to all his posterity And this is the ground of the Apostles speech By one man sinne entred into the world and death by sinne and death hath past over all men unto condemnation You labour in many pages together to prove that Adams sinne was no cause of his condemnation and when all comes to all This is your chief ground that the Lord in his institution did ordain to punish sin and sinners with death and therefore sinne is not the meritorious cause of death Good Sir may not both stand together as social causes what do you think of the two Malefactors that were hanged upon the Cross the one on the right hand and the other on the left hand of our Saviour Were they not both put to death by the sentence of the Law yet for all this they were the cause of their own condemnation The converted thief will tell you as much Doest thou not fear God seeing thou art in the same condemnation And we indeed justly suffer for we receive the due reward of our deeds Luke 23.40 41. In like manner I say though death was inflicted upon Adam as the just judgment of God yet Adams sinne was the cause of his own condemnation Now whereas you call death a righteous branch It is true if you look to the sentence of the just Judge who hath appointed death as the punishment of sinne yet if you look unto the nature of death he is an enemy The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death 1 Cor. 15.26 Further in the book of the Revelation we read that after the Beast the false Prophet and the Dragon were cast into the lake of fire then death it self was cast into the lake of fire Rev. 20.14 What is the meaning of this but that the Lord Christ is Head and King of the Church and will tread down all his enemies in the several and respective times appointed for their destruction and then last of all death it self shall come to be destroyed If death then be an enemy the last enemy and shall be destroyed as an enemy how can you affirme that it is a righteous Branch Further you argue That death cannot be the fruit of sinne seeing God hath pleased to punish sinne with death sinne and punishment for sinne agree no more than light and darknesse page 91. If this be your opinion I pray you tell me what do you think of that case where God doth punish one sinne with another He gave up the Gentiles to vile affections that they might receive in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet Rom. 1.23 24. If one sinne may be the punishment of another why do you put such a difference betwixt sinne and punishment as betwixt light and darknesse you have another evasion to help you our you say The very voice or death is enough to scare a sinner from his sinnes therefore death is not the natural fruit of sinne page 95. Give me leave to observe the same way of reasoning The Devil if he should visibly appear the very sight of him would be enough to scare a sinner from his sins Therefore a wicked sinner when he doth commit sinne doth not fulfill the lusts of his father the Devil which is to go point blank against the Scripture John 8.44 After this you come to answer a weak and incongruous objection of your own making you feign an adversary to reason in this wile If there had been no sinne there had been no punishment therefore pun shmext must be produced by sinne page 949. In this you deceive your self we do not argue so loosely to make every antecedent a necessary cause of that which cometh after for then by the like reason you might argue as you do If there had been no Law there had been no transgression therefore transgression is produced by the Law We say that sin doth not go before death as a meet antecedent or occasion only but as the meritorious cause of death the Apostle saith sinne bringeth forth death as the cause doth the effect and the wages of sinne is death when the work is done the wages is to be paid Last of all you come to the particular examples of Corah of Herod of Ananias and Sapphira and from thence you reason If death be the natural fruit of sinne why are not all Rebels punished as Corah all proud men as well as Herod all guilty of the sinne of equivocation as well as Ananias This is the substance of your argument page 99 100. To all which I make this answer unlesse they repent they shall meet with the same righteous judgment of God The Lord is free in the execution of judgment as upon those eighteen on whom the Tower in Siloah fel yet that it may appear to you that death is the natural fruit of sinne and that sinne is the meritorious cause of death our Saviour shuts up the matter with these words unlesse you repent you shall all likewise perish Luke 13.1 2 3 4 5. But you go on and strike still upon the same string If I should allow as much demerit in Adams disobedience to bring death as Christ had merit in his obedience both active and passive to bring life into the world yet it would not amount to such a pitch to be the onely cause For though the obedience of Christ was the cause of the coming of life into the world yet the appointment of God was as principal a cause as the obedience of Christ And so though sinne
Scripture In the beginning you agree that we bear the punishment of another mans sinne But say you that children have any spawn of sinne cleaving to them as seed to hatch and gender in and by any thing received from Adam as we sprang from his loynes this I deny page 136. This also is the judgement of the Examiners in many pages together Now if this be so that infants have no such spawn of original sinne in them why do the Scriptures speak so largely of the pollution of nature why is it said of man in general that the thoughts of the imaginations of his heart are onely evil from his childhood Why doth the Lord Christ so earnestly presse a necessity of regeneration Why doth he urge it upon such a ground as this that which is born of the flesh is flesh There is nothing more clear than that the nature of man is wholly defiled from the very birth And for the Psalmist in his particular though it be true that he did bear the burden of Adams sinne yet it is not the whole nor the full truth The full truth is this that he was conceived in sinne that in the conception his nature was defiled and the natural defilement was the cause of the two great sinnes of murther and adultery And hereupon in relation to his natural pollution he doth pray unto the Lord to give him a new heart he went to the true root and cause of all the evil I must needs acknowledge that the Authors of the Examen when they speak of fallen man they render true causes of his not willing of good First the ignorance of that which is good the second a depraved judgment the third a want of due remembrance the fourth the power of temptation the fifth the habit and custome of sinne page 132. These are indeed true causes but they are too short and too narrow in their determination they do not come to the root of the evil to the inherent perversenesse of the will it self and the pollution of the natural birth When the bottome of a wound is not searched such Mountebanks must needs make a palliate cure Next you say If you will take from Davids particular example the general condition of all infants why do not you take the text concerning John his being sanctified from his mothers womb and argue that all the children of the world are sanctified in that sense as John was sanctified And if this were so there would not be so many lazy Priests and others in the world as there be page 135. For the parallel between David and John there is no equality betwixt them in the present collation For whereas it is said of John that he was sanctified from his mothers womb this was by a peculiar priviledge granted to him And whereas David saith I was shapen in iniquity and in sinne did my mother conceive me he doth not speak this as a King or a Saint or an Israelite but in the most general relation as one of the lost sonnes of men fallen in Adam and born in the corrupted masse and this is the reason why from the particular example of David we draw a general conclusion of the pollution and the defilement of nature in all But the Authours of the Examen do stifly maintain that the nature conveyed from Adam to all his posterity in the way of ordinary generation is not defiled with sinne For say they some are sanctified from the womb as Jeremiah and John the Baptist were and the Virgin Mary might possibly be page 65. Though this may be admitted that some of the Saints may be sanctified sooner then others and the work of sanctification may begin in them from their childhood yet what is all this to the purpose It must necessarily be supposed that corruption will have a being in certain moments of time before the grace of God can have its being Jeremiah was sanctified from his mothers womb yet he did curse the day of his birth he did resolve to speak no more to the people in the name of the Lord he did shew many fruits of the flesh as well as he did manifest many fruits of the Spirit And therefore to the particular case as he did consist of flesh and spirit in him the flesh the Old man had its being before the Spirit and the new man This I beleeve none can rationally deny though they will acknowledge also that he was sanctified from his mothers womb But Mr. Everard to return to you again For the trouble you have with the lazy Priests I fear Sir the more godly the more conscientious the more laborious any Minister is the worse he is in your opinion and in the opinion of such as you are if he oppose the innovations and errors of the times But I pray God give you repentance else you will have an heavy account to make one day for all your hard speeches against the godly Ministry For the text Mat. 18.3 Except ye be converted and become as little children ye cannot enter into the Kingdome of heaven Here say you If infants be so filthy why doth our Saviour set such a pattern before us And the Authours of the Examen also page 70 speak much to the same effect doth not our Saviour say they declare the state of children both to be innocent and blessed when first he makes it terminus ad quem the mark unto which in our conversion and regeneration we must return And then tells us that the Kingdome of heaven belongs to such and is replenished with such I answer in parables and similitudes we are to look onely to the scope Our Saviour speaketh of the unjust Steward of putting the talent to the exchanger of his own coming like a thief in the night What then is it his intent to approve of the evil of these wayes No he doth onely point to something wherein the force of the similitude doth stand And so in the present case when he speaketh of humbling our selves and becoming like little children it is not his purpose to ascribe such perfection to them as though all infants were free from original sinne or that their innocency were the terminus ad quem the terme to which our conversion and regeneration must return These are very strange deductions The words of our Saviour are therefore to be taken only in a restrained sense that in affectation of worldly glory we should be like little children There is no such distance between the children of Princes and the children of beggars but all are one The mind of the Lord is onely this that we should come to act the same things by the power of grace as little children do thorough the weaknesse and infirmity of age We should not look upon Lords and Ladies upon learning or parts or upon any other external excellency in comparison of the grace of God Commonly men that have these things are very proud of them and do look upon them
obedience of one many were made righteous Rom. 5.19 The comparison would be of no value at all if that which is peculiarly spoken to Adam might be applied to any other parent whatsoever in respect of his posterity And of the sinnes which Adam did commit we are not to admire why all are set upon the score of the first sinne When he received original righteousnesse in the beginning he received it not onely for himself but also for his whole posterity And therefore if he had stood he had conveyed it to all his branches but falling he lost it from himself and all his off-spring And this is the reason why all is charged upon the first sinne because that was the sinne of a fiduciary or trustee The parent was entrusted with the whole stock which was not only his own peculiar but also the publick losse of all his posterity If we might suppose that Adam did commit ten thousand sinnes afterward the hurt could not redound to any other but to himself onely For how could he bring dammage to small or great by any disobedient act seeing he was trusted no more You now come to declare your judgment why say you might we not have thought it more safe that that which gave the first occasion to sinnes being was yet the original cause of all other sins committed by him What need we yet to say that sin had any other father or mother than its first parents viz the Devil and temptation Joh. 8.44 Answ I do not deny but in a sense the Devil and temptation may be called the parents of sinne because wicked men are led by the temptations of Satan and do imitate his example But strange it is that you would have no other parents but the Devil and temptation This is in plain termes to excuse men and to make them without blame when any sinne is committed The Apostle doth otherwise state the true cause of sinne every man is drawn away with his own lust and enticed and lust when it hath conceived bringeth forth sinne Jam. 1.13 The sinful will of man and the lust of his heart may be a cause that doth procreate sinne as well as the Devil and temptation And more specially to speak in the case we are now upon concerning the sinne of the first man and the traducing of original sinne to all posterity I do not doubt but the Devil and temptation had a great stroak in the fall of man but we must go to other causes as well as to them Adams own defective will was a chief cause And therefore we read of the great judgments that were inflicted upon him for his disobedience to the command And for that place of Scripture which you alledge Joh. 8.44 He that committeth sinne is of the Devil it is most true that men commit sin by the temptation of the Devil but how doth this prove the point which you undertake that the Devil is the onely parent of sinne and that we need go to no other but to him onely Besides in the case of original sinne as the corruption of nature doth passe by propagation the Apostle saith we must go to one man as the fountain by one man sinne entred into the world and death by sinne c. And therefore if to salve your Tenet you shall alledge that speech you are of your Father the Devil the lusts of your father will you do By this I do confesse that the Devil is proved the first parent of sinne by infusion and suggestion but he is not the father by generation And therefore when the Apostle saith put off as concerning the former conversation the Old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts Ephes 4.22 Here by the Old man we are to understand the Old Adam like disposition as it hath passed from Adam to all his posterity This old disposition the Saints are to put off and they are to endeavour to put on the Christ-like nature So then if you will say that the Devil was the first father of sinne by temptation and seduction we will not gain-say it Onely we do intreat you to remember that Adam is the cause of the conveying of original sinne to all his posterity by generation and traduction You have yet more evasions if it might be possible to illude the truth If Adam say you had sinned afterwards how can we say that he had a way to communicate it to all his posterity It is more then the Devil can do to infuse sinne into any man without a mans consent page 142. This is true if you speak in the case of actual sinne onely but for the derivation of original sinne the case is otherwise The corruption of nature is derived from the disobedience of the first man His personal disobedience was sufficient to deprave and vitiate the whole nature ☞ This may be proved by the harmony of Scripture and there is no harshnesse in the point so long as there is such an effectual remedy prepared by the second man for the lost sonnes of men And yet further though the first man by his fall did vitiate the nature without any individual or personal consent of ours yet the lying and living in the sinfulnesse of nature is not without our deliberate and free consent This is the condemnation that light is come into the world and men love darknesse more than light Joh. 3.18 19 20. God doth at sundry seasons open the eyes of men that they may see their natural pollution but they have not a desire to see that which they may see Further you adde some say the want of pure nature is the cause of our sinne but it is plain that the purity of nature exempts not a man from sinne for if it had then Adam had not sinned page 142. We would not have you to mistake our meaning we do not stand so much upon the want of the purity of nature as upon the pollution and depravation of nature And this since the fall is no onely the cause of sinning but also is the true cause why we can do nothing else but sinne And this begins to appear to those who are sanctified by the Spirit and therefore the Apostle saith in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing For other kind of men they do not feel the burden of a carnal mind As a bucket of water weighs nothing in the Well but when it is removed from its proper element then the weight thereof is discerned Pride of heart and other secret lusts are not burdensome to a carnal man who is in his proper element but a spiritual man feels the enmity of these against the command of God and sees by experience that according to the flesh he can do nothing else but sin Further you alledg that it is like that Adam would not have sinned again because he sped so ill page 142. I beleeve it was with him after his fall as it was with David after
shall he only be punished and never survive or live so long as to see the punishment againe the words of the Apostle are cleare as by the offence of one judgement came upon all men to condemnation ver the 18. If it came upon all men it came upon infants as well as others and if it came upon all to condemnation then infants beare the guilt of sin the infelicities miseries and paines of death not by way of sovereignty but as a punishment and judgement laid upon them for their sin and disobedience of the first man But to colour the matter he hath a restriction in his answer to the Bishops letter Now then your Lordship saith he sees that what you note of the meaning of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I admit and is indeed true enough and agreeable to the scope of the Apostle and very much in justification of what I taught The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies a punishment for sin and this sin to be theirs upon whom the condemnation comes I easily subscribe to it but then take in the words of St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by one sinne or by the sin of one the curse passed upon all men to condemnation that is the curse descended from Adam for his sake it was propagated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to a real condemnation viz. when they should sin for though this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or curse of death was threatned only to Adam yet upon Gods being angry with him God resolved it should descend and if men did sin as Adam or if they sin at all though lesse than Adam yet the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the curse threatned to them should passe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto the same actual condemnation which fell upon him that is it should actually bring them under the reigne of death pag. 45 46. By these words of his it is cleare that the curse doth descend upon infants not when they are borne in sin for he doth own no such sin of the nature but it descends only to their real condemnation when they come to act sinne Here I would entreat him to consider the words of the Apostle so by the righteousnesse of one man the free gift came upon all men to justification of life If it came upon all men it came upon infants if the blessing of Christ doth come upon infants surely the curse also must descend upon them For we cannot imagine any to be made partakers of the blessing benefit grace and life by the second man but he must be some way involved in the guilt misery death and condemnation brought in by the first On the contrary if he will say that the curse doth not descend upon infants by the rule of proportion it will follow that infants shall have no part in the comforts priviledges and blessings that come by the Gospel And truely this must be the upshot of this dismal doctrine Now let us consider what exposition he giveth of those words by the disobedience of one many were made sinners But that saith he which I dwell and rely upon is this sinne is often used in Scripture for the punishment of sinne and they that suffer are called sinners though they be innocent so it is in this case by Adams disobedience many were sinners that is the sinne of Adam passed upon them and sate upon them with evil effect Answ We do not deny but the word sinne may be taken for the punishment of sinne and to that purpose what he speaketh of Bathsheba I and my sonne Solomon shall be sinners but more especially that of our Saviour he made him sinne for us that knew no sinne These and such like passages which he hath page 368 c. We do not deny the truth of them in the general Only this we say that we are not onely made sinners by imputation but also we derive a sinful nature from Adam by propagation and by contagion For First If there were onely an imputation of guilt and no inherent corruption men would bear the burthen and punishment of sinne without cause and God would punish sinne where none is Our Saviour indeed was made sin who knew no sinne because he came in the nature of a Surety But the sonnes of Adam are no sureties they must be some way sinners themselves if they will righteously bear the burthen of Adams sinne Again the words of the Apostle are most emphatical by the disobedience of one many were made sinful for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth note one that hath the habit of sinne that is a sinful man as I have proved in the former part of the Treatise from whence we collect that the sonnes of Adam are not onely made sinners by imputation but sinful also by hereditary contagion Further the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are constituted sinners or sinful This expression if it be seriously considered is set in immediate opposition to the constitution of things in the creation If a reason be demanded concerning the Sun Moon and Starres of the ebbing and the flowing of the Sea of the vicissitude of Winter and Summer The answer is easie all these things have their being because God made them and constituted them so in the beginning But if a reason be demanded how all men came to be sinners by imputation and sinful by propagation the answer is as easie They are made and constituted as by the disobedience of the first man so by the just judgment of God upon that disobedience If the sinfulnesse of nature be not by the fall it must come by creation or some other reason must necessarily be assigned to make all men so unanimous and universal in matter of sinning Lastly the Apostle draweth a parallel between both the Adams as by the disobedience of one many were made sinners so by the obedience of one many shall be made righteous Now it is evident none are made righteous by imputation in the ordinary way but they do in some measure or other partake of the life and spiritual nature of Christ as the seccond Adam Therefore we say on the contrary part there are none that have the guilt of the sinne of Adam imputed to them but they must also derive the pollution of nature from him as the root of corruption But to this he hath a solution as he pretends at least in his answer to the Bishops letter This is sufficient saith he for the Apostles argument and yet no necessity to affirme that we are sinners any more than by imputation for we are by Christ made just no other wise than hy imputation page 38 c. To which we reply the question is not about the formal reason of our justification which we acknowledge to be by the alone imputation of the righteousnesse of Christ But the point in hand is whether any be justified by the blood which are not sanctified by the Spirit So in the present case we say
