thing or object The object of righteousnesse being the Law it doth follow that the object of sin is the Law also but what Law Both the Law of nature which God had prescribed unto every thing in nature to be observed by them as being unto God most honorable and to themselves most proper and behoofefull Those rules and limitations those orders and prescriptions which the wisdome of God had proposed and imprinted upon all creatures either of the preservation of their being or the destruction of their sexes or the propagation of their kinds or the moderation of their power and manner of working or the manifestation of his own Almighty power wisdome and glory the same are termed Lawes So He made a Law for the rain said Job Job 2.8 And he gave a decree unto the Sea that the waves should not passe his commandment And by this Law it is that heavie bodies move downwards but light bodies ascend upward that the motion of the Heavens are circular and that every thing observes that manner of motion and working which is peculiar and proper unto his kind Now creatures having their several degrees of perfection and Law being as it were the several rules and spurrs thereof it will follow The persecter any creature is the more general and of larger excellency are those Laws by which the same is guided So we see that Minerals are of a perfecter constitution and being then simple bodies as Air or Water or Earth or Plants are perfecter then Stones and Beasts are more perfect then Plants and that Man is more perfect then all So that every one of these in their severall kinds have more or lesse notion motion belonging unto them and accordingly are subject to more or lesse Laws Now men being as it were a compendium or Epitome or abbreviature of all the creatures of God and participating of all the perfections hath so many actions and operations proper unto him as makes him subject to all the lawes not only to the part of natures law that concerns only his reasonable Soul and will and is therefore called the morall Law but likewise unto all the subordinate parts that may any waies concern his inferior parts and faculties so that not only the Soul the understanding but the senses and humors yea the very whole proportion and constitution of the body and every particular therein had their severall prescriptions and motions peculiar unto themselves which both for ability and power and end and all other circumstances they ought to have observed exactly and could not transgresse without sin So that first hearing of the subject of sin namely the law of nature That Law which Almighty God had prescribed universally unto all things in nature to be observed let us proceed unto the farther search thereof And therefore in the second place we say that the form of righteousnesse is the observation of this Law and hence we insert tanquam formale peccati that the transgression of the law is as it were the form of sin For so 1 John 3.8 defineth that sin is the transgression of the Law that it is an aberration and excursion out of the bonds and prescripts of Gods Law 1. John 3.4 3ly The materiall causes of Righteousnesse were the actions and operations faculties and parts of man and therefore we must propose them also tanquam materiale peccati as the matter and subject of sin For look how the parts and faculties both of Soul and body were ordered and framed and beautified and exercised in Righteousnesse So likewise the same parts and faculties both of Soul and body are confused distempered deformed and perverted by iniquity and sin For the efficient cause of righteousnesse being liberum arbitrium hominis the free will of man it must needs follow that the efficient cause of sin must needs be the same or else could not be said to be our sin for that which makes a work to be our work is because it proceeds from our own will for sin in the formes and abstracted nature thereof namely as it is the transgression of the Law may be and is in beasts and other creatures yet cannot be said to be the sin of the creature because it proceeds not from will in the creature for the creature is subject to vanity saith the Apostle Rom. 8.20 Neither is it sufficient to make a work ours unlesse it proceed freely from us without any necessity compelling us unto for then the act would be attributed as much yea principally to the necessity and we should be but as instruments thereof That therefore is the efficient of sin unto man which doth appropriate sin unto man and that doth appropriate sin unto him which is the principal facultie by which he worketh namely Liberum Arbitrium his free will Lastly the finall cause or effect of righteousnesse was joy and peace and comfort and contentation and perfection and all the happinesse which the soul and body of man was capable of So è contrario for rectum est Index sui obliqui we most still measure that which is crooked by that which is streight the final cause and effect of sin is sorrow affliction crosses and destruction and all the miseries in this life and in the life to come For as malum culpae was the privation of bonum morale so malum poenae is the privation of bonum delectabile As sin was the privation of righteousnesse so effect of sin is the privation of happinesse which is the fruit of righteousnesse For all the miseries