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 inferred 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 so far he pag. 15. Now I leave it to any man to judge whither the same mutatis mutandis may not be said of our opinion though infants are borne in Original sin and are by nature the children of wrath yet they may be saved by grace By all this it is evident that we are as faire for the salvation of infants as he is and by the same doore as he goes out we will go out at the same And for the sayings of our writers I have three things to answer First some speak more mildly in the point rather inclining to the salvation than the damnation of infants Junius in his collation de naturâ gratiâ hath these words Nemo nostrum it a fuerit aut furere compertus est c. There is none of ours that is so mad or was ever found so void of reason who would simply affirme infants to be damned They which teach otherwise let themselves look to it by what right they moy do it and by what authority it may be done For although in respect of their own selves and that common nature of ours they may be in a state lyable to damnation it follows not that we should passe the sentence of damnation upon them c. In the processe of his discourse he giveth sundry reasons First the promise of God to believers and their natural seed Secondly his mercy to thousands and that through many descents where the Ancestors have sometimes belonged to the Covenant Thirdly The judgement of charity seeing it is the Lords pleasure to take them away in their infancy we may presume that by that fatherly act of his he intends to receive them to mercy Other testimonies may be brought of such that have gone in the milder way but these shall suffice A second sort of our Expositiors there are that do pitch more hard They say that some infants may go to hell yet they moderate their sentence as Chamier Non abhorret a verisimilitudine paenas eorum esse mitissimas It is very probable their punishments are most mild A third sort leave the matter wholly in suspence they think it sufficient to believe that all infants are borne in a state lyable to damnation they have in them the seeds of all evil yet for all this they conceive that God may shew mercy in and through Christ specially to the infants of such that do belong to the Covenant specially where conscience is made to enter them into the outward visible Church by baptisme And this is all that we will say of this question Leaving this businesse of the state of infants and reserving to God the secrets of election or non-election we will come to the point that is more useful and more easie to be understood And here he questions whether Adam did debauch our nature and corrupt our will and manner by his fall And if he did it he further enquires after the manner how it was done First whether it was done by a natural or physical efficiency of sin it selfe Secondly whether was it because we are all in the loynes of Adam or Thirdly whether was the sentence and the decree of God the cause thereof he hath foure arguments against a physical efficiency which we have in part handled already and shall have occasion to speak afterwards And therefore to avoid repetition we will come to the second branch whether Adam did debauch our nature because we are all in his loynes Against this he hath sundry reasons that follow in order By the same reason saith he we are guilty of all the sins that he committed while we were in his loynes there being no imaginable reason why the first should be propagated and not the rest Answ As I have formerly shewed so I declare againe the pollution of nature can only be propagated from the first sin because in that only Adam did act as a publick man in which sence the Apostle calls him the figure of him that is to come But of this I have spoken already Secondly upon this account saith he all the sins of all our progenitours will be imputed to us because we were in their loynes when they sinn'd them Answ Not so neither for though we were in their loynes when they sinned yet in a strict sence they are only vehicula so many conduit pipes of the conveyances of the nature from the first root To speak properly there are only two roots of the nature Adam the root of corruption to all his branches Christ the root of grace and spiritual life to all his branches If any question be made of the truth of this there is every where in the doctrine of St. Paul an antithesis between the flesh and the spirit between the old man and the new betwixt generation and regeneration betwixt Adam and Christ Between these two there is a plaine opposition in three things in point of justification Secondly in point of sanctification Thirdly in point of the resurrection from the dead And therefore whereas the first man by his act brings us under the guilt of sin the second washes away the guilt of sin by his blood and whereas the first man pollutes our nature and is the root of the corruption of nature the second man sanctifies our nature and is the root of a new nature to all his branches And whereas the first man did bring in death and all the miseries of nature upon our bodies that lead to death the second man frees us from all these by the resurrection from the dead But he further alledgeth Thirdly Sin saith he is seated in the will it is an action and so transient and when it dwels or abides it abides no where but in the will by approbation and love to which is naturally consequent a readinesse in the inferiour faculties to obey and act accordingly and therefore sin doth not infect our meer natural faculties but the will only and not that in the natural capacity but in its moral only Answ Though it be true that sin is principally seated in the will yet we shall finde all along that the Scriptures do lay great weight upon the blindnesse and the perversity of the judgement and as in the old creation so it is in the new The first work that is done is the creation of light Besides the Christ-like disposition is begun and carried on by degrees and all this by the renovation of light The understanding is first enlightned and then the will comes to choose the things of God Further let it be supposed that sin is only seated in the will
cannot understand the justice of it because we were not personally guilty why by the same reason doth he not wholly exclude us from having any part of share in the benefit of the death of Christ For what personal act or concurrence have we to the suffering of that death And whereas he alledgeth the ensamples of Pausanias the Grecian General Avidius Cassius and others that would not punish the children for the fathers offence We acknowledge the rationality and the equity of such proceedings but what is this to the case in hand The Law was so given to Adam that was never given to any else but to Christ alone It was given to him as the Headman and the root of the nature If he fell all must fall with him Neither is there any hardnesse or harshnesse in this doctrine as long as the misery by one doth open a door for the grace by the other He goes on If God saith he inflicts this evil upon Adams posterity by using his own right of power and dominion which he hath over his creatures then it is a strange anger which God had against Adam that he still retaines so fierce an indignation as not to take off his hand from striking after five thousand six hundred years and striking him for that of which he repented him and which in all reason we beleeve he then pardoned or resolved to pardon when he promised the Messiah to him Answ If he would but remember himself what he speaks elsewhere he shall finde that he saith the same in effect as we do For though in his further explication page 453. He affirmeth that Adam was made mortal and proves it by his eating and drinking his sleep and recreation by ingestion and egestion by breathing generating and the like which immortal substances never do Though by these and such like mediums he endeavours to prove the mortality of the state in which he was made yet in the same and other places he doth acknowledge that the untimelinesse and infelicity of death came in by the fall By the fall he tells us that Adam was cast into a place of labour and uneasinesse of bryars and thornes ill aire and violent chances The woman was condemned to hard labour and travell and that which troubled her most obedience to her husband c. Now let us take the misery brought in by the fall in such a low and diminutive sense that he would take it It is now above five thousand six hundred yeares that mankind hath been under the miseries and infelicities of death all this while they have continued in a place of labour and uneasinesse of ill aire and hard chances the woman also besides the paines and peril of child-birth hath been subject to her husband for five thousand six hundred years and yet she knows no end of her apprentiship As strange as the anger is against Adam and his posterity he must needs say the same in effect as we do But to give a positive answer These miseries brought in by the fall of Adam have continued and must continue to the end of the world Neither is it a strange thing that the Lord should continue his anger seeing by the continuation thereof he doth continue to drive men to Christ If he pleased he could immediately take away all these miseries brought in by the fall But for most excellent ends to humble men to pluck down their pride to beat them out of their carnal security he doth rather suffer them to abide And for the case of the woman The Apostle doth not deny her pains and perill of child-birth to come in by the fall but then he addeth they shall be saved in child-bearing if they continue in the faith 1 Tim. 2. last Notable to this purpose is that speech of Augustine to Julian the Pelagian est enim aliquid in â—bdito alto ejus consilio c. There is therefore a reason in his hidden and deep counsel why so long as we live in this mortal flesh there is something in us against which our mind may conflict there is something that we may say forgive us our trespasses And a little after therefore it is done in the place of our infirmity that we should not live proudly but should live under a daily need of remission of sinnes Much more to the same purpose What he addes is monstrous false It is not easily saith he to be imagined how Christ reconciled the world unto his Father if after the death of Christ God is so angry with mankind so unappeased that the most innocent part of mankind may perish for Adams sinne and the other are perpetually punished with a corrupted nature a pronenesse to sinne a servile will a filthy concupiscence and an impossibility of being innocent that no faith no Sacrament no prayers no industry can obtain pardon from this punishment Answ It were a very happy thing if this learned man would once think that there were a ninth commandment and that he would make conscience of bearing false-witnesse against his neighbour We say as the case now standeth men are pestred with a corrupted nature with a pronenesse to sinne with a servile will but that there is no remedy to bring us out of this evil this was never affirmed by us There is in the blood of Christ that which will take away the guilt of sinne in the Spirit of Christ to free us from the bondage of corruption and also in his power to raise our bodies at the last Onely it is the good will and pleasure of God in the whole Oeconomy of the salvation of man that we should wait till all these things be fulfilled That is a most sweet passage of Bede taken from some ancienter Authour No man saith he taketh away sinne which the Law although holy and just and good could not take away but he in whom there was no sin Now he taketh away sinnes by pardoning those that are done and by assisting us that they may not be done and by bringing of us to the life where they cannot at all be done and so we are come to an end of this Section SECT 4. Of the causes of the universal wickednesse of mankind In the beginning he doth take upon him to propound an objection If there were not some common principle of evil introduced by the sinne of our parents upon all his posterity how should all men be so naturally inclined to be vicious To this he endeavours to frame many answers First saith he if we will suppose that there must be a cause in our nature determining us to sinne by an unresistible necessity I desire to know why such a principle should be more necessary to us than it was to Adam Repl. As I have said before Adam had onely a possibility to sinne he did sinne so that he had liberty and freedome not to sin But as the case now standeth we can do nothing else but sin It is true in the particular
greater caution The Treatise of Luther de servo arbitrio is questionlesse in it self a worthy work yet I think that Calvin in his answer to Albertus Pighins did not speak amisse This also is true some things which Luther wrote in a Scholastical kind of way and in a lesse popular style Philip Melancthon by his prudent and dextrous bending it to the milder part did more fitly apply to the ordinary capacity of men and to the common use of life Yet for all this in other places that great instrument of reformation doth so abundantly speak of the freenesse of the grace of Christ to every broken-hearted sinner that he doth satisfie all tender consciences and leave a solid foundation for the endeavour of man Now every one cannot do this for they that follow the asperity and the rigour of Luther in some positions of his cannot with the same spiritual evidence set forth the grace of the Gospel And so it comes to passe that the harshnesse and the incongruity imputed to the doctrine is indeed and in truth no other but the sole defect of the Teacher By right spiritual truths should have spiritual Teachers and spiritual hearers and then a true judgment may be made of the real excellency and worth of them These things considered I do intend to observe these rules in the ensuing discourse First laying aside all nice and curious speculations to retain so much of the termes of the School-men that will serve onely to explaine the doctrine of the Gospel that spiritual things may be set forth in a spiritual manner Secondly my scope the Lord enabling shall be as to speak the pure truth so likewise the whole truth of God When I speak of the impurity of the natural birth then I will take occasion to shew also how this doth referre immediately to the grace that doth regenerate and when I shall have occasion to speak of Adam as a root of corruption to all his branches I shall as carefully remember that this is a counterpane to Christ being a root of grace and spiritual life also to all his branches When it shall come in my way to mention the imperfection of man and the spirituality of the command I shall be as careful to inculcate that which doth answer to it viz. that all help is to be had from the Word of promise When I shall say that a man hath no free-will by nature to that which is spiritually good I shall be as willing to recite the true cause where the freedome is to be had to wit from the Son of God if the Sonne will make you free you shall be free indeed Further where I shall speak of a certain number of elect which the Lord doth decree curtainly and infallibly to bring to glory I shall demonstrate also that this necessity of infallibility doth not nor cannot whatsoever men may think overturne the liberty of the will For those that the Lord hath certainly appointed to salvation he will as certainly first or last sooner or later draw their wills so effectually that they shall freely choose the way and meanes that lead to salvation as the end Those and such liketruths that are usually misunderstood through inconsiderate handling I shall endeavour to represent them in their true beauty For as it is with the members of the body so it is with these myseries of salvation Being considered apart they seem to be deform'd but being put together there is an excellent correspondence and symetry in the whole Finally according to our Saviours rule I shall endeavour I hope without detriment to either part to give to grace that which doth belong to her and to the will that which doth belong to her I would not take the least dramme from the true grace of God so on the otherside I would have the will to work under the grace received These are the reasons of publishing the treatise in these times I rest thine in the Lord N. S. The Arguments of each Book The first Book in Mr. Everards Method Chap. 1. WHat were the causes that gave Adam his being Chap. 2. Wherein Adams abilities did consist Chap. 3. Whether righteousnesse and holinesse be Gods image Chap. 4. Wherein that image did consist that God did create Adam in Chap. 5. Concerning the power that God gave Adam and what is the definition thereof Chap. 6. Adams entertainment in the garden Chap. 7. Free-will in the nature thereof unfolded Chap. 8. How far God assisted Adam or assisteth other men that they might be such free-willers as hath been described Chap. 9. Though God gives power he gives not the actions of obedience Chap. 10. Concerning divers questions with their solutions Chap. 11. Whether Adams sinne or any other mans sinne doth produce death in a natural way Chap. 12. What Adam retained of his forfeiture till his death Chap. 13. Whether Adam did dye the same day that he eate of the forbidden fruit Chap. 14. Whether Adam did dye a spiritual death yea or no Chap. 15. Whether Adams posterity were guilty of his transgression This point is more fully debated The Second Book in the method of the Examiners Sect. 1. WHat places of Scripture they bring to prove the purity of the natural birth Sect. 2. What answer they endeavour to make to the texts alledged by us The third Book in the method of Dr. Taylor Sect. 1. OF Concupiscence and Original sin and whether or no and how far we are bound to repent of it Sect. 2. A consideration of objections against the former doctrine Sect. 3. How God punishes the fathers sinne upon the children Sect. 4. Of the causes of the universal wickedness of mankind Sect. 5. Of the liberty of election remaining after Adams fall The first Book containing the Answer to Master EVERARD concerning the Creation and fall of Man SIR OCcasion being given to me to read over your Treatise concerning the creation and the fall of Adam I shall now endeavour to give you an account what I judge of your doctrine I shall not stand upon every point but onely upon that which is of special moment In the end of your Introduction you signifie the cause of your undertaking in these words Whereby we may be the more enabled to vindicate the Righteous Creatour from many misconstructions which have been for a long time nourished for want of due consideration For the vindicating of the Righteous Creator I shall be no enemy to you so farre as you go according to the rule of the Word and the analogy of faith But I fear under the colour of this pretended Vindication you drive a designe to put Christ out of place Through the whole body of your Treatise you stand upon the purity of nature the denial of Original sin and the improvement of natural abilities We will go in your method and begin with your first Chapter CHAP. I. What were the causes that gave Adam his being HEre you debate the efficient material formal and final
shall be sufficient for thee my strength shall be seene in thy weaknesse 2 Cor. 12.7.8 9 But the way to come by this ability is not in your method to set up nature but to die to a mans self and to be emptied of all natural abilities Most gladly therefore will I glory in mine infirmities that the power of Christ might rest upon me 2 Cor. 12.9 The Authors of the Confession do seeme to speak more fairly for the grace of God then you do They do not shun to affirme that we have all from Christ and that of our selves we have not ability to think a good thought and much to the same purpose But by this affirmation of theirs how can they possibly agree with their own principles of the purity of nature For where there is no depravation of the natural birth what need or what use is there of the grace of regeneration They conceale themselves and you openly professe your judgment they seeme to speak more fairly but you are more true to the principles and positions of the Separate Churches CHAP. III. Whether righteousnesse and holinesse be Gods Image HEre you endeavour to prove the Negative to wit that righteousnesse and holinesse in man was not the image of God in the first creation Because this is not your own single opinion but also the doctrine of the thirty Congregations who place the image of God onely in dominion over the creature we will debate the point more fully And so much the rather because you did urge me at Earle-Shilton in Leicestershire Anno 1650. Decem. 26. before a multitude of people to answer this question what place of Scripture have you to prove that Adam had the Spirit of God or that he was a spiritual man before his fall I did then cite three several texts the natural sence and import of all which is to shew that God made man after his own Image and that this Image did principally consist in spiritual and inward holinesse For that place Gen. 1.26 Come let us make man after our Image in our own likenesse There is none doth doubt but this is the speech of the three persons in Trinity Onely the question is wherein did this Image principally consist The separate congregations and you also affirme that it did appear onely in Dominion and Lordship over the creature these words do immediately follow in the text let them have dominion over the fish of the sea over the fowle of the aire and over the cattel and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth But herein both they and you are deceived for primarily and properly the Image of God was resplendent in the conformity of the soule to the spiritual Law of God Secondarily the Image of God was resplendent in that external priviledge of rule and dominion over the creature Now that it may appear that the principal part of the Image of God is in inward holinesse and that the soule so inwardly and spiritually endowed doth more lively expresse his similitude for this reade that Scripture Put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him that created him Col. 3.10 Here note what it is that the Apostle would have the Colossians to put on Put on the new man By this he doth mean the Christ-like and spiritual disposition set in immediate opposition to the old carnal disposition of the flesh which they had already in good measure begun to put off Secondly the word renewed doth note a repaire or renovation of that which formerly was decayed So the Psalmist prayeth Create in me a clean heart and renew within me a right spirit Psal 51.10 He doth pray for the returne of the same spirit which formerly he had but now seemingly had lost So thy youth is renewed like the Eagles Psal 103.5 As much in sense as that he makes thee vigorous like an Eagle who by casting her beak and feathers renews her former agility And so in the present case wherein it is said Put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge this noteth the repaire and renovation of that spiritual disposition which Adam had but lost it by his fall Thirdly for the matter of the renovation venewed in knowledge doth signifie spiritual knowledge in the nature thereof and that which comes from the Spirit of God as the cause Fourthly for the pattern of the renovation it is expressely said after the image of him that created him Therefore the first man must be made in a state of spiritual knowledge and holinesse If this be not so how could the beleeving Colossians be renewed after this example as the Prototype Let us go to the next Scripture that ye put on the new man which after God is created in rigteousnesse and true holinesse Eph. 4.24 This Scripture also doth plainly shew that Adam had the Spirit of God before his fall For first why is it said be renewed in the spirit of your minde This implieth that we were sometimes such Secondly the expression of righteousnes and true holinesse is opposed to feigned and hypocritical sanctity Thirdly the whole tenour of the speech is to this end that the Ephesians should put off the old Adam-like disposition with all the deceitful lusts thereof and that they should put on the Christ-like nature which is renewed after the similitude and pattern of the image of God in man before the fall The argument is thus grounded upon the text What the Saints are by renovation such Adam was by creation But by renovation the Saints are just and holy From all which we do conclude that Adam was a spiritual man and had the Spirit of God before his fall Now to the Scriptures let us adde a few reasons First it is a Maxime generally received that the Law was made for man before his fall Now how the first man could be conformable to so spiritual and divine a Law and he himself be destitute of the Spirit it is not within the compasse of my understanding to discerne If we will argue a posteriori from the event we must necessarily conclude that he must not only be spiritual but also have a great measure of spirit to keep such a divine and spiritual Law Secondly the Apostle saith you hath he quickned that were dead in trespasses and sinnes Ephes 2.1 2. If all be dead in trespasses and sinnes this spiritual death must begin at the fall and so by consequence the first man must have the spirit and spiritual life before his fall For what is spiritual death but a privation of the life of the Spirit of God These and many more reasons might be brought to prove Adam to be a spiritual man as long as he stood in that state in which God had placed him Now let us hear your arguments to the contrary You say that Adams righteousnesse and holinesse was not in beleeving a Saviour because be was not in a lost condition pag.
only He did shed his blood not onely to obtain a possibility for them but that they may be certainly and insallibly brought to glory Hence is it that he speaketh concerning his sheep for whom he dyed in a special manner My Father that gave them me is greater then all and none can take them out of my Fathers hands Joh. 10.29 And in another place who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect it is God that justifieth who is he that condemneth it is Christ that dyed Rom. 8 33 34. The death of Christ for the elect is not only to obtain salvation upon termes of repentance and faith or other general fruits of his death but it is certainly and infallibly to bring them to salvation In relation to this peculiar love the Apostle saith Who shall separate us from the love of Christ Rom. 8.35 And our Saviour John 10.28 I will give them eternal life and they shall never perish neither shall any man be able to take them out of my hand He speaketh these things of his sheep for whom he had layed down his life in that special sense mentioned before Having thus cleared all your Objections in this Chapter we proceed to the next CHAP. XI Whether Adams sinne or any other mans sinne doth produce death or condemnation in a natural way TOuching the manner of the thing how sinne doth cause death whether death be the natural fruit of sinne or whether it doth meerly depend upon the will of him who hath threatned to punish sinne with death is much disputed But Mr. Everard leaving that which may be supposed it is too too plain in this Chapter that you mainly drive at this to prove that sinne is not the meritorious cause of death and that Adams sinne was no cause of his condemnation And then afterwards going to discover the causes of judgment you tell us for the efficient cause God is onely the contriver who doth inflict punishments For the material cause the creatures are the onely instruments For the formal it is the manner of judgment coming upon men the fire by burning the water by drowning For the final it is the declaration of the justice of God upon the contemners of his grace And so you conclude That sin sinne is no cause of punishment neither efficient material formal nor final page 95. 96. And for the meritorious cause You say also that sinne doth not merit death but it doth onely prepare fit and qualifie a man for death as grace doth for eternal life page 106 107 108. You do not shunne to tell us in the last two lines of the Chapter speaking of eternal life and eternal death That God is as simply and entirely the Author of the one as of the other Page 108. In opposition to all this I do affirme that sinne is the meritorious cause of death and death is the fruit of sin Let us consider the Scriptures and let us vindicate them from your cavils First it is said the wages of sinne is death but the gift of God is eternal life Rom. 6.23 From hence it is plain that eternal life sanctification of the Spirit belief of the truth and all other things that tend to salvation are the meer gift of God but the wages of sinne is death If death be the wages of sin then sinne must be the meritorious cause of death But say you Though death be the wages of sinne yet it is not the fruit thereof page 91. Though in some cases we may call that the fruit which is not the wages yet in the sense of the text the wages and the fruit are all one Read but the words going before What fruit had you then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed the wages of sinne is death The fruit and the wages are all one and the sense of the whole text is this that sinne is the meritorious cause of damnation For the second Scripture Rom. 8.6 To be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded is life and peace Here say you If it be death it self it cannot be the cause of death But Sir you are to look to the sense and not to the strictnesse of the letter In strict termes you cannot say that to be spiritually minded is life and peace In this life many that are truly spiritual that have the reality of grace in their heart have not the peace of grace The meaning of the text is briefly this that as peace and life doth follow a spiritual mind so death doth follow the carnal mind as the wages and fruit thereof But here you shew your skill at catch-ball I confesse say you that he who walketh carnally to his end shall receive eternal death so he that lives a spiritual life shall enjoy everlasting life But neither the death nor the life were any branches produced by either for they came both from God And as God hath no desire that any man should sinne so sinne hath as little desire to receive punishment pag. 92. Still you go on in the same way of sophistry We willingly agree that he who walketh spiritually to the end shall receive eternal life because such walking is the way to eternal life But the carnal walking is not only the way that leadeth to death but by a Metonymie the effect being put for the cause it is death it self or in the way of causality a carnal mind is that which produceth death and death is the fruit thereof But whereas you affirme that neither death nor life are branches produced either by carnal or spiritual walking in this you erre For though a godly walking is not the meritorious cause of eternal life yet a carnal and sinful walking is the meritorious cause of eternal death Why else should it be said The wages of sinne is death Masters use to pay their servants their wages at night in relation to that which they have deserved in the day and for a weeks work they pay them commonly at the end of the week The payment of wages hath near relation to the labour of the hireling that hath deserved it And therefore the Scriptures do use this expression the wages of sinne is death shewing that sinne is the meritorious cause of death and death is the desart of sin And for that expression of yours that death is no branch produced by sin ☞ but it cometh meerly from God who inflicteth death this I think no pious man can look upon but with a great deal of horror What is this but to transfer the cause of death upon God onely But if to mend the matter you shall say that God doth inflict death as the just punishment of sin in so saying you contradict your self and blow up your own position For if God doth inflict death as the punishment of sin then it will follow that sinne is the meritorious cause of death and death doth not onely come from God but also from the sinner who hath
had been ten thousand times more sinful yet without an Ordinance from God death could never have seized upon the world page 101. 102 103. What is all this but a palpable and grosse mistake of the question or as Logicians call it an ignorance of the elench We do confesse as shrist brought life into the world he brought it in by the institution of his Father so when sinne brought death into the world it was by the just appointment of God to punish sinne with death The question that is in debate betwixt us is whether sinne be the 〈◊〉 cause of death as the obedience of Christ active and passive is the meritorious cause of life If you yield this as yield it you must we have as much as we do desire Next you enquire how sinne may be the cause of condemnation supposing that it cannot be the principal cause you demand whether it may be a cause in subordination And here you tell us that sinne will not be found neither seeing such causes are good in their own nature Well then what is the cause you tell us seeing sinne is an invention of man and the Devil a meere accident that cleaveth to the subject man we may call sinne an accidental cause of condemnation seizing upon man found sinful page 105. If this way of reasoning be good why may not I proceed in the like manner Heat is an accident in the subject fire therefore the heat of the fire is a meere accidental cause of the boyling of the water The force of your reason is no better when you say sinne is a meere accident in the subject man therefore it is onely the accidental cause of condemnation If you well observe the expression you shall find it to be very absurd to call sin a meere accidental cause of condemnation Condemnation is alwayes set in relation to the guilt of some sinne that doth deserve it how then can you call sinne an accidental cause of condemnation The Scriptures say that the Lord will render to every one according to his works that they who commit such things are worthy of death And many passages of the like kind What will you say to all this Here you have a pretty shift to help you out Sinne say you puts a man in a sutable disposition and qualification for death page 106. Indeed our Divines when they speak of eternal life that the Lord will render to every man according to his works they take the word worthy onely for a sutable qualification According to that of the Apostle he hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light Col. 1.12 Though this may be affirmed of the Saints that they are made meet for eternal life it were too short and too diminuent an expression to affirme that wicked men onely are made suitable to receive vengeance for then the wicked are no more worthy of eternal death then the Saints are worthy of eternal life ☞ which is plainly to crosse the Apostle the wages of sinne is death but the gift of God is eternal life I cannot then but mention your words with a kind of horrour with which you close the Chapter speaking of the wicked they are say you a sutable matter to receive vengeance as Gods people are sutable to receive all the joyes of eternal life Now the joyes of eternal life are the free-gift of God All qualifications dispositions frames of spirit though never so evangelical in the abundance thereof do not abate the worth of an hair of eternal life to be the free-gift of God For there was not the least desarts in a holy life to the procuring of eternal salvation but onely it was the will of God to make eternal life as a Crown to put upon the head of those men that lived holy here which were fit or sutable for the Crown of honour So men that have lived never so notoriously wicked rebeling and blaspheming against God day after day to their lives end are no otherwise worthy than persons fitted as the true subjects sutable for wrath and God is as simply and intirely the authour of the one as the other And so farre you Now I leave it to all tender consciences to understand and to give sentence We do willingly confesse that we cannot merit any thing by our own works in the way to salvation there being such a disproportion between them and the glory to come But I do detest and abhorre that speech of yours when you say that the greatest sinner who continues so all his life long is no otherwise worthy of death than a person fitted or a subject made sutable for wrath and that God is as much the cause of the damnation of the one as the salvation of the other If this doctrine of yours be sound and Orthodox why may not the wicked in hell cast all upon God as the sole Authour of their misery as well as the Saints in heaven ascribe all to the glory of his free grace I will use your own words though to farre better purpose If a man should study many years for a destroying Principle to dishonour his Creator he could not parallel this which is the sharpest Sword that was ever drawn against the righteousnesse of God I have staid the longer upon this point because you have used so many arguments to prove sin to be no meritorious cause of condemnation I have more carefully endeavoured to vindicate the truth because this is one of the first fundamentals that is put into the heart of the Gentiles They knowing the judgment of God against them which do such things that they are worthy of death not only do the same but have pleasure in them that do them Rom. 1.32 That sinne is the meritorious cause of death and that a sinner is worthy of death is graven in the heart of every man alive and God at seasons doth stirre up the confideration of the guilt of sinne in the conscience of the Gentiles to look after pardon and to make their peace with God The first convictions of the Spirit do begin with considerations of the Godhead and the guilt of sinne that so men may be brought to see their misery And yet you teach us here in this Chapter that sinne is not the meritorious cause of condemnation Now we proceed to your next Chapter CHAP. XII What Adam retained of his forfeiture till his death HERE also you teach such things as do little lesse then strike at the foundation You tell us that Adam after the fall for his body had all the parts and lineaments thereof He had his senses and retained his knowledge And further you adde I make no question but God had so ordered the imployments that he had for Adam some of them to be more spiritual than ever he had to do before his fall and then that he should utterly disable him from the performance thereof will never be made good by any man under
the emproving of nature to those ends to which God had assigned it These are the Chimera's and fictions of mens own devising For if we will go to the utmost that a natural man can do at seasons he hath ability to judge himself this is not from himself but from the convictions of the Spirit And it is never better with him in the way to attain salvation than when he is beaten off from all his own abilities when in the sight of his own misery and emptinesse he doth rely upon the mercy of God Now we will go on to the meaning of that expression and were by nature the children of wrath as well as others Here you distinguish betwixt that wrath which is due by the appointment of God for Adams sinne and the wrath which is due for despising the riches of grace Concerning this text say you we were by nature the children of wrath as well as others if it be universal it must be meant of the first condemnation which came by Adam But if it be meant of the second wrath then it belongs to such persons onely as are dead in trespasses and sinnes that is such as have been in actual defiance which walked after the course of the world after the Prince of the power of the aire in opposition to the Spirit of truth page 150. Here I do agree with you that distinction is to be made between the wrath due for the sinne of Adam and the wrath due for the actual refusal of Christ in the tender of grace Though this distinction be admitted yet it doth not disanul that truth we were by nature the children of wrath as well as others For infants so farre forth as they come out of Adams loynes in that precise and single consideration they may be the children of wrath by nature though the cause why wrath doth not seize upon them is from the shedding of the blood of Christ Secondly let us take this expression and were by nature the children of wrath as well as others that it is meant onely of those who have been in actual defiance this will avail nothing so long as it is clear from the text that men by nature can do no other than live in actual defiance against God Neither do the Examiners mend the matter by their Intepretation when they say it is one thing to be sinners from our first nativity and another in time to become the children of wrath by our personal fall and actual disobedience which also coming to pass in our natural man and by his default we may truly be said to be by nature the children of wrath especially when sinne by custome becomes a second nature to us page 78. Here we will be no adversaries to them so farre as they say that men become the children of wrath by their own personal falls and actual disobedience But the question is whether this disobedience doth not radically and originally proceed from the default of the nature They seem to say so much in sense when they do oppose it Secondly though it be true which they say that the evil doth come upon men throught heir personal fall yet the Apostle doth especially look unto the sinne of the nature And therefore doth amplifie the grace of God in quickning and enlivening again when he saith you hath he quickned that were dead in trespasses and sinnes They were not onely truly dead in sinne thorough custome and sinful conversation but also thorough the state and condition of their natural birth they were by nature the children of wrath as well as others Upon these grounds he tells them that God who was rich in mercy did quicken them when they were dead in trespasses and sins Next you come to open the meaning of the expression dead in trespasses and sinnes You say a spiritual death must be meant of a declining from spiritual things which is a resistance of the spirit or a dying that is a forsaking the truth of God made manifest in them Now such a death as this cannot befall any who never had that spiritual life for it is the losse of life that must prove a death or otherwise we may say that all other creatures besides man are spiritually dead page 151. In this point you and I do agree that the losse of life must prove a death and this to me is the great reason why not only the Ephesians but also all mankind had sometimes spiritual life before they became to be dead in trespasses and sinnes It is plaine from the scope of Scripture and the Analogy of faith as I have proved before that this death came in by the fall of Adam therefore he had spiritual life before his fall And for that expression of yours otherwise we may say as well that all other creatures are spiritually dead I answer not so neither other creatures can not properly be said to be spiritually dead because they never had a capacity of spiritual life And though men are dead in trespasses and sinnes they are not dead as stocks and stones and other sencelesse creatures but they are dead as they who sometime had spiritual life and may have the return of the same life again in and thorough Christ the way the truth and the life So also the Examiners in the Chapter of free will page 130. do but calumniate when they say that we teach that a man is a meere passive block or a dead trunck without a willing or a nilling faculty This is an odious imputation of their own devising we hold that man is a rational creature and he hath those natural and essential properties of the soul though in spiritual things he be altogether dead And for spiritual things also he may be said to have a remote capacity when blindnesse shall be taken away from his understanding and perversenesse from his will It is an excellent speech of Augustine posse credere naturae est hominum to have a remote ability to beleeve is of the nature of men for stocks and stones have no such capacity And in opposition to natural men he saith velle credere gratiae est fidelium to have a will to beleeve is of the grace given to beleevers shewing that no natural man hath an immediate power to beleeve till he come inwardly to be enlivened by the Spirit Let us hear then what you can say how the sonnes of men may be said to be dead in trespasses and sinnes If you shall mean that every man or all mankind in that sense is dead before the light or the life of the Gospel is made known to them then I shall grant it But I shall deny that such a death is any sinne For where no Law is made manifest there is no transgression But all children if you mean infants have no Law or Law made known page 152. This is true in the case of actual sinne that there must be a Law and a Law made known or else there can be