and pains that hath or shal ever befal man are no positive thing but a meer privation of that goodnesse which was created in him As for example If sharp needles shall be thrust under the nails it is nothing but the violent disorder and disturbance of the frame of nature in those parts If our hands or feet should be dipt in boyling lead it were but the violent distemper of heat in these members and so of other torments which are all privations Neither did the eye see nor hath ear heard nor did ever possibly enter into the heart of man the joyes that are prepared for the righteous All things in the world are too low to expresse them So on the contrary it will follow that neither eye nor ear or heart hath either seen or can imagine those pains that are prepared for sinners all things in this world are too short to resemble them For as the choice and pretious stones mentioned Rev. 2. are there used to represent the new Jerusalem and the beauty and joyes thereof which are far more excellent and of an higher and transcendent qualitie So under reformation of better judgment I suppose that the fire which the spirit of God in the Scripture makes choice of to expresse the torments of Hel is not material fire but being the most violent and consuming element is used only as the fittest thing to represent those unconceivable pains For I conceive those
torments to be much more then any fire can inflict for the pains afflictions and crosses of this life are not to be spoken of in respect of those endless and infinite â—orrowes in the life to come That we suffer here is but a miserable passage to that we shal feel hereâ—fter and rather to be counted blessings then crosses being forcible means which God useth to humble us and as bridles to check our unruly and headstrong lusts yea as wormwood to wean our appetites from the desire of the worlds vanities For howsoever many doe account themselves happy that live in ease and abundance here on earth yet most certain it is that there can be no greater a curse or crosse befal any man in this life then to prosper in the course of sin and iniquity But to return from whence we digressed The miseries of sin shall be farre greater then any thing in this world can resemble when as by the power and just Iudgment of God there shal be such exact and exquisite distemper and pains inflicted upon every part and parcell of man that if all the most forcible torments that ever were invented by the most cruel Tyrants that ever lived were put together they were as nothing in respect of those infinite pains and tortures which man shal everlastingly suffer in hell where the humors shal be both inflamed benumed with unsufferable heat cold where the senses are infected with most loathsome and abominable stenches and savours their eyes terrified with gastly and fearfull spectacles when the affections shal find no refreshing but endlesse grief and afflictions when every joynt shall be disordered and racked in extensum as possibly it can bear when the glandules the muscles and all the fleshie parts shal frie in scorching heat where the entrals and bowels shall perpetually gnaw with continuall griping yea when these shall be filled with everlasting anguish and horror by being banished for ever from the presence of almighty God and the communion of his blessed Saints and Angels and instead thereof astonished with the deceitfull and hideous noise and wailing of wretched souls never to see hope for ease or end of such unspeakable miseries And lastly when those carnifices those damned executioners of Gods judgments the Divels being cast down from the glorious presence of God's Almightie Majesty and suffering the infinite and unsupportable burthen of his justly deserved wrath and anger shal execute their unspeakable malice and furious vengeance upon the miserable bodies and distressed Soules of reprobate and condemned sinners Nay to conclude if all their griefs and diseases all the anguish of mind whereunto the body and soul of men are subject and which all the men from the beginning of the world unto this day have suffered were in the extremity upon any other man and that the soules and bodies by the Almighty power of God were so fastned together and so perpetually conjoyned that there could be no dissolution yet all this must the sinner eternally endure besides infinitely more sorrowes and pains all unspeakable all unconceivable Hence from the causes we define the sin that it is A determinate and wilful transgression of Gods Law depriving all the parts and faculties both of Soule and body of all kind of goodnesse of all kind of righteousnesse in it self of all manner of happinesse which had been the effect and consequent thereof So that having pointed out the disease and considered what it is it remaines in the last place to search out the Original ground whence it springs and proceeds intimated in these words shaping and conceiving Behold I was shapen c. Peccato Originali saith Aug. nihil ad praedicandum notius nihil ad intelligendum secretius There 's nothing more commonly preached and yet nothing more obscurely to be understood then Original sin And iniquitie is a mysterie saies the Scripture neither of which doth imply an impossibilitie but only a difficulty of understanding the depth and secrets