the course of natural generation as it is since the fall manhath lost the image of God in dominion and Lordship over the creature the earth is accursed the creature made subject to vanity You will say how then doth he enjoy this priviledge still I answer by Christ the second Adam and therefore it is observable that the Apostle doth apply the passages of the Psalmist more immediately to Christ thou madest him a little lower than the Angels thou crownest him with glory and honour and diddest set him over the work of thy hands thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet Heb. 2.7 8 9. The whole creation then immediately is put under Christ and in and thorough him all men now come to have dominion and Lordship over the creature And therefore though all are fallen in Adam and have lost this priviledge in their natural birth yet it is repaired and renewed by Christ A fourth place which they bring to evict mans uprightnesse by the creation is that of the wise man God hath made man upright but they have sought out many inventions Eccles 7.29 Here they insist especially upon two particulars First that this is spoken of all mankind Secondly that every mans fall is by his own personal and individual act These are their words he ascribes it not to their first fathers alone but to the individuals of their posterity likewise saying but they have sought cut many inventions page 68. Neither do we affirme that the blame is onely to be laid on Adam for others also born in original sinne and having the corruption of nature within them do personally and individually shew the fruits of their own corruption in seeking out many inventions The Israelites as we have formerly heard did corrupt themselves yet this was from their own natural corruption as the fountain Secondly when God made Adam in the beginning he made him and all mankind in him upright but they have sought out many inventions For what the first man did all his posterity did in him and by him Neither is it improper to ascribe the particle they to the relations actions and conditions of the first man As for example when the Lord said let us make man in our own image and let them have dominion over the fish of the Sea and the fowle of the aire Gen. 1.26 These words are more immediatly spoken to Adam and mediatly to all his posterity to the whole species of men Let them have dominion over the fish of the Sea So in the present case it may be said of Adam primarily that God made man upright but he and all mankind in him have sought out many inventions The deed of the first man is the deed of the species or whole kind As in a parallel case the act of the first woman and the promise made to her are ascribed to the whole sex she shall be saved by child-bearing if they continue in the faith 1 Tim. 2.15 Thirdly that no blame may be cast upon God we may say since the fall also though men are born in original sinne God doth from time to time send inward convictions into their hearts to inable them to distinguish betwixt good and evil If therefore they will not see what they may see but will fallaciously endeavour to finde out many inventions the fault is meerely their own All these passages are true and being put together they shew the scope of the text but they do not prove the purity of the natural birth For the sixth seventh and eighth places which the Examiners do bring out of the Prophets Isa 1.21.22 Jer. 2.21 Isa 5.1 2 3. Jer. 8.4 5. I do not see how these or such like do any way make to the purpose For we will easily grant that Hierusalem was a faithful City in the beginning and that the faithful City did become an Harlot We will grant also that the Jewish Church was the Lords Vineyard planted with the choicest Vine and thorough her own default she turned into the degenerate plant of a wild Vine and brought forth wild grapes These and many more texts may be alledged to prove the priviledges of that Church in her first institution but how doth this prove the purity of the natural birth seeing that Nation had all these priviledges meerely by promise and Covenant If they stand upon Analogy and say that it is rational for God to do with all men as with that people To this we answer though all are born in original sinne and in the corruption of nature yet they are not left in a helpless or hopelesse condition Thorough Christ men have a possibility of salvation though thorough their own default they neglect this great salvation as the people of Israel did and are justly lyable to the same reproof Ninthly they go to that famous place in Hosea thy destruction is of thy self O Israel but in me is thy help Hos 13.9 Here say they the Lord layes Israels destruction upon her self and not upon her first parents page 70. Neither doth this any whit promote their cause for if we do read the stories of the Judges and of the Kings all along for the space of nine hundred years we shall find that the Church and state of Israel were liable to a total final destruction for theird Iolatry other great sins In this respect therefore the Prophet saith thy destruction is of thy self O Israel And when they were at the brink of destruction many times and under the power of the enemy than the Lord did wonderfully come in to help them And this is the meaning of the Prophets words but in me is thy help Thorough their own sinne many times they were at the brink of ruine but the Lord of his great mercy did deliver them We may apply the case more generally though Adam did fall and all mankind by his personal disobedience the destruction is of themselves yet in and thorough Christ it may be said in me is thy help Secondly this speech is to be applied to Israel a people in covenant with God that they are the causes of their own destruction but their help is immediately from him So we by our personal disobedience do many times what lies in us procure our own destruction but our help is meerely from his grace This is the full meaning of the place and how doth this prove the purity of the natural birth Fathers and children and all are the meritorious cause of their own destruction if they be considered in immediate opposition to the goodnesse of God the cause of their deliverance We will go on and see whether they be more happy in the places which they cite out of the new Testament For the tenth place which they cite out of Mat. 18.3 Except ye be converted and become as little children ye shall not enter into the Kingdome of God Because we have examined this text already and the Censors say no more but that which
Mr. Everard hath in substance spoken before we are content to let them pass in this matter From the eleventh place they do conclude absolutely that infants are free from all kind of sinne These are their words doth not the Apostle remove not onely from children malice but also all evil of iniquity when he would have the Corinthians in that behalf conformed to them 1 Cor. 14.20 saying Brethren be not children in understanding howbeit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in malice or iniquity be children page 70. Here as I have formerly touched is a palpable sophisme a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter as Logicians terme it For though the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the general notion thereof may signifie all evil of iniquity yet in the sense of the text it noteth the particular evil of malice onely and therefore he saith in malice be ye children Neither is it his purpose to acquit children from all kind of malice or envy for they have seminally and vertually the seed of all this in their hearts Do ye think that the Scripture saith in vain the spirit that is in us lusteth unto envy Jam. 4.5 We see by experience that this is no fable that envy is naturally seated in the heart of man one child many times doth envy another for a little coat And though God doth give to the Regenerate more grace to purge out the sinne of the nature as it is afterward expressed in the next verse but he giveth more grace wherefore he saith God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble Notwithstanding all this the nature of man doth lust to envy and it is vertually and eminally in infants You will say then why doth the Apostle exhort in malice be ye children His meaning is this that they should do as children who are apt to forget the wrongs and injuries that are done to them and to look-upon them as though they had never been And therefore the Apostle saith be angry but sinne not let not the Sun go down upon your wrath Ephes 4.26 This is all one with that expression in malice be ye children that is do not retain heart-burnings and hatred one against another but forget the wrongs and injuries that are done to you as children do It is but a comparative speech These are all the places of Scripture which are alledged by these Censors to prove the purity of the natural birth and how well they have done it we leave to any indifferent understanding to judge and yet how do they glory when they utter such words as these page 71 Thus we have proved that neither the guilt of our first parents sinne was imputed nor their spiritual death in sinne and corrupted nature was conveyed to all their posterity or to any one of them by ordinary generation And directing their speech to the Assembly after this manner do thus insult though this your doctrine say they hath gone from hand to hand a long time by tradition yet neither did the Scribes and Pharisees nor yet the disciples of Christ and much lesse Christ himself hold forth any such doctrine nor were any of them leavened with this opinion of yours and your long mistaken Predecessors For the Pharisees with the Jewes being highly displeased with him who was borne blinde and whose eyes Christ had opened for defending his Saviour and blessed Oculist said thus unto him John 9 34. Thou wast altogether born in sinne and doest thou teach us Whence it is evident that they did neither conceive all men in general nor yet themselves to be by propagation conceived and born in sinne page 71. What apprehensions and conceptions soever the Pharisees and other Jews had I will not dispute Sure I am they who do rightly understand the doctrine of the Jewish Church could not well be ignorant of the sinne of the nature For when our Saviour did discourse of the necessity of regeneration and Nicodemus did admire at the strangnesse of that doctrine our Saviour made him this answer Art thou a Master in Israel and knowest not these things John 3.7 In which words it is plain that the pollution of the natural birth and the necessity of regeneration were then points easie to be known and a wonder it was to our Saviour that any could be ignorant of such fundamentals And I cannot but admire that these men Mr. Everard and the thirty separate Congregations should professe themselves to be members of the Christian Church and be ignorant of these things But our Examiners build upon our Saviours words neither hath this man sinned nor his parents but that the works of God should be made manifest in him Where according to your doctrine say they our Saviour should have answered positively that both he and his parents with all his progenetors even as farre as Adam had sinned What need was there at all that our Saviour should speak of the common cause of the misery of all mankind seeing the Disciples question was more immediately touching the particular blindnesse of this man They were not ignorant that original sinne was the common cause of all diseases onely they did put the question what was the proper cause of the blindnesse of this individual man whether it did lie in himself or in his parents that he was born blind In relation to this particular question for any eminency or singularity of sinne above other men the answer is plaine that neither he nor his parents have sin'ned This was the presumption and singular opinion of the Pharisees as it appeareth in the aforementioned words Thou wast altogether born in sinne and dost thou teach us The whole Processe of this argument is a meere fallacy à dicto secundum quid addictum simplicietr They go on and from the Lords appointing the Cities of refuge for the Man slayer to flee unto when he had killed his Neighbour unawares they reason The Lord commanded by Moses that Cities of refuge should be set apart in all the coasts and habitations of Israel for such to flee to and will he pursue the innocent seed of Adam and hold them guilty for their fathers sinne perpetrated ere they were born Yea will he himself be the avenger of the blood against these innocents page 70. In answer to this I say did these men seriously consider the whole truth they would not raise such tragical cryes against this doctrine The Cities of refuge anciently appointed for the Man-slayer were types and figures of Christ to come To him only the soul is to fly when she is pursued by the curse of the Law as by an avenger of blood So then if all the children of Adam were lyable to the guilt of his sinne perpetrated before they were born there is no harshnesse in the saying if we beleeve that the fall of Adam doth open a door to the grace that comes by Christ and that the grace of Christ is a City of refuge for the lost sinner to fly to
this Scripture First seeing they will not have the nature of man to be defiled in Adam how is this common nature called by the title of one man seeing it containeth such an infinite number of men Secondly how did sin by this one man enter into the world For this common nature of one man must either be nature pure or nature impure If they will have this to be meant of nature pure then this necessarily must be the meaning of the text by one common pure natural man sin entered into the world and death by sin c. As this is a strange and wild interpretation in it self so it doth cast the blame only upon God for making such a nature that by it generally death should passe upon all men to condemnation But if to amend the matter they shall say that he made the nature of Adam in creation and the nature of every man pure in natural generation but it is their own fault that they corrupt themselves Here the plaister is not wide enough for the sore for the Apostle gives the reason why death passeth upon all men because in one all have sinned But now if it be true as these Censors say that in one common nature all have not sinned but those only that fall through their personal disobedience Here I would have them to shew why doth death passe upon all men and how will this satisfie the sense of the Apostle By their account then only they should be lyable to death who were guiltie of disobedience in their pure nature But let us suppose that they say by one common nature impure sin entred into the world and then this will be a grosse tautologie Besides if the whole nature of man be impure there must be some cause of the general depravation of nature which will bring us to the disobedience of the first man and so they will lose their cause Further I demand if by one man they understand the common nature of all how will they preserve the Emphasis of the Apostle in opposing one man to all men He plainly saith that death hath passed upon all men but how thorough the means of one man Again how will they make it good that by the disobedience of one many were made sinners in case they take one man for the common nature of men The acts of obedience or disobedience are usually attributed to particular persons that live under some Law But they have a better faculty to cavil at the truth than positively to maintain their own heterogeneal doctrines Let us hear then what cavils they have against the true interpretation of the words First say they this one by whom sinne entred into the world is not meant by our first parent Adam for the Apostle shews that he was not the original or first sinner 1 Tim. 2.14 For Adam was not deceived but the woman being deceived was in the transgression According to your doctrine then the Apostle should have said by one woman sinne entred into the world page 78. Indeed the scope of his doctrine in that text is to shew that the woman was more immediately tempted by Satan and she was first in the transgression yet in the matter of propagating original sinne it is as true also that by one man sinne entred into the world For Adam and Eve make but one root in the propagation of the kind and therefore in the institution of marriage it is said for this cause shall a man leave father and mother and cleave to his wife and they twain shall be one flesh Gen. 2 24. In the case then of Propagation Adam and Eve go but for one and Adam is here immediately opposed to Christ so farre forth as he is the root of all his posterity Secondly say they these words And death passed upon all men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are thus to be rendred in as much or so farre forth as all have sinned page 78. Well let the words be rendred which way they will the scope of the text and the connexive particle for do plainly shew that they contain the reason of the general passage of death upon every individual man And therefore we must necessarily and unavoidably come to the disobedience of the first man in whom as in the common root all have sinned Thirdly they thus except If the Apostle had beleeved any such thing as the reigning of death upon all men by the first mans sinne he would not have omitted that and onely mentioned from Adam to Moses page 81. Though he doth speak of the reign of death from Adam to Moses he doth not hereby restrain it to that particular time onely For he plainly saith that death passed upon all men absolutely and universally in all times but he doth mention the time from Adam to Moses in special because then it seemed to be more rational and congruous that sinne should not be imputed because no Law was then publickly delivered yet in this time he affirmeth that all universally were under the reign of death not onely Cain the builders of Babel the people of the old world and the Cities of Sodom all which were destroyed for their personal sinnes but he plainly affirmeth that death reigned over infants in all that interval of time though they never sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression If infants be under the raign of death we must necessarily suppose that sinne must be the cause thereof but infants cannot commit any sinne personally Therefore they must be supposed to be guilty of sinne through the disobedience of Adam And this makes good the main argument of the Apostle by one man sinne entred into the world he doth argue from the effect to the cause because death hath universally past upon all by the disobedience of one therefore all were involved in the guilt of that disobedience Fourthly say they the nineteenth verse is more plain against universal corruption by the first mans disobedience for there the Apostle useth the word many and saith by one mans disobedience many not all were made sinners therefore all did not fall in the first individual Adam page 82. Though the word many be equivocal yet in the sense of the text it must necessarily be meant of every individual man because death hath absolutely passed upon every man no one excepted therefore it necessarily followeth that this passage by the disobedience of one many were made sinners must be meant of every individual man But here they have a cavil the word many in the latter part of the verse must have the same latitude allowed for the Apostle setteth down a full comparison of equals in that verse Here the verse must be thus interpreted that as by one mans disobedience all were made sinners so by one mans obedience all were made righteous page 82. Neither will this help the matter for it is not necessary that there should be the same latitude in the collation betwixt the first and the second
a sense as he understands it the old Pelagians may make good that position of theirs that original sinne is by imitation they that come after do onely imitate the ensample of him that went before Of the entrance of death by sin he speaketh as followeth Death by sinne that is death which at the first was the condition of nature became a punishment upon that account just as it was with the Scrpent to creep upon his belly and the woman to be subject to her husband Answ In these words of his he doth distinguish between death as a meere condition of nature and death as a punishment The former he will have to be in the state of innocency latter only to be introduced by the fall But against this I have many things to alledge First if Adam should have dyed in innocency and that meerely by the condition of his nature what can we possibly make of the sense of that commination in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death what propable interpretation can we give of those Scriptures by one man sinne entred into the world and death by sinne The wages of sinne is death Rom. 6. Vlt Surely all this plainly sheweth that death came into the world meerely by the sinne of man and if he had not sinned he had not dyed Further the Apostle said the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death 1 Cor. 15.16 The question is when did death begin to be an enemy and from what time are we to fetch the date thereof If Adam should have dyed in innocency than the enmity of death must begin in Paradise we must fetch the date of it from the creation and not from the fall And so consequently death will be rather the work of God than the fruit of sinne But let it be supposed in this low and dimunitive sense that death came into the world as a punishment and began to be penal at the fall onely If we take the matter in this sense it will not serve his turn neither nor will other passages of his doctrine abide the rigour of this interpretation For how often doth he plead after this manner In other cases saith he Lawes be not given to Ideots infants and persons uncapable why should they be given here In all cases of the world it is unjust to lay the sinne of the father upon the children and is it otherwise in this case onely And if the answer may be admitted any man may suffer for the sinne of any father because it may be said here as well as there that although the innocent must not perish for anothers fault yet the son is not innocent as being in the fathers loynes when the fault was committed and the Law calls him and makes him guilty Many such Aphorismes he hath where he sheweth or at least endeavours to shew how contrary it is to the justice and mercy of God any way to burthen the posterity of Adam with the guilt of his sinne And yet here he confesses plainly and openly that death quatenus a punishment in the penalty of it came into the world by the disobedience of the first man How he can make one part of his doctrine to agree with the other it passeth all understanding of mine to discerne In his answer to the Bishops letter he seemeth to me to let fall a strange contradiction I have saith he the plain words of Saint Paul death passed upon all men forasmuch as all have sinned all men that is the generality of mankind all that lived till they could sinne Others that dyed before dyed in their nature not in their sinne neither Adams nor their own save onely that Adam brought it upon them or rather left it to them himself being disrob'd of all that could hinder it Answ let page 49. Here in the former part of his words he saith that infants dye in their nature not in their sinne neither Adams nor their own and yet he tells us again that Adam brought in death upon them and through his disobedience they were disrobed of all that could hinder it If he did bring in death upon them then they did not dye purely in their own nature they must some way die in or by his sinne Again if they dyed purely in their own nature and not at all in his sin how can he be said to bring in death Can he bring in death and can he not bring in death and all this upon one sort of people at one and the same time Neither can I see how he will acquit himself if it should be put upon him to shew the true reason why infants are lyable to burning feavours convulsion fitts and passe through the pangs of death at last Are these the infelicities of nature Then God hath made them in this state and their misery will be purely the work of his own hands Are these the punishment of Adams sinne then the innocent child will bear the burden of his fathers iniquity in such a case where it is not possible for the son to follow the fathers ensample which is plainly to give up the cause Now let us consider what he saith of the quality of the persons upon whom there hath been such a passage of death Death saith he passed upon all men that is upon all the old world who were drowned in the flood of divine vengeance and who did sinne after the similitude of Adam and therefore the Apostle St. Paul addes that for a reason inasmuch as all men have sinned Ans Though the word all in it self hath an ambiguity in it yet the scope of the text the condition of the subject doth plainly demonstrate that the passage of death from Adam as a common root must be absolutely upon all men as men so farre forth as they are his sonnes and not upon all to the flood only But concerning this matter we have his meaning more fully in the next passage If all men saith he have sinned upon their own account as it is certaine they have then these words can very well mean that Adam first sinned and all his sonnes and daughters sinned after him and so dyed in their own sinne by a death which at the first and in the whole constitution of affaires is natural and a death which their own sinne deserved but yet was hastned and ascertained upon them for the sin of their Progenitor Answ In these words of his as plausibly as he seems to speak of the cause of death he puts that for the cause which is not the cause and where he speaks of the true cause it doth not answer the sense of the text First he puts that for the cause that is not the cause For from what Scripture or from what consequence of Scripture doth he prove it that Adam and his sonnes in the whole constitution of affiaires should have dyed a death that is natural The Scripture doth every where make death to be the fruit of sinne
as we have formerly proved Againe it is most true that men dye because by their own sinne they deserve death but the scope of the Apostle is here onely concerning the disobedience of the first man and the passage of death upon all by the account of his sinne That which is the principal cause of death at least to the purpose in hand he looks upon it as a businesse by the by In the next words he cometh to deliver himself more clearly for speaking of the fall of Adam he addeth Sin propagated upon that root and vicious ensample or rather from that beginning not from that cause but dum ita peccant similiter moriuntur If they sin so then so shall they die so Saint Hierom. Answ This passage though it be clothed with the words of Hierom it hath the sense of the Pelagians For observe what he saith sin is propagated from that vicious ensample it doth descend from Adam not so much as a cause but as a beginning and so far as men tread in his steps they are lyable to the same punishment In his answer to the Bishops letter he brings in an ensample to confirme this way of exposition these are his own words To this purpose we have an ensample of Gods transmitting the curse from one to the other Both were sinners but one was the Original of the curse or punishment So said the Prophet to the wife of Jeroboam 1 Kings 14.16 He shall give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam who did sinne and made Israel to sinne Joroboam was the roote of the sin and of the curse here it was also that I may use the words of the Apostle that by the sin of one man Jeroboam sin went into all Israel and the curse captivity or death by sinne and so death went upon all men of Israel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inasmuch as all men of Israel have sinned So far he page 32. By this instance of his it is cleare that Original sin must passe into the world not so much by propagation as by imitation The Kings of Israel did walke in the wayes of Jeroboam that made Israel to sin and thereupon the curse captivity and death came upon all the whole succession and upon all Israel so far forth as they did walk in his waies and did follow his ensample If this be a parallel case we must say sin the guilt of sin and the curse for sin came into the world only by the institution and command of the first man and all his posterity are so far forth involved in his sinne as they walk after such an injunction and imitate that ensample Now if this be so I will leave it to any man to judge whither this gloss will go at last The Apostle saith that the first man is the figure of him that is to come If therefore we are implicated in the sinne of Adam no otherwise but by obeying his command and following his ensample Our salvation by Christ will chiefly consist in our imitating of him and in obedience to his commands As for the merit of his blood the worth of his passion the imputation of his righteousnesse all this must be set apart as a matter of little use and small profit Having done with his own he cometh to paraphrase upon the exposition given by us They think these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 forasmuch as all have sinned ought to be expounded thus death passed upon all men in whom all have sinned meaning that in Adam we really sinned and God doth truely and justly impute his sin to us to make us as guilty as he that did it and as much punished and lyable to eternal damnation and all the force of this great fancy relyes upon this exposition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie in him Answ We do in substance own the interpretation to be ours but that all the force of it doth depend upon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to signifie in him this we plainly deny Our interpretation is grounded upon the scope of the text For let us suppose the words to be construed in his sence Forasmuch as all have sinned when he hath done all that he can he must come to the interpretation given by us For the drift of the Apostle in the former words is not only to shew that sinne hath past upon all men and death by sin but he speaks of such a passage of sinne and death upon all men out of one man If therefore there be such a general passage of sin and death upon all out of one man then virtually and interpretatively all must sin in one man Againe in the subsequent verses the Apostle saith that the first Adam is the figure of him that is to come If you ask how and wherein we must needs say from the whole series of the text that they are two publick persons and two representatives of the kind By this account then the disobedience of the first man must be virtually the act of all and what he did they did in him and by him So then our interpretation is founded upon the whole scope of the context As for his Critiscismes we will leave them to such who have more leasure to busy themselves about words we will follow him as he goes on in expounding the sense of the Apostle Neverthelesse death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that bad not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgression who is the figure of him that is to come By which discourse it appears that St. Paul doth not speak of all mankind as if the evil occasion by Adams sin did discend for ever upon that account but it had a limited effect and reached onely to those that were in the interval between Adam and Moses Answ But if the matter be well considered there is no such collection to be made from the discourse of the Apostle Indeed he speaketh of the reigne of death over those that lived in the interval between Adam and Moses but shall we argue from thence that the evil occasioned by the fall did discend to them onely and go no further This cannot be for afterwards the Apostle drawing a parallel between both Adams hath these words If through the offence of one many be dead much more the grace of God and the gift by grace which is by one man Jesus Christ hath abounded unto many Now then if we shall say by the offence of one many be dead and understand this many or multitude in a limited sence namely of such only that lived in the interval between Adam and Moses by this account such a number alone will stand opposite to the many that have life and grace by Christ Nay that which is more the fore-mentioned number might in their time only look to one man the Lord Jesus for recovery out of sin and death and so the Gospel will be delivered to the consolation of such only that lived in the forementioned
interval between Adam and Moses And so we that live in the latter ages of the world shall have nothing to do with the Gospel nor the Gospel with us But of this I have formerly spoken in my answer to Mr. Everard and the Examiners There I have shewed the reason why the Apostle doth mention the reigne of death in the interval between Adam and Moses He goes on This death saith he was brought upon them by Adam that is death which was threatned to Adam only went forth upon them also who indeed were sinners but not after the similitude of Adams transgression that is who sinned not so capitally as be did Answ This expression death threatned only to Adam hath some ambiguity in it If he speaks of Adam as a particnliar person death was not only threatned to him for in the present case he is to be looked upon as the common roote of the nature when he fell all mankind fell in him from him death passed upon all not only as sinners in their own person but in that formality as made sinners or sinful by his disobedience Of infants it is true as well as others in Adam all dye and so death passeth upon all Next he telleth us what it is to sin like Adam To sin like Adam saith he is used as a tragicall and high expression so it is in the Prophet they like men have transgressed so we read it but in the Hebrew it is they like Adam have transgrest and yet death passed upon them that did not sin after the similitude of Adam Answ For the text in Hosea our English translation may well passe by an Enallage of the number They like man that is like fickle and inconstant men have transgrest my Covenant Or if this will not satisfie that of Tremellius may obtaine Tanquam hominis transgressi sunt faedus They have played fast and loose with me as if it were no other but a meer Covenant of man But let us take the words in the sence that is most propitious to him viz. that the Prophet here looks to Adam as the head of all Apostates and that the Israelites had sinned in as tragical a manner as Adam did what doth he infer from hence he tells us that death reigned from Adam to Moses over those that had not so tragically sinned as Adam had done Truely the old world that was drowned in the flood Sodom and Gomorrah that were burnt with fire the builders of Babel whose language was confounded these and such like sinners though they lived in the interval between Adam and Moses were none of the least But let us take it in his own sence that death reigned over Abel Seth Noah and others that did not sin so capitally as Adam did If this be well considered it doth make more for our purpose than it doth for his For these holy men that lived in the interval between Adam and Moses were under the reigne of death Here I demand how came they to be under this reigne If he will say their own sinne was the principal cause how will he answer the words of the Apostle who expressely tells us by one mans offence death reigned over all ver 17. Againe if he shall say they came under this power by the sinne of Adam then he makes good the interpretation given by us that by the sinne of Adam infants as well as others in all that interval between Adam and Moses came under the power and sovereignty of death He further addeth God saith he was so exasperated with mankind that being angry would still continue that punishment even to lesse sinnes and sinners which he only had first threatned to Adam and so Adam brought it upon them They indeed in rigour did themselves deserve it but if it had not been for that provocation by Adam they who sinned not so bad and had not been so severely and expressely threatned had not suffered so severely Answ By the tenour of the Doctrine we may understand that men by their own sins do deserve death as for the sin of Adam by this account it is only an aggravating circumstance and a cause meerly of the severity of the sentence Now if this be so how shall we expound the meaning of the Apostle By one man sin entred into the world and death by sin and death passed upon all men He speaketh of the entrance of sinne of the entrance of death of the entrance of sin and death upon all by the sin and disobedience of one man Is all this only to make Adams sin a meer accessory or aggravating circumstance away with such a conceit The text doth pitch upon it as the principal and general cause of death Againe the Apostle saith by the offence of one death reigned by one If all men fall under the reigne of death by the offence of one then certainly his offence is not the cause alone why they are more severely dealt with but it is the very cause why they fall under the power and dominion of death it selfe Shall we make a circumstance of that which is the principal cause Further what is the reason that infants dye seeing personally and individually they are guilty of no sin of their own to deserve death in his answer to the Bishops letter he doth not shunne to affirme that death comes upon infants meerly by right of dominion But then saith he the evil of punishment may passe further than the action If it passes upon the innocent it is not a punishment to them but an evil inflicted by right of dominion yet by reason of the relation of the offlicted to him that sinned to him it is a punishment But if it passeth upon others that are not innocent then it is a punishment to both to the first principally to the descendants or relatives for the others sake his sinne being impured so far and more he hath to the same purpose pag. 43. Here he plainly delivers his opinion that death is inflicted upon others because they do partake with Adam in his sinne but it descends and comes upon infants meerly by way of prerogative and absolute dominion And if their death be a punishment it is so only to Adam in as much as they stand related to him as being his descendants and relatives Against this I have some things to oppose First in his Vnum necessarium pag. 403. He layeth down this as a sure axiom When Godnsing the power and the dominion of a Lord and the severity of a Judge doth punish posterity it must be so long as the Parents may live and see it and so out of Chrysostome he doth expound it to be to the third and fourth generation and no longer Now here I argue if God punisheth Adam in his infant children this is not to the third and fourth but to the hundreth generation Againe why should he be punished in his infant-children when he hath been dead many hundred nay certaine thousand years agoe
come and let him that is athirst come Revel 22 17. c. All these desires are the fruit of the Spirit He that comes to the first doth not come to the second at least not to the third or fourth degree However the whole course of Christianity is unum continuum sitis one continual succession of spiritual desires And in immediate opposition there is unum continuum auxilii an interchangable supply of auxiliary grace this latter answering the former as the one part of the deed doth answer the other So then though the Saints have no ability in themselves to supernatural duties yet they may have it from Christ and the freenesse of the promise These things I have drawn out more at large because I see as formerly it hath done to others So our doctrine doth seem to give great offence to our Authour It seemeth strange to him that we should exhort men to spiritual duties and yet teach that all mankind through the condition of the natural birth lye under a necessity of sinning Whereas if he did well understand the grand designe of the Gospel he should finde that all ability to do these things is to be had from Christ alone and that upon termes of beleeving desiring longing and waiting for them The Prophets Apostles Martyrs and other holy men have in their several times done their duties and served their generation But how not by any ability of their own but by the continual supply of the Spirit of Christ as the Scriptures and all experience do abundantly testifie Now we come to the next Section SECT 2. Consideration of the objections against the former Doctrine THE first Scripture which he insists upon is Gen 6. Every imagination of the thoughts of mans heart are onely evil continually Here he doth end avour to frame sundry answers First it is true saith he they were so but it was their own fault not Adams for so it is said expressely All flesh had corrupted their way upon earth and the earth was filled with violence Repl. It was their own fault and Adams too It was their own as they corrupted their own wayes it was Adams as they were flesh for he brought them into that sinful condition by his fall So then the force of our argument stands thus First the thoughts of man were evil Secondly they were all evil Thirdly they were onely evil Fourthly they were continually evil Fifthly they were evil from his childhood Now such an universal effect cannot be without some universal cause from whence all this evil must necessarily spring And where shall we look for the cause but in the text it self My Spirit shall not alway strive with man because he is but flesh Because he is but flesh and borne in the sinne of the nature therefore the thoughts of his heart are evil from his childhood Secondly saith he if this corruption had been natural and unavoidable why did God punish all the world for it except eight persons Why did he punish those that could not help it and why did others escape that were equally guilty Repl. That which God did punish in the old world in ordinary men was the violence of their hands and in his own people was the breach of covenant Though these two did naturally flow from original corruption as all other evils do yet we cannot say that they are absolutely unavoidable for the act of violence and of marriage with the daughter of a strange god men have a liberty to forbeare the outward execution of these evils And for the lust of the heart though it is unavoidable by nature yet it is not simply unavoidable for God is so full of mercy that he is ready to help all those that flee to him in the sense of their own misery He hath declared himself to be a Physician ready to cure all broken-hearted sinners The men of Nineveh did turne from the violence of their hands and how ready was he to forgive them The people in the dayes of Ezra and Nehemiah did repent of their Idolatrous marriages and how did he passe by their iniquity Of all the Authors that ever I met with Luther in his Tract deservo arbitrio is most severe against the liberty of the will yet in the end of the treatise he bringeth in Erasmus thus speaking Why doth he command us any duty seeing all things are done by necessity His answer is he doth command that he may admonish and instruct us what we ought to do that being humbled in the sense and feeling of our own evil we may repair to his grace for help as we have abundantly spoken And as for the Lords punishing of those that could not help it We say in publick solemn and exemplary judgments he hath alway reserved a liberty for the exemple of others and the declaration of his justice and mercy It is true also that they that were equally guilty did not perish in the waters of the flood What of all this though they did escape that judgment they were lyable to the judgment of God Thirdly saith he God might have as well punished all the world for sleeping once in a day or for being hungry as for sinning if so to do be natural and unavoidable Repl. The cases are not equal mankind cannot live without meat and drink sleep and such other refections of nature when they were made in the beginning they were made in such an estate that they had need of these things I trow they had no need of sinne Againe for sinful acts though they come from the corruption of the flesh as the sparkes do out of the Chimney yet in externals man hath a liberty to commit or not commit such an evil Also for the lust of the heart that which is unavoidable by nature is avoidable by grace The guilt of sinne may be taken away by the blood of Christ the power of it by the Spirit of Christ and the very being of it when the Saints shall be made partakers of the adoption or the redemption of their bodies Fourthly if God in these words complained of their natural and original corruption why did he but then as if it were a new thing complain of it and repent that he made man since he proved so bad Repl. God did then complain of original corruption because in a most eminent degree it did put forth it self in oppression breach of covenant and other evils He did complain in those times because iniquity was then come to a ripenesse and the years of his patience was almost runne out Fifthly saith he this malice and corruption was such that God did send Noah a Preacher of righteousnesse to draw the world from it But no man supposes that it was fit to send a Preacher to dehort them from being guilty of original sinne Repl. So farre as we may gather Noahs message to the old world was the same in effect as that of Jonah's to Nineveh he was to exhort them to turn from