thereof and therefore as the search of the knowledge thereof requires deeper speculation so doth the delivery thereof deserve more heedful and serious attention I was shapen in iniquitie I may not now stand to dispute that question which is disputed in the works of some great Divines namely whether propagation and traducing of sin be from the Father or Mother Some collecting and affirming from that Rom. 5. As by one man sin entered into the world c. that sin proceeded only and is derived from the man and if the woman could conceive and bring forth without the man the child be without sin Others again inserting that 1 Tim. 2. That the man was not deceived but the woman was and was in the transgression And also from this of the Prophet in the Text In sin hath my Mother conceived me Inferring I say that it is probable that sin is principally derived from the Mother which question may easily be decided by acknowledging it both waies True that it descends from the man and the woman for under that phrase as by one man may be well implyed both sexes and certain it is that both being Parents and both sinfull they are as well the parents of the sin as of the child But to return to our purpose I was shapen in iniquitie saies the Prophet declaring thereby the original ground and cause of this disease the manner how it became sinful wherein it may be probably objected that in as much as the principal guilt of sin depends upon the efficient cause thereof namely Liberum arbitrium hominis the freewill of man in the wilful disobedience of Gods Law which David never had but was born as all other men captives to their lusts and could not obey the Law if he had been never so willing and which never man had but one Neither was sin in that extense and high nature which the free and malitious a version of the will perpetrated and committed by any one but by that one and that by a transient act many hundred years afore how then can the Prophet be said to be guilty of sin in that kind which onely properly undequaque completly is sin or justly assumâ— the last unto himselfe To which I answer that although the act of our first parents was transient yet the will of that act was permanent and remaineâ— and it is justly reputed unto the Prophet and unto all men that descend from their loyns It standing both with the rule of equitie and righteous judgment justly to attribute and impute that unto us which we as it were did in our progenitors for can any man be more just and equal then to charge every part by that which is committed by the whole for all the generations and successions of men make but one body and every one is member of that body and the whole lease of man is but as one tree whereof our first parents are the root and therefore that sprig which hath but newly sprouted
convert some of his posteritie and to give them inward holiness so that here is meant not any inherent internal qualitative personall holinesse but an external relative faederal holinesse Hence is that of Grotius Non loquitur Apostolus de sanctitate naturali et naturae liberorum inhaerente sed de sanctitate adhaerente its extrinsice i. e. de sanctitate faederis credentium liberi faedere gratiae comprehensi sunt et eatenus sancti adeo censentur This Text shews that children are stil in covenant with their parents but proves nothing at all that they are freed from original sin R. 2. Because this sin proceeds causally from the flesh though subjectively and formally it is in the Soul as sicknesse comes of corrupt meats as the cause yet not the meats but the body is the subject of sicknesse They that live in a smoakie house must needs be smuâ—ched and contract some of the blacknesse if you put the whitest wool into the Die-fat of Oade it will come out blew So here a pure soul in an impure body cannot but infect it with impuritie this then is an hereditary disease as a leprous father begets a leprous son the disease being in the blood runs through the whole progenie which verifies that of Isa 18.2 The Fathers have eaten sour grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge And therefore saies the Apostle 1 Cor. 15.46 That was not first which was spiritual but that which was natural and afterwards that which was spiritual The first man was of the earth earthy and so begat children like himselfe sinful and corrupt which was the ground of this original contagion which was sprung in our parents by their offence and so by the same it is conveyed to posteritie Obj. If sin be conveyed by the parents to the children it passeth to them either by the body or by the soul but by neither it cannot be in the body till the soul come and in the soul it is not because that is immediately created pure of God Ergo unlesse the soul be traduced from the parents where place you original sin Ans The consequence and coherence of the major is to be denyed because in it there is not a sufficient numeration of the parts by which original sin passeth for it passeth neither by the body nor by the Soul but by the offence of our parents in regard whereof God whilst he createth men souls bereaves it of originall righteousnesse which he gave on that condition to our first parents that they should continue or lose them to posteritie according as themselves either kept or lost them which