conversation of evil customes of evil acts of evil desires he must come to an evil nature that lies at the bottome and that which is worst of all he will find it to be the very root and cause of the the mischief The Apostle doth very elegantly call all lusts the works and effects of the flesh because they are the effects that the flesh doth produce in opposition to the effects and fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5.19 20 21. This ground being laid let us come to his exceptions as they follow in their order First saith he I know Saint Paul reckons concupiscence to be one of the works of the flesh and consequently such as excludes from heaven Col. 3.5 Evil concupiscence concupiscence with something superadded but certainly that is nothing that is natural for God made nothing that is evil and whatsoever is natural and necessary cannot be mortified Repl. That which is natural and necessary by creation we confesse cannot nor ought not to be mortified Of this kind is the lust after meat drink sleep c. but that which is natural and necessary by corruption ought chiefly to be mortified nay it is the prime work of Christianity to put off the Adam-like and by degrees to put on the Christ-like disposition Gal. 5.24 He proceedeth I come saith he to consider that by concupiscence either must be meant the first inclinations to their object or the proper acts of Election which are the second acts of concupiscence If the first inclinations be meant then certainly that cannot be a sinne which is natural and necessary Repl. We do willingly admit such a distinction concupiscence is sometime taken for the habit or the root it self and sometimes for those second acts that do flow from the root Now in such a case it is to me a great wonder that any should own the second acts of concupiscence to be sinne and yet own no sinfulnesse in the concupiscence that is more radical and fundamental Acts do flow from the nature and therefore where acts be bad the nature cannot be good It is our Saviours own argument Men do not gather grapes of thornes nor figs of thistles And whereas he stands upon this subtilty that the first inclinations are unavoidable therefore they are not sinful If he means that they are absolutely unavoidable this we deny For that which is unavoidable by nature may be avoided by grace The guilt of concupiscence may be taken away that it be not imputed the power of it may be broken by the Spirit and the remainders of it may be clean extinguished in the life of glory Now he proceedeth To desire that to which all men tend naturally is no more a sin than to desire to be happy is a sin Desire is no more a sin than joy or sorrow is Repl. If he speak of the natural tendency of desire as it is by creation We willingly subscribe and so it is no sinne to desire to eat drink or to long after an happy estate But if he speak of natural desires as they are now since the fall The desires of the flesh do wholly rend to evil The flesh lusteth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against the Spirit and the works of the flesh are manifest adultry fornication c. Gal. 5.18 c. He further argues Then there can be no reason told why it is more a sin to will evil than to understand it and how doth that which is moral differ from that which is natural For the understanding is first and primely moved by his object Rep. The Scripture doth testifie of the blindnesse of the minde and the perversity of the judgement as well as of the pravity of the will Not to go far for an instance the words of the text are plaine The Ephesians are said to be the children of wrath under this title and formality because they did fulfill the lusts of their minde or according to the original the wills of their cogitations and their reasonings They are tearmed the wills of the cogitation because the choise of the will and the disorder of that choise doth arise commonly from the blindnesse of judgement As for his question how doth that which is natural differ from that which is moral We need not trouble our selves in the businesse For the blindnesse of the judgement and the perversity of the will are natural and moral both They are natural so far forth as they come by propagation from the first root they are moral in respect of the anomy and irregularity as being contrary to the spiritual holy and pure law of God He goeth on I cannot but wonder saith he why men are pleased where-ever they finde the word concupiscence in the new Testament presently to dreame of original sinne and make that to be the summe total of it whereas concupiscence if it were the product of Adams fall is but one small part of it Rep. There is a double reason may be given as I conceive where men finde mention made of concupiscence they do thereby understand original sinne First because that sinne is commonly called by the title of concupiscence Secondly Those derivative concupiscences as I may so say which are by choice and election do all flow from the mother concupiscence and do exceedingly symbolize with her As in that famous passage of the Apostle Every man is drawn away with his own lust and enticed and lust when it hath conceived it bringeth forth sinne and sinne when it is finished bringeth forth death Jam. 1.14 15. By sinne he must needs meane the open act of sinne as it is in the publick view of man After this he speaks of finishing of sinne when men have filled the measure of their iniquity then death comes at last as the wages of sin Though this be so in the end yet at the first all sin is brooded in the lust of the heart All secondary acts of concupiscence do spring from the original concupiscence which is the cause of all Upon these grounds The sinful disposition of the nature may well passe under the name and notion of concupiscence because the operations within do chiefly consist in lusting and all the acts of sinne do flow from the lust of the heart within Concupiscence saith he is but one of the passions and in the utmost extension of the word it can be taken but for one halfe of the passions for not only all the passions of the concupiscible faculty can be a principle of sinne but the irascible doth more hurt in the world that is more sensual this more devilish pag. 94. Rep. It is true in moral Philosophy the usual distinction is into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 et 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the irascible and concupiscible faculty but what need is there of such a difference in the case that we now speak for the Apostle reckons up the lusts of the flesh adultery fornication uncleannesse hatred variance emulation c. Gal. 5.19 There is no man will
Writings considering the greatnesse of his learning the Elegancy of his stile and the favour he beares to the Episcopal cause are like to passe with those that are Friends of that way They whatsoever their interests their Principles do not go in that streame He in many cases is too much for that which is old and they contrarily are too much for that which is new What reasons did first move him to enterprise the businesse he himselfe doth relate in his owne words These things saith he have I chose to say and publish because I finde that the usual Doctrines about original sinne are not onely false and presumed without any competent proofe but because as they are commonly believed they are no friends to Piety but Patrons to idlenesse and dishonourable to the reputation of Gods goodnesse and justice and more to that purpose he hath further explicated page 502. Here I do willingly agree with him that great circumspection ought to be used in the right handling of these things But then on the otherside he hath special cause to beware that he do not turn to the more dangerous extreame Original sinne in that sense as we define it cannot be denyed but upon the denyal many desperate absurdities will ensue We had a conference with the Brethren of the separation at a Neighbour-Towne Anno 1654. February the 22. Because they occasioned the dispute by disturbing the Minister of the place and were so tenacious of the point We did put it upon them to answer the question as followeth If all infants be born free from original sinne when do they beginne to be sinners that we may call them so They told us when they did act sinne We replyed then in all that space of time from the conception in the wombe to their acting of sinne they are all free They answered they are all free we demanded why is it then the peculiar prerogative of Christ if infants in all the forementioned space do partake of the same priviledge To this they said that infants are as free from all sinne as Christ himselfe We told them that we did much admire at the boldnesse of such an assertion They answered set his Godhead aside they are as pure as Christ himselfe was pure We rejoynd why was the Lord Christ conceived of the Holy Ghost and borne of the Virgin Mary To this they made no great Answer And the standers by did seeme to looke upon such a position with a kinde of horrour But as strange as the Tenet is I finde that Doctor Jeremy Taylor the Authour above named doth not shun to say the same thing in effect at least he seemes to go very neare to that coast For in his answer to the Bishops letter he bringeth the Bishop speaking after this manner If there be no such thing as original sinne transmitted from Adam to his posterity then all that sixth Chapter is a strise about a shadow a Non ens Answ It is true my Lord saith he The question as it is usually handled is so For when the Franciscan and the Dominican do eternally dispute about the conception of the Blessed Virgin whether it was with or without original sinne meaning by way of grace and special exemption this de non ente for there was no need of any such exemption And they supposing that commonly it was otherwise troubled themselves about the exception of a rule which in that sense which they supposed was not true at all she was borne as innocent from any impurity and formal guilt as Adam was created and so was her Mother and so was all her family In which words of his if he had said that his owne answer to the Bishops letter was a meere non ens he had spoken more truly for where there is no such thing as the Bishop of Rochester at all what answer can be given to his letter But whereas he stands upon it that the impurity of the natural birth from Adam the root of corruption is a meere non ens what will you make of regeneration and of Baptisme the washing of regeneration Where there is no sinfulnesse in the natural generation what need of Baptisme or regeneration at all Besides the Scriptures do speak abundantly of the putting off of the Old man and of the mortification of the sinne of the nature if there be no such sinne of the nature from Adam the root of corruption this whole work will be de non ente for that which is not true in any sense cannot be mortified at all And whither will this conceipt go at last Further the Saints have been deeply humbled for their birth sinne I was borne in iniquity and in sinne did my Mother conceive me What is man that he should be cleane and he that is borne of a woman that he should be righteons c If there be no such sinne at all these confessions and humiliations will be de non ente The Saints shall be humbled for a sinne and yet no such sinne is to be found In former times there were Thanksgivings for victories over enemies which indeed and in truth were de non ente But here we have Confessions and Humiliations of the same kinde innumerable other absurdities will ensue upon the denyall of such a truth which as I may so say is one of the first magnitude among the principles of the Faith It were good that this learned man and others that are concerned in the point would timely think upon it and be better advised before they go to farie Againe on the otherside I do not deny that the points of original sinne and free-will have been so handled in some systems of Divinity Commentaries and Polemical Discourses that maintaines there hath been a want of consideration sometimes a want of truth What they bring out of the Scriptures truly understood to prove the substance of the Doctrine is sound and good but what is alledged out of the Schoole-men to confirme the same is not alwayes authenick Pauls words do binde the conscience alwayes and at all times but not alwayes as they are delivered in the notions in the tearms and in the method of Aquinus Suppose that Saint Paul was now alive upon the earth and it were laid as a task upon him to reade the whole body of the controversie as it now lyeth between the Dominicans and the Jesuits the Jansenists and the Molinists such a case being imagined we may easily conceive what his judgement would be As he would condemne one part for their dangerous setting up of free-will in derogation to the grace of God so he would not altogether approve the other part for the mingling of spiritual truthes with strange speculations of Philosophy and with Metaphysical quiddities notions and conceptions of their own commenting Doubtlesse he would finde many things in them that would not hold weight with the shekel of the Sanctuary Among our selves also there are some passages that might have been uttered with
second man is the Lord from heaven So though Adam was the first man a living man yet it was not a living soul that proveth that Adam had a quickned Spirit page 12◠But in this you do miserably soobisticate For though the Apostle doth draw a parallel between both the Adams If you do well ponder the Scripture you shall finde that the parallel doth not stand so much between Adam before his fall as between the first Adam the second after the fall 2ly upon good consideration you shall finde that the Apostle in this Scripture doth not speak so much concerning the Spirit of God in the soules of the Saints as concerning the spirituality of their bodies that shall be at the resurrection It is sown in corruption it is raised in incorruption it is sown in dishonour it is raised in glory it is sown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body There is a natural body and there is aspiritual body 1 Cor. 15.43 44. If then you will needs conclude Adam to be a carnal man before his fall because his body was not made a spiritual body by the same reason you must conclude all the Saints that have ever been since the creation of the world to be carnal men and absolutely destitute of the work of the Spirit For the bodies of the Saints are yet carnal and must abide in their incarnality till the resurrection of the dead But whereas you build so strongly upon that expression the first man Adam was made a living soul the last man Adam was made a quickning Spirit verse 45. This doth not prove the first man to have been meerely carnal or absolutely void of the Spirit before his fall For it is not the scope of the Apostle in this Scripture to speak of the excellency of man made after the image of God but onely of the corruptible state of the body as it standeth in immediate relation to that immortal condition which it shall have at the resurrection of the dead And whereas it is said the second man was a quickning Spirit this is meant principally of the divinity of Christ by and thorough which he will raise the dead So then if you will build upon this ground and argue from hence that the first man was a meere carnal man because he was not a quickning Spirit by the same principle you must conclude that all the Saints living are carnal men For of what one of them may it be affirmed that he is a quickning Spirit who by his power and divinity is able to raise the dead But if you will make a right analogy let us compare the things that ought to be compared First let us consider what the first man was before his fall and what the Saints are as renewed by grace Secondly let us compare what the first man might have been if he had eaten of the tree of life and what the Saints shall be at the resurrection of the dead For the first of these if you speak of the Saints as renewed by grace though their bodies be natural they are spiritual in respect of the inward man The same may be said of Adam before his fall though his body was made of the dust yet by grace and special favour he did carry the image of God For the second if you shall affirme that all the bodies of the Saints shall be made immortal and spiritual at the resurrection consider what the body of Adam might have been if he had continued in his obedience and eaten of the tree of life If you would make a right collation between state and stat ethe parallel should runne in these termes But because you stand so strongly upon this expression that the first man is of the earth earthy the second man is the Lord from heaven seeing you will have all this to be applied to Adam before his fall I pray you resolve me this question seeing the Apostle saith as we have born the image of the earthy so shall we bear the image of the heavenly Who are they that bear the image of Adam before his fall I think if you were put to it you could not produce any one instance in all Europe Asia Africa or America that ever stood up after this similitude The scope of the text is onely concerning man after the fall and how the resurrection of the dead doth take away that death which is brought in by the fall In the close of the Chapter you propound this question whether was not Adam to have dyed an eternal death for eating of the forbidden fruit For the clearing of the question let us distinctly set down how the three kinds of death did seize upon Adam and how they come upon all his branches First for spiritual death it is evident that he died this death as soon as he did eat of the forbidden fruit For the temporal death he fell under the reign of it the same day he sinned And for eternal death though according to the truth of the commination Adam and his posterity should have dyed the Lord Christ stepping in did set a stop to the sentence And therefore for the cause of the condemnation of man it is now principally and immediately for the neglect of the grace of God that should lead him to repentance But you adde further I can safely say that if Adam was to have dyed an eternal death and that by the appointment of God then Christ neither would nor could have stept in nay he could not have lifted up his little finger to have helped Adam or his posterity page 125. I answer If God had decreed in his secret purpose that Adam and all his posterity should have dyed the death in such a case Christ neither would nor could have stept in to cross the Decree of God but Sir who is the man that doth maintain that position For my part I take the Decree of God to be one thing and the outward denunciation of judgment to be another For the Decree that cannot be changed but the sentence may recieve alteration according to divers outward circumstances and conditions that may occurre Besides if you should build never so strongly upon the letter of the text we can easily reconcile the truth of the commination in saying that Adam might dy the death the same day he sinned ☞ though the Lord was not pleased presently to inflict death in all its kinds From all which we do conclude if the Lord Christ came to free men from the reign of death Heb. 2.14 15. We may easily gather that Adam brought himself and all his posterity under the dominion of that syrant and so he and all his should have dyed that kind of death if the Lord Christ had not stepped in But you go about to deface this speech in the end of the Chapter for if in case that Christ had not stepped in there had been no recovery this were to exclude all other means and to limit
the holy One of Israel page 126. Sir I would intreat you not to make the doctrine of salvation odious by picking quarrels against words For we do not peremptorily define that there was no other way possible to save man unlesse Christ had stepped in we leave it onely to the Lord himself to judge of the several possibilities of the salvation of man This onely we affirme so far as it is revealed to us the present is the most excellent way to satisfie the justice of God and to shew abundant mercy And though you now as others before you go about to cast an hatred upon the doctrine of the Church in the points of the fall of Adam original sinne free-will and the like I must tell you if you and they would not tear those things asunder which should be joyned together if you would compare one thing with another you should find that there is nothing so deformed in the state of the first man but there is that in the second which will answer all But here is the misery you look upon the mystery of salvation in some broken pieces and parts onely and do not consider the whole compages or sum of the truth in one body We will now proceed to your next Chapter CHAP. XV. Whether Adams posterity were guilty of his transgression IN this Chapter you endeavour to make good the purity of nature and the freedome of all infants from original sin you do not as the Jesuites and Arminians extenuate the matter but after the manner of the ancient Pelagians you deny the sinne of the nature And here you do not go alone The Confession of faith lately set forth by the thirty separate Congregations doth not speak one word of this sin of the nature If we go to the beginning of their book where all other Chatechismes do shew the misery of man by nature they are altogether silent in the point of original sinne In the middle where they speak of the grace of Christ there is not one syllable concerning the grace that doth regenerate or purge out the sinne of the nature In the third and last part of the book when they come to duties after regeneration they speak nothing of the great work of the mortification of the Old man and the putting on of the New man but onely of dipping and baptizing Disciples and of the manner of living in their way of Church-membership And thus one great errour at the foundation doth in a manner overthrow the whole building of the Christian faith And this is the wofull state of the separate Congregations with us Neither are these Churches in so bad a condition but the Examinors and Censors of the late Confession of faith set forth by the Assembly of Divines these clancular Authours whosoever they be have further swarved from the truth ☜ For they in their late Examen do not onely maintain the purity of the natural birth but also have many other positions and damnable tenents I will therefore take the liberty to joyn all together And therefore Mr. Everard where you and they do agree one answer shall serve both and where they have any thing which you have not touched I shall begin with them as assoon as I have ended with you Before I come to answer your arguments let me put both you and them in mind of your sophystical dealing ☞ For neither you in your treatise nor they in their Examen do mention our chiefest argument drawn from Job 3. These are the words of our Saviour to Nicodemus Jesus answered and said unto him verily verily I say unto thee except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdome of God Nicodemus saith unto him how can a man be born when he is old can he enter the second time into his mothers womb and be borne Jesus answered verily verily I say unto thee except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdome of God That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit Marvail not that I said unto thee you must be borne again verse 3.4 5 6 7. These words are most plain and significant to prove the impurity of the natural birth and the necessity of the new birth as every one that readeth may easily understand I do marvell then that you should overpasse this place in silence But let us now come to the meaning of the text to prove the necessity of Regeneration our Saviour doth use this medium that which is borne of flesh is flesh Because man is polluted in his natural birth therefore he needs have a new birth By flesh we do not understand that masse and lump of the body which we carry about us for in it there is neither good nor evil but our Lord Christ doth here intend the corruption of nature as it is opposed to the sanctifying work of the Spirit for so flesh and Spirit are commonly opposed in Scripture This may more particularly be seen in Rom. 8. in the beginning of the Chapter Therefore our Saviours argument is much in effect because the nature of man is defiled with original sinne from the very birth the remedy must be proportionable to the disease ☞ it is necessary that every one that shall enter into the Kingdome of heaven must be new born There be divers cause that do bring men to a habit of sinne and there are divers means to be used to break of such habits First men are brought to a custome in sinning by example and therefore the Word commands that we should turn away from such evil communications as will corrupt good manners Secondly men are brought to a habit in sinne by long custome which is as it were a second nature and therefore the Scripture speaks that we should break off such kind of customes by a kind of violence Thirdly men come to a practise of sinne by temptation as Achan saw the wedge of gold and the babylonish garment and coveted it and therefore the Scriptures do every where say that we should resist the temptations of the world the allurements of the flesh and to pray unto the Lord that he would not lead us into temptation These are in part the causes of the habit and practise of sin but they are not the original the principal cause that lies higher in the natural birth There is a necessity of Regeneration by the Spirit because all that are borne in the natural way are defiled with sinne They then who maintain the purity of the natural birth as the Examiners Mr. Everard and the separate Churches do overthrow the doctrine of the foundation of Christ Now Mr. Everard ☞ let us come to your arguments First you say we could not sinne in Adam our souls and bodies were not together in him and how we could commit sinne you know not therefore believe not page 127. But Sir if you would seriously consider
the words of the Apostle Rom. 5.12 by one man sinne entred into the world c. You should finde that all then were in one publick man and sinned in him and this is the reason which the Apostle giveth why death passed universally upon all men because in one all have sinned his one act was the act of all But for more abundant confirmation let us consider the scope of the text The drift of the Apostle is to draw a parallel between both the Adams Frist in those points wherein they do agree Secondly in those wherein they do disagree For the points of agreement the most remarkable to the purpose in hand are these First the two Adams are described as two persons which are the roots to their several and respective posterities The first Adam is a root to all his branches and the second Adam is a root to all branches I marvail then what delusion hath seized upon the Examiners who do positively maintain that the first Adam is not here intended as he was the Father of us all Secondly they are described by the plurality of branches as the first Adam had a multiplicity of branches out of him so the second Adam had a plurality of branches out of him And therefore the Apostle doth elegantly proceed in the collation as by the offence of one many be dead so the gift of grace which is by one man Jesus Christ hath abounded unto many As by one mans offence death reigned by one much more they which receive abundance of grace shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ And so the Apostle doth compare one Adam to one Christ Adam the root of all his branches Christ the root of all his branches Thirdly they are set forth by the passage of the common sap out of each root into its branches respectively And therefore the Apostle speaketh concerning the first Adam by one man sinne entred into the world and death by sinne and death passed over all men The common sap then that passed out of the first man into all his branches is first sinne and then death by sinne By sinne is here principally meant original sinne and all other sinnes that flow from this as the fountain But if further enquiry be made concerning the passage of sin death into all the branches that come of Adam the passage is not all at one and the same instant It is now five thousand six hundred years since the fall of Adam and in all this time original sinne hath been in continual flux and succession As in several generations men come to be born so they actually participate of the sap that comes from the first root The like may be said of the second Adam and of his branches They which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousnesse shall reigne in life by one Jesus Christ ver 17. The sap then that cometh from Christ as the common root is grace and spiritual life this doth flow out of him into all his branches And for the passage thereof it is not all at one time but as men come to receive the gift of righteousnesse and to be born anew they come to the actual fruition thereof For let the death of Christ be never so largely tendred to the lost sonnes of men there is no actual participation of him till he be received by faith The words of the text are most emphatical and significant They which receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousnesse shall reigne in life As who would say in plainer termes they only shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ who do particularly receive the gift of righteousnesse which is generally offered This is the undoubted meaning of the text And therefore for you to say that we could not sinne in Adam our soules and bodies not being in him how do you answer the scope of the text by the disobedience of one many were made sinners by one man sinne entred into the world Adam is here set forth as the root of all his branches and al the branches were in him as the first publick man What can you or the Examiners say to this 2ly you say that we had no Law in Adam Now where there is no Law there is no transgression if we had received any Law it must have been made known to us but there was none made known to us and therefore there was no Law page 127. To this I rejoyn ☜ if there was no Law given to us in Adam how come we to be guilty of his transgression how come we to bear the burden of his sinne why doth the Apostle speak so plainly by the disobedience of one many were made sinners We must then necessarily come to affirme this for a truth that the Law was given to Adam as a publick man and in him to all his posterity And whereas you say that there was no Law made known to us at that time therefore we had no interest in the Law why do not you infer by the like reason when the second Adam the Lord Jesus Christ suffered death upon the Crosse because at that very time the merit of his death was not made known you had no part or portion in that death which was one thousand six hundred years before you were born If you will be loth to stand to the latter to lose your priviledge by the second Adam I pray you give us leave to maintain the dammage that was brought in by the first Adam And yet further to take away all scruples from tender consciences if it might seem harsh for all the sonnes of men to perish by the disobedience of one man especially when the Law was not made known to them in their own individual persons but in the common root of all mankind let us consider how the second man came as a remedy to free the same miserable sonnes of men from the state of sinne and death especially when they neither thought nor knew any thing concerning the means of their salvation The greatnesse of our misery by Adam doth amplifie and set forth the merrit of Christ in the fulnesse thereof Now then when the Examiners and you both go about to extenuate the misery of the fall you do rob Christ of the glory of his grace You say The branch hath not any thing but what it hath by dependance upon the tree Now it is not so with us for that which we call the Principal part of man his soul or spirit was not dependant upon Adam but had his dependancy from the very same fountain from whence Adam received his even from God himself p. 128. Here I confess there is a great question concerning the manner of the propagation of Original sin and men do wearie themselves very much to find out whether the soul be by infusion or by traduction But I see no cause why we should intangle our selves in that difficultie ☞ For whether the soul be infused or
too much and to these the exhortation is given in special that they should be humbled and become as little children There lyeth then a palpable and grosse fallacy in your whole discourse when you take the words absolutely that all infants are free from sinne when our Saviour speaketh in a particular sense only of the act and execution of this or that particular evil Now you proceed and tell us it was never heard that children had any sinne by way of act and by way of omission you cannot make it good that they ever received a command or were capable of any command from God page 138. Answ What we have learned we are willing to acknowledge and though we never heard that infants had any sinne in them by any act of their own yet we have learned from Scriptures yea from the very first principles of the faith that they have it by contagion and the disobedience of the first man The words of our Saviour are plain Joh. 3.8 That which is born of the flesh is flesh And that of the Apostle Rom. 5.12 By one man sinne entred into the world and death by sinne And many such places there are to prove infants to be guilty of sinne by the disobedience of the first man and to be involved in the pollution of nature by hereditary contagion But because you and the Examiners are so strict upon the point I pray you resolve me in this one case When the promise was made the seed of the woman shall break the Serpents head was not this the promise of Christ to Adam after his fall If infants therefore are absolutely acquitted from the guilt of Adams sinne as being another mans act if they be free from the pollution of nature to what end was the promise of Christ How did he come in the nature of a Physician to cure when there was no disease Where there is no malady there needs no remedy And whereas you go about to free infants from the sinne of omission because they are not capable of a command I pray you shew the reason why the Lord was so strict in his command to the Jewish infant that he should be circumcised upon the eighth day and that the uncircumcised man-child should be cut off from his people Gen. 17.11.12 c. For my part I know no reason of the strictnesse of this Law but that the Lord would signifie to beleevers under this dispensation that there infants were born in original sinne and that it was not safe to omit the remedy for that disease And though in strictnesse of termes we will yeeld so farre to Corvinus and to Julian the Pelagian that there is no particular command that forbids an infant to be born in original sinne yet for all this they must needs allow that the Law was given to reveal to convince and to discover the sinne of the nature and by the discovery thereof to drive a man to Christ to look to him onely for sanctifying and regenerating glrace S. Paul saith the Law is spiritual and I am carnal sold under sinne And in the same text I had not known sinne except the Law had said thou shalt not covet Rom. 7. You go on for this sinne called original if infants had committed it God would have called them to repentance for it when they had come to years at least wise but I can safely say that there is no man living that to this day ever made it appear to be the mind of God for any man to repent of that sinne Truly Sir your confidence is very great and you have more boldnesse than truth on your side For we may beleeve that you never heard of the promises nor the commands mentioned in Scripture when you dare affirme such things as these When the Lord promiseth in the new Covenant I will take out of their bowels a heart of stone and will give them a heart of flesh Ezek. 36. By the heart of stone he means a hard heart and a sinful nature that every infant did bring into the world he doth promise to take away the corruption of nature and that he will sanctifie his people by his Spirit So for the commands of God we read every where that men are exhorted to put off the Old Adam-like disposition That ye put off concerning the former conversation the Old man which is corrupt according to the deceivable lusts Ephes 4.22 By the Old man he doth mean the carnal disposition which we have from Adam by natural generation This corrupted disposition of the flesh he would have the beleeving Ephesians and in them all others to subdue and mortifie And further if you look to the right use of Baptisme now as of circumcision of old you shall finde that the institution of these things doth primarily intend the doing away of the sinne of the nature as I have already shewed in my Treatise of Infant Baptisme Therefore I cannot but admire at your boldnesse when you stand so much upon it that you can safely say that God never called men to repentance for original sinne I am so farre from your judgment that I think the greatest part of repentance lyes in the mortification of the sinne of the nature But you have an evasion this sinne called original sinne if infants had committed it God would have called them to repentance Here you put that upon us which we do not speak and I know no solid Writer in the world that doth use such an expression of committing original sinne It is proper onely to men of ripe years to commit sinne For original sin we say that is onely by propagation thorough the disobedience of the first man and when men come to be sanctified by the Spirit of God they are qualified with inward principles to purge out the sin of the nature Neither doth your argument drawn from the example of Christ any whit promote your cause You say If this principle should finde a being in the world that every infant was born in sinne because lineally derived from Adam then where will you get water to wash your hands of that grand absurdity to wit that Jesus Christ was not free from original sinne for then he must have a share because he came from the loynes of a woman the Daughter of Adam page 139. To this I answer if you will make Christ and all Infants to run parallel in the purity of their natural birth then why did Christ die for them why did he sanctifie their nature There is no need of salvation by the merit of Chri st where there is no guilt of sinne There needs no sanctification of the Spirit where there is no pollution of nature Why do not you exclude all Infants from these as you do from the water of baptisme For your Argument drawn from the example of Christ If you build so much upon that I would entreat you to consider two things First why he did assume our nature Secondly assuming our
fallaciously coupled together The Ephesians before their conversion were naturally wicked they were by nature the children of wrath as well as others But will any man say that they were inevitably wicked how then could they be quickned and made alive againe by the infusion of a new life Further it is not destructive to all laws to say a man is naturally wicked for by the help of restraining grace he may outwardly sorbeare many evils which are forbidden in the law onely his sinfulnesse lyes in this that of himselfe he cannot come up to the purity and spirituality of the law in the denyal of his lusts Againe though naturally he be under the reign of lust he doth not inevitably lye under that bondage That reign may be broken when he shall come to be acquainted with the liberty of the Spirit The law of the Spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sinne and death Rom. chap 8 2. Neither upon such a supposal is it true that precepts of holiness may be given to a wolfe as well as a man A wolfe is no way capable of precepts for want of faculties he hath neither understanding will nor any other power of the soul as a man hath That of Augustine is true A man doth not believe the impedement is not in the faculty but in the vicious habit that doth hinder the faculty Posse credere naturae est hominum velle credere gratiae est fidelium to have a remote power to believe is of the nature of men to have a will to believe is of the grace of believers But a wolfe hath neither nature nor grace to believe and therefore he hath no precepts given to him to believe Upon this account saith he it is so far from being true that a man after his fall did forfeit his natural power of election that it seems rather to be encreased For as a mans knowledge grows so his will comes to be better attended and ministred unto But after his fall his knowledge was much more than it was before he knew what madnesse was and had experience of the difference of things he perceived the evil and mischief of disobedience Answ I willingly yield that as a mans knowledge grows his will comes to be better attended and ministred unto But that his knowledge should be much more after his fall than it was before this goes against the whole scope of Scripture For one chief cause of the servility and vassallage of the natural man under sin doth arise from the blindnesse and darknesse of his judgement This is most lively set forth in the words of the Apostle The wisdome of the flesh is enmity against God because it is not subject to the law nor can be Rom. 8.7 We will explaine the particulars in order The wisdome of the flesh in the Original is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Saplence prudence and minde of the flesh That which the eye is to the body to direct and guide it the same is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or minde of the flesh to the will and other faculties it teacheth them what to choose and what to refuse what to love and what to hate Now a man cannot choose the things of God till he doth see the excellency of them Further to shew the misery of the natural man the wisdome of his flesh is said to be enmity against God He doth not say an enemy in the concrete but enmity it selfe in the abstract that is an enemy in the highest degree God is an enemy to such a minde and such a minde is an enemy to God And therefore in the third place he gives a reason of the enmity it is not subject to the law of God for the chief designe of the minde of the flesh is to set up other Gods in place of the true God other Lords in direct opposition to the law of the Spirit When men should trust in the Lord alone this wisdome doth prompt them to trust in horses and armies for victory in good husbandry for riches in friends for preferment in the world c. And this is the reason wherefore the wisedome of the flesh is called enmity against God because it is alwayes tempting and alluring men to love the things of the world to delight in them and to trust in them more than the true God Nay the Apostle goes a step further he doth not say that it is not subject but it cannot be subject to the law of God He doth not deny only an actual subjection but that which is more he denyes a potential subjection also Among several kinds of birds and beasts there are many that are not actually subject to man yet there is nothing doth exclude but they may be brought under subjection But the wisdome of the flesh is such that it cannot be made subjection by art or industry or any outward meanes till grace comes If this be so it is strange to me that any man should so far forget himself to affirme that a mans knowledge is more after his fall than it was before seeing a great part of his misery lyeth in the blindnesse of his judgement And therefore as in the old creation so it is in the new The first work is in making of light God that commanded the light to shine out of darknesse hath commanded the light of his grace to shine in your hearts in the face of Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 4 6. By the same argument as he proves Adams knowledge to be greater after than it was before his fall he may prove us to have more knowledge than Christ Of Christ it is peculiarly said he made him sin that knew no sin we have an experimental knowledge of sin that Christ never had so Adam had an experimental knowledge of sin and misery after which he never had before his fall But he further addeth We may saith he as well suppose an understanding that can never understand and passions that can never desire nor refuse and a memory that can never remember as a will that cannot choose Answ Though it be a preposterous thing to imagine a will that cannot choose yet there is no strangenesse to conceive of a will that cannot choose the things of the Spirit To choose is natural to the will as it is to fire to burne to the memory to remember but to choose the things of the Spirit of God this must be from supernatural operation When the rich Marchant found the pearle hid in the field for joy he went and sold all that he had Mat. 13.44 But he saith As sin is the action of a free faculty it can no more take away the freedome of that faculty than vertue can for that also is the action of the same free faculty Answ Neither do we say that sin takes away the freedome of the faculty for all that do commit sin do freely commit it only it takes away the freedome