privation of righteousnesse in respect of God for mans offence is not a sin but a just punishment though in respect of the parents which draw it unto themselves and their posteritie it be a sin which through the conjunction of both is conveyed from the parents unto their children so neither the body alone nor the soul is to be respected but as they joyntly make one man Vse 1. This may meet with the proud hearts of men who are ready to advance themselves in respect of their birth and parentage which if they did truly consider this Doctrine would rather humble them seeing nothing is derived from them but basenesse and corruption their natures being vile contaminats their posteritie and instead of making them honourable doth make them odious in the pure eyes of God yea and most miserable for ever if they be not born again Iohn 3.3 if we got not a better birth then that which we had from our parents it may be said of us as it was said of Iudas it had been better for us that we had never been born Mat. 26.24 It is reported of Diogenes that he told Alexander the great that he could know no difference betwixt the bones of King Philip and other men what he spake of dead men lying in the ground holds true of all men living so long as they lie in the grave of sin there is no difference betwixt the greatest and the meanest for all are by nature sinful and this sin of our nature is conveyed from the fathers to the children so that here is no cause of boasting but rather matter of abasement whereby the best may be humbled upon the sense of this their condition The greatnesse of birth through thy corruption makes thee more uncapable of grace then those of meaner degree You see your calling brethren saith the Apostle 1 Cor. 1.26 and surely so may we now how that not many great men not many noble are called Even greatnesse of birth nobility is a bar oftentimes to keep men from salvation and life eternal though blessed be God some great men are called yet there are but few not many saies the Apostle O what madnesse then is it to rest and glory in our birth in that we were born of such parents and never seek to be born of God This is that which makes men truly honorable when they become truly gratious Hence 1 Sam. 2.30 They that honor God them will God honor As they of Berea Acts 17.11 were more noble then they of Thessalonica shewing the fruits of grace in receiving the word with all readinesse of mind And thus if our nobilitie appears we may take comfort in our estate otherwise we may be abased for the sadnesse of our condition Be not then like the bigger the better hills the higher the barrener but like unto a Diamond Use 2. This may serve to humble all parents in the consideration of those sins that break forth in their childrens lives their pride and stubbornnesse their aversenesse from God and prophannesse all which is by them the cause of great sorrow and humiliation Hence is that of Solomon Prov. 10.1 A foolish Son is the heavinesse of his mother And 17.25 A foolish Son is a grief to his father and bitternesse to her heart that bare him For the root from whence all this evill springeth they had from their Parents the plague-sore of sin was conveighed by them and this they were infected with from their very birth In the time of the plague we count it a great affliction to bring the infection into our houses and set it upon our children and yet we have all done worse to our children then this we have set upon them a farre more dangerous and deadly disease which doth not only slay the body but overthrow the Soul and that everlastingly if God look not in mercy upon them 1 If the Lord was angry with the Serpent and had laid a curse upon it because it was but an instrument used by the Devil for the corrupting of our first parents though it were no cause of it Gen. 3.14 how much more reason hath he to be angry with us that have not only been instruments to convey this cursed contagion of nature into our children but the principall agents and causes of it Oh consider then this you that forget God that have
no care in the education and bringing up of your children in the knowledge of the waies oâ— God ye have much to answer for at the Tribunal seat of Christ that having conveyed poyson into your children at their birth you seek not after the antidote to prevent their eternal ruine wil you be instruments to wound their souls and never seek after a Chyrurgeon to heal them shall you be the cause of giving a deadly potion that will work their undoing and never have recourse to the Physician in their behalfe to cure them Oh here 's a cursed neglect Be abashed therefore in the thoughts of this and lâ—â— not your soules be so secure as to endanger your own eternal welfare by neglecting the dutie in preventing your childrens woe but be humbled for them your selves being the cause of their inbred maladie which by you were conveyed unto them Use 3d. Exhort to stir up parents to do their utmost to work grace in their children and so to cure that deadly poyson and infection that they have conveyed into them Now for the better enforcing so necessary a dutie I will set down 1. Certain motives that may provoke them to this care 2. Discover the means that they must use to this purpose Mot. 1. Because of that natural affection that we bear