to that which is spiritually good In this sence our Saviour saith He that commits sin is the servant of sin Joh. 8.36 While they promise themselves liberty they themselves are the servants of corruption 2 Pet. 2.19 But he further saith Men sometimes by evil habits and by choosing vile things along time together make it morally impossible to choose that which is good and to love that in particular which is contrary to their evil customes Heraclitus saith custome is that devil that bringeth in new natures upon us Answ It is most certaine true that many fall under the power of evil by long custome But the maine question is Whether is evil custome the whole and adequate cause of the evil This we deny men by ill custome may intend the habit of original sin as varnish may make colours more orient and God in his just judgement may justly harden men in their sin so that they may be worse than the ordinary sort of natural men This we do willingly confesse but then also we must consider that the bottome and the ground of all the evil doth lye in a sinful nature This doth naturally descend upon us all from Adam the root of corruption and is only to be done away by Christ the root of all grace life spiritual nature as the Scriptures do abundantly testifie Next he cometh to the testimony of the Philosophers Seneca saith nature doth not engage us upon a vice she made us entire she left us free but we make our selves prisoners and slaves by vicious habits Answ It is no way to be doubted but we make our selves slaves by vicious habits of our own acquiring But whereas Seneca saith nature hath made us free nature hath left us free these are those rudiments of the world of which the Apostle speaketh beware least any man spaile you through Philosophy Col. 2 7. If nature hath made us free what need is there of Christ of the freedome of the Spirit of the grace of regeneration of all those things that are held forth to us in the principles of baptisme and circumcision In this sence the Apostle is to be understood when he saith beware lest any man spoile you through Philosophy he doth not speak of the knowledge that the Philosophers have of the motions of the heavens and the measures of the earth and such like speculations but he speaks of Philosophy as it doth not hold Christ the Head and is contrary to the very principles of baptisme and circumcision as may be see by the context Of this kinde are those sayings of Seneca nature hath made us free nature hath left us free such doctrines are contrary to Christ the Head He further proceedeth The Saints saith he love God so fully that they cannot hate him or desire to displease him And in hell the accursed spirits so perfectly hate him that they can never love him But in this that is status viae a middle condition between both or a passage to one or the other it cannot be supposed to be so unlesse a man here also be already saved or damned Answ We do agree that the Saints in heaven do so perfectly love God that they cannot hate him and the damned spirits in hell do so absolutely hate him that they cannot love him But what of all this The case of sinners upon the earth is not all one with the damned in hell The damned in hell do absolutely and irrecoverably hate God but so do not sinners upon the earth Though they are borne in sin and lye under a natural necessity of sinning yet they do not hate God absolutely and irrecoverably but so far only as they are naturally corrupt and do remaine in their natural condition Though Ministers in the general do know that all shall not be saved yet personally and individually no Minister can say that this or that man shall not be saved They can say as long as men continue in such wayes they are in the way to damnation but cannot certainly and infallibly pronounce of the final and eternal estate of this or that particular man Now it is not so with the damned in hell But he further saith Men can choose that which is commanded and abstaine from that which is forbidden for if they could not they ought no more to perish for this than infants for that Answ Though we stand upon it that a man cannot naturally choose that which is spiritually good yet his case is not all one with the state and condition of an infant For an infant cannot actually understand will nill choose refuse but a natural man hath a power to will that which is in his own compasse he may performe many outward duties abstaine from many outward evils and fly many occasions of sin And for his willing the good that is spiritual though he cannot choose it so far forth as is natural yet doubtlesse his condemnation shall be that he did not go so far as he might go by the help of the Spirit At some seasons the Spirit doth convince accuse reprove terrifie and put him upon a way of judging and condemning of himself that so he might look after pardoning and healing mercy But his fault is that he will not see that which he may see and doth obstinately harden himselfe against the light But he further sheweth This is so necessary a truth that it is one of the greatest grounds and necessities of obedience and holy living and if after the fall of Adam it be not by God permitted to us to choose or refuse there is nothing left whereby a man can serve God or affer him a sacrifice Answ Though the Divines do maintaine a necessity of sinning and the losse of the liberty of the will to spiritual good at least they are not cast upon such a strait as our Author thinks they are Indeed some of them are more cleare and distinct and do give lesse offence than others do yet I know none do absolutely take away the power from the will to choose or refuse To what purpose then would exhortations admonitions and reproofes be given But leaving all others we will cite a testimony out of one of the chiefest of our Authors for he may serve as a patterne for the rest Mr. Calvin in his book of Institutions Lib. 2. Chap. 2. doth shew that the foundation of all sound learning is grounded upon the knowledge of a mans selfe But how not upon the knowledge of a mans own excellencies perfections natural liberties for so the Philosophers do vainly trifle But upon the knowledge of his own misery thraldome under sin and this he affirmes to be the bottome of all saving knowledge to bring men to Christ By the former kind of learning men are set up and by the latter they are pluckt down He speaks of two dangerous extreames to be avoided on either side some when they heare that a man hath no ability no freedome of will they give over all care of
causes of that being which he had in the beginning and tell us that God saw all that he had made and behold it was very good Gen. 1.32 From whence you draw this Conclusion doubtlesse these words were spoken to take off some future objections or to prevent mens sayings that Adam consisted in creation of two sorts of people one being assigned for heaven the other for hell And lest we should judge that God made any part of him for damnation at that time he assures us that he made all things very good When I read this passage of yours I do call to minde a kinde of torment used in the Primitive times when the persecutors would expose the bodies of Christians to wilde beasts they did sometimes cover and disguise them with the skins of other living creatures So do you here and in other parts of your book with the doctrine of Gods free election When you see that there is such a Majesty in the truth it self that you cannot well oppose it you do draw an ugly visage and forme over it to the end that you may baite and encounter it more easily at your own pleasure The Lords making all good in the beginning doth not infringe the election of some and the non-election of others if these things be rightly construed And therefore whether you consider men in that first state made after the image of God or in that state as fallen in both these I conceive all mankinde to be equal The difference of elect or non-elect is immanent onely in the Decree of God and election doth onely so farre forth begin to be manifest as men living under the meanes come to be called justified sanctified by the Spirit Rom. 8.30 2 Thess 2.13 We have no other way to take notice of election but this onely For that saying of yours that Adam consisted of two sorts of people in creation the one part being assigned for heaven and the other for hell We willingly acknowledge that the number of the elect were known to God before the foundation of the world yet this difference between man and man in the Lords secret intention did make no difference between man and man in the creation or in the fall The nature of all men elect and others was equally good before the fall as it was equally corrupted and depraved after the fall As in the like case Jesse was the father of many sons of which one was designed in the secret counsel of God to rule the Kingdom of Israel As they were the sons of one parent they were all equal made of one blood partakers of the same education though one was specially designed for the Kingdome So in the present case the nature of all men may be equally good before the fall all may have one and the same image of God all may fall in one and the same parent yet God may in a special manner intend to bring some to salvation and to leave others voluntarily to run their own ruine he may have mercie on whom he will have mercie and he may have compassion on whom he will have compassion You do then plainly impose upon us with your sophistrie when you fetch arguments from some temporal acts to overturne the Lords eternal Decrees But this is a passage onely by the way we will go to the next Chapter CHAP. II. Wherein Adams abilities did consist HEre you define ability that it is a fitnesse in the subject commanded every way answerable to performe any action that the Creator is pleased to call the creature to pag. 5. In this I do agree that originally God did proportion the abilities of Adam to the commands that he gave him I do also willingly acknowledge with you that he had first a capassity to receive intelligence secondly directions thirdly abilities in present possession and fourthly time But whereas you say p. 7. that our Lord the Creator afforded all these aforenamed accommodations as a sufficient means for every man to obey his commands In this I beleeve you do not onely equal but go beyond Pelagius himself For you say in effect that man hath as great abilities after the fall as before But lest that any may think that these are the consequences of mine own making and that they are not the true result of your doctrine let him go to the fourteenth chapter of your book and there let him see how you do expedite the question You propound the quere what Adam retained of his forfeiture after his death and here you determine that his power was inwardly as great to keep the commands of God as before You say if in that service of God which Adam had to do he was compleatly furnished by God why should I judge that he would employ him in a more hard service and not aford him sutable accommodations seeing God was as willing that his commands should be obeyed after as he was before the fall For I judge the work that God set Adam about before the fall he had ability to do after the fall if God had given him a command to returne into the garden page 110. Let any man who readeth these words judge in his own heart whether Pelagius himself could have spoken more to the derogation of the free grace of God in Christ then you have done To this if we adde the several passages in your Treatise concerning the improvement of nature and the freedome of infants from original sin and compare all together we shall finde the whole tenour of your doctrine to be manifestly destructive to the Covenant of Grace We will therefore endeavour on the contrary to shew the positive truth And therefore seeing God doth require obedience of man after the fall I do freely assent that he doth give sutable accommodation But how the accommodation doth not consist in the presence of any natural ability but in the promise since the fall there is an ability to obey the Lords commands but that ability is out of man in Christ onely To him they must go to supply all their wants and he must help them to performe all the duties enjoyned If you stand upon the proportion of abilities to commands then say that the ability is in Christ onely to be had and we shall easily agree He of God is made to us wisdome righteousnesse sanctification and redemption 1 Cor. 1.30 In him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid Col. 2.3 Of his fulnesse have we all received grace for grace John 1.16 It shall never be denied by me nay I will maintain it that now since the fall there is a proportion betwixt the ability and the command but then the ability must be had from Christ onely and the immediate supply of his Spirit In this sence Saint Paul had abilities in a meet temper and correspondence to his duties for he saith I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me Phil. 4.11 12 13. And in another place my grace
whether it be traduced or which way soever it be conveyed we must necessarily affirme in the continuall flux of original sinne from father to child each father doth propagate it to his child as Adam did to the whole posterity If this be not a real truth what shall we make of the speech of our Saviour that which is born of the flesh is flesh Joh. 3.6 The Father then doth propagate the corruption of nature to his child as he himself did first receive it by propagation We must needs then yield the truth of the thing though there be some difficulty in the discovery of the manner But that which doth very much satisfie me in this point is the consideration of that speech to Adam and in him to all mankind be fruitful and multiply replenish the earth and subdue it Gen. 1.28 From whence I gather that the propagation of mankind doth chiefly depend upon this promise established in the beginning And therefore suppose that be true which you say that the soul doth come immediately from God the question is whether in matter of generation in matter of union of the soul with the body in matter of propagation of the kind the child doth not depend upon the father as the branch doth upon the root And doth not the Lord continue still to performe that promise that he made in the beginning Surely by what power the earth doth continue to bring forth herbs and every thing doth fructifie according to its kind by the same ordinance blessing and promise of God doth the father beget the child to continue a posterity upon the earth To the right solution of the question then we must give a double answer For if it be demanded in the first place why a man doth generate a man It is from the Ordinance and blessing of God and from that fundamental Law increase and multiply But if it be further inquired why a sinful father doth continue to beget a sinful child the traduction of original sinne is from Adam the common root of the corruption of nature ever since the fall For the fountain being corrupted the corruption doth go down the stream and is in perpetual flux and succession from the Spring head But to make the matter good you go on If the soules and spirits of all that stock that came from Adam should have been lineally derived then they must have returned again to him page 228. This doth not follow for by the like reason why do you not argue concerning the branches and leaves of all the trees and forests in the world because they have their derivation from the root therefore they must return into the root again But you adde further admit say you we had such a being in Adam as the branches had in the tree and produce actions in a natural way being prone thereunto yet that which is to be expected must have been such fruits as were natural to the tree and no other but sinne was no natural fruit but an accident page 129. Indeed if you take nature in its first essence and institution it is good and all sinne is unnatural and accidental but if you take nature in its vicious qualities as it is since the fall then it is depraved in Adam and our immediate parents are so many conduit-pipes of the corruption of nature If this be not so what can be the meaning of our Saviours words that which is born of flesh is flesh This sheweth plainly that Adam is not onely the root of nature but also since the fall a root of the corruption of nature and upon this ground lyes a necessity of regeneration or having a new nature from Christ the second Adam Thirdly you say If we must own all Adams actions sinful as our acts then pray give me leave to appropriate as large a portion in all his good actions For why should I not plead for as much propriety in all his good actions as some will perswade me I have in all his evill actions seeing I was as much in him before the fall as since And then I might say as well that I walked in the Garden and drest it and gave names to all creatures page 129. If this will give you content I know nothing to the contrary but we may affirme that all mankind were in Adam when he walked in the Garden and gave names to all cattell And without question you should have had as great a part in his good actions if he had stood as now you have a share in the evil of that action by which he fell To make this appear in that state as we are now restored by Christ Man hath Lordship and Dominion over the creature If you will fetch this dominion from that great Charter Let them have dominion over the fish of the Sea the fowle of the aire c. Gen. 1.26 Then you must needs conclude that the priviledge which was given to Adam was given to all his posterity Yea in that particular case when the Lord brought all creatures to Adam to see what names he would give them he did bring the creatures to him as to the head of all mankind and he not onely in his own private but in their publick right did give names to all cattell The like may be said of the institution of marriage in the beginning of a mans leaving his father and mother and cleaving to his wife This did not so immediately concern Adam in his own person as all mankind that should come of him in succeeding generations Mat. 19.4 Fourthly you say If all men did sinne in Adam when he did eate the forbiden fruit why might it not as well be said when Adam beleeved I beleeved when Adam repented I repented page 130. I answer the case is not equal for when Adam did eate the forbidden fruit he did this as a publick person as the root of all mankind but when he did believe he did that as a particular member of Christ I may say on the other side when Christ suffered upon the Crosse to satisfie the justice of God this was all one as if Adam and Paul themselves had satisfied the justice of God What Christ did he did for them and when he did it they did it in him and by him The like answer may be given to that question why do not the regenerate propagate grace as well as original sinne The answer is plain piety is not hereditary as original sinne is neither doth holinesse come into us by nature but by grace not generation but regeneration doth intitle us to salvation And therefore in the aforementioned case when Adam did beget Cain in his own likenesse he did not beget him as the sonne of his faith but the sonne of his corrupt nature The same may be said of the natural Progeny of all believers they are born in original sinne as well as the children of Infidels The Jew that was circumcised himself begat one that was