to our children whereby we are moved to love them hence bowels of pitty and compassion appears towards them when we see them in any miserie And therefore the Lord hath been pleased to set forth his mercy and compassion towards his children by the compassion of a Mother Isa 4.15 Can a Mother forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb And by the compassion of a Father Psalm 103.13 Like as a Father pittieth his children so the Lord pittieth them that fear him He is worse then a beast that pittieth not his children and grieves not to see them in miserie Lam. 4.2 Even the Sea-monsters draw out the breast they give suck to their young ones Yea where there is not natural affection there the very light of nature is extinguished and such in the just judgment of God are given up unto a reprobate mind Rom. 1.31 Now what love can we bear to our children if we have no care of their souls the nature of Christianity is to seek the good 〈◊〉 their souls whom we love as Abraham expressed his love to Ishmael Gen. 17.18 O that Ishmael might live in thy sight which should be the desire of all godly parents Oh that my children might live in thy sight that they might fear thee and know thee and learn truly to serve thee this is the greatest portion that can be given them the largest possessions we can desire to leave them as that they may live in the sight of God For godlinesse is the greatest gain and hath the promises of this life and of a better 1 Tim. 4.8 Strive then to make your children godly and let the bent of your affections towards them lie that way and if they become once sincerely to love God then â—â—ve you shewed natural affection in the highest degree towards them which at the last will bring not only grace to them but glory for ever to your selves 2d Mot. Because the rule of justice requires that we should make them amends for the wrong we have done them if we injure any man in body goods or good name we are bound in conscience to make him satisfaction See the equitie of Gods Law in this point Exod. 21.19 He that smote him shal pay for the loss of his time and shal cause him to be thoroughly healed how much more are we to be careful to cure the inbred maladie of our children and to heal that filthy dissease which from our selves have been conveighed unto them Shal we be the causes of their miserie and not use our best endeavours to cure them It is through us that they become odious assoon as they are born in the sight of God and shal not we seek to make them amiable and lovely in his presence shall we be the progenitors of their evil and not the promoters of their good Oh far be it from us to be so forgetful of our own dutie and so neglectful in not using all means for their good This was that which good Hezekiah meant in his prayer Isa 38.18 19. The grave cannot praise thee death cannot celebrate thee the living shal praise thee and who among the living the Father to the children shal make known thy truth Hence is that of the Apostle Epb. 6.9 Ye fathers bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And so Psal 78.5 He established a Testimony in Jacob and appointed a Law in Israel which he commanded our Fathers that they should make them known unto their Children Let all parents therefore think of this seriously and consider that it will be a most heavy reckoning one day they must give for the neglect of their childrens souls those especially that instead of reforming them do tolerate them in most sinful courses as in lying swearing Sabbath-breaking and the like these are far from Abraham's practise Gen. 18.19 and Josuah's resolution Jos 24.15 that instructed their families and brought their children to fear the Lord. Consider then this motive you that desire to serve the Lord remember it is but justice to seek after all means to doe your children good you have wrong'd them greatly â—ow recompence that wrong you have done them by seasoning their tender years with the knowledge of Jesus Christ 3d. Because the propagation of Religion dependeth principally in the education of our children To this purpose you have a notable example of this care in the two Tribes and the half that had their possessions given them beyond Jordan Iosuah 2.24 25. we have done it set up this Altar for fear of this thing saying In time to come your Children might speak to our Children saying what have you to do with the Lord God of Israel so shall your Children make our Children cease from fearing the Lord. Concerning which you must understand that there is no man doth so much desire to have a posterity and to provide for posterity as the Lord doth And surely the meanes whereby the Lord may have a posterity raysed and preserved is to derive Religion unto them when Parents are not onely Religious themselves but be careful to provide that their Children may be so also This is that Seminary of Gods Church Here was the cause of that Commandment Deut. 4.9 Take heed to thy self and keep thy soul diligently lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen and lest they depart from thy heart all the daies of thy life but teach them thy son and thy sons sons This is made by the Prophet Malachi 2.15 to have been the cause why the Lord at the first institution of marriage appointted but one woman for